Gloves

I need gloves. That’s the conclusion I’ve come to. But not just any gloves, because I have plenty of those – I need gloves that keep my hands WARM. And I need recommendations, because all the gloves I currently own just don’t measure up.

My feeling is that I need some sort of NASA-grade material, but read on and post your suggestions, please.

Here’s my problem.  In the winter, even when it’s mildly cold such as now (below 0, really), my hands freeze within about a minute. Seriously – I’m not exaggerating. And I don’t wear dollar-store polyester gloves, either – these are quite nice lined leather gloves.

The other conclusion is that this is the main reason I don’t take many outside pictures in the winter. And that’s what bothers me, thus the search for adequate gloves. I see plenty of things I would love to take pictures of, but I just can’t stand the thought of pulling my hands out of the relative safety of the moderately warm (but too bulky) gloves to operate the camera. Or maybe I need an old-person camera (like the old-person phones with have gigantic buttons).

My requirements:

• keeps hands warm
• has enough flexibility that my hands retain enough dexterity to take pictures (so, no puffy gloves that are 1/2″ thick)
• is moderately stylish (at least a 4 on a 10 point scale)
• doesn’t cost $400

So, anybody think they know about just the thing for me?

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Minimum wage and temperature

The other day, I came across an article saying the minimum wage in Quebec was being raised to $9.50. Now, I don’t consider myself *that* old, but I’m pretty sure that when I had my first job, the minimum wage was around $5. [Actually, the interwebs confirm that it *was* actually $5, and even $4.50 for minors.] There’s no way that inflation has soared 100% in the slightly more than a decade that I’ve been working. So… what’s changed? Have we become that much more concerned about minimum wage (and presumably the poverty level) in the last decade? Has this been enough to motivate people to get out into the workforce, by making even minimum wage more attractive?

At $9.50, you’re making around $19K a year (I’m assuming you’ll take some vacation, although the reality is probably that you won’t take much, if you’re working for minimum wage). The Council on Social Development website has some interesting statistics. For example, in all but the biggest cities (500K population or more), for a single person, that is above the poverty line. If you’re a family with two working parents, even if both are at minimum wage, you’re WAY above the poverty line. And I’ve been seeing more and more reports in the last few years saying how the “standard” family model now involves two working parents. Yet, other sources say around 10% live below the poverty line. So… are there not enough minimum wage jobs? Or are people just not taking them as an opportunity?

In less political news – THANKS, Alberta, but you can have your Arctic front back. Seriously, though, what gives – this is December! It’s not supposed to hit the -20s until mid-January, at least. Although, could one hope that if this keeps up, the Canal might actually be open way earlier this year? – say, for christmas?!

The cold has made the cats extra cuddly. It’s now hard to spend time at the computer without a cuddly warm ball of fur taking up your lap. Sometimes, they’ll even tag-team and one will chase the other off, only to climb up immediately him/herself. Today, I was scratching BB’s tummy with my frozen hands as she was curled up on my lap – and she obligingly curled herself around my hand, and kept herself there until my hand warmed up. What a smart girl! Shakey has been warming up my hoodie by sleeping on it all the time, which also comes in handy.

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Security

For your amusement, an approximate transcript of a conversation with a credit card company I’ll leave unnamed. I called them up to have them record on my file when I would be travelling, and to where. I like to cover my bases that way. At the end of the conversation, the man with the heavy indian accent on the other end of the line tells me that CompanyXXX likes their customers to keep track of their account online while travelling, to spot any unauthorized spending right away.

Me: I don’t like to do that while I travel, I don’t want my account getting hacked.
Him: Our website is completely secure, ma’am, you don’t have to worry about anything.
Me: The website may be, but I don’t know about computers that I’m using. What if someone installs a key logger or otherwise saves the information I enter on the computer.
Him: *cricket cricket* But our website is completely secure with the latest technology.
Me: *sigh* That’s great. Thanks for your help today.

On another note, does it bother anyone else when they’re “ma’am”ed on the phone? (Yes, I know Dan will pipe in with his story about Cyrille here). I got a break from that yesterday, though – the lovely old man with an Alabama (or thereabouts) accent, whom I spoke with about a missed delivery of a package, kept calling me “miss”. It was a very endearing break from the usual.

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Mother Goose

In the interests of attracting some of Dan’s audience, this post will be light on the writing and heavy on the pictures.

Two weekends ago we went to see a musical a performance of Mother Goose pantomime. Chock-full of sing-along classics, and written by members of the troupe, it was great fun. We don’t often make it out to Carleton Place now, but our friend Mike lives there and is a member of the group.

Before the show, we went to Ballygiblin’s, a local trendy bistro-type restaurant which turned out to be quite excellent. Our resident restaurant critic will be posting a review any day now, I’m sure!

The lighting in the theatre was pretty bad, so the pictures aren’t as good (or clear) as I would like. But here are a few, anyway! The rest are here.

Mother Goose h(im/er)self.

The Americans’ grand entrance.

A pretty good approximation of what security at airports has become.

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Recent and future crafts

While on our trip, I also started (and completed) a pair of fingerless gloves, which I had planned on using to keep warm at the office. Except that I forgot that come fall, they crank up the heat – it’s in the summer that you need the gloves. Maybe I’ll bring them home instead. They’re based on this pattern here, with a few modifications. For example, note the contrasting ribbing. The cool reason for this is that I wanted something funky-looking. The uncool reason is that when I made the first glove, I realized that it was too tight of a fit for my right hand, although it fit snugly (but comfortably) on my left. So I decided to make the ribbing a different colour on the second glove to distinguish the two.

