It all started out a little while ago when I found myself wanting to keep my hands busy while breastfeeding Locutus. I’d finished sewing up his stuffed D12 and had really enjoyed it, but then I was without another project. I just wanted to keep my hands busy, I did not want to start ANOTHER hobby to compete for my time and money.

Then I realized that I did have a little bit of spare yarn leftover from past projects that I could use for something. But I didn’t want to make just anything. You see, my personal sense of style doesn’t involve a lot of crocheted items. And then it struck me that I could make myself some fingerless gloves or a hat for Locutus. Those would work. So I put out the call for fingerless glove patterns on twitter. I was referred to ravelry (of which I was already a member, but I’d forgotten about it) but ultimately started on a project sent to me by @sapphirewitche (check out her Facebook page for Sapphire Stitches too).

I got going but only had enough yarn for one glove. So I unravelled it. Because I didn’t want to buy more yarn for this. It was just a busy project. Something to keep my hands occupied while I breastfed my son. I didn’t want to start sinking money into it.

Then I saw a really cute crocheted hat on pinterest. So I checked ravelry again and found a free pattern for a cloche hat with a simple bow that I loved. So I started crocheting it up. But, once again I realized I wouldn’t have enough yarn to finish it. When I made a few comments to people they kept suggesting ideas about how I could work a second colour in so I could get the project finished. But I kept rejecting their ideas because I DIDN’T WANT TO START A NEW HOBBY OR SPEND MONEY ON THIS. But my resolve was weakening. It was a really cute hat!

Then I saw something on pinterest that was the final straw: a babywearing coat extender. It was practical and would help me retain a bit of my current style. Plus it is an affordable solution to a problem I am having. And I don’t really even need that pattern, I can just kind of fudge through on my own. So I caved and went and bought 3 balls of yarn. Two of the chunkiest black/grey I could find (in the limited selection at Zellers) for the extender and one regular black so I can try that cute hat again.

Don’t forget to go vote for the next featured sumo wrestler!

Things are going to be slowing down here for a while. You see, I did a lot of blogging from my iPod. And my iPod sacrificed itself to the porcelain goddess (fell in the toilet) and is pretty dead. I’m going to have to switch to using computers, but I only have access during the daytime and I’m a slow one-handed typist.

• 10 Ways to Never Get Sick Again (from Fitsugar)
• EyeDefender Combats Eyestrain, Repetitive Stress Injury (from Lifehacker)
• Eating Our Way to Death, Literally (From Think Simple Now)
• In Case You Missed It: FitSugar Printables (from Fitsugar)
• In Case You Missed It: 7 Dynamic Yoga Sequences (from Fitsugar)

Don’t forget to vote for the next featured sumo wrestler!

Image via Wikipedia

Each month that has a sumo tournament, I’ll be writing an article that features a different sumo wrestler. To start off this series, I picked Hakuho, who happens to be my favourite. Help me pick the next wrestler I feature by leaving a comment below!

Some facts:
Rank: Yokozuna
Debuted: March 2001
Date of birth: March 11, 1985
Place of birth: Ulan Bator, Mongolia
Most consecutive wins: 63

Even though his father was a famous Mongolian wrestler, he wasn’t pressured into wrestling because his father wanted him to try other sports, like basketball. However, even from a very early age, he wanted to be a sumo wrestler. Another famous Mongolian sumo wrestler invited him to Japan in 2000 and had to intercede so that a stable would accept him because he was so light (140 lbs).

Source Japan Probe

Some if his career highlights include being one of the few non-Japanese to reach the rank of Yokozuna and winning a kinboshi award for defeating one of the previous Yokozuna while still being in the lowest Makuuchi division.

He has wrestled as the sole Yokozuna since March 2010 when Asashoryu retired from sumo. He was also involved in a scandal involving gambling over card games in 2010.

He is married and has three children.

His records:

• second longest consecutive winning streak
• most wins in a calendar year

This is a scan of a folder they were giving away at the 2008 Tokyo Tournament we attended in 2008. It features Asashoryu & Hakuho.

Here are a couple of videos showing Hakuho wrestling. The first is when he won his kinboshi in 2004 for defeating the Yokozuna Asashoryu.

This one is longer and has some commentary from Jason in Japan. It is his 63rd consecutive victory, which ties him with Tanikaze for second most consecutive victories. This also shows the television feed since he’s watching in Japan. Kisenosato would defeat him the next day ending his winning streak.

Who should be the next feature wrestler?

Image via Wikipedia

I know this post is coming a bit late, but being at all the holiday parties and relatives houses has gotten me thinking about Christmas decorations. Benevolance and I have never really decorated for Christmas. And we don’t do Christmas cards either. In fact, aside from attending the parties and eating the free food, I’m pretty Grinch-y when it comes to the holidays. However, now that we’ve gone and started a family, I know my days of not decorating are slowly coming to an end.

While it’s easy enough to tell Benevolance that if he wants a real Christmas tree he can have one so long as he does all the set up, care, and clean up of it, I know that things will not be so easy once my firstborn has learned to harness the full power of his cuteness. I know that there will come a time when he will look up at me and ask if we can have a Christmas tree. And with the combined puppy-dog eyes of the men in my family I will not be able to resist. And with that tree will come the necessity of decorating it.

