The sun is shining bright today and these sunbeams got the kitties out of the bedroom (their usual daytime hangout) into the kitchen to absorb every ray. I guess they must get really warm, they are black after all. They must absorb every bit of heat there is.

The guys hung out on the dishwasher for some time this morning. Donner did that chattering thing at the mean old crows that sometimes fly by, and sometimes just sit on the balcony railing when they notice the cats by the windows.

Oscar disapproves. Of everything.

But I do like his bokeh toes.

Speaking of Oscar, when I got up this morning to make some porridge for breakfast, I found Oscar staring intently at the washing machine. Cool, right? We have our washing machine in our kitchen, just like they do it in England! Anyway, something was up because he kept walking over to it, then looking beside it, then stepping back, sitting down and never moving his eyes away from the floor right beside the washing machine. Then I heard what sounded like scratching in the wall.

Oh no. Not again. One time we found a bird, dead, on the kitchen floor. He had somehow gotten in through the dryer vent because all the windows were closed. This was before we got Oscar or Donner. Mike helped me move the washing machine and the scratching stopped. I hope it was because the bird found his way out and didn’t get squished somewhere in the tubing that’s attached to the dryer. We’ll know for sure if there’s a strange smell in a couple of days.

Oscar didn’t break his gaze on the spot on the floor the whole time we moved the big machine. I can only imagine the chaos that would break out if a bird DID find it’s way into our place. YIKES. If Oscar didn’t get the bird, Donner surely would. Bird feathers everywhere. Let’s not think about it.

Donner gave me the look he gives me when he’s sick of me taking his photo. This was just before he turned his face away from me. Photo taking time is finished.

Good news! We had fluffy white clouds today with a side of baby blue sky. It was a great sight to behold. Also, I’ve been told it’s very near time to plant seeds. Perhaps I’ll get some sweet peas out this year. I missed the window of opportunity for that the last few years. We have an extra day of February this year, so I could be able to squeeze the seed growing in.

This sunny day also illuminated that it’s past time to clean off the balcony. It’s collected an assortment of leaves and I think some moss. Soon time for a big spring clean.

This is day 4 or 5 of having “the crud”. I think it’s too long to long to be considered a cold at this point. I woke up this morning surrounded by the kitties after dreaming of following oil down a hallway to find a Japanese man clutching his chest telling me he was experiencing anxiety. Whoa. I think I’d better do some deep cleaning of the bedroom after all these germ-ridden strange dreams.

Anyway, enough about the sickness. Tomorrow is a new day and I’ll be at work first thing. In fact, I’ll even take photos in the morning in the city. If that won’t get me out of bed tomorrow morning, nothing will.

February 2012′s desktop calendars are brought to you by Valentine’s Day this year. Both Cynthia and I used a heart motif this month. So, if you like, you can download both and change them up every other week for this month. And this February is a leap year, so it’s like you get an extra day of February for free.

Just click on the photo/photos you’d like to use and you can download it from my flickr page. Easy Peasy.

This just in! One more calendar for your monthly viewing pleasure:

Another lovely New Mexico sky courtesy of Scout.

Beautiful!

Funny that the day I call in sick from work, this Ferris Bueller car commercial is all over the interwebs.

He even goes to a Chinese New Year parade in this video. Enjoy!

I’m down and out with a cold and a throbby headache today. I’m sure I’ll feel better soon. If I don’t, I think I’ll go to work anyway. Daytime TV will surely drive me out of the house. I think they make it this crappy on purpose to get people to go back to work. It is NOT. GOOD.

First, you boil the oranges.

Tonight I made some kind of crazy clementine cake. I actually made 2 versions – one with ground almonds and one with regular flour. I had to try this recipe out because I have a little shin dig to bring a cake to next week and wanted to try something a little different, but wasn’t brave enough to bring an untested boiled orange cake for everyone to try. Also, I’m going to a potluck tomorrow night and those poor guys can try out this cake. If it’s a bust tomorrow, then I’ll go back to my old standby, One Bowl Chocolate Cake. I’m just hoping this cake’s not too dry. My last couple o’cakes were on the dry side, or, as my mom says, “stroke your throat!”. I’ll let you know the dryness factor tomorrow.

