recipe journal art pages

these are pages i am working on for a new art journal for school for my recipes and stuff!

it was an old one I had kicking around that still has lots of blank space to fill, so i figured what better way to fill it than with school stuff!

these pics are taken during the process of
getting it ready for using...

there was writing across several pages i wanted to get rid of - so rather than rip them out- i painted them, glued some together and cut doors out as peek-holes...

i am making pockets and want to do pull out pages as well for this one

this is the first time i ahve attempted to alter an art journal- and most art journals before were simply stuff i collaged into or ripped stuff out of-

actually Altering them & journaling is a new one for me...

this book is also my learning book-
i want to learn how to do Altered Books & I need a place to practise and work out the kinks for my recipes for school!

School is going very well at the moment, thanks!

I played a part on a Team Project this past week- and round the group we all got between 92 and 95%- I myself got a 24.5/25 on a Gnocci dish I had only prepared once in my lifetime before!

Gnocci is a dumpling made by centuries by Italians; its a little tricky to do...
I got it right- so I am on the right track!

I will do a post about that event and things later on- I really wanted to post these journal pics for you to check out!

anyways-
i will post more journal pages as this thing progresses along!
hope u like the pics!

Dragonfly's n Keys...

So that is an Altered Key I did for Deb, a friend in Nebraska...

I am mailing it off this coming Friday, and I sure hope she likes it!

It is acrylic painted; with metallic-tape wings and a braided tail and gold charm I got in the mail... the little blue dot is a bubble "d: that I put on for Dragonfly, and also for her name, Deb...

Like I said, hope she likes it!

The Great Big NO Expectations Blog!!!

No Expectations.... heh heh heh

Why would I say that?
no expectations and what is making this a great big blog about no expectations????

"With a title like that, this had better be good'
people will say, 'or else, I want my money back!"

You seeing & reading this is FREE- so It's a No Go on the Refundage of the Dough! and stop being so cheap!!!

As for the title....
Well. I have found in the past, that people put a hell of a lot of expectations on blogs... You see a listing for a Blog of someone, hey! maybe you even know them!

OMG! How Cool is That???

WARNING!!!
This is not a cool blog- cuz I am not cool. At all....

I have no life, and reading back thru my entries, and entries on other blogs you may come across of mine; you will see that!

I go for weeks at a time without posting!

I talk about projects but rarely post pics of them!

I rant on things once in a while and sometimes make no sense at all...

So don't have gigantic expectations going into reading this blog, and you will do just fine!! However, if u persist in having expectations, than I am telling ya now- you will be disappointed!

Back to the title...
I recently (half an hour ago as I type this) put my blog listing on my Facebook page... and I expect there will be a few people checking this out..
(Hi People Checking This Out!!!)

So this is kind of a warning- don't get too excited..
Not a whole lot to see here...
Sometimes I post pictures, sometimes I don't.
Sometimes I rant, sometimes I don't...
I try not to name names... and now that I said that, I will have to proof all blog entries to change names where applicable... damn.

I am pretty straight forward, and I don't pull punches; I smoke and I swear sometimes...and I like a good glass of Bourbon...

So there ya go...
one blog entry for today.
lol.... wasn't too exciting, was it?
'til next time....

Yet Another New Year...

well... here we are, 365 days have passed without us knowing, and we have yet another New Year.

I am almost 38, the novelty of New Year's has definitely worn off... I was in bed by 11:45 on New Year's Eve... I had been invited to go to a party, but.... I just don't have the spirit. And I had other things I needed to get done, too...

For the past few eyars, I have made sure my Last Day of the Year is spent engaged doing things that are important to me... cleaning the house; doing laundry and finishing projects I'd started- or at least working on them at some point during the day... I spend New Year's Day, typically working on artwork or I make the effort to visit (if not in person, at least on the phone). So this year, I made my calls and spent the day playing with paints and markers and glue and papers and scissors... Oh My!

Art saved my life.

Well, okay let's not be all over-the-top with drama here...

Art allows me to maintain a few threads to Sanity when it is rapidly diminishing.

I spent my new years day working on new projects and some older ones I have to get in the mail.

It may be New Year's week in reality...

- but in the mail art world-

its Mail Out Time for Valentine's!!

so I am up to my neck in red paint, glitter, gold paint and stamps and omg! the fun I am having... lol

Elephant Update-

the Elephant ATC Swap was successful!

