Finally finished the dress

This dress took me forever to finish because the neckline was bunching up    The over-stitching I had used to tryto resolve the issue made it worse. So I removed it and in the end decided to use fabric glue to resolve the issue.

If I re-use this pattern I'll make it 2 sizes smaller. With the stretch in the knit it would have fit much better.

I do love the "Morticia" sleeves on this dress

Strawberry extract

Until the mid to late 1990's I could count on Dr Fowlers Wild Strawberry Extract to take care of my tummy aches as well as random bouts of diarrhea.

Sadly in the mid to late 1990's Dr Fowlers stopped making their wild strawberry extract, and I remember asking my Pharmacy to look into it. They now make this pink chemical product that I would not touch with a 10 foot pole.

Meanwhile Jean Coutu and Pharmaprix had either a generic Strawberry Extract or a home brand. Recently I found that neither store is carrying it anymore. I know I'm not the only one looking for it as when I asked the Pharmacist at Jean-Coutu, she told me she had 4 other people looking for some as well. It appears Jean-Coutu discontinued the product. I dunno about Pharmaprix.

Doing some Googling apparently I'm not hte only one who is devastated by the fact it's become increasingly hard to find Strawberry extract. Some of the threads in various forums that I found about it, are all about how sad people are to see this product go. For some people with IBS it was a god send. I know that it tends to resolve 90% of my tummy issues, and has zero side effects with me.

Through more Googling, I found recently that Rougier has a strawberry extract that is available for sale on Well.ca   I will be ordered numerous bottles to cover my trips this summer.

I went to both Healthtree and Tau health food stores and neither carry Strawberry extract despite having lots of herbal medicinal products. The woman at Healthtree asked me if I had heard about it on dr Oz.because I was the 5th person to ask for it in so many days. 

It's HOT in Cleveland.

So two days ago at work I happened to glance at the TV that's on one of the shelves around my desk area, and noticed Betty white  and Jane Leeves on a TV show. I googled to see what was playing at that time of the day on CTV and realized it was a show called "HOt in Cleveland".

It also starts Valerie Bertinelli, and Wendie Malick.  I ended up watching all of Season 1 and it's delightful.  It reminds a bit of the show "Golden girls", except this time Betty White isn't playing the stupid/dense one. In fact the character BEtty White has as well as Janes Leeves floor me.

Currently this show is on it's 5th season, so I have plenty of comedy to watch for the next couple of days. The show is sure to have a 6th season as well, so this is a good thing.

Sadly still not the chick show I was looking for, but I can always use a good comedy to watch. 

It's been strange.

I'm realizing that despite spending some time chilling in front of my laptop, I also seem to have a reasonably active life.

Two weeks ago I was in Ottawa, Ontario on the Monday and in Fredericton, New Brunswick on the Friday [Well early Saturday morning].  With side trip in the townships before the trip to Fred to get a trailer.

I think the funniest part of the trip was the car we first spotted when you get off the 20 at Riviere du Loup and end up on the 185 I think?   He was parked on the side of the road with his 4 way flashers, and we noticed the car was so full of stuff, and the most noticeable was the large bin on the hood, that was duck taped to the hood.   That send us in a long series of bin jokes. "Bin there done that, got the tshirt"... I don't need to expand.  The funny part is that we must have passed the car 4 times and they passed us easily 3 times. They had an Alberta plate. We were willing to bet we'd run into them the next day someone around Gagetown and we would have gone up to them and said "Bin here before?

When my eldest realized I was in Fred, and it's not that far from Halifax, she and her bf decided that a road trip was warranted.  Also I've realized this young man is defacto my son in law.  I know my daughter and I can tell her mind is made up. Comments like would I be able to make her a medieval wedding dress, or she'll be having babies within the next couple of years lead you to that conclusion. It was nice I got to spend 5 hours with them.   I was beaming the rest of the day.

This past week-end I returned the trailer to it's owners in the townships. And though it was just a short stay I enjoyed spending time with my friends.  I'm happy and in a good space after leaving them.

It's made me realize that I'm in a good place in my life.  I spend most of my time seeing the negatives, but the positives are there too. I have really awesome friends. 

Vague feedback months or years later...

So my boss pulls me aside the other day to tell me that Human resources have gotten complaints from prospective interns that my interviews are 'too rough'.

I haven't interviewed since February it's now late April. And after talking more to my boss, he says he's not even sure it was a complaint from February it could have been from even longer ago.