These are the oranges after they’ve been boiled for TWO HOURS. It sure made the house smell nice. I picked up a couple of little bags of mini-clementines and they were seedless, so I was able to skip the de-seeding step in the recipe. Here’s the recipe I used.I love the photography on this website – very beautiful.

This recipe has hardly any ingredients in it all, but there are a lot of eggs in it. 6 eggs in one cake. Here’s the complete list:

4 to 5 clementines (about 1 lb.)
6 eggs
1 Cup plus 2 TBsp of sugar
2 and 1/3 Cups of ground almonds (or substitute all-purpose flour)
1 heaping teaspoon of baking powder

5 ingredients. See how I’m a little concerned? “Can this really make a proper cake?” I wondered.

Out of the two cakes, the prettiest one by far is the one made with ground almonds. It also looked the sturdiest coming out of the oven. Both cakes are cooling at the moment, so I’m not really able to test them just yet.

I’ve got a jar of Nutella in the cupboard, so I just may bring that with me tomorrow just in case these cakes taste like marmalade. I’m a little concerned about that. I’m not a marmalade fan at all. But chocolate and orange together? It could work. I’ll let you know how that goes!

Also, hooray for the potluck! I think I’ll see how many portraits I can get tomorrow at the party. I haven’t taken too many photos of faces lately and I sure do miss them.

Today was one of the darkest, rainiest days I can ever remember experiencing in Vancouver. The sky was dark by 2:00 this afternoon and it felt like night time. Catherine and I headed over to the mall for some lunch and were happily visited by the Dragon! This whole week is Chinese New Year and there will be all sorts of surprises in the neighbourhood in celebration.

I’ve seen plenty of lion dancers, but these guys were great. Maybe I didn’t pay attention to all the moves in the past, but these dancers made the dragon really come to life with the way they moved the dragon’s body. They made the dragon’s eyes blink, wiggled his tail and bum, and stood right up straight. I think one dancer was standing on the other dancer’s knees to get that standing up straight and tall move. I loved how he looked like he was really bowing to the audience at the beginning of the dance. He bowed his shoulders, head and closed his eyes at the same time. I forgot there were people inside for a second.

The dragon only lasted a few minutes, and when he was almost finished, he opened his mouth and a scroll unrolled from his mouth.

That’s the fortune for the year. I’m not sure what that says…something about boats? A voyage? Prosperity? All those good things, I’m sure.

The drumming was also very good. I noticed how they make that firecracker sound with the big drums – they hit the side with the drumsticks. Awesome. I’ll be watching for that again this weekend at the parade in Chinatown.

Meanwhile, back at my desk…

…a Justin Bieber pinata. Who wouldn’t want to smash that to pieces? He’s a twerp with a girl’s haircut. Absolutely nothing like Donny Osmond or Shaun Cassidy – the hearthrobs of my youth. Oh. I just totally dated myself just then. But I did have a Shaun Cassidy t-shirt and haircut in the 3rd grade.

Thankfully it was not for me to keep, but it’s a decoration for Lianne’s daughter’s 12th birthday on the weekend. Lianne thought I’d like to see it.

SNORT!

I celebrated the first day of Chinese New Year by purchasing red thread for my heart wall hanging I’m making. Best purchase under $2 I can remember buying.

Unfortunately, I washed my hair today. On the first day of Chinese New Year, you’re not supposed to do that – it symbolizes washing away your good luck. But on the plus side, I didn’t vacuum or sweep anything, so I didn’t sweep any good luck away. Hooray! I’m breaking even! Phew! Back on track!

Meanwhile, down the street from my office, I noticed this sign at the entrance of a parking garage.

At first glance, I read it as “Watch for exciting vehicles”. Wow! Exciting vehicles! Like that K Car driving into that person. The only thing is, this looks like the person’s having fun – Woohoo! I’m riding the front of a K Car like a bucking bronco! WEWT! I think this sign isn’t warning me about anything dangerous. It’s more of an ad for bumper riding.

I’ll steer clear of the bumper riding and will pay attention to the signs and the cars around the signs. And I’ll stick to sewing.

