for christmas this year i also got

some preserving skills!

guess what's fun? making things and then putting the things in jars and then sealing the jars and then making fabric tops for the jars and then holding the fabric top on with a twine ribbon and then making a tag for the twine ribbon to say what things you made in the jars are!

it was fun to spend time making peoples christmas gifts cause you could think about them while you were making it. or you could think about what you were doing so you don't mess it up but that's not as festive.

for christmas this year i got

a love for someone new!

and what a cute someone at that.

this is my little neice savannah who think's her name is santa but that's not the only reason i loved her right away.

she recites movies word for word (is that genetic?) she loves playing in blanket forts and she asks one zillion questions about everything.

sometimes when you meet someone, even if they're 3, you just know right away you're meant to be friends.

it’s funny to sing different lyrics to dolly parton’s ‘workin 9 to 5’ song

like ‘workin 9:15 to 3:00’ which are my hours today

or ‘workin 10 or so till 2:00’ which is what i wish my hours were

or ‘workin only when people are watching me the rest of the time i’m making paper ornaments for my little desk christmas tree’

here we go a wassailing

apparently wassailing is a practice that falls under two categories. one of them is going door to door singing christmas carols and the other one is going into an orchard and singing to trees.

i think if i was to be a wassailer, i would prefer the latter because trees would never say OH FOR THE LOVE OF SAINT NICHOLAS, PLEASE STOP WASSAILING they would just listen nicely. or maybe they would silently hate it but at least they wouldn’t be able to say anything because they are trees and trees don’t talk unless they are those mean trees from the wizard of oz.

christmas treasures

lucy and i got together tonight to celebrate the following:

- lucy's return from her 3 month trip abroad

- my engagement to that jeremy character

- christmas

- tuesday

- lucy's new found love of christmas tree decorating

what a festive get together! i loved the little camel she got me. his saddle opens up and you can put things inside. like jewels and secrets.

i also love the ornaments because they not only say 'merry christmas' but they also say 'i no longer loathe decorating trees at christmas time'

today's special

i feel so full of holiday cheer lately i could squeeze everyone around me until their heads popped off.

but then i’d be like ‘woops! your head!’ and the people would be like ‘aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh! my head!’ and that isn’t a very festive exchange now is it?

more accurate name for 'giant tiger'

'large-ish yellow snake-cat'

dear santa

while my colleagues worked on 'work related' tasks, i found time today to write my annual letter to the big guy. i like to send a letter every year letting him know what's going on in my life and checking in to make sure everything's all good with him. it's only polite.

last year he didn't write back on account of one of his helpers in the canada postal service sending out inappropriate letters or something. i would have rather received an inappropriate response than no response but santa didn't ask my opinion so i hope he has a biggie for me this year to make up for our two year correspondence gap.

gang members

see this person? and her adorable daughter?

yeah she pretty much looks this beautiful all the time. which is not surprising considering the family she comes from.

i call her giraffe cause she's tall and has great big eyelashes like giraffes do and even though she looks like someone who eats off fine china (and does) she's the biggest goofball around.

remember strapping pillows to our heads and doing runway shows, giraffe? yeah, that was last year. not much has changed really except now, we strap her daughter to her head to up the ante.

lil tip

you know those rotisserie chickens you can buy from the grocery store for like eight dollars?

buy those more.

me and jer buy them pretty darn often and they make us like 4 tasty meals. usually one where you just eat the chicken with something, another one where you make sandwiches, one where you put it in chicken alfredo (which you can make real easy with a can of mushroom soup, some cream and parmesan) and one where you stuff it in a pot pie with some vegetables.

like holy multi purpose or what?!

i should start expecting this much from all my food. you up to the challenge, big bowl of cheerios?!

cotton headed ninny muggins!

i can't wait to watch this with you.

also i can't wait until i get accepted to elf school. (anydaynow).

and now for a special presentation

it's lucy's first ever drawing on paint!

we did this together almost three years ago at christmastime so now it's worth a lot of money because it's like a piece by van gogh before he became known.

bidding starts at five bajillion dollars.

it's a muffin miracle!

i made these.

myself.

without anyone around.

or any sort of culinary direction from the chef.

or any idea of where the fire extinguisher was in case my solo attempt at baking went awry.

just in case it's out there and i didn't vacuum it up

i'm just joking about the dead or alive part.

please if you find my earring don't kill it, just trap it in a burlap bag and bring it to me to collect your reward.

letters

dear buffy the vampire slayer,

i totally love you.

i watched your whole show for the first time last year and this year i'm watching your whole show again and i love you even more than i did when i first watched you.

you're brave and pretty and i don't know how you ever picked yourself up off the ground after your boyfriend turned evil then turned good again just before you had to kill him to stop the world from being sucked into a hell dimension, but you did it, you picked yourself up from that and you went on to fight more evil and have more boyfriends.

you can do anything, buffy the vampire slayer. you're my hero. i wish we were friends so you could teach me how to kick demons in the head.

for now though, i'll just run away when i see one as i'm not yet properly trained.

your fan,

jennifer robeson

neat things from the world wide web

you can find these and more here.

now i lay me down to sheep

this is how jeremy cooks the lamb, all intertwined like, which is funny because to me it looks as though it's praying.

i bet it prays to be tasty once it's done, and for the veggie sides to be slightly less desirable than itself, and for world peace. because lambs hate conflict.

bounty

sometimes it's good to pry open the little secret doors in your apartment building because you find treasures in there, like miniature plastic basketball players and ten pounds of dust.