For christmas this year, I also have plans to make my own christmas tree skirt, similar to this one. I’d bought the fabric last year at a post-christmas sale, but never got around to making it because, seriously, who cares about christmas in February?? It looks pretty straightforward, I just need to find an afternoon to spend making it. Hopefully tomorrow. But then again, who am I kidding – I’ll probably be too busy making yummies for the group’s christmas party.

One other crafty things that will have to be completed in the next month (more like 3 weeks!) are the christmas cards. It’s mostly Dan’s baby, but I’d like to have a little bit more input this year. We’ll see if I’ll be allowed. Of course, this means that I actually need to complete sorting the photos and pick out the 1% that might get used in the cards. Sigh. [Update - how can you tell this post has been in the "incomplete" pile for a while?] The cards are almost done. Sorting wasn’t as bad as expected since the trip pictures were already sorted, and also we cut down on the number of pictures, so now you’ll actually be able to tell who the people in the photos are!

Also, I need something I can make on knitting Wednesdays. Any suggestions? I suppose it’s technically a stitch and bitch, although the delicious drinks (and fun projects and lovely company) keep the bitching at bay.

A few weeks ago, in one of the back copies of Maclean’s (as in, the ones accumulated from 5 weeks of being away, and the next 5 weeks of catching up on the previous 5 weeks’ worth of magazines), I stumbled on an article about a new “no-knead bread” by Jim Lahey, which apparently requires almost no work. And according to the reviews, both in the magazine and in a quick google search, the results are pretty tasty, too! I can’t wait to try it!

And a final “also” – the one independent coffee shop in Kanata, Kravings in the Centrum, just got closed down. What gives?

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Fruit trees

I read about this nursery on a blog I follow. Kiwis in an Ontario backyard?! Amazing! I think I’ll definitely be giving serious consideration to their trees once we move into a house with a yard that can support more than a single fruit tree.

Or am I just too soft-hearted for refusing to chop down a perfectly good, fruit-bearing plum tree? Those plums end up as some pretty good jam, if that helps sway the public opinion on the tree’s favour.

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The annual christmas tree hunt

First of all – yes, I know hunting usually implies something moving and difficult to catch. Nonetheless, I call it a christmas tree hunt.

Ever since we’ve moved to Ottawa, it’s become a tradition for Dan and I to go to one of the nearby christmas tree farms, and find and chop down a lovely little tree for our house. We haven’t gone back to the same farm yet, and each one has its own charm. For example, the one this year has a lovely wooden covered bridge spanning a creek – which would have been absolutely stunning, had we had any snow. The one we went to the first year, however, had free hot cider. The one last year was much larger scale than these other two, and even had reindeer. Can I add any names to these reviews? – nah, that’s asking too much of me!

The day was gorgeous, just cold enough for the snowless ground not to be spongy, with a slight covering of frost on the trees. We saw ours pretty early on, and the next 15 minutes of wandering around only served to strengthen our conviction that it was THE ONE.

Along the way, we also saw a little tree-turned-birdfeeder. Cute!

Like a true hunter, Dan had to pose with his kill, and it was no small feat to get it to come down.

My little car valiantly served to transport the tree to its new home this year, since the truck is taking a well-deserved break.

I spent much of Sunday afternoon sorting through the decorations and putting them up. I’m very glad I picked up a ton of unique ornaments at post-christmas sales last year – now our tree is no longer so bare! One thing I’d like to do for next year is get more lights (of the smaller kind) so the lighting is more spread out and less noticeable, but I love our tree this year!

I still have to decorate the rest of the house, but at least I have the tree to cheer me on now! The cats, of course, had to help me keep track of decorations by immediately jumping into any box that was freed up. Luckily, the seem to be staying away from the hanging decorations for now.

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Wedding pictures

Wedding pictures are also up on the photo website: http://www.pbase.com/mariakat/wedding. Talking to other recently-married couples, we’re still amazed at how quickly Frank was able to get them to us (we got the the week we were back from the honeymoon). And, they’re awesome.

The next week or so promises to be moderately busy since we still need to churn out the Christmas cards, but Dan seems to be on top of this one.

The weekend’s excitement involved christmas tree hunting and decorating, more household de-cluttering, a musical, and an addition to a family (not ours). I’ll try to go in more details in the next few days, after I’m done sorting through the photos.

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Pictures

I got a gentle prod of a reminder yesterday, in the form of an email from a friend asking why I haven’t been posting. It wasn’t that I’d decided to abandon the blog now that November was over. However, with the slideshow of our trip scheduled for yesterday, for the last week Dan and I were frantically sorting through and editing the mountains of pictures we’d brought back. I don’t know how our wedding photographer did it – my sorting and editing time was on the order of weeks, not days! But, now it’s over, the event was a success, and I even learned how to make a mean spinach dip in the process.

So, I also proudly present the collection of pictures from our trip, available on my photo website. Descriptions will be added to some of the galleries in the next month or so, to give you a bit more of a context on what you’re seeing, but for now you can browse through the galleries. I don’t think Dan has posted his pictures yet, and I’m not sure when he will, given that expectations are high (and time is short) for the christmas cards.

In addition to the slideshow for friends, I also did one for coworkers. It ended at 1 PM, and immediately after I sent out the link to the picture website. Check out the hits counter on the website (and note that they’re using weird – universal? – time, so 18:00 on the chart is actually 1 PM Ottawa time).

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