…and I don’t really care about Valentines Day, but for some reason, I do like hearts. Oh wait. I love chocolate and that’s very Valentines Day-ish. Other than that…I’d rather stay home and watch movies, edit photos or blog. Last time I got my hair cut, the hairdresser asked me, “How do you wear your hair when you go out?”. I was stumped because I couldn’t remember the last time I went out anywhere where it mattered, unless Quilting Bee counts. Nah. They don’t care. OR DO THEY?

While I’m trying to stay on task with just one project and actually finish it, I spent a lot of the afternoon cutting hearts out of fabric that I had ironed on to fusible webbing stuff that makes it much, much easier to sew. I wish I had some of that for that potholder challenge in November.

Unfortunately, I think I broke my fancy cutting machine I bought with my Christmas money. I spent the other part of the afternoon trying to fix it. No luck. Rather than continue trying to fix it, I took about 15 minutes to cut out these hearts. Heh. And here I thought I’d save all this time using the machine.

I’ll try a few more things (like following the directions) before sending it back to the manufacturer.

I’m not sure what this will be…a festive runner for the table? A wall hanging? I’ll keep working on it and let you know.

YES! It was Saturday…I had no plans except to sleep in (check!) make some more blocks (check!) and make some kind of treat. I made some parsnip soup a couple of days ago – I can hear my sister gagging from here – but it was delicious! I made a little rice and soup for dinner and then vegan gingerbread cookies for dessert.

I followed his video recipe, and I must admit, I was a little leery. There’s hardly any ingredients in the recipe and 1/2 a cup of maple syrup? How is this going to work? Also, you only bake them for 5 minutes. I wasn’t expecting it to work, but I was very, very wrong.

Instead of using cookie cutters, I rolled them in sugar. I tried some fancy, big sugar, but it didn’t really stick to the dough, so went with regular, old sugar. I did cook them longer than 5 minutes because the rolled cookies are much thicker than the rolled out type. But they were still soft on the inside and so, so, SO tasty. The flavours were bright and cheerful. That was a lot of allspice in there – 1 tsp, plus other spices. So great. I will use this recipe again.

I did get a couple more blocks sewn up today. And in a stroke of luck, I received a piece of flannel today in a box of “craft supplies and fabric” from my buddy, Tracy. I only put those words into quotes because it was more than that. There were curtains in there! Some shear purple curtains. So, I removed the ugly old green ones I had in the bedroom and replaced them with the purple ones. Much better! I’ll take a photo of them later. Donner’s already tried to climb them, so everything is on schedule there.

Anyway, back to the flannel, I needed a piece for my quilting project. For some reason, cotton will stick to the flannel, so people use it to lay out the squares before sewing. It works perfectly! Look!

I just need to fill up the flannel panel…and then I’ll need to get another one. My quilt is going to be 90 X 100 inches – queen size – so I’ll need a lot more blocks. I hope to fill the whole wall with them.

The past few weeks, while I’ve been working on my stuff, I’ve been listening to Jay Mohr’s podcasts. I can’t get enough of that guy. Hilarious. He interviews comedians mostly, so they just get right out of hand and really, really funny.

There’s nothing wrong with being at home, completely alone, laughing out loud in front of your sewing machine. That’s normal.

We all waited with baited breath for the gigantic dump of snow scheduled to appear. It never arrived. However, at least one person’s boss thought there was a snow storm in Coquitlam today. There wasn’t one, but my co-worker overheard someone on the train this morning calling in late to work, “due to all the snow in Coquitlam.” Heh. The things you overhear on public transit. That list is LLLLOOONNNNGGGGG…

While the skies didn’t open up with the white stuff, I went for a quick trip to the library on my lunch hour. It’s a good walk and it saves me from buying a bunch of books that may or may not get re-read. If I really love the book, then I’ll buy it. I’m getting a little more clever these days. But not that clever. I was ecstatic when I thought I spotted the legendary City Owl in Vancouver. When I checked my camera bag for my long lens, it was not here. DRAT! I left it at home. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I used my stock lens, and it slowly dawned on me…I don’t think that’s a real bird. It’s not moving at all.

Upon closer inspection, I believe it’s one of those crappy plastic owls.

Lunchbag letdown. I should check tomorrow just to make sure, though. With my long lens. I’d better always have that with me from now on.