So far all the people who've received ATC's in the swap I hosted are happy....

I surprised everyone with an Elephant Host card-

almost everyone sent me an extra card, as a Thanks for hosting the swap... Originally I was going to do 3- a red one, a yellow one and a green one...

But 3 turned into 4 of each colour, as I was working on backgrounds with paint...

So everyone got one!!!

hmmm- there is one person who was mad her cards were a bit late- mind you she mentioned it AFTER she received her cards- I was more than happy to send them out on itme, but people said they didn't mind waiting for the last set to come in.... if she minded, she should have said something beforehand, rather than complain after the fact... That's all I am saying...

The strange thing is, out of 13 participants (me included) only one set of cards never made it to my door.. There were a few people who said I could hang onto their cards, to sort with these ones I was waiting for; So i proceeded to mail the other 8 out...

____________________________

New Years...

I haven't made any resolutions. I don't want the pressure of trying to keep them!

I am hoping to return to school in another 10 days....

BUT - i am not sure I will be able to.

My tuition was paid for, the first course; by Indian Affairs.. and now the funding is gone. So I am scrambling to get funding from an Emloyment resource... There is a 95% chance I will get it.... it's the 5% not getting approval I am worried about...

But

I gave my paperwork to someone who is certain I will be approved; she also proofed my submission's and told me I had gone above and beyond with the information I was providing..

Turns out my legal-secretary knowledge came in quite handy, for once... Apparently, my over-wordiness came in handy when explaining my situation as well..

so... keeping my fingers crossed.

____________________

School....

What can I say... studying to be a chef is a heckofalot of hard work.

There is Theory to study and know + practical experience + practical learning for new techniques.

My first course I passed with an 80%.

It would have been higher...

but....

-I screwed up on my Practical. The chicken wound up over done, the soup split and they were pissed about my salad (no croutons and cheddar cheese- don't ask) I barely passed- with a 70; I lost an autommatic 10% because it was 45 minutes late... so.....

also.... she says sheepishly...

I have an attitude problem.

well.... tell us something we didn't know, Howie!

yeah.

I have an attitude problem.

so.......... :sarcastic interlude: were it not for my ability to screw-up & gracefully save my own ass everytime;

and were it not for my lovely-stellar-bouncy-happy Howie attitude.. :end sarcastic interlude:

My mark would have been higher.

But I did get an 80... so I must have gotten something out of it....

___________________________________

So how was my Christmas???

It was nice- I spent the day with my Cousin and her friends and kids... Than I came home and spent the evening with my Roomie playing video games....

I got some jewellery from my parents and a few other things (books)- mind you htey have to ship them to me, so... it wasn't a huge amount of loot-

but than my family do so much for me, that trinkets at Christmas can't compare...

Speaking of Christmas Presents.....

I have a friend in Kingston Penitentiary. I have known him for 15 years; he's a Lifer. (not to be confused with Idiot-Boy, my Very Recent Ex)

I had made a joke last summer, about him sendng me stamps so I can afford to write him more often; as I was about to be a poor starving student...

For Christmas,

I got an envelope with stickers and doodles all over it ( he kows I love mail-art)

than INSIDE was another envelope- a red one with writing saying

Merry Christmas Baby Sister.... I won these for you!

Inside the red envelope was 15 loose stamps.

He couldn't go to a mall and buy me perfume like he wanted to,

or send me money to help me out even though I need help right now....

but

he could send me the one thing he knows I need alot of... Stamps... a murderer with a heart of gold....

sigh.

It's getting late, this blog was only going to be a blurb to say Happy New Years! and here it is running on and on and on...

I have some mail to send out, some letters to finish and some paint to get working on...

Happy New Year.... see ya next time.

Options After the Break Up

So I moved here to work on a relationship with someone who claimed he wanted to be in a relationship with me.
I thought we were in relationship for the last 2 years- but evidently I thought wrong.

I found out in the last 3 months that this prison relationship was over-
I found out that he had used me and it hurts- alot.
I found out he was and is essentially a lying, cheating manipulating waste of my time.

It hurts -alot- when you put much energy + feeling + emotion into a relationship only to have it thrown back in your face.
It is humiliating to tell someone you love them, want only to be with them, move across counrty and have them lie to you about everything- it is just plain humiliating.

