time flies while waiting for spring

The first couple months of the year always seem to pass by so quickly that I hardly have the time to stop and reflect. It's probably a coping mechanism to get through the long stretch of winter. My days are spent working and attending to household matters (I'm much more of a winter clean type of person than a spring clean) with the occasional evening out with friends followed by frequent dreams of vacations in faraway lands.

The sweater, completed during dark January evenings in the company of Bones on Netflix.

The last part of my Christmas vacation was spent starting to knit a cozy weekend cardigan using the yarn my sister Francesca gave me in our family gift exchange. I was determine to finish the sweater in January so I could at least get some wear out of it before winter was over. I succeeded and was on such a knitting roll that I started a second sweater project and set a sort of half-hearted goal to knit one garment every month this year (all for me with one exception). I expect I'll have to abandon that plan once I start making time to work on the growing queue of projects that others have requested/demanded I make for them. 

At the beginning of February my sister Noemi and brother-in-law were in town with my nephew for a short work visit. Noemi and I took in the sights (read: shopping) and had a sister's lunch at Tres Carnales with Alessandra. Tacos were consumed while Alessandra and I plotted how we could steal Lucas' eyelashes.

Lucas being super cute!

As stated, there has been the occasional evening out with friends. More recently I indulged in a little recreational slumming at a bowling alley (10-pin is not my game), followed by a classier (dressed) affair at Halo where the Urban Monks were doing their dj thing.

Marc and Thomas' sets were early. Too early for me to dance.

Fellow ladies Christy and Lauren having fancy lady conversation.

Zach listens as the fancy ladies converse.

Later we added some more gentlemen to our party. Marc joined us after his set, and the gentleman made an appearance.

Hilarity ensued.

An appropriate ladylike response.

It was almost like the camera wasn't there at all.

 The evening out was the first time I had really taken any photos since Christmas (other than of yarn and knitting projects) and it was nice to resume taking photos after an unplanned photographic hiatus.
I had another delightful opportunity to take more photos when Sable asked me to take some portraits she could use for her choir headshots. I edited a few last night after a Family Day dinner with the gentleman's family. 

After shooting a series of simple portraits inside, Sable and I headed outdoors to take a few in the gently fallen snow. The resulting photos have given me a new appreciation of winter.

the art of dining out

At the end of November the gentleman and I trundled down to mrkt to celebrate our friend Dave's birthday. It just so happened that the birthday celebrations coincided with mrkt's first annual harvest dinner.



We were served a fixed 5 course menu paired with a selection of Italian wines. A sommelier on hand to describe all of the selections and answer any of our questions. The evening was a delight. I love multiple course fixed menu dinners. The whole experience is so relaxing and every dish is a surprise. I'm looking forward to another night out like this soon.

the helplessness blues

So as per tradition I spent these first few weeks of cold weather being sick. I followed up the Thanksgiving cold with a bout of bronchitis which then turned into pneumonia. As a result I've been a bit of a dullard for the past while (dullard in the sense of a person who evokes boredom rather than the stupid type) and have not felt the inclination to post about anything. That feeling of dullness has started to lift over the past few weeks, but not without some effort. I know I'm not the only person to feel like this. Lots of other blogs I read have featured posts about being bummed out by the weather or feeling depressed, and it's given me some comfort to know that other people out there have been struggling like I have.

For the most part I like the seasonal change. It's hard to dislike the beautiful colours of the falling leaves or the romance of the first snowfall.

Cooler temperatures mean that I can wear sweaters and boots (even if the zipper on my favourite pair keeps on breaking and all of my tights seem to have holes in them after only being worn once) and I have the perfect excuse to work on knitting projects in the evenings and on the weekends.




But the coziness of fall and winter attire doesn't really do all that much to keep my emotions warm. It's like the darkness of my moods correspond with the rate at which the sun sets each night. I know I'm not very pleasant when I get depressed like this. Usually I don't start to feel like this until winter has been around for a few months, but this year has been particularly bad and I seemed to have fallen to despair ahead of schedule. Perhaps being sick exacerbated things... at least now I'm feeling more my normal self.

