toronto wanderings

We have been here in Toronto for a month now. Joseph likes his program, but the only job I have managed to get is a retail job, but I guess it will pay the bills for now.

But, enough of the serious stuff. Let's talk about fun things we are doing. We don't have much money so fun things are a bit limited. However, we are up for the challenge. Tonight, we got student tickets to the dress rehearsal of the opera War and Peace by Prokofiev. While the staging lacked some pizazz and some of the singers were just marking (singing at half voice), it was still very well done and I especially like the second half dealing with the war. I found that ironic since while reading War and Peace with Joseph, it was the peace time sections that I liked the best.

Okay, this is boring you. No, no, don't disagree, I can tell by how you are reading this. Fine, I'll just move on to something that has pictures to accompany it.

Last week, Joseph and I went to the Word on the Street, which is a book festival with authors and publishers and all sorts of cool things for literary nerds like me. First we stopped by the Victoria College's (part of University of Toronto) annual book sale. It was located in this amazingly beautiful building:


After that we headed to the publishers' tents to look at books that they had on sale. However, it was a sale on the Canadian price of books and that made them cost about as much as we could get them for in the US not on sale.


However, the highlight for me was not an author or even a book, but the TVO kid's stage. On the stage was Jackie, who was teaching kids how to dance. I thought it was quite enjoyable. I think kids would have fun checking out those dance moves online, which I linked to above.


After walking around Word on the Street, Joseph and I walked a little ways to Kensington Market.


Kensington Market is less market then a conglomeration of grain stores, organic stands, street performances, fruit markets, bakeries, over-priced restaurants and a colorful crowd of people. One thing that caught my attention was the Community Vehicular Reclamation Project:


Isn't that an awesome planter?
While in Kensington Market, Joseph and I bought a huge empanada that was filled with beef and kimchi! It was surprisingly delicious. Yum Yum Yum.

Tomorrow, and by tomorrow I mean whenever I feel like it, I'll post pictures from our walks in the neighborhood.

skywatch the second

A week has gone by. Weeks go by so quickly, even though I don't do much in a day. However a few days ago I grabbed my camera and ran out onto our apartment balcony to get a shot of the beautiful colors the sunset was producing. We are new to this apartment, city, and country, but this is the first really beautiful sunset that I have seen here. I just wish my apartment balcony didn't face north, so that I wouldn't have to dangle over the railing to get a shot of the sunset, which is what I had to do to get this shot:


And since I'm feeling generous tonight. And because I don't want to post two sunset pictures in a row. I'll also give you this picture, which I took a few months ago when I was visiting Washington D.C. with Emily.


Please visit the Skywatch main page to view more, and better, photos of the sky.

my first skywatch

I saw my first skywatch photo a few weeks ago on my best friend's blog. It was completely understandable to me why she would be drawn to such an idea; she absolutely loves the sky. So much so, that I used to call her skylark when we were still roommates. She instilled in me a love of sky-watching, and I still I love looking at the sky - it is such a large canvas which tells new and interesting stories every day.
After browsing through the many beautiful pictures on the Skywatch website I felt inspired and sat down and drew for the first time in a really long time. This is exactly what I need in my live - inspiration. Therefore, I am joining the ranks at Skywatch.

This photo was taken at sunset in Edfu, Egypt.

itinerant

It has been a rough journey these last few months. I completed my thesis and received my Master's Degree from the University of Chicago. A week later Joseph flew out to Boston to attend Harvard for the summer and Emily flew in to help me finish packing up (and I packed her up as well), drive with me to Cleveland, and fly out to Maryland where I stayed with her and her family for a week. We also took a couple of trips down to D.C.

Then it was off to San Francisco to visit my Aunts Susan (yes, plural, and yes they are both named Susan). After an amazing 5 days with them, and, believe me, my visits there are always amazing, I flew to Utah to attend my Grandpa's 90th birthday party.