Well how much more vague can you be? Do you know if the students who complained were those who didn't get hired and did it not occur to them that perhaps the student complained because they didn't get hired?

I'm not sure how I can be too rough, other then by being "awkward'.  I mean I don't grill them on their knowledge anymore because feedback I'd gotten from the students I hired is that since most of them could not answer half  of the questions they left the interview feeling they did miserably and were shocked they were chosen.

So we ask them about their favourite classes, and the first operating system they used. What PC or laptop they own and if they can tell us the components. We also ask them about previous work experience and I generally ask them why I should chose them instead of another classmate of theirs I'd be interviewing.

I'm not sure how that's being rough.

Should I be calling them in and offering them coffee, and then asking them what they hope to be doing during the internship and telling them it's going to be ok.  Or perhaps I should hold their hand and whisper sweet nothings to them so that they don't feel it's an interview. Like WHAT THE FUCK? A job interview is supposed to be stressful. It's not supposed to be a fucking picnic!!!!

All I can say is that anyone who finds ME too rough, had better develop some balls because they will never survive as engineers. They think I'm rough, wait till they run into one of our owners. He barks at people.

I keep forgetting that this is the snowflake generation and these kids think that the world has to be their friend.  I don't know how any of these kids will survive at work.  I can see them going to HR to whine that their boss looked at them funny or worse gave them a tight deadline.

Unexpected week-end

This week-end is turning out unexpected.

I had planned to help my gf pick up some of her things in Oromocto. We took my truck because I have a trailer hitch and other friends were willing to lend us their trailer.

Sadly the trailer had 2 shorts in the electric connection for the lights and my friend had to spend almost 2 hours fixing it.   We haven't unconnected the trailer in fear it would  break again, we've been going around with my friends daughter and her car.... 

We got to Oromocto at 4am Saturday morning. Never saw so much roadkill in my life or so much blood on the highway.

Yesterday when my eldest realized I was in Oromocto she asked her bf if he was up for a roadtrip so in about an hour I will be meeting up with my daughter.  I'm soooooo excited. I haven't seen her since Christmas.  Also meeting her first serious bf. It's meet the rents for him :P

Wasn't even sure if I'd be here in 'Mocto or if we'd be in Freddy....But taking the day as it comes.  Still in 'Mocto as I write.

Leopard Van Doren Vans

I was at the Vans store in Carrefour Laval on Saturday and picked up these funky sneakers to add to my Vans collection.  Two of the guys at work even noticed them today! 

Amused in Ottawa

Visiting a friend in Ottawa and saw this and it had me amused. I know I know, doesn't take much :)

Unexpected purchase

So went to Village des Valeurs with my friend and her son yesterday and managed to pick up 1.5 M of a nice hibiscus stretch knit print, for $4.99 and a few patterns for 99cents. While they were already cut, all the pieces were still there. One pattern was even for a costume. 

Will be making a dress out of this hibiscus print. How can you go wrong with a  $5 piece of fabric?

Other then that, I had  a date yesterday, from someone I met on POF.  Not usually the type I go for, but so far so good. Lunch went really well, and spent 5 hours texting last night.  Maybe I have found a companion for camping this summer.    He enjoys canoe camping and we share many interests. He even has ADD and has nicknamed me Big Bang Theory Girl. 

I picked up a Jethro print flannel.

awwwwww

 Jethro and Ziva, Spooning.

Jennies Carob Macaroons

These are decadent.

I have proof.

I've been poking fun at  people who feel the need to drive Hummers in Montreal. Because it's such a mountainous and dangerous city!!! I've also been poking fun for years at people who double park their Hummers in front of Yagel Bagel.   It's like every Hummer comes with a sense of entitlement!

When is it going to SPRING already?

I mean I had some crocus on the lawn already, but it's grey and gloomy and cold. Where is the promise of spring?

This is obviously a winter that will end just when summer starts .The spring won't have sprung.  I spent all week-end sewing and even rearranging my sewing supplies.  I had an entire box of ribbons and lace and it was  ahuge mess. Now all the ribbon is wrapped around cardboard and it helps me visualize what I have.

I finished a dress yesterday. I have 3 others in various stages of sewn. One I just need to make the 10 button holes and sew 10 buttons and hem it. Another I just need to sew the sleeves and hem it, and the third, I just need to make the bodice, add the zipper and hem it.

Understanding ADHD

Great article about ADHD

Lay down fabric and they will come!

