Dreaming of Seville

I've been pretty lucky in the last while with winning things on Twitter. In the last year or so I've won a pound of coffee, a t-shirt, a toque, a prize pack of clothing (jacket, shirt, dress), roller derby tickets, weekend passes to Live At Squamish (a music festival) and a cookbook.

I won the cookbook months ago and never received it in the mail. I figured it wasn't coming. Finally a few weeks ago, there was a parcel that came for me at work and there it was! "Around My French Table" by Dorie Greenspan had arrived.

Now going back a few years to my trip to Spain in 2007, there was one dish that I ordered quite often. It was predictable, filling, super tasty and not to mention cheap. Tortilla de patatas is an omelet type dish with potatoes and onions. Since then, I've always meant to try making the dish but had never come across a recipe.

I opened up the new cookbook and there was a recipe for Basque Potato Tortilla, so last weekend I gave it a go. The dish was very similar to what I remember having in Spain. The recipe stressed how important it was to clean the skillet out between cooking the potato mixture and adding the eggs. I thought I had done it well enough, but obviously hadn't by how the whole dish fell apart when I tried flipping it out onto a platter. But even as a broken mess, the dish tasted just like I remembered it. I sat eating it, dreaming of being back in Seville.

Here's a flamenco tablao that I went to a few times in Seville. The same dancer, the same dress that I saw. Oh to be back in Seville...

Becoming A Fan

I first started to knit about eight years ago. I taught myself from a few books and videos from the library. What made me decide, at the age of twenty-one to take up such a hobby? Well, other than it being the perfect hobby for the Youngest Senior. At the time I was dating a guy who was a huge hockey fan. Everything revolved around the Vancouver Canucks. If I wanted to spend time with him on an evening that they played, we would have to watch the game.

I can't sit still for long periods of time. I refuse to watch any movie that is longer than two hours. The thought of watching a hockey game for THREE hours practically gave me hives!

So I took up knitting. There were many misshapen dish clothes and scarves created that winter.

Now here I am, eight years later, still knitting, still not being able to sit still for long and dating yet another hockey fan. A few things have changed though. I can now knit things that aren't in a square pattern. And maybe I'm a little less square too. I've opened up to the idea that sports aren't boring and that beer is pretty tasty. Oddly enough, they make a pretty good pair.

After watching the Canada-US men's gold medal game during the 2010 Olympics I was convinced I must get into watching hockey. I watched a few games during the playoffs this year, but I never really got into it. For one, I don't really understand the rules. I mean, I get the general idea of hockey, but beyond getting the puck into the net I'm kind of lost.

So this past Tuesday was Hockey 101 for me. I was taken to my first Canucks game. I'm not sure whether it was being there in person, being surrounded by so many fans, or being there with someone who was actually excited to explain the game and what was going on, but I had a lot of fun. I now have a pretty good handle on what offside means. I'm still working on my understanding of icing, but we'll get there eventually.

I've found myself reading little bits about hockey that come up on Twitter, entering contests for hockey tickets and wondering when the next game is. I can definitely see myself becoming a fan.

Now the question is, will I still be able to knit and watch hockey? Is a fan allowed to do that? Will I only be able to knit hockey related items while watching? Thoughts, ideas? How does this work people?!

Ctrl + Z

Last night I wrote a blog post singing the praises of the Vancouver Ultimate League and describing how much I enjoyed the Women In Ultimate clinic on Monday night. Today, while eating my lunch I was going through editing the post and in the process hit Ctrl + Z in order to undo one of the edits.

The WHOLE post disappeared. Blogger then auto saved before I had a chance to do anything!

Gah!!

Chances are I hit something other than Z. Either way, it's gone. I could experiment and see if it happens again right now, but I won't. I could rewrite the whole thing. Instead, I'm going to sit here cursing and giving Blogger dirty looks. Everything happens for a reason, right? I think this gives me the extra push I need to get the new WordPress blog up and running.

P.S. If you're a woman and you play ultimate, I highly recommend you check out the Women In Ultimate clinics when they're on. It was a great experience picking up tips for a better game and getting individual suggestions to make my throws more accurate and powerful. 

The Bandwagon

It feels like I've fallen off the blogging bandwagon as of late. In fact, I feel like I've fallen off a few bandwagons. The blogging bandwagon, the running band wagon, the sewing bandwagon. I blame summer. And other distractions. Read: summer and boys. Yep, I've been going on a few dates lately.