How dumb do I look- extending this man help, good faith and love-
all of my friends had warned me- but I followed my heart and had to find out for myself.
I ahve the courage to do that-
sometimes it gets me hurt...

But this hurt isn't like the hurt of losing Seth-
him I was with for several years- and it took several eyars after him to be gone for me to really move along and get on with my life...

This hurt, from the humiliation, from the anger and torrent of name-calling and lies- this hurt sits in my chest and I have moments where I feel like my heart is going to explode...

To be told that you are sweet, that you are loved, that you are special is the most amazing thing in the world- than to ahve that same person prove to yu there words and letters were lies...

Well.

I wish I could say I am the better person- but I don't know.

I wish I could take a baseball batt to his knees and give him just one ounce of the pain he has inflicted on me...

I wish that he would know what it is like to lose night after night sleep over worrying about someone you love...

I wish that he knew the sacrifices I made to be in this relationship with him-
the problems I incurred moving here to be near him- the expenses...

And I don't wnat to get into the money I provided during his incarceration- it totals over well $3000.

The worst part is,
in his final letter to me- not only does he admit he doesn't Want me- he doesn't Care for ME-he's not een Attracted to me....
That stings and hurts, and it smells pretty god damned rotten to me....
but
I have felt rejection before, so it's no big deal- it hurts, like a paper cut- for a short while, it stings - but there are bigger and better things out there, and a little paper-cut won't get in the way... there are also worse things I could have gone through with him....

But you know,
he still wants to leave the door open- he still might want to be with me..
IF I do as I am told- because apparently he is incapable of being in a relationship with a woman who has a mind and thinks for herself...
IF I am submissive to him, and follow his every move- which if I had done that, I would be in prison right now myself.. so...
IF I join a gym and pare my voluptuous 240 pound body down to a 19 year old models-size 5 body... which isn't going to happen.
IF I shave certain body parts so the smell doesn't offend him- can you imagine? Body parts he's never even looked at, let alone sniffed to see if they stink...body parts he's only thought about for 18 months!
IF I stop asking questions- seems he can not handle the idea of Accountability too well, either...

He still might want me for his woman... Do you believe that?

In a pig's eye.

He knows he is a good looking man.
when your whole show, so far has been based on lies and bullshit, and your next act features a Follow Up.... well, good looks don't cut the mustard anymore, do they? The follow up requires balls, character and a spine- none of which he seems to have...

He thinks it is okay to commit crime....
That would be why he is in prison- because its okay, but its not okay to get caught... I walked away from a life of BS and crime awhile ago. I have told him I was OUT of it, It's taken more than 10 very long years to get away from it and get passed street life...

He thinks its okay to mis-use, abuse and emotionally wound people....
It's okay -for him- that I wasted 18 months of my lie catering to him,
loving him and providing for him- its okay that its over and we both go our separate ways, he didn't lose anything, so he has no concept of how much I might have lost... He did not contribute a damn thing- so he has no clue. sigh.

And he is about to learn why its wrong to mess with intelligent women, especially this one.
That man is aobut to get a big giant clue, and it's gonna smack him right in the head.

See, what this prisoner I have been involved with fails to realize is that I have options.

I have had the option to remain faithful- and I did that.
I had the option to help or not and I did help him...

I spoiled him til he was rotten apparently- or maybe he was rotten to begin with and I am only catching a whiff now? that could be...

Going into this relationship,
I was coming out of a serious relationship with an African man.
It wasn't over, this relationship with the Arican, but it was fizzling out when I met the guy in prison.

I told the African guy about the guy in prison- he said no problem... We ended fairly amicably-he was the right guy at the wrong time, and I was the right girl at the wrong time for him....
I spoke with him a day or two ago- I wanted to just say Hi- we used to be good friends... and that option- of going back and resuming that relationship is still there- someone loves me- even if prison guy doesn't...

It's an option....
He was so upset when I was gone and had moved- none of my friends would tell him where I was.... but he's forgiven me- misses me and sometimes I miss him too...
If the guy I met and dated who was aprisoner, had not of come along, would I still be with this African Guy? Yes. I would have married him...eventually.

Most of my relationships have ended amicably...
It's the ones where I put out more than I had returned to me, where I get hurt...

I got this letter on Monday from my Prisoner.
Not a nice letter, but a fairly nasty one.