They say that major depression occurs in 10 to 25 percent of women... and yet it's not something that most people feel comfortable admitting to suffering from. Admitting that you're depressed is tough, particularly when you feel like telling others how you feel is like admitting you're somehow weaker than everyone else. This is especially difficult when you feel like people will use this weakness against you... whether it be in your personal life or your work. And so you start to withdraw and construct imaginary barriers between you and others. I am particularly guilty of this. I'm a pretty introverted person to begin with, but add feeling depressed to the mix and I become a serious loner. I do this because I know I'm unpleasant to be around when I'm depressed. I become instinctively negative and it's just easier not to be around other people because talking about how I feel is exhausting for everyone. Trying to feign pleasantries is even more difficult and it's just so much easier to be sullen and silent alone.

Breaking out of this spiral of negativity isn't easy. Progress is slow and there can be lots of setbacks. It's sort of like recovering from dehydration. Chugging back water will just make you sick... but you'll recover quite nicely from a slow saline drip.

People have lots of methods for dealing with their depression. Some rely on antidepressants, others rely on therapy, others meditation or exercise. For me, feeling normal again has meant that I make time for creative pursuits (photography), I knit for stress relief (a sort of meditation in itself), I eat a more balanced diet and take vitamins, I exercise (some more social in nature and some more meditative), and I go for walks. It's a simple routine... but it's still one that I have to strive to maintain.

It's worth it though. Things are starting to fall back into place and I'm slowly returning to normalcy. This morning I went back to my Pilates class after having to miss a few while recovering from pneumonia. It was good to be back even though I had to wrench myself out of bed to go and then speed walk to there on time. I started taking more photographs of things that aren't just my knitting projects and even made a video for fun recently. I found myself relishing the bite of the wind today as I walked back home across the bridge. Winter may be coming, but at least any numbness will be due to the temperature and not the winter of my discontent.  

thankful feasts

I was hoping to visit with my family over Thanksgiving, but I had to postpone my visit until later in Autumn. For a few weeks I was thinking that the gentleman and I would have a quiet weekend at home filled with long naps, and that maybe we'd roast a chicken and some vegetables and maybe watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles. In reality, we were flooded with invites from friends new and old. It was a spectacular weekend with a feast every night.

Saturday evening began with a crab boil. Our gracious and generous hosts (Chris and Jill) had advised that we show up hungry. I tend to take that sort of advice quite seriously, particularly after receiving email reminders during the day reminding us a second time. Jill and Chris know how to put on a crab boil. They had transformed their dining room into a sort of crab-shack (an elegant one) and equipped each guest with all of the utensils and napkins necessary to address the pile of seafood and vegetables before us.

Jill starts bringing out the food.

Jill brings out even more...

more again... We are slightly daunted by what we have before us.

The gentleman readies his bib.

We ate and ate and ate, but there were still leftovers.

 
Part of the magic of the night came when it was time to cleanup. Once the glassware, utensils and butter warming dishes were cleared away, it was simple to just roll up the paper that covered the table for some really quick party cleanup.

Post dinner we retired to the deck with coffee and blankets for more conversation and a special accordion concert. We stayed outside for a few more hours, talking and laughing with our new friends.

We woke up on Sunday morning to a beautiful autumn day. Perfect for brunch with the urban family and for a quick photoshoot for Sarah and Leanne's summer project (a cookbook that they will be selling at the Royal Bison Craft Fair at the end of November).

Leanne and Sarah have spent the summer compiling recipes and stories of meals where they acquired ingredients via bicycle... a sort of velo-fare type cookbook. They were in need of an image for the front cover and for their bio page, so after a satisfying brunch we hopped outside to photograph the ladies and their bicycles while the dudes went for a stroll.

 

 

After running some errands in the afternoon, the gentleman and I headed to Highlands Kitchen with John and Glen. I've been trying to go to Highlands Kitchen forever (back in the days it was called Bacon and then when it opened again as Culina Highlands) but somehow I had never made it out there. But all of my longing finally paid off when the gentleman made a spontaneous reservation on Saturday while he was at the Farmer's Market.

We chatted while drinking wine and enjoying the set Thanksgiving menu. We arrived around 7:30 and most of the other diners were finishing their meals so we had the restaurant to ourselves. This ended in our favour since the kitchen brought us out extras of everything. I would definitely go back to try their regular menu (and check out the back patio in the summer) and maybe while I'm there go to the wool store next door.

 

I woke up Monday with a sinus cold, so the Thanksgiving feast from the gentleman's family came to me by way of leftovers. The one up side of being forced to stay at home (my sneezing was deemed to be unappetizing), was that I was able to watch Planes, Trains and Automobiles, thus fulfilling my original Thanksgiving plans. I hope that I recover from this cold soon so I can get back in the pool to work off this weekend of feasting.