"Not ready to make nice, not ready to back down"

What was your favorite song this year? Five years ago? Ten years ago? Twenty?

NaBloPoMo has considerably made up for the lame question they prompted last week. This is a similarly awesome question. Awesome but difficult because there are simply So. Many. Good. Songs.

My favourite song this year? John Butler Trio came out with a new album this year! So did John Mayer. Assassin from the former I listen pretty much on repeat. So cool. This is Revolution by John Butler Trio. Their vids are piii-yump. Since we got to Vancouver, I've been listening a lot more to worship music. Doesn't mean I'm crossing over okay? No Focus on the Family and Modest is Hottest t-shirts for me. Phil Wickham's You're Beautiful is perfect. And Hillsong (I KNOW OKAY?!) do a version of Desert Song that usually brings me to tears. My album of this year though (not that it came out this year but the one that I can't stop listening to) is The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford soundtrack. Longest title ever but magical. The piano and the creaky violin. Nick Cave is an Aussie genius.

Five Years Ago? I was sixteen years old. Oh boy. I was tucking homemade skinny jeans into vintage high heels and sculpting my mohawk to defy gravity. When I look back on my musical taste at that time, I'm really not too embarrassed of it. I was getting into the Red Hot Chili Peppers with Arie. I pretty much lived on RadioBlogClub and that's where I found out about The Innocence Mission, Blonde Redhead and Caravan Palace. All good music. And the album of choice of the year was most definitely Moulin Rouge. Reminds me of eating focaccia from the Bee Bell Bakery with Mama, Arie and Cami on Arielle's birthday roadtrip to Edmonchuck.

Ten Years Ago? I was eleven so this will be more embarrassing. I KNOW I was listening to Hanson and being suitably obsessed. I think this was also the crossover period between Hanson and N'Sync. Yeah I was one of those who proclaimed that the Backstreet Boys sucked balls (of course I didn't say that then) and went with the runner up. Even fewer were those who favoured 98 degrees. At least I wasn't one of those.

*The halloween party we went to last weekend put on "Backstreet's Back" during the dance party and it was friggin' awesome. A whole bunch of twenty somethings who knew ALL THE WORDS. Ultimate win for the Backstreet Boys.

Twenty-Years Ago? I was probably listening to "Jesus Loves You" or something from the Donut Man. Just coming up on your second birthday, I doubt there's a lot of autonomous choices. This prompt would be infinitely cooler if you were writing in your forties and you could reflect on Simon and Garfunkel. Or even my partner in crime who did the whole 'grunge' thing! Awesome. I feel so left out.

Christmas Project! Not that I don't already have four (count 'em) handmade (aka sewn) Christmas gifts to make. I am so so so excited for them because I know the giftees will love them but I am forcing myself to start now so that it doesn't come to the day before we leave for Cowtown and I'm sobbing because I sewed over my finger in a rush.

But these wreaths are so cute. I probably wouldn't go quite so far with the felt flowers but instead swap it out for some plaid wraps/bow-things.

"I see you face in every sunrise. The colour of the morning is inside your eyes."

What would your dream home/apartment/condo/yurt look like? Where would it be? Who'd live in it with you?

This is such a fun question! Apartment Therapy is a huge inspiration for this and I spend a little too much time there just gawking over things. "What!? Of course I want wallpaper in the print of vintage colonial maps! Of course!" I could spend hours in the paint section of home depot just slotting together paint swatches.

Matt and I want a big house when we have kids where our kids can always bring their friends over and it can be a place of community. Until then, we're content to live in quirky, character apartments with pale yellow tile and funky blinds.

Our friend in Victoria, Renata, has the coolest house ever. Her decorating style blows my mind and fills me with envy. Every time we would go over to her place, I would send Matt around to take pictures for me. My tiny phone, dropped many a time on the concrete, took fuzzy pictures go figure. From her I have taken open-face cabinets, selected Russian trinkets (like Matryoshka dolls) and mismatched Le

Crueset cookware.

Our favorite coffee shop in Victoria, Union Pacific, encapsulated a lot of how we wanted to

decorate our house. Old oak doors panelled the walls and they had a

vintage cash. Large chalkboards had their specials of the day on it and they had great worn in hardwood floors. The tables were made of heavy 2x4 with the iron rivets uncovered.

