25 April 13

My entry for the 'meat' cookoff — chicken and waffles (beer battered fried tofu with syrup and homemade roasted pepper relish on a classic waffle). Hopefully I'll be have the blog updated soon with the results!

24 April 13

Shoe sale day: second-worst work day of the year (first prize goes to inventory). I think my favourite part of the day was when a lady came up to me and asked if the prices were as marked, and since I wasn't really given any information to the contrary, I said yes. She put the shoes she was holding down and said with distaste, "Oh, it's too expensive, forget it, it's not worth it," as if I give a flying fuck if she buys the damn shoes or not. And as it turned out, any shoes priced over $40 were on sale for $39.99, but I don't really feel too sad about that cheap bitch not getting a deal.

Another fun thing that happened was that a couple of women put their own shoes on the floor while trying things on and they got picked up by people clearing the floor, and some of them disappeared for several HOURS! It was kind of baffling, but honestly, ladies, it's a zoo in there. Don't let your shoes out of your sight, and certainly don't leave them in a pile of random shoes on the floor.
Anyway, at the end of the day I bought these badass leather oxfords and a new pair of knockoff Keds.

23 April 13

Quinoa, roasted tomatoes, corn, soy chorizo, kale, pineapple salsa. Cilantro & vegan sour cream on top. Easy and tasty.

22 April 13

sometimes Theo photobombs me and I just roll with it.
At work I ripped a big hole across the butt of my jeans, and of course it was in the morning so I had to walk around in them all day and it just got bigger every time I bent down to pick something else up. Thankfully 95% of my job is accomplished alone.

21 April 13

My gardening plans got rained out so I hung out with a book and the cats.

20 April 13

Steph and I watched the Canucks beat the Wings in overtime. Afterwards I drank tea while watching A Single Man; it was an incredible & beautiful film.

19 April 13

Jeff and I made dinner, opened a bottle of wine, and watched Goodfellas. After the movie I reasoned that this was probably its moral.

18 April 13

17 April 13

portrait of the artist as a dragon.

16 April 13

15 April 13

14 April 13

I went to a fancy dress potluck hosted by the same people whose housewarming I attended with Liang the month before. I was pretty nervous since I hardly knew them, and because I'm a huge loser I was the first one there. But once Liang & some other people arrived I actually had a lovely time, and there was plenty of good food and cheap wine.

This was my first time attempting this trick in photoshop and I think it could have turned out worse. However, it involved a lot of lasso and erase tools and took like an hour, so if anyone knows a better way I'm all ears.

13 April 13

Went shopping with Steph and Sarah, after we decided we were all too lazy to drive to Seattle like we'd originally planned to do. Afterwards we went down to the Mill for a drink and some food; after a beer I decided to try this Caesar with dill, dijon, & smoked salmon.

12 April 13

I left work early to go to the rock & gem show in Abbotsford with Sarah, Maddie, & Hayley. It was incredible and I definitely spent like $40, though we all kind of forgot how far away Abbotsford is from Vancouver. After dropping Maddie and Hayley off Sarah and I were so ravenous that we bought pre-made salads and cheese popcorn and ate them in the parking lot of the grocery store.

11 April 13

Jeff and I went out to dinner with his mom, to celebrate Jeff's promotion. We had an amazing dinner at Pourhouse (I had the chickpea croquette with ratatouille and frisée salad) and really enjoyed ourselves — apparently the secret to having a good time with in-laws is copious amounts of wine.

10 April 13

Sarah and I had veggie burgers for dinner, featuring sprouts, homemade ketchup, and grilled zucchini.

09 April 13

08 April 13

I glanced through the concert listings in the Georgia Straight for the first time in awhile. I only go to a couple of shows a year these days, it seems, but in 2005-2008 I was constantly attending concerts, often on weeknights, sometimes by myself. I picked up the Straight every week and circled bands I wanted to see. I would be outraged if two shows I was interested in were happening on the same night. I don't know where I got so much money. Maybe concerts were cheaper then? Or maybe I just cared more.
The Handsome Furs shirt I'm wearing is one I bought at their show at Richard's on Richards (may she rest in peace) in 2006, another habit I've grown out of. I used to have countless band tees, and now I have only a handful, a few of which weren't even purchased at concerts. C'est la vie, I guess.

