Congrats, Lise!

Shout outs to my bestest twin Lisa!!!! She got her G2 today WOOHOO!!!! After 2 years of almost insurmountable difficulties, she's given fate the finger and is now automobiling all around Brampton! OH SNAP!

First stop on the Lisa-Laura roadtrip: Michela's house so we can pick her up for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix! Best summer ever!!!!!

So excited. Can you tell? Maybe I should pick up where I left off with my driving lessons 2 years ago...


NAH!!!!!!!

-Laur

The Garden

As promised, pictures of the newly maintained garden. Mom and I spent the majority of Saturday, Sunday and yesterday raking out leaf cover, trimming people-eater trees, and spreading a multitude of mulch in our front and backyards. We also put down fertilizer on our poor abused grass.

Sunday was mulch giveaway day in the City of Vaughan so mom and I went to Garnet Williams Community Centre to get some mulch. By 2:00 we had run out of what they gave us so we went back for more and the guys at the mulch mountain laughed at us. Not cool, but whatever.

When I got back my girls from Shakespeare showed up and I had to ditch the garden for studying. Boohoo.

Anyway, everything looks very pretty. We have a lot of flowers blooming or ready to bloom and because we got the garden start-up out of the way so early, the beds should be well-established by the time we start pulling up the patio.

I got a sunburn, too. Vitamin D makes Laura happy :D

-Laur

Smiley :D

Hmmmmmmmmm what a day what a day what a day :)
The back of my neck is sunburned. I couldn't be happier. However, I do plan on using sunscreen tomorrow.
I spent the most tremendous day gardening with my mother. We lopped the top off our weeping mulberry bush so it looks like an amazing piece of modern art, and then we started on the backyard. Tomorrow we'll go pick up free mulch at GAWCC, and then start edging the beds. We're in control and on track in terms of landscaping this year, and it feels good. Why the sudden obsession with gardening? It makes me feel good. I like the feel of the sun, the exercise of using the rake, bending to pull up deadfall, and pruning new growth. I love the smell of the cut plants, and the new earth between my fingers. It's all just one big sensory smorgasbord.
Pictures to come, kids. I promise.

-Laur

YES!

My backyard from the 2nd storey
Xander looking quite fetching

The weather gods took my hint, the jerks. What a gorgeous day!!!!!!!! But tragic in that I didn't actually go outside to enjoy it until 7 in the evening. I have a Shakespeare exam on Sunday night and I had some girls over to study today, so I spent the day inside. As I said, tragic.

So today I took the most interesting picture of Emily on my phone. I came upstairs to deposit my computer back on my desk, and the kittyface was on my bed. Not unusual, as she likes to immerse herself in anything that smells like me, but she was sitting in what I like to call the "stuffed turkey" pose. Both of my cats do it and it's so interesting to watch them. They sit down on all fours like an Egyptian sphynx, but instead of stretching their legs out in front of them, they tuck them right underneath their chests, causing them to resemble a stuffed turkey. Emily's version of the turkey is decidedly smaller than Xander's, but she looked so amazingly neat and tidy in that position. She was on the corner of my bed, and the contrast between her black fur and the aqua-coloured jersey sheets was stark. She's so lovely. I want my friend Nazia to come photograph her.

Anyways, tomorrow is another LOVELY day and I plan to spend most of it outside in my sideyard, cleaning out the garbage. I have to break at noon because I'm going out to sushi with my dad (GASP! I know, don't lecture me, I'm only doing it so he'll leave me alone for a while) and then we'll get back at it. It will be so nice to have a clear space to walk through to get to the front yard.

Happy spring, everyone!



-Laur

Wednesday morning captivation

My freezer is almost empty and my dad just dropped off a water bottle that's been personalized with my name.
My life is just so weird sometimes.
The freezer being empty is just another transition into this strange life I've begun to lead; when my dad was around the freezer was always overflowing. He felt like food was security, and not like good food, but any food. A corn beef brisket or 11 cartons of vegetable shortening. So weird. My mom and I went through the freezer 2 days ago and made 3 shopping bags full of stuff that was freezer burned or dehydrated or unrecognizeable and we're going to put it in the green bin tonight. The empty freezer is almost like a metaphor, but of what I don't know.
Now I'm doing laundry and scanning old pictures and ripping DVDs (oops) and thinking about how I got my fall/winter 2007/2008 enrolment date yesterday. I was talking to Michela on msn about it and she said "this is the 2nd last time we'll ever have to do this wait." and it's strange but true. I'll only ever have to wait one more time for an enrolment date to be released and then I'll be in my last year of university. Madness.
I'm going to see Blades of Glory with the aforementioned Miss Lockhart later on today, and then we're going to eat dinner and have a cocktail at the Outback to celebrate the end of another long year.
I wonder if my life will ever unweird itself.

-Laur

Anyone know a reasonable plumber?