It's surprising how much time dating takes up. Not only do you have to spend time analyzing and deciding what to wear, you then have to spend time actually getting dressed, doing your hair and putting on an appropriate amount of make-up. Post date, you lose even more time answering all your friends' questions about the guy and the date. It's exhausting. Needless to say, adding dating to my already busy schedule hasn't left a lot of time for much else.

But this post isn't so much about dating, as it is about another love affair I've been having. An affair with poutine. If poutine is on the menu, I can't say no. I must order it. If there's a pub in town and you want to know how the poutine is, chances are I've tried it and have an opinion to share.

Some say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. Well, this guy I've been dating, he might be slightly confused and think that this theory works on women too. And maybe it does. I must have mentioned that I liked poutine at one point early on.

Date #2: Final stop of the evening was at Chill Winston. We shared poutine.

Date #3: Stopped at Hell's Kitchen for poutine before heading to a party. Eeks! Meeting his friends already. Turns out they were really nice. Who would have thought? (Side note: Hell's Kitchen is by far my favourite poutine. It has bacon and deep fried capers on it.Yum!)

Date #5: Went to the Regal Beagle for some post-bowling food. I ordered the poutine.

Date #?? (who knows...at some point you've got to stop counting or else it's weird): At Live At Squamish music festival they had a food stand that offered a "Bucket O Poutine". A bucket full of poutine! It was a small bucket, but a bucket with a handle none the less. Of course we got it. It was ridiculous. People stared. It was delicious and disgusting all at once.

I know I've had poutine at least once, maybe even twice, without him. So here I am, thinking about all the bandwagons I've fallen off in the past few weeks. I think it's time to jump back on some of them. Most importantly the running bandwagon, the fruits and vegetable bandwagon, and of course the blogging bandwagon. I promise I'll be back again soon...without the gravy and cheese curds.

The Knotty Knitters

I used to be a very big fan of the Amazing Race. I always dreamed of going on the show myself, if only they accepted Canadians. When I first heard that Vancouver had something called the City Chase, a race around Vancouver in one day similar to the Amazing Race, I thought I must do this. Several years have gone by since I first heard about it and I hadn't done anything about it.

This year was different. I found a friend that had always wanted to do it as well. We came up with a team name and registered. Right there, we'd already accomplished a goal. It felt like we were well on our way to overcoming challenges and pushing our comfort zones.

I know Laura through ultimate, but I think one of the main things that we've bonded over was our love for knitting. Laura is an amazing knitter and she's become my go-to person when I have a knitting related question. We appropriately named our team the Knotty Knitters. We came up with a few knitted accessories to wear during the race. She made wrist cuffs and I made knotted hair ties.

The Knotty Knitters

It was the perfect day for running around the city. The sun was out, but wasn't too hot. We had our transit passes, clue sheet and iPhone and were on our way. We had to complete ten checkpoints in six hours. We first figured out most of the clues as to where the checkpoints were so we could plan our travel accordingly.

Our well used clue sheet.

Overall, I thought the day was going to be more challenging and that I would have pushed more personal boundaries. In hindsight, we chose the checkpoints that we thought would be easiest, so we could have challenged ourselves a bit more if we had wanted to. There was one checkpoint where we thought there would be snakes and spiders. I had no problem with the spiders, but there is NO WAY I could have handled having to touch a snake. In that way, I could have pushed myself, but chose not to.

We had a few physically challenging checkpoints. One that involved jumping from platforms onto rope swings and on to another platform. I have a hilarious video of myself doing this. I will not post it because...well...it's just a little too embarrassing. Each time I touched the ground I had to do five burpees (a push-up, straight up into a jumping jack). In the end I had to do ten burpees. At the final station we tried fencing. And again, had to do more burpees. As someone with very little upper body strength, this was a challenge!

In my fencing helmet.

Other checkpoints included military fitness training, a firefighter challenge, a bouncy castle race, lawn bowling and frisbee golf. The frisbee golf challenge was one of the more fun ones because there was a consequence. If I didn't get the frisbee into the basket in three throws, Laura was going to have a strip on her arm waxed. If I didn't get it in in seven throws, she was going to lose an eyebrow!! Thankfully I didn't crack under the pressure and I got it in three tries.

Despite not being overly challenged and pushed beyond our comfort zones, we were bruised, sore, and hungry by the end of the day!! Both of us promptly arrived home and didn't move from the couch for the rest of the evening.

In the end, we finished in 5 hours 23 minutes, placing 150th out of 340 teams. Would I do it again? Absolutely!!

Official Mitsubishi City Chase Finisher!