We have our great vintage furniture from Capital Iron (There's no Place like it!) that I hope we can hold on to until we move into a house.

I love the restaurants Open Sesame and Tango in Calgary. Whoever does their decorating is a genius! I want a big central pillar fireplace like in Open Sesame and a worn wood table like at Tango. Tango has a small wall that is white and studded with clear glass bottles which looks SO cool. I'm not sure how practical it is for home.

It's all dreams until we can actually find a place where we want to have our house. We visited Bowen Island over the weekend and it is a magical little island. Of course, we haven't been to Scotland yet and therefore haven't given it sufficient opportunity to steal our hearts.

P.S ~ As for the last part of that question, Matt can come. I'm favourably interested in him.

"Two brown eyes...are looking out for you."

I

think this picture is immaculate. Flickr is the best.

What makes you notice someone?

The funny thing about attending a large university (one of the funny things I guess) is that you are constantly people-watching. Not that you don't do this at a small university, or anywhere else to be honest, but at a large university with many students, you really have no choice. I'm drawn to people that are so at home with themselves, that simply being a

t peace sets them apart. Those that aren't afraid to be seen. The petite Asian girl in the library with a massive head of dreads. Or the girl with skull candy head phones and chains running the length of each

pant leg. The guy who stands head and shoulders above everyone else and still wears a mustard yellow shirt, not afraid to be a beacon from miles away. People that unabashedly sing along with their music through headphones. The huge metal guy in my class with a

massive viking beard who talks baby talk to his eighteen-month-old son over the phone before he heads into class.

I see people who like slouchy toques and big socks like me. People who wear brightly coloured tights. People who speak in different languages. People who speak up in class. People who walk with their heads up. People who make eye contact. People who seem comfortable in themselves. And Jewish people. Matt and I walked past a synagogue earlier this week just as a service was letting out. It was all 'Shabbat Shalom' awesomeness all over the place. With yarmulkes all over the place. Best. Thing. Ever.

This picture makes me smile. I miss my sisters.

"With it's roots firmly planted in the earth below"

Just as a preface, I think this is a really dumb question.

Would you rather be wealthy and ugly, wise and sickly, or beautiful and stupid?

I feel it is overly simplistic and moralistic. But it is a prompt and I am grateful for it.

I mean of course I would rather be beautiful and stupid. Those people get everywhere in this world. Our culture is obsessed with quantity over quality so it doesn't matter if I my breasts have nursed four children, it only matters that they are perky and ready for display. It doesn't matter if you've worked the ground to feed your family, rough skin is just unsightly.

And if you're wealthy, you're not really ugly are you? It's only a matter of cash before you can lose that Roman nose or wrinkly knees. What is meant, ugly on the inside or the outside? And not to bash rich people. It simply the correlation of the two for illustration purposes of how 'right' and 'altruistic' your heart is. Get over yourself.

As for wise, and sickly, I believe there is a profound thing that transforms you when your health, viability, and youth cannot be relied on. We will all encounter a place of sickness in our lives. Should the Lord keep you here until your old age, we will all find we don't remember as much as we used to, our joints don't stretch like they used to, we can't see, run, dance, or stay up at late as we used to. Given that time, given the transformative gift that is life, it would be a sad thing to reach the end of your life without a shred of wisdom.

On a happy note, it's totally cozy and wintery here now. No snow but those cozy later fall days that make you want to wear mittens and drink some ho-cho.

Samoy bolshoy den!

P.S ~ I won't post anything like this again. Makes me angry.

"How did we get here? I used to know you so well..."

Describe the plot of the next book you want to read, even if the book doesn't exist yet.

Oh books. No fun books for my brain right now. My only books are ones I don't really like. Such as "The World of Athens: Religion, Politics and Gender in Fifth Century Athens". Slain.

The second half of this question also makes me slightly terrified because it's....like, my job. If I could explain the bronchial network of plots in my mind, I would already be published. But there are books out there that aren't written yet that I would like to read, that I might even like to write.

Matt and I have decided that we are going to accomplish a "100 Books to Read Before you Die" list or some variant thereof. I've never read War and Peace. Matt is shocked (and slightly offended) that I've never read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius yet. Matt's never read "The Things They Carried". We haven't agreed on a list yet. I don't want to read through Esquire's "75 Books Ever Man Should Read" because it's slightly...partisan. Not that I have a problem with "dude books" but I feel the list was not representative. And I don't want to read Norman Mailer.

