Let them eat cake...pumpkin cake

No this isn't my pumpkin...I wish.

I had a great birthday - cake at work, cake at my brother's place (popped over for a bit of my gluten free pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese frosting...which was fantastic) and watched my brother carve up some pumpkins for a bit...I was going to bring one and make a pumpkin like the one above, but when I got home from work, I'd found that J had set up the living room as a giant birthday theatre...one night only viewing of The Nightmare Before Christmas on the entire wall - Complete with giant beanbag chair, Chinese takeaway and a few bottles of chilled Innis & Gunn. So yeah...visited my brother a bit, but returned home, full of cake, for the film. It's the film J and I saw together at the artsy theatre by the library years and years ago on my birthday, back before we were a we...and were at more of a great friends eyeing up each other's bottoms stage. Love the film, and it is very sentimental for me...so to watch it last night was great. The digitally remastered DVD is really clear...even on a huge wall. Gotta love it.

Plus, I've got a now got a Prisoner graphic novel to read. It takes off when the series ends. The Prisoner is an old favourite of mine...it looks very cool.

I was going to dress up for work today, but I slept in. I have a viking costume, but my flu shot that I got yesterday (happy birthday to me) has made me a bit tired, so I cheated and didn't. Plus wearing a brown corset and knee high boots with a viking helmet to work seemed a bit...well too much for the lab, y'know? And I can't see through the bear head well enough to do any work...so I wimped out on that too. And the mirror ball helmet was tucked away...I know pathetic excuses, but I was jsut too tired to dress up this morning. I may go across to the student commons at lunch tho to see just what costumes are out there. (altho Halloween seems to be the time for women to be allowed to dress skanky for no good reason...but that's n yearly rant for some other time).
My viking apparel is still ready for if we go out with friends tonight, but after yesterday I feel perfectly content to not do a thing tonight other than hand out some candy to the odd little person who comes to our door and relax.

Happy Halloween everyone.
I'm gonna try and get some work done and not eat any more cake today...

Getting old dammit

Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday dear meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Happy Birthday to me!

I'm going to go enjoy some apple spice cake derbies with cream cheese filling I made for the crew here at work. It's my birthday, so I can eat whatever I want.

Yummers

Inquiring minds want to know

This question came up in conversation last night (don't ask)...and I thought I'd put it out to all of you:

If you had to relax in a hot tub full of the soup of your choice, what kind of soup would it be? And, would you actually do it?

To clarify, no you wouldn't have to eat it - Neither would anyone else...just curious what smells you'd not mind being surrounded by or find soothing and what you'd be OK soaking in, given the task. And no bubbles...cuz that would just be wierd :)
Image Source: Chronicle Books Blog

Me? Well, clam chowder and mushroom are definitely out - no way I'd get in that. Ever. I think chicken noodle or wonton would be my choice. Smell great, and wouldn't be too slimey or hard to clean later.

Do tell...

"Snow Day"

I had grand plans for the weekend.
I really did.

All this raking and trimming and hammering in the yard. The sun goes down so early now that it's hard to get anything done on a weekday. Soooo, I was going to prep the yard for winter this weekend...and then the wind came. Yes - Sakatoon is called the "windy city" for very good reason. All freaking weekend it was so windy you couldn't really go outside. We tried. We got a block out and were cold, grumbly and saw large objects flying by sideways. Not safe. Not fun. If it was winter, it'd be a roaring blizzard.

My solution?

Turn off the phones, stock up on snackables and snuggle up with each other to read, relax and spend a lovely weekend together. If anyone in the real world tried to reach us - I do apologise. It was the equivalent of a blizzardy day just a bit early. It's been ages since J has been off for a weekend with no work, so we just stayed inside, napping in the sun and just enjoying the time together. We baked tasty things and drank Hobgoblin ale. We read entire novels at one go. We put our Stikfas together (my Master Assassin kicks ass). We played with the cats. The house was a toasty warm bubble...and it was glorious.

The wind conveniently died sometime during the night last night, so it's back to the real world again. I'm hopeful it's *not* blowey next weekend as I really do actually have a lot of yardwork to do and it's going to snow soon...I was glad for the "snow day" though.

It was lovely.

I'm cold and tired and there are wolves after me

My friend Pete sent this site to me. It looks at bizarre things...like the post I linked to, with 10 truly bizarre old ads.

My favorite is the one above...altho, the one with the pig slicing itself up as lunch and the smoking Santa are, truly, whackjob.

Little bit of evil, tiny bit of evil...

Want to know how much evil you've got in you? Go here.

SCIENCE!!!

Today I got to use an HPLC to do lactic acid analysis of serum, analyze genetic sequences for mutations, and program and run a giant autoanalyser.

Some days I feel like quite the scientist.
These kind of days make me feel like Queen of the Labrats.
They make it all worthwhile.

I shall begin feeling smug starting...........now.

SCIENCE!!

WANT!!

R2D2 Pepper Mill.

NMEEP! I *need* this...like caffeine...like pie...

*ahem*

May I mention my birthday is coming soon?

Anyone?

Anyone?