i want to add something once i think of the perfect thing. maybe a lady basketball player cause who knows how long he's been in there alone. or a miniature vacuum.

i saw this this weekend!

video

and it's one hundred and fifty times more beautiful/tragic/uplifting than this trailer lets on.

don't worry about getting popcorn, your eyes will have more than enough to feast on for the whole show. maybe get a soda pop though.

happy start to the christmas season everyone

for me, it came this weekend.

maybe cause mom came early in the week as she does to do her yearly christmas visit; maybe cause jeremy and i planned our christmas gifts this weekend over large amounts of tea; maybe cause i can sense that day a coming - that day when everyone stops to celebrate together.

i won't be here this year for that, which will be a change, but i bet that calm will find me. santa seems to always work that sort of thing out.

xx

pas de deux

last night i went to a benefit performance put on by the espressivo ballet company which is where i take my lessons that i am loving so much and it was WONderful! really truly wonderful.

my teacher, also known as the director of the company waved at me from across the room which was a highlight but the dancing and music were pretty incredible also.

i came home and strapped on my ballet slippers and danced circles around jeremy while he cooked us up something delicious and when he tried to interrupt me i shouted 'I'M TOO EXCITED TO HAVE A TWO SIDED CONVERSATION I JUST WANT TO DANCE AROUND AND SHOUT ABOUT MY NIGHT'

which is probably exactly how ballerinas act. i think.

peep

http://wovenplay.com/

between a rock and another rock

look at all these!

i like the log one and the rock one (above).

i bet some people wonder when they look at this house, how it was built in such narrow quarters.

my hunch is it was built elsewhere as a bungalow, wedged itself in this rock crevice during a game of house hide and seek, got bored waiting for another house to find it, gorged itself on snacks until it grew into a two storey and was unable to move back to where it came from!

that's the most likely option, anyways.

one major difference between me and photos of me

if you look up close, photos of me are made up of many many pixels. looking at real me from the same distance you will note i am made of cells and bones and silly putty.

sweets

this morning as we walked into the subway and i went to catch my bus and you went to catch your train and we kissed (like we do every morning at that same spot), it smelled of cinnamon buns and i felt warm.

also, i wanted to eat some icing.

sometimes ads are cute

like these fellers! for the calgary farmers market!

i wonder if the worm has his toque over his eyes because he has no eyes or if he's just a big show off who's all 'ooo look at me i'm a worm i don't need to see to slalom down the hill'

cause i've had just about enough of braggarty worm athletes.

tomorrow however, it's brussels sprouts.

artisan bun debate

i thought the bun looked like fozzie bear and jeremy thought the bun looked like a ninja.

we decided to eat the bun to settle the argument and it didn't taste like either, unless fozzie bear tastes like a giant pretzel.

two thumbs up for art!

yesterday jeremy and i spent a few hours looking at art by a chap named pieter brueghel who was apparently very influential in the art world for many reasons, one of them being he was the only painter in his time to paint common folk doing common folk things while his colleagues were all painting rich people doing rich people things (sitting with their dogs i think). another reason is he was one of the first people to paint scenery for scenery's sake (instead of just as a pretty background for the rich people/dog combo).

some of his paintings are of big common people parties in the woods and some of them are of the worlds craziest hodge podge of things you could just spend a forever looking at them.

LOOK HIM UP!

don't be mad if you write him fan mail and he doesn't write back though, it's not personal he just died five hundred years ago.

i can't tell you what the christmas cards i bought today look like because then when you get them they won't be a surprise

but they're cute.

real cute.

xo

the olden days had fun songs about food stuffs

so, like, when you eat your smarties do you eat the red ones last do you suck them very slowly or crunch them very fast eat that candy-coated chocolate but tell me when i ask when you eat your smarties do you eat the red ones last?

because i was just wondering.

wedding clue

letters

dear advertisement,

I LOVE YOU.

sincerely,

jennifer robeson

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it's ok if you cry watching this video (GET THE KLEENEX OUT GRAMMIE!)

it's ok if you don't cry too*

also it's ok if you just cry because the song choice is so hilarious

*(just maybe something is wrong with you)

first snow - the art exhibit

LAND HO

i know this is really horrible and these guys are criminals and should have to face the long arms of the law but PIRATES!! real pirates!! real pirates in real life doing things!!

i hope more story time characters start surfacing here and there. like a gang of wizards. or a posse of lone rangers. or just one ranger cause they feel more comfortable solo.

this is seriously my deepest down dream, for things from adventure books and fantasy books and princess bride to come true in my everyday life. the other day i said to jer "i hope that on my death bed, all of the made-up things i've wished were so will come out and confess their realness to me"

i have a feeling he'll be doing some costume changes during my final hours.

LOOK AT ME MAKING IT BIG!

yesterday i realized i have more than one kind of mustard in my fridge and not because the take-out place sent mismatched packets!

i think that means i'm an adult. no maybe if i have one of those little mustard serving spoons THEN i'm an adult. proper servings spoons for things are a sure sign.

i like how the one has little balls in it. er mustard seeds.

fact

it's impossible for me to say 'swedish massage'

instead i always say 'shweedish mashage' and one time i even said ' can you shay it shweetie?' in the same sentence when i was trying to spit it out.

HAHAHAHHA TRUE STORY!

thankfully, i can say swedish meatball without any difficulty.

how to: play the fun image internet search game

step one: cue up the google image search finder

step two: close your eyes

step three: hit a bunch of keys

step four: hit enter

step five: look at all the neat stuff that comes up

source: all of these below pics were found using this following blind search command: gjj