Which brings me to my dilemma of how I want to decorate for Christmas. I’ve never really had to decide that for my own household and Benevolance has already said that he doesn’t really care¹. Since we’ll be a household with little kids, the sparkling glass decorations will be automatically taken off the list as possibilities. I also know that there will be an abundance of handmade ornaments that will be hung on the tree and displayed around the house. But I’d like to pick some overall guidelines just to make it a little bit easier to narrow down our choices for some basic ornaments when it comes time to go shopping for them. My only saving grace is that I do have some time before I’ll need to really decide and take the plunge.²

So readers, give me some inspiration here. What were some of your favourite Christmas decor styles this season?

1. which is odd since usually home decor things are his territory [↩]
2. Though the frugalist in me is also thinking that if I have my theme now, I can start hitting the after-Christmas sales and get some stuff really cheap, or slowly start making some of them myself. [↩]

Goals . . . resolutions . . . whatever you want to call them, I make them. One of my favourite things about the New Year’s Eve holiday is this part. I started doing quarterly goals last year, and I think that works even better. Helps to take some of the pressure off this time of year and sets up a review period so you can see how you’re doing. I always try to work on goals from the same general categories. Last year I did them each as separate posts (reading, fitness, money & random), but this year I think I’ll do one overview¹, but do less detail about each goal.

Reading

• Read at least 50 books
• Complete at least 1 non-fiction reading challenge
• Read at least 12 books that are currently on my to-read shelf

Fitness

• Be able to run for 30 minutes straight by the end of the year
• Establish a daily walking habit

Travel

• Plan a trip to Japan in 2013
• Research a trip to either France or Hawaii

With Locutus around I don’t want to push myself too hard to achieve things. Instead I’m just focused on building a strong family foundation. The older Locutus gets I’ll be able to re-asses my progress and add more goals as I’m able.

1. With the exception of the money goals, which get their own post with more details [↩]

This is part of annual Blogging series called Reverb. The intention is to reflect on the past and manifest your best intentions for the future. To read my intro post (updated with links as I publish them & time allows) see my post on The Prompts.

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened. -Dr. Seuss

Ending – What things came to an end this year? 

One of the most challenging things of parenthood is letting go of your previous lifestyle. Our existence as a DINK¹ family ended and now we’re … well, no catchy acronyms exist when you start your own family.

For the most part, nothing much has changed. We still entertain & host things and we still game.

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I’m keeping these posts brief on purpose. If you have questions or want me to go deeper into any of these thoughts, please leave a comment below.

1. dual income, no kids [↩]

This is part of annual Blogging series called Reverb. The intention is to reflect on the past and manifest your best intentions for the future. To read my intro post (updated with links as I publish them & time allows) see my post on The Prompts.

Numbers – 2011 by the numbers…

Number of …

1. blog posts written: 99
2. blog comments: 88
3. views since July¹: 2,077
4. tweets (total): Over 10,000
5. starred google reader items (total): 353733((I knew that my original counting seemed way to low! And then I realized the silly mistake I made. This is why some of them I’ll be tackling in the google reader files on this blog))
6. starred google reader items (this year): 252
7. books read: 46
8. tasks completed from Remember The Milk: 1055 (and counting)
9. airplane rides: 2
10. times across the border: 2
11. hours in labour: 25
12. hours pushing: 2.5

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I’m keeping these posts brief on purpose. If you have questions or want me to go deeper into any of these thoughts, please leave a comment below.

1. At some point in my blog tinkering I wrote over the file that had my google analytics code in it without noticing. But in July I started using a plugin called Jetpack that also does site statistics, so I’m using that data. [↩]

This is my favourite XKCD comic. As soon as I saw it I literally laughed out loud. It just strikes a particular funny bone in me, probably because I do very similar things in my own head.

The reference to the Kill Bill soundtrack reminded me just how much I love those movies. It’s what made me a Tarantino fan. It’s one of the first films that made me want to watch the commentary & behind the scenes info. It really broadened my appreciation of the art of making a movie. It really is so much more than just the stars in front of the camera!

Even though I rarely purchase music (musical selection is more Benevolance’s forte) I decided that I really should have this soundtrack in my collection. Especially as the albums on iTunes are only $9.99 each. I want ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ on my iPod too but something tells me that we already own a copy of that song somewhere in our classical music collection.¹

So now that I own the albums and have the comic saved on my iPod, in case of emergency, I guess that’s another star gone.

1. On a total side note, there’s nothing like having a baby around to make you realize how few song lyrics you actually have memorized. [↩]

I’ve been in a really DIY crafty kind of mood lately and having a lot of fun making things or thinking of different projects to work on in the future. I’ve also been in a very thrifty kind of mood too. We picked up a couple more of our favourite wooden cutting boards recently and they come with these wooden tags held on by some leather cord. The leather cord I plan on using to try out making one of these bracelets.

But the wooden tags I’m a little stumped about. Since they are actual wood I’m loathe to throw them in the garbage and they aren’t accepted in our recycling either. I can sense crafty/upcycling potential here, but I’m not sure exactly what to do with them. I could just paint them up and make them pretty, but I’d rather create something useful than just another decorative item.

Anyone have any ideas for useful ways to re-purpose these?