On Voicemail and Other Representations of Myself.

I've pretty much been a hermit for the last bunch of months. I haven't always felt like picking up the phone, or answering a text. I made plans that I cancelled. I said I'd be there and didn't go. I didn't text you back.

I don't really have a great excuse. I barely have enough time to get up, get myself to work, work 8 hours, get myself home, wind down, eat, change, go to bed, rinse and repeat. I have such a huge list in my brain of things I want to do in my real life and I've been squeezing them in bit by bit.

Somehow other people manage to work full time and have a life and not be overwhelmed by their lack of me-time. Or maybe work is their life. I love the people I work with - they are wonderful. But when I am at work I just am not doing anything on my top 10,000 things I would like to do with my time.
So I'm taking Friday off and this weekend I'm going to sleep in and we are going to visit the new Casa Herrling up in Courtenay, which will be wonderful. I'm anticipating coffees, dog walking, adorable horse-obsessed toddler, great visiting and a big bowl of me-time.

Oh, Annie.

I'm not much of a food blogger but this is so delicious I need to tell you all about it. Baby carrots, grape tomatoes and a little of this and it's better than any snack I can think of. Really. Or else, I'm pretty sure a dab of this would make even the most delicious thing more delicious.

Notice it's half-gone. Just bought it on Wednesday.

Finished

How's this for $20 plus a can of stain? (And 18 hours of work.)

The 'after' shot.

It was supposed to turn out much more black, but I'm pretty happy with it just the same.

The Most Delicious

Just this past week I have found my love for sashimi. I have not stopped craving it. I think I'm making up for my 28 years of being repulsed by it.

Our yellow-fin tuna steaks. The j-e-l-l-o of the sea.

Ahi and yellow fin (both tuna) nigiri in the foreground,
delicious avocado nigiri in the background.

Our amazing maki plate.

A good thing to do before preparing sashimi is to research the potential for food poisoning.
So we did.

My conversation with the market meat guy:
Me: I am making sashimi. Can I eat this fish raw?
Market Meat Guy: No, it has been previously frozen. You can only eat fish raw if it is fresh.

My internet research:
Me: google search "sushi raw previously frozen"
Multiple internet sites: It is FDA recommended that all sashimi be previously frozen to avoid adverse reactions.

I'll let you know if we barf.

Also, I put new things up on Etsy tonight. I've wanted to reincarnate old leather jackets for awhile. I have decided that it's better to make use of old orphaned leather products. Much better than buying new leather. One less dead cow. One less wasted dead cow.

I found a great old tacky red suede jacket second-hand. This was perfect for some recycled leather cuffs that I've wanted to do for awhile. And here they are:

My Love Is Huge!

My House - Your House Map

PS: Lydia, I did the Sakura pendants you said I should!

Never Going to be Finished

Because I didn't have enough on my to-do list, I bought an adorable desk off of usedvictoria.com that I fell in love with AND it was only $20. I learned that the magic word in getting a piece of furniture you want is "truck". This one lady said she received so many emails asking questions about it but she responded to mine because all I said was I wanted it and I have a truck to pick it up. So it's mine now and it's a lot of work.

Here is the front: I have picked up a beautiful
almost-black stain once I finish stripping it.

Here is the side: it's so cute. And $20.

So I have access to a truck because our car broke down. And in typical Jade fashion, it happened late on Christmas Eve. The clutch pedal broke, which isn't that expensive to fix, but when they looked underneath the car, they found 4 major safety hazards. Those are things that *need* to get fixed, not to mention there are so many things that we *want* to get fixed.

So Ted's wonderful parents lent us their truck. And now I have more furniture.

I'm off now to pick up two side tables and a coffee table. $65! I'm going to refinish those too.