We're having trouble with our bar sink in the basement. Every time we run water on the main floor, specifically in the kitchen, the bar sink backs up and spews disgusting black filthy water onto the carpet in front of the bar. We tried to snake it, plunge it, Drano it (I'm so ashamed!) and pour boiling water down it, and so far nothing has worked. We can't run our dishwasher or wash dishes in the sink, and our kitchen is starting to look pretty gross.
So, if you know a reasonably-priced plumber in the Thornhill region, drop me their number.
-Laur

Woe woe woe

Woe is me. I'm having some serious trouble finding a full-time summer job. I decided not to go back to the City of Vaughan because as I'm sure I've mentioned before, it was killing my soul. But now every opportunity I approach goes belly-up. Seriously.
If anyone knows of any decent-paying full-time job opportunities in the Thornhill area, let me know. I'm willing to try almost anything.
-Laur

Spring is here, damn it!

New layout for a new season. If I thumb my nose at the weather gods just a little bit harder, maybe they'll cooperate and give me a warm, sunny day.

-Laur

Ikea Adventure!!!!

So yesterday Mom and I were bumming around at home between her shifts and later as she was heading back to school, she called me from the car. We had both looked at the same ad in the Toronto Star while reading the paper at separate times, and she had forgotten to mention to me that she was interested in the $99 patio set Ikea was advertising as a 4-day thing. We have a telepathic connection, I swear, because before she even told me what aspect of the ad interested her, I was telling her about the patio set.
Anyway, we headed out to Ikea in Vaughan today to check out the set and wonder of wonders, it's perfect. The set came with 4 chairs (fully assembled and rock steady) and a large glass-top table (unassembled). So we hemmed and hawwed about it for a few minutes, and then mom got a cart and i went to check how much it would cost to deliver the stuff to our house because our tiny little Nissan Sentra wouldn't fit that stuff inside it. Long story short, it wasn't worth it to have it delivered to our house so we had to find a way to get there ourselves. We couldn't risk waiting another day and getting someone with a truck to help us because it was only a 4 day thing AND there weren't very many of the sets left, so after almost half an hour of shoving and pulling and twining and knotting, we got the table box secured to the top of the car and the 4 chairs in the back seat. Woo hoo! We held our breaths all the way home and got there just fine, and now the box and the chairs are waiting in the garage for the nice weather to come so we can put it all together.
The background to our need for a new patio set is this; our old one is older than me, ugly used-to-be-white-and-is-now-moldy coloured, and broken. The chairs are okay, but the table is pretty much garbage. We're also planning the ambitious task of pulling up our brick patio and relaying it bigger than before. Our nextdoor neighbour's front and back patio were made of the same brick and they got a new one in the fall, so we took a lot of their bricks in anticipation of this summer so we could make the patio a different shape and build it out farther into the yard. A new patio set was kind of an unattainable dream, but now our yard is going to be gorgeous! After we clean out the side yard (still full of Ralph's crap) we'll have a nice place to sit and enjoy drinks by the barbecue, and then we'll have an even nicer back patio to eat or just chill at.
To follow up on this post I will keep a photo-diary of the backyard renovation progress. The weather just has to get better and then we can start!

Right now I'm just pushing on through exams; I write one tomorrow night from 7-10 pm, one on the 22nd from 7-10 pm, and the last one on the 27th from 9-12 am. Woohoo!

-Laur

Oooooooh so sick!

I forgot how painful Passover can be.
We're not really taking it very seriously in my house this year, what with Mom's IBS and none of us really being home at all, but I did put together quite a nice little seder meal this afternoon (chicken, aspargus, garlic mashed potatoes, chicken soup and matzo balls, and gefilte fish) and when Mommy got home from work we all sat down and enjoyed it and some very nice white wine.
Then I went upstairs and took a 2 hour nap. Now, I can't really explain why that happened. Whenever I eat turkey, I tend to get really tired because of the tryptophane in the meat. Then I get really sick because I think I'm allergic, or at least sensitive to, the tryptophane (damn you turkey for being so delicious!). But it's never happened with chicken before, so when I woke up and was like "ARGH!", I was very disappointed.
And I have to go through it all again tomorrow night, but this time there will be a lot of Hebrew singing and way more food and way more wine and matzo. Yikes!

So tomorrow afternoon I have to make 2 batches of meringues, because they're the ultimate kosher la pesah dessert. For those of you who aren't familiar with meringues, they're light, airy cookies that resemble dollops of whipped cream made out of stiff eggwhites, sugar, and vanilla. They are TRES delicious and very easy to make, and because they involve no flour or wheat at all, they're the perfect seder ender. And apparently I make them the best, so I get to supply them for tomorrow night's dinner. My mom made matzo skor bar (matzo, layer of brown sugar-butter candy, layer of melted chocolate YUMMY!) this evening (I helped!) that will complement the meringues, so we're all set for a super rich dessert.
Tonight I'll dream of Manichewitz wine and hagadahs. Joy.

-Laur