I know him well enough by now to know two things:
1- its not over for him, he wants me in his life so if things go worng he can count on me...
2- he has no clue what I am preparing for him, for my last letter to him...

So I took his letter and I photocopied it.
His letter is 2 pages, the one I am sending back is at least 12.

I am quite offeneded by some of what he has to say
- and just outright angered - by the rest of it.
so I hi-lited the offenseive parts
and am writing a minium of a one page response to them.
Each line I have written in the margins a comment about what he is saying...

You know.
Breaking up is hard-

It's not that I want him in my life- I suffer no further delusions with this guy.
i would be a fool to want a lying, manipulating POS in my life, you know?

It's that I want to cut him out of my life comletely

this back dooor comment- about him still wanting to be with me- never gonna happen.

I am the best thing that has ever happened in his life.
I have shown him more kindness and love- genuine love than even his own family. I gave him 200% of what I had to give, and I say that without regret.

When a man in prison sits in a visiting room with you,
alone
and cries with his head in your hands about no one but You (me)
loving him or caring for him while he's been in prison....

When I confirm with his own Mother that yes,
the family washed their hands of him and no one will help him - than you know some of what he has said was true...
I made sure for 18 months he had his needs met while in prison, and I even moved here to be with him in this...
Not even one of his friends or family even came to visit him the whole time he has been inside...

He is due out on parole in December.
They will place him in a half-way house
where he will see if he can stay out of jail
and hopefully go back into his life in another year....

Good luck.
That's all I can say.

I don't dare say the truth-
that he will be back in prison or jail within 90 days because he won't be able to handle it, he will want money and will do whatever he deems necesary to get it....
He is already planning his grand re-entry into the seemy world of drugs and internet porn...

Have at it, my friend.

Just leave me alone.
When the cops take you in again,
and they book you and stick you in a cell with a few other criminals-
when you get thru your arraignment and they discover youre out on parole...
and when they ship your ass back to KP faster than I can wipe my own clean of you-
than....

good luck.

because when that day happens

I won't be there
to take the calls, to provide canteen money, phone card money,
nor will I be there to give him badly needed visits;
I will never again
send out boxes of clothing to him in prison, so he can wear tshirts other than the blue prison issued he would have had, had I not proovided his cell contents to him...
The TV and radio and CD player and playstaion in his cell, next time around, will not come from me.

When I say I want him out of my life- I mean that. I want him out of it- I want no reminders of him, no calls, no more letters -nothing-

it's over.

The hard part is
getting his voice and his face out of my head.

The hard part is
waking up and not thinking about him first thing... is he okay? is he safe?

The hard part is
reconciling the fact that I lost big time...

The hard part is
geting on with things in a life, in a city where everything I did was geared towards Him- my friends here are his, he introduced me to them....

The hard part is
choking back the bile that raises up in my throat whenever I drive past the prison, forcing myself to not cry, or shake whenever I go past the buildings... knowing the man I loved and followed for 18 months is in there and wants nothing to do with me...

sigh

It's over.

I have options.

I got his letter on Monday this past week and am working on my lengthy, intelligently written reply to him. That is my option- to reply to him in an intelligent, eloquently penned, heartfelt letter explaining to him in nice ways why he is a bag of shit and why I am moving on...

I got an email from a man I dated, before Prison Guy; on the same Monday-
asking if I was single yet...
&
What do ya know- suddenly I am single again.... I told him, in my reply that my 'thing' in Kingston with the prisoner was over, that yes, I am single again....

Email Man, is not to be confused with AFrican Guy- they are two separate people...

And on Thursday afternoon I got together with that Email Man.
We wound up spending a great deal of it in each others arms in a motel here in Kingston...

This is the same guy I met at the airport in late April for supper,
while on my flight out here. I told him about prison guy at that supper and he told me he would wait and hope for me to become single again....

I have options with this break up.

I have the option to lay down and cry like a baby-and I might do that some more... I cried alot more tears over the past eyar for him, because of him, and I am not naive enough to say I won't cry a few more....

I have the option to send him a hastily written nasty reply OR an intelligently written one... I will opt for intelligence over nastiness- I will not stoop to name calling or ignorant rudeness- I will be direct, open and very clear...

I have the option to keep this lying bag of bones in my life, too
- let's not forget that...
If I go along with his assinine requests and expectations....
If I don't mind my own needs taking a back seat to his own selfish needs, sure!