07 April 13

Me in my new hat that is meant for children but mostly fits my tiny head. Also we got to try the homebrew batch we thought was ruined, and it was actually pretty tasty!

06 April 13

Maddie came out to go thrifting and borrow the Pentax, so I took some portraits of her to finish off my roll of film (more here). We both found some good things at the shop and afterwards we ate some vegan ice cream at the soda fountain across the street. In the evening Jeff and I went down to the Mill to taste-test beer cocktails and sangria for their summer drink menu, and got nicely sauced and ate soft pretzels.

05 April 13

Homemade pizza with kale, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, kalamata olives, garlic, & onion. I watched The Green Mile for the first time. Great movie, better book.

04 April 13

I stayed home from work with an awful headache, but in the afternoon I felt better so Jeff and I went down to Liberty to get my taxes done. It's a huge relief and since I was several years behind I should be getting a decent return. Later I watched the game with Steph and then I tried to take a photo of myself laughing because Hayley said my self-portraits don't often capture the 'Jen charm' that comes across in person. I dunno if it does in this one, but I had a good time taking it because I was making myself laugh by looking at this photo.

03 April 13

Went back to yoga, finally.

02 April 13

After an irritating day, I came home and made some amazing enchiladas with chicken, black beans, & kale. Also my package from BodyArtForms arrived in the mail, and it included the lovely carved wood plugs in the photo above.

01 April 13

31 March 13

Steph and I hung out in the yard most of the day and Liang came by in the late afternoon to drink beer and have her photo taken. It was a little rushed because I was concerned about the neighbours coming home and seeing a topless girl in the backyard, but I got a couple of decent shots (which can be viewed here).
In the evening Sarah had her family over for Easter dinner and we all ate vegan shepherd's pie and kale/beet/goat cheese salad out in the backyard. Afterwards GAME OF THRONES and then being sad about the glorious long weekend being over.

30 March 13

Kenny at Nuba, where we had dinner for Mom & Maddie's birthday. Some of Maddie's friends came, and so did Jeff, and Alice was in town for a few days so she and Josh were there as well. We had a blast and ate so much and laughed so much and drew a stupid drawing and pretended it was warmer outside than it was. Also ran into Kaylie, whom I hadn't seen in awhile, on her break at work.

29 March 13

Jeff and I both had the day off and we tried to go hiking on the Baden-Powell Trail in Deep Cove, but it was the parking apocalypse so we went for pizza and then drove over to Lynn Canyon. I'd never been there before and it was really nice. It has a suspension bridge and although it's a lot smaller than the Capilano one (obviously), it's a) free and b) has kind of a prettier view.

28 March 13

It was really nice out and the start of a long weekend, so we cooked dinner on the barbecue. Jeff and I were busy in the kitchen and I asked George to bring in the pyrex dish of roast potatoes from the grill. When he asked me where to put it, I told him the table. We've put hot things down on our glass table hundreds of times — part of the joy of a glass table is hot things can't burn it. But I guess the barbecue gets a lot hotter than the stove or oven, because about five minutes later we heard a huge CRACK as the tabletop split in half.
In the Canucks game they scored two empty net goals, which was pretty weird because the Leafs had scored double empty net goals earlier in the evening — don't teams usually put their goalie back in after the first one?!

27 March 13

Steph took me, Tamara, and Valerie to see Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band because she rules, so beforehand we had dinner at Calabash and drinks at Bitter. At the arena it was mostly people my parents' age and someone actually thought we were 17. Still, it was a pretty great show. He played all the songs I wanted to hear most and a few I'd forgotten about. Joe Walsh opened and although his guitar work was still incredible, when he talked he sounded like he'd had a stroke or something... And I have to admit, although I knew Bob was a fairly old man I guess I hadn't seen any current photos of him, so I was picturing him with his long flowing brown mane of hair and big biker moustache — but he actually looked more like a thin George Lucas.
Going to Rogers Arena made me kind of sad that I was not there to watch hockey. We admired the shrine to the players whose jerseys have been retired, and particularly enjoyed this magazine cover featuring a very gay image of a young Trevor Linden with Dave Babych.