I almost gave into the "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" to-do but I read the intro to the first book and I realize why it's so popular. It's a Dan Brown book. No disrespect, that man's made himself a comfy living but it's a similar kind of book. Action packed and accessible.

But there are a lot of books that seem to overlap these 'read it before you make a fool of yourself publicly' lists. But many of them not a lot of people have read. They are just those books that aren't lazy day, read them and fall asleep wearing your bathing suit books. My stage play teacher told me "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo" is such a book.

The books that make it on to lists like that are books that get into your brain. They get into your eyes and what you see. They get into your speak and how you talk.

I want to read either "Orlando" or "Mrs. Dalloway" by Virginia Woolf. After I watched "The Hours" I became inordinately obsessed with Virginia Woolf. I think she is powerful. In Orlando, a young man is metamorphosed into a woman and lives indefinitely through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In my year at Mt. Royal we studied just a small portion of Orlando. It's totally weird and but it's supposed to be Woolf's most accessible novel. Not that I'm concerned with accessibility (see above).

And there's a movie with Tilda Swinton!

P.S ~ Did you know I've never read "Life of Pi"?!

"Take me, take me to the riot..."

My jewelry box is a shaming mess. It is a beautiful jewelry box that Matt made in 10th grade for his girlfriend at the time. She gave it back (I KNOW! I thought 'she whaaaaaaat'....) and Mattdecided it to give it to his wife one day. When he told me that story I was already thi

nking, "I want that jewelry box". And now I have it and it's a mess. I totally lose points for that.

I have a cameo from my paternal grandmother's jewelry box and a cameo my mom bought me at a vintage market when I was in high school. I have my etched mushroom pendant Arie made me when she was in high school, double-sided, brass and copper, no big. People are all over it whenever they see it. There's a large sea shell necklace Matt made me with a shell we combed off of China Beach on our first Married Valentines. There's the lava rock from our Honeymoon. It's apparently bad luck to take lava rock off the Hawaiian islands but we did...and we're still married. That one's a necklace too.

And then there's my engagement ring. Months of teasing, multiple sketches, fake outs, and finally a truly breathtaking, unique and bragging-worthy ring. Inside the band it read 'my beloved' in Hebrew and a tiny emerald (Matt's birthstone) is tucked away as well. It's me in ring form.

He took designs from Art Deco architecture and filigree off of Tsarina Alexandra of Russia's diary. It's a platinum solitaire, clean and flawless. And I absolutely still brag about it. Even though now it's totally obnoxious to everyone around me.

Dehn Adeen "NaBloPoMo": Noyabr Vtoroi

Dear Tofu curry you are super delish inside my belly. And I made you all by myself.

P.S ~ Dear Dr. Dempsey, you could totally win at Movember. Ginger Beard for the win!

"With his long johns on Pa went out creepin'..."

Whoohoo for prompts!

A lover of blogs and a true sufferer of writer's block, I LOVE websites that ask me fun questions. National Blog Posting Month is a website that provides tools for people that are looking to post more regularly (and become the next great thing). They also say they offer "moral support, inspiration, and camaraderie" for those involved in the blogging community. Gives it a formidable hue, no? I'm not going to sign up for those camaraderie things because that sounds...scary but I will willingly take their hints and tips towards better blogging.

The last prompt posted was "What childhood belonging do you still have in your possession?"

Though I desperately wish it could be my fuchsia dinosaur stuffed animal from my toddlerhood that mysteriously disappeared with nary a trace, I have only my baby blanket that my great-grandmother crocheted for me. Tucked in the Porcheron abyss of a crawl space are still things like my 'quiet book' (AS IF I needed any help with that) and my 'prayer pillow', things that will make me squeal when I have poop-sack, beanheads of my own. Mom, three points for you for being a sentimental mama. No woobie capes, but my blanket is folded and duck taped into storage with a crocheted robe from the same grandmother, one of my dad's mega soft t-shirt that he laundered to a suede finish flipping houses (that I also think my mom tried to throw away many a time) and a vintage beige clutch I filched from my mom when I was in high school and never gave back.

Seriously, what. Cutest lobster EVAR.

Hope your halloween was deliriously cute.