Ziva the Diva

Jethro, representing

Pixie is sleeping on green seersucker, while Jethro hangs out with the dragonflies!

Snowy early Spring in Bois de Liesse

Walked through the Forest

Photo from my walk through Bois de Liesse in mid afternoon today...

Did you want to kill them yourself?

This rant is to the Miss piggy looking woman driving a burgandy Honda accord, that followed me down Anselme lavigne and then onto Sources blvd around 9 O'Clock this morning.

Next time instead of honking because I chose not to plow over 2 women who were crossing the road, feel free to go around me and kill them yourself.

Onboard intel network adapters revisited with Server 2008 R2, 2012, 2012 R2

I'm still working on that clone system with the Asus P8Z77-V Premium motherboard that has the two integrated intel adapters, the 82579V & the 82583V. When I got to Server 2008 R2 I got the same issue. It would refuse to install any intel driver, from the Intel 18.8 Network CD.

I blew a gasket and decided that there has to be a workaround. So I remembered that back in the day of the first plug & pray OS' that we used more the "Have disk" method of driver install. It's painful, but sometimes it works.

So from Server 2008 R2, I clicked on the unknown network device, and got to the menu that says "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer" . Then you have to choose network adapter, and then 'have disk". This will point to your system32 folder. I pointed it to the Intel 18.8 CD.  I knew the name of the adapters so I looked for them. I found the 82579LM.  Installed the driver for that. And lo  and behold, I suddenly had access to the local network.

So today I went to revisit Server 2012 and Server 2012 R2. I followed the same procedure and installed that driver on both network adapters. And it worked!!!

Of course windows did warn me that this driver was not written for my OS or hardware and did I want to put this driver on, and I did.  I've used this method before to catastrophic results where the system either just plainly restarts or blue screens and then your OS is hosed.  This was not the case today.

Server 2012 R2 with both network cards using the 82579LM drivers

This solution may not be a good fit for someone using a Server OS as a Server with lots of systems accessing it, but this is good enough for a test machine, where we want to have a Server OS installed to see if our drivers work in that system. We can install the software we need and the drivers we need. We're not looking for speed or perfect network solutions.

This entry is a follow-up of this blog post

Note despite the fact I wrote this on the first of April this is not a joke. This actually did work. [Hence the photo]

Silly

For some reason, seeing my blog post titled "Cock in a sock" made me think of my favourite line from the movie Priscilla Queen of the desert.

That line would be "That's just what this country needs: a cock in a frock on a rock."


Ah yes, small things amuse small minds.  I can't always have a big mind. 

 

More windchimes.

A while back I'd posted many of my windchimes. Well I have 2 more to add to the collection.

This is a gift from my youngest daughter. Pretty and butterfly themed

This is a gift from a guest who visited my home.

Gluten free bagels, 2nd try

Cock in a Sock

For cancer awareness... Some of these guys are actually pretty hot. I'm not a huge fan of naked men..

And gotta love military guys posing together. Love the team spirit :)

Feeling better

I wish I wasn't so explosive at times.  Sometimes very little can set me off in a big way, and very big douchebags. I know the guy at work is a moron and has no filter.  I shouldn't have gotten so mad. But apparently I've been bottling emotions.

Life sucks and then you die.

People always think it's ok to treat me like shit or like a little kid or lie to me.

SO I'm a loser. With no life that people lie to

I suck.

Memory lane

I picked up this pattern on Monday because it reminds me of the dresses my mom and I wore in the late 60's. I remember having a green dress like item D,  for my great grand parents 50th wedding anniversary, in the summer of 1968. My dress was made originally from one of my mom's dresses. She had it for one or two years and then my grandma took it apart and made it for a little girl.  My mom and grandma often resized my mom's dresses to fit me after a season or two.  I always had unique dresses to wear to special occasions.

I used to recycle clothes when my daughters were little. My parents and aunt would give me the clothes they no longer wanted, and I'd cut it and make clothes for my daughters.  I remember in particular a dress I made with one of my dad's plaid shirts. It looked so cute.

Google loves to add snow to my photos.

So google made this photo out of my photo, with the snowing. Isn't it cute :)

Slowly starting to make dresses.

So far I've got 5 patterns for dresses cut out.  It's progress. Before I had 10-12 fabrics with as many patterns and I could not decide what I wanted to make with any of the fabric.