I have the option of running away, but this time, I don't think so.

This time, I am walking away.
I am walking away from a bad relationship with my dignity and my emotions in tact.

I am walking away while I can... one step at a time.

Walking away from a loser who wants the selfish fantasy of a woman's foolish adoration rather than hard-reality of what relationship and real love are about...

I am walking away knowing things about myself this time:

I CAN be faithful.. something I had doubts about at one point.

I CAN be generous & caring & giving and I CAN provide fully, going above and beyond for a person I love. I can be and am a genreous woman when I love, that is not going to be gone, although he will never get that loving generousity again, it's hard to come by in owmen these days- I know this because I ahve had several men from my life tell me so....

I CAN also walk away & never look back.
I know, now, there is nothing this man can ever offer me that will match what I have to offer him.
There is also nothing he could ever say or do to get back in my life either- it's over.

And I have that email-man to help me get over it...
He's been waiting in the wings for 2 years while I moved and moved and finally landed here....
He wanted to come to visit me out west last winter, and it wouldn't ahav been a problem, except for this prisoner and I couldn't fool around on him- not when I was working on remaining faithful to him... Also, he couldn't visit, as I was staying with my folks, and having your lover visit at your parents house isn't cool- if I'd had my own place, I might have said Yes, Come!

But I didn't and he waited...
and than waited while I went thru the motions with the prisoner...

All I can say-
my email reply to him was fast-
his reply faster still- I will be there Thursday to see you....
and he was...
This is the same guy who had mentioned on our second date he'd marry me in a heartbeat, if only... (he is divorced, he has obligations)
Also the same guy who, when I had a pregnancy scare, was there 100%- and this isn't one of those things that had ever happened to me- it was scary, but He handled it like a pro- he was hurt, though when my period finally came and I was relieved- he had hoped that..... well. He had hoped.
and now
2 years later he still wnats me in his life, he says the memory of me in his head keeps bugging him and he can't get me out of his head....
where this idiot in prison wants nothing more to do with me....

and let's face it

if you bite the hand that feeds you- you are an idiot.

when you walk away from the one woman who has provided all the while for you in prison, you are an idiot.

when you lie to a woman who gives to you selflessly, generously and more so than any of the other people before her in your life, than you are an idiot to throw that loving kindness away.

when a woman moves 1/2 way across country to be with you, and you continuously show her what an idiot you are by calling her ridiculous names and having ridiculous expectations of her- than you are, by all means an idiot.

I have had enough idiots in my life to last the rest of it- no more. Now I think I will go for the man who isn't an idiot.... The one who had hope for two years, not the one who is completely, utterly hope-less.

I have options- far more than that prisoner thinks I have.

And the options I have do not have to include him.

Now, there are some cards I have to work on, and I have a Skinny Page to finish and send out...
And there is a certain man I want to call and bug this lovely, sunny Sunday morning...
Until next time...

I think you can see by the pictures I have put up on this blog, the ones of my own artwork,
that it created by somene who thinks pretty much outside of their proverbial box.

In this world there are things we like and things we don't, that's pretty much concrete.

I might like hot and spicy, and maybe you hate it, or vice versa...
I might like this author, you might hate them-
there are people we like and dislike.... for different reasons... we all have different preferences in the company we keep.

It's kind of what makes life interesting - choice -
otherwise it'd be a pretty boring day if we all liked the same thing all the time..
the consequences, I would think, is that there'd be little margin for error and little room for improvement...

I don't know what I want to be when I grow up.
But when I die, at some point in the far distant future, I hope;
I hope that I will be able to say that during my life I learned what I needed to learn.

I like being in a kitchen.
I enjoy the work and preparation of dishes, and have been 'playing' in my own kitchen and in my mum's growing up, it's alot of fun...

I have good friends who come from restaurant kitchen's in Toronto.
When I was around them; I became aware of all that they knew and watched...
There were frequent nights before and after there shift, they'd come to 'our' place and cook- my Tamil guys. I got to know them because my closest neighbor was Tamil and these guys were all family... They had this cameraderie that was awesome!

Because of them I became a curry fiend.... and I also know how to prepare a few real Tamil curries from scratch... I was so - insert word here, because jealous doesn't quite capture it- of how efficiently and thoroughly they did their stuff in the kitchen... I really wished I knew how to do it the way they did...