After that family event, I flew to Arizona to spend some time at home with my parent and brother, but because I am ever restless, I was only there 10 days before I flew with my mother to Cleveland, rented a car, and drove up to Toronto. In the 4-5 days we were in Toronto, my mother and I drove around every neighborhood of Toronto, checked out numerous apartments and, after the most horribly stressful day of trying to get money from the U.S., managed to put a deposit on a very nice apartment.

(note: this is not our furniture, I took these pictures before the previous tenant moved out)

After that eventful trip, my mother and I drove back to Cleveland, met up with the rest of the family and then headed back to Canada to spend a day and a half in Niagara Falls. After our brief time there and the most horrible tour I have ever been on, my whole family (sans Joseph) squeezed into two cars and drove to Vermont, where we met up with Joseph and stayed in a cabin near Stratton for a week. Then we all drove down to Boston for a few days to check out the sights. After that short history lesson, I once again said goodbye to my husband, and drove back to Cleveland from Boston with Ben, Debbie, and Parker. I then lived in Ben and Debbie's living room for the next three weeks with Joseph joining me after a week of finals (thanks again, Ben and Deb). After wearing out our welcome several times over, we finally departed Cleveland, drove back to Chicago, rented a mini-van, picked up my dad from the airport, loaded up all our stuff, and drove to Toronto. After a small fender-bender between our car and the rental car, we finally made it across the border at 1 am and the next day (August 31) moved into our lovely apartment.

That is the summary of the last few months. No wonder I am still exhausted.

its been awhile

It has been a really long time since I really blogged, but I'm thinking about starting it up again. So, when I was thinking about what I should post about, a few things came to mind:

1. Wedding pictures-everyone is waiting to see them but I still don't have digital files of the photos except for a slideshow.
2. Rant about how amazingly beautiful my nephew, P-man, is. He visited us over Easter weekend, isn't he cute?3. A description of my master's thesis that has been devouring my life for the last five months.
4. Photos of Chicago and or discriptions of fun things to do here.
5. How awesome the first 134 days of marriage have been, but I think I'll spare you all that.


Instead I decided to post a random photo and tell the story behind it. I think this might become my blogging habit.

This is the story of banana-chocolate-chip muffins that went oh so wrong and oh so yummy at the same time. Once upon a time in a land called G-5, Emily and I decided to make banana-chocolate-chip muffins from a recipe we stole from an old roommate. The roommate turned out to be slightly insane (as an excuse for her butt always hanging out of her pants, she would always claim that she had an extra-long butt crack) and we ended up kicking her out of the apartment.

That is besides the point. We decided to make the muffins and since it was christmas time, we decided to dye them red and green for the occassion (okay, so it was my decision and Emily had no part in it). I had never used this food coloring before. When my family decided to remodel the cabin I took all the spices and other kitchen gadgets. So, I ended up owning some really strong food dye that my grandma used to use for cake decorating. I didn't realize that they were stronger than the liquid stuff at the supermarket. This explains why our muffins ended up looking like aliens. I kid you not, some had faces. I'm serious! You still don't believe me? Well, see for yourself:


To some degree, it made me cringe to eat them, but I got over it and they were so yummy! Here is the recipe if you want to make them:

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
1 3/4 c all-purpose flour
1/3 c sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten
3/4 c milk
1/4 c cooking oil
3/4 c mashed banana (you probably will want more banana. i tried this amount and they were a bit dry and not very banana-y)
1/2 c chocolate chips

Grease twelve 2 1/2 in. muffin cups or line with paper bake cups; set aside.

In a medium bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Make a
well in the center of flour mixture; set aside.

In another bowl combine egg, milk, oil, and banana. Add wet
ingredients to dry ingredients all at once. Add chocolate chips. Then add a bunch of food coloring (at this point I split the batter into two bowls and dyed one red and the other green.
Stir just until moistened (Batter should be lumpy).

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling each two-thirds full.
Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes. Cool in muffin cups on a
wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove from muffin cups, serve warm.