Spring my ass

It might be well past the first day of spring, but it's FREEZING out there. No spring clothes yet, still looking like Nanook of the North.... This photo was taking Saturday during the snow storm!

Pining to go camping

My first attempt at Gluten free bagels.

Gluten free Bagels

I took this bagel recipe I'd once made before and switched ingredients to make it gluten free and sugar free. They look a little overdone. I have to admit they were crispy, but yummy. I have to change a few things next time I make some,.

ah bad translations!

Jennie's gluten free Carob Macaroons are delicious, however their French translation sucks :)

Be nice and have someone bitch you out.

Since our administrative assistant was unceremoniously made redundant a few years ago, I ended up being one of the few people who gets to order stationary for all of engineering and software quality assurance. I order it from our internal store, get someone to pick it up and make it available in the cabinet that everyone has access.

I do this purely to be nice and to have access to stationary. I had realized years ago, that if I didn't get the stationary for the entire team, they all stole my stationary.  So because this is not part of my job description but something I do to be helpful, I do not check the stationary cabinet that often. On average I seem to make orders every 3 months.

Normally I make an order following the procedures. Originally I just had to fill our internal requisitions but in the past 2-3 years some brilliant person decided that we also needed to fill out an electronic version in a PDF [which only has 10 entries] and then submit it along with the paper requisitions. Usually the order is ready within 24hours.   Well the past 2 or 3 times the guy I sent to pick up the order, has passed on the message that the guy who prepares the order thinks my orders are too big and I should do it more often. I mean if it was such a big inconvenience I would not think it would be ready within 24 hours when I generally give them 1 week to fill the order.

Of course having someone complain makes me feel like maybe I could do it, like NEVER and everyone could just get their own fucking stationary.  Then instead of doing one motherfucking large order 4 times a year, he'd get little orders 3 times a day. I'm sure that would work so much better for him.

People are assholes. Being nice is often just not worth it. Makes people think you're a welcome mat.

First day of Spring

Well it was yesterday officially but by the calender today is the first day of Spring and also the birthday of my eldest child, who turned 27 today. Where does time go?

Well this year on the first day of spring it's SNOWING.  I predicted it, Today I'm going to look like nanook of the north :)

After work I hope to go to Club Tissue in Laval and check it out.

Server 2012 R2 and some integrated intel network adapters.

This is the 2nd or 3rd system in which I cannot install drivers for Intel onboard network adapters in Server 2012 R2.

The first system I encountered this problem with, had an Intel reference board known as a "TunnelMountain". After trying to find drivers and failing, I just connected a USB network adapter and did the tests I needed to do. I assumed it was because it was an Intel prototype board.

The Intel 18.8 CD could not find my network adapters.

Yesterday I was setting up an ASUS P8Z77-V Premium motherboard. I usually install the Servers on all my test systems because while most people won't run Server OS on regular machines, we have plenty of clients who run Server OS in weird scenarios and I have to see if the software & drivers I test behave in Server OSes. I had downloaded all the drivers from the ASUS site, including LAN drivers for Windows 8.1 on which Server 2012R2 is based.  This system has an integrated 82579V & an 82583V network card. But in Server 2012R2, no intel network driver installs, and just says it has no Intel network card in the system.

My google searches brought me to download the Intel 18.8 CD for Intel network adapters, and that is the last one I'm trying. It failed.  Earlier I had tried PROWINX64.EXE with the same results. I had also tried all the drivers gotten from the ASUS site for that motherboard.

In Windows 8.1 64 bits - the 2 adapters had in-the-box drivers

The question that remains currently unanswered is that in the systems where I have encountered this problem I was in UEFI BIOS mode. I wonder if there is a relevance? If I have the time, I will install on this system, Server 2012R2 in non-UEFI BIOS mode and see if the Intel adapters are found in this OS.

So when using this OS the tester will have to use a USB network adapter. I've also just discovered that Server 2012 also has the same issue on this system.  I would think it's the model of the Intel adapter in that system because I've setup over 40 computers, maybe 20 of which in UEFI mode with both Server 2012 and 2012 R2 and this is only the 2nd or 3rd system that has this issue. 

New router, up and running.

So back in January I think it was I purchased a Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Router N900, EA4500 at Canada Computers and on the night I was going to set it up I realized my own WRT610N was still alive.

When the WRT610N died on Monday night, sometime around midnight. Try as we may this time it was dead. It got unceremoniously dumped into the garbage

I spent part of last night, figuring out in their all so pretty interface how to configure my router, like the previous one, that is, only known MAC addresses connect to the router.  Took me a while but by 10:30pm last night, it was all working smoothly.