I have enjoyed cooking and baking since I was a child- it's fun. Next to sewing class, cooking was my favorite class in high school. They were also the only two I excelled in, simply because I chose to apply myself to them, and not always to others.
I worked summers in high school, down east; in anursing home as a kitchen assistant.

While I spent the alst winter out at HOME; I did most of the cooking. I was offered a job, through word of mouth that I was a good cook. When I applied for the job in a retirement complex; I didn't give too much thought to whether or not I would get it- I had my sights on Prison Boy and Kingston. The pig barns would offer more bang for my buck when it came to money, so getting the job as a cook for the home wasn't a priority.

I was amazed when I was told soon they would work me into the work rotation- excited - but scared shitless. The only real kitchen Work experience I have is as a dishwasher or veggie peeler... Certainly not qualified to run a kitchen that cooks for 35, when my cooking has been limited to cooking for 5 or 6 maximum!

Because I lost my office job last year, I went thru unemployment;
now I am eligible thru them to go for job training... I can't afford to pay for schooling!
I'd be a fool to squander an opportunity like this!

So far, work wise- I have always lucked out with jobs.
I pretty much landed them by being in the right place at the right time - certainly, I wasn't always qualified, exactly, but the prospective employers saw potential... I try to be friendly and I am willing to learn... Working on costumes for the Lion King, or Mamma Mia; doing workshops with streetkids at a working arts studio for street involved youth; doing reception and secretary stuff for legal clinics, and because of that landing a job as an assistant manager in a retail store, have even worked in a hog barn -

But...
I spent too many years doing jobs I couldn't stand...
I am not cut out to be a worker ant on a cube-farm, and I plan avoid doing THAT for the rest of my life! I don't have the desire to wrok with livestock animals again- its dirty in more ways than one - i won't complain about it too much- I did do the job, afterall- but I would not do it again, not if I could avoid it!

So I have this chance to go back to school and retrain....
I spent time in my working life in the arts and realized that for me, being creative is enough - working in a creative venue full time is taxing on my own personal creative side- it's ahrd to create your own stuff, after an 18 hour day creating someone else's fantasy in silk and sequins...

I decided to train in a field I love- culinary creativity!!! and I am training to become a chef.
I don't know that I will ever Be a Chef
- but-

I am taking this time in my life to train to become one...
Those skills are viable skills- I can literally travel around the world and work!

But
I got to finish the classes first...

I haven't been a student in many years... I had forgotten how to study. I am also aware that in high school- I was pretty lazy and never studied- I coasted along collecting relatively mediocre grades that were good enough to get out of there with a diploma...

In college, I did fairly well- I was studying Fashion Merchandising...what a mistake.
I have never wanted to work in business- I hate having to learn about numbers- I am kind of dyslexic when it comes to numbers.... We ahd to do english classes and maths and science course, as well- which was dumb because I was there to learn fashion- not repeat high school!

Needless to say,
beginning this course has been a hard slap with reality.
I had no idea How To Study! I never did it before! So I am learning to learn in a fashion other than osmosis!

There is alot to learn- a good chef must have thorough working knowledge of all aspects of kitchen life-
business end (overhead costs, staffing needs, keeping maintenace and inspections regularly scheduled, menu costs pricing, etc...)
food end (purchasing ingredients, storing, cooking and disposing of foods, menu preparations, recipe alterations and adjustments...)
staffing- (chef's need to know who is capable of doing what and are in charge of keeping everything running smoothly...)

It's alot of work- and we are learning from the ground up!

But you know what?
I love it alot!

I think I finally made the right choice for my self - t, the Best Choice for myself -to train in a field I love; rather than train in a field that I might grow to despise within several years... That was the problem with Fashion Merchandising- I found it very superficial and hated it...

One day I got up, and excused myself from a class about trends in the 90's (It was 1990) I went to my locker emptied it & than I left...

This act opened a new chapter in my life, within a few months I would be living with new friends in the downtown core... but that is another story...

This has been along entry and I will leave it there...
Until next time.....

A Student Again!

It's more than mid-way thru October and the weather is changing from warm and sunny to cold and dreary and grey..

The Elephant Swap is well under way, and I have even received 2 sets of cards, both from the States.. The deadline isn't until the end of November, so I have lots of time to get my own 3 cards finished...