Beuller?

Note to self...Geek likes curry

Lesson of yesterday: Do not leave the extra homemade curried lamb burger out to cool...the cat likes them.
J will not eat a burger that has already been nommed on by the Geek. I'm not too sure I could cut off the nibbled on bits and eat it either...would you?? (They're damn good, and I hate to waste them...but y'know, cat drool and all that)

In other news, yesterday I got to go up on the roof. Yup! I've always wanted to. Generally I've stayed off the roof given my ability to injure myself and lose my balance at the drop of a hat, but yesterday was get the roof ready for winter day. Dad wasn't able to do it all before they left, but he left me with simple instructions of what to do, so, after J got back from editing, he and I went up on the roof (!!!!!) . He cleared the gutters while I nailed down and put a sh*tload of cocking (tee hee) compound around the roof vents on the house...one of them has started to leak when it rains. Now (as long as I did it right) they should be hunky dory for a while. I used a whole freaking tube of Mono up there (I figured since I was up there I might as well go to town on anything that looked suspicious and some of the gaps were rather large - no wonder they leaked off and on). I hope there will be no more leaks, and Casa Geo is tucked in for the winter.

I have to say - the view from the roof is spectacular. And I found a set of christmas lights up there (??) along with a bit of the corner of the roof that I need to nail up so the soffat doesn't come off once I get the proper nails. I feel so handy...I think I need my own toolbelt or something...

Casa Geo - for all your vegging needs...

Here at Casa Geo, we strive to give that comfortable, relaxed feel of home. We strive to be the place to lounge about and drink champagne and nibble caviar, er, I mean sip beer and coffee and eat muffins, and feel as though it is our place to call home...

We've been up to a lot as of late...with a strange interlude, and I was going to wait for my reno update until all was back in place. I'm now coming to realize that knowing us and our insane lives it will probably be a while until it is all together...so I decided to give you a little pictoral report on the updating of Casa Geo.

First...the summer project of over a week of solid painting (and an unfortunate injury to a blind saleswoman) that turned this into this:
Spiffed up living room/front entrance
Again...ze living room...
And dining area...with a new light fixture. I'm almost more excited about it than anything else about that room reno :)
Here's a close up. Why? It rocks! Here at Casa Geo we will never speak of the old ugly brass glass thing that hung there ever again...

Not too bad eh? The painting turned out well, and the blinds are great...they match the beam perfectly. And then, thanks to my amazing Dad...there are some new friends in the house:
The Dishpig:

And The Twins:


Yes...Geo saw it, and it was good. So, to try and earn my above rewards, today I have done laundry, taken in the recycling, gotten a sexy new haircut, and am now waiting for J to be done work (boo saturday sports mobiles). I've made some experimental cookies (not bad actually), and tonight I am making some homemade pizza with some tasty sauce sent to be by none other than the lovely Baglady. Yes...I opened my front door the other day to find a parcel from Her Bagness (I do mean that in the kindest possible way :) ) In it were some tasty looking home canned goodies. A little gift box of goodies, all for guessing her photo quiz. Lucky me :)
Thanks a million! (Note to all - if you answer a trivia contest for the Baglady, she is DEFINITELY good for it !)

So there you have it.
What I've been up to when sanity allows.
I'm off for some pizza and coffee...bye! :)

Hokus Pokus Jiggety Jig

Well, there's a big gap in my counter where my old piece o' crap dishwasher used to be. My Dad had a go at replacing it last night with the new one, and like all things with our house, it got complicated. You see, the pipe to it had no shut off valve (??) so we had to shut off water to the whole house...and it would have to remain off until the new one was in...or a valve was installed. It didn't help that the breaker panel is still largely a mystery, so it took a bit to figure out which breaker to flip so as not to electrocute my dear old Dad. Luckily, Dad is a man of many talents, so we turned off the right breaker, the water and removed the old one to discover the wonders therein, and then went on a trek to the hardware store for some stuff needed to install the new one. Just to make it fun, it seems the floor drain on the old one is in the wrong spot and was totally a made up solution, and the water intake had to be redone, so Dad has to make the hole in the floor bigger and get creative about running the drain to the drain in the basement. I hope he's not too pissed off by the end of it all.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Please don't skimp on home renos people. I am amazed at the little cheap things left out by people just trying to save time or money...nickling and diming things to absurdity. Honestly, you save very little and the people after you who just want to make things right or install something new end up cursing you and spending hours in home reno stores trying to figure out just what sort of product will fix your ginormous renovation cockup to get to what you wanted in the first place.

To his credit, Dad put in a shut off valve last night (what a guy) so we had water this morning. Yay. And he said he can do the rest, and has all the bits and bobs to do it, so I'll leave him be.

I left him with a cup of coffee and the installation manual this morning and altho he was making a few odd faces reading through it I am very hopeful that when I get home today there will be a spanky new black dishwasher installed in the counter. If I'm lucky it will even work...oh to dream.

If it does, we're all going out for supper (well OK we are anyways), and Dad gets a dram or 2 of the finest scotch in the place on me.
We shall see...:)