Will be looking into whether or not it makes sense to but DD-WRT on my new router or if I should leave it as is.

I went back to Fabricville Monday and now I know to avoid a certain cashier because she is clueless. The flyer clearly said all McCalls patterns $3.99 each. She charged me $7.99 each and then a 25% discount. Which is NOT anything like $3.99 each.  We went back Tuesday and the manager was there, and she instructed another cashier to refund me and then rebill be properly.  I ended up buying 6 dress patterns and one pattern for Tshirts. I can't wait for the week-end to sew.

It's dead Jim.

Yep that's right. The router, the WRT610N has bit the dust, has met it's maker, is pushing daisies, it is bereft of life, it kicked the bucket, it shuffled off.

This time it's really really really dead. No more life support. Time to set up the new router tonight.

A dress from my past

 When digging in my sewing stuff I found a dress that I had made and then unsewn seams to make adjustments.   I did make some today. Dress fits ok. I intend to make other dresses after modifying this pattern a little bit more.  I had just shortened this dress.

Butterick 6639 from 1993

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vegetarian Moussaka

This was a dish I'd never had the patience or the balls to make. Today I decided I was going to make Moussaka and it turned out delicious.

Vegetarian Moussaka

I followed this recipe with a few substitutions.  I swapped the Parmesan for Kashkaval cheese, I used almond milk instead of dairy milk, I used coconut oil instead of butter and I used bobs gluten free flour instead of white wheat flour. Also I used 2 Lebanese cucumbers instead of the zucchini.

I seem to have an endless amount of old vintage Patterns.

I found another batch of patterns that belonged to my mom. There are more from the late 80's and early 90's but way too many of them. Most of my own collection starts from the late 80's.

Simplicity 6274 from 1965

Simplicity 7816 from 1986

Found some more vintage patterns.

I suspect this was part of my mom's old stash of patterns.  I found probably 10 or 12 patterns from the 1940's to the 1980s.

Simplicity 4740 from 1943

Simplicity 2382 from 1948

Butterick 6137 from 1950's

Butterick 3049 from 1950's

Simplicity 7912 from 1977

Style 2435 from 1978

Vogue 8209 from 1982

Vogue 7806 from 1983

VOgue 8449 from 1983

Vogue 7294 from 1985

VOgue 9292 from 1985

Vogue 8971 from 1985

Satuday should be a good day.

WTF is wrong with Saturday's. Second Saturday I feel introspective and this week I spent most of today crying. like seriously WTF.

Of course it doesn't help it's grey and wet out today.

 

It snowed one night this week and I went outside at 11pm to dance in the snow, and walked around the house since I was taking photos, and when I past in front of the patio door, who do I see but Ziva the diva sitting on my kitchen table.  Yeah. She thought she could do it since I was outside. :) 

My friends photos are being exposed!

My friend Nina's photography is being exposed at Studio Porte Bleu.  It's an interesting concept, her photos are among the artwork decorating the studio, which people can buy. It also serves as back drop to other forms of art.

TGIF

I'm glad this week is over. IT's been a really clumsy week. On the plus side, it makes my friend laugh :P

I sent flying a bucket load  of empty  water bottles the other night, and after putting them all back on the counter managed to send them flying a second time.  Last night, I dropped a large bag on sunflower seed, and well the bag split and there was sunflower seeds by the butt load all over the floor.  This morning, I took out a container of blueberries from the fridge and wee, all the blueberries went all over the floor. 

At least I laugh at myself when this happens.  

This year, I definitely won't be wearing a sundress and open-toed sandals for the first day of spring, which is 7 days away.  I'm sure I'm going to look like Nanook of the north that day.

Interesting turn of events

March is going to be a weird month.

 I have a potential date with someone I last saw 10 years ago on Friday.  My friend has her beau from  Florida visiting starting tomorrow morning. Of course now she's apprehensive. But I remember how I felt the first time I travelled to Dubai.  The apprehension will pass.

Also went to Fabricville at lunch and found some lovely cotton jersey knits, buy 1 get 2 free, so you get 3 meter for the price of 1.  I got 5.3 meters for $30 with taxes.  Will be able to make 2 dresses and a Tshirt and possibly a tank top. :) Don't get how I did not spot it on Saturday when I spent 2 hours wandering around the store.