3- I am kind of thinking about doing a whole set of 12 cards- and sending one out to each of the participants- as a hostess thank you card - I don't know... I have 4 weeks to decide than make them... lol

Typical Procrastinators Response-

I still got time to figure it out....

I am a student again.
Never in a million years would I (or any close to me) have thought I would be back in school.
And to study cooking- something I thought I already knew....

There is a big difference between being a cook and being a Chef... anyone can cook, but it takes special skills and knowledge to become a Chef.... But I am doing it-

You know, I never thought I would go back to school-
I went to college when I was 18, like everyone else.... and I quit mid-way through it cause I just couldn't stand it- classes and the people and the homework...

But you know.... being 37 in school and being 18 in school are two very different experiences.

When I was 18, I was literally OUT on my own for the first time in my life, in a Huge city, to boot! So naturally there were better things to do than study!!!
There were malls to go to, places to see and there were beers and various sundry alcohols to consume!

And now, at 37...
I don't drink anymore, rarely bar-hop (can't remember the last time I did that, actually) and haven't been in a night-club for eons.
(when you're this old, you measure your time in eons!)

I study daily- what we learned yesterday, what we learned today and pre-read for tomorrow. I hope some of it sinks in-

There is a sense of calm, for me now, in school.
I AM where I want to be- I am studying a craft, I guess- because cooking is a craft- its a measure of this and that to get the sauce/roast/desert to come out just right... and I am loving it....

I pay attention because this is it-
This is it-
there may never be another chance to study again- it is Unemployment Insurance who are footing the bill- essentially, because it is better to pay for me to go to school and retrain, than to keep me in the system ...
I say this is it, because there may never be another chance in my life, where I can take 30 weeks to just go to school... you know?

The thing that gets me-
there are a few students in our class who are young- not mature- and I listen to them, and I am glad to be an adult student in this class.... These same people are also the ones who suck-up to the instructor, I might add.

I am glad to be a 37 year old woman in school- there are things I have knowledge about, that I didn't have at 18....
Thre is also the factor that I WANT to be there- I want to be labouring over the pot of stock trying to get it right.... I want to be learning about various thickeners and there properties and I want to be there daily to learn...

There are a few, like I said who are there, but the way they carry themselves- it's that youthful-bliss thing...
We all went through it- living with our heads up our asses and thinking our opinion is the only one that matters.... And than, some of us, pull our heads out, we grow up and there we are...

Adults with no clue what we wanna do when we grow up....
Like me- I still have no real solid idea what I wanna actually DO when and if I grow up....

It's funny. One or two of the kids in our class have this idea that they wanna be these world-famous chefs and be reknowned for their artistic skill in the culinary field...
yet they don't wanna listen to the instructor- as is eveident by the inane conversations they carry on when he is trying to speak....
which is also dis-respectful, but than at that age, they don't even know what respect means, so how can you expect them to give it?
They don't wanna 'do' kitchen stuff that isn't 'fun' and whine when it becomes 'boring'

And of course, you who know me best- know how outspoken I am; know how little time I make for babies and childish-acting people....So- let's jsut say there are a couple of people in my class I dread dealing with.... It's the attitude that no one's opinion matters more than their own....

The ironic thing- I have always been pegged by 'people' as having an Attitude Problem" and sometimes, I do... But really.... I don't.

There are certain ways people should behave and there are ways they shouldn't.
Pretty simple.
I learned that on the street, and at home-

When you are over 15, whining isn't attractive at all- it makes you look like a goddamn baby.
And
Unless there are kittens, puppies or infants present,
than an annoying Baby-voice is just plain fucking annoying...

so, if I come across as having this 'attitude'.... because I have to listen to your whining, incessant complaining about how something doesn't match your 23-year-old seen it all-attitude...
Or
if I seem abrupt at your stupid whiny-baby-voice and your over-confident ego becomes more fragile under the stress of me not liking the way you behave- than build a bridge and get the fuck over it already!

Yeah- bit of a rant there, sorry.

My point is.... there is no point.
I am in school, in a city I despise and trying to put together a swap online... in the mean time I study and go to school...

We have a test tomorrow, speaking of studying.... and in fact there are 2 of them, so I need to bone-up on my Cookies, Desserts and the Last Chapter-
funny- we just always call it the last chapter- instead of by its actual name- which I would tell you- but I don't know it- it's just the last chapter.... lol.

see ya later!