Changing Gears

Quatro Rerun

I've been tagged by Hagit, and though I have done this before, lets see if anything has changed in the meme department...

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE (not in order):
1) Food Server.
2) Airline Security Guard - Look Hagit, another thing we have in common!
3) Courier
4) Office Admin.

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER:
1) Bridget Jones Diary - Since I Stole it from Rappy, I 've been watching it way too much.
2) Mivtza Savta (Hebrew - in the words of Rappy:"freaking hilarious") - one of the few DVD's I own.
3) The Usual Suspects
4) Leon

FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN:
1) Tel Aviv
2) Thornhill
3) Ramat Gan
4) Givatayim

TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH*:
1) 24
2) Pride and Prejudice (the BBC version with Colin Firth - swoon)
3) Prison Break
4) Eastenders

FOUR FAVORITE PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION:
1) Budapest
2) Sinai
3) Vancouver and Whistler
4) Prague

FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY*:
1) Groopy (Israeli cycling forum)
2) Looking Good
3) The Marker (Financial Israeli web site, which helps me look like I actually understand what's going on around at my office. Mostly I read it to find out what my company stock price is and how it affects my phanton options)
4) Rappyamhappy

FOUR OF YOUR ALL TIME FAVORITE RESTAURANTS*:
1) Onami (Tel Aviv)
2) Boujadi (Toronto) - What? It's the family restaurant!
3) Poike
4) Zozobra 
*I realize that despite my love of food and the fact that I once had aspiration to work in the profession, I rarely go to restaurants.

FOUR SCHOOLS YOU'VE ATTENDED:
1) Habsor
2) Thornlea Secondary School
3) University of Toronto
4) Tadmor Culinary School

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS:
1) Sushi
2) Smelly Cheese
3) Nutella
4) Salad

FOUR THINGS YOU WANT RIGHT NOW:
1) To weigh 15 kg less
2) A car
3) to go back to bed
4) A baby

and the new variation...

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. An art workshop
2. In bed (I only had three hours of sleep last night)
3. On my bike in the desert
4. Anywhere but work...

FOUR NICKNAMES YOU'VE HAD:
1) Inbi
2) Eyeball
3) Eightball
4) Balbal

I've been at work two days now.  The boss is with the big boss and they are on their way to Dubai with which we do not have communicatios, so it's been a bit quiet here.  Nice after the hectic non-vacation...

I did manage to paint most of my studio.  My fear about getting too much paint? Well as it turned out, I had to go out and get more.  I don't know if it's the quality of the paint or the quality of the rollers or maybe the skill of the painter, but the paint seemed to not want to stick to the wall, which means I've had to apply a lot of pressure on the roller to actually make the paint move from roller to wall resulting in severe pain in my right hand.  Since I don't want to rist hurting it further before the ride, I've laid off the painting for a few more days. I might try again this evening, I want to finish it  up and move most of the stuff back into the room, I hate seeing it on my livingroom and balcony floor.  Before I do though, I also have to paint the shelves white, so it might still take a little while before I am done.   The only thing I haven't figured out yet is the worktable.  I had envisioned this one long worktable, but I've been thinking it over, and I might go for two smaller ones, that way I have a flexibility with the setup of the room in case one long table doesn't end up suiting my needs or in case I have to move somewhere in the future where a long table won't fit.  The biggest problem right now though, is whatever I get, I have to find a way of bringing it home without having to pay a fortune in delivery charges.

Thirteen days to my ride. I didn't go riding this past weekend. I was in a bad mood and I didn't feel like calling up for lifts and I was too lazy to move my behind for even a local ride.  This is getting a bit worrisome.  I mean I know I can get through it ok, I just don't want to be huffing and puffing while I do it...

In better news, I have come closer to reaching my minimum sponsorship. I spoke with E, a business associate of my boss' who told me that he would give me whatever the difference is between what I raised up until now and NIS 10,000.  That comes out to more than NIS 2000. I was a bit flaberghasted to tell the truth.  I'm just hoping other people I've approached will be this generous (my readers need not worry, I don't expect such sums from them... unless of course they are loaded;-))  This does take some of the pressure off though, so really I just need to worry about the fitness aspect, getting myself and the bike to Jerusalem and deciding whether or not to stay in Eilat for the weekend...

Goodies!

Well, my break didn't turn out quite as I had hoped. I've had to keep close to home due to work. Someone told me, "you know, if you'd gone away they would have managed without you", which I know is true, but I guess I'm a bit of a workaholic and unfortunately, I have this thing where I often put other people's needs ahead of my own.  That said, I was planning on staying close to home and I've been getting a few things done, and mostly I'm getting rest which is something I needed.

and of course Ludwig can't leave any of my stuff alone...

Rappy came back form Toronto last Friday, with a big stash of goodies she and my mom got me.  They got me a whole bunch of papers and stickers. My mom got me a self healing cutting board, a ruler and a rotary cutter so I can get cracking on my potholder for Susan Sorrell's Fiber Collage course on Joggles.  I and I got some glues and gel mediums, which I had asked for. Give me art materials and I'm like a kid in a candy shop. I've been visiting quite a few "candy shops" recently (the problem with being on vacation is that you also have time to spend money...), getting lots of little things that I am sure I need...lol.

Yesterday I went to Nachlat Binyamin with Totem and Efrat. They just moved into a new apartment in Jaffa, they have a rooftop apartment with a huge balcony facing the Mediterranean and they are now starting to fix it up so it feels like home. So we went is search of fabrics so they could reupholster their couch. It was my chance to look for some fabrics for my course. I got three pieces from a remnant bin at one of my favorite stores, one is pink with embroidery on it, one is green and the last one on a blue-purple combination. 

With the house model

Without...

Totem and Efrat also found a few fabrics they liked for the cushions and then we started the hunt for upholstery fabric for the base of the couch.  There's a store in the Nachala, where this woman, Nitza, creates I guess what one would call functional recycled art. She sews very colourful tote bags, she decorates dishes with fabrics, she creates jewelery from fabric and other recycled materials. Most of her stuff I have to admit is not my cup of tea (I do like the totes, though I am more of a backpack kind of a girl due to the fact I mostly travel on two wheels and purses and totes are a little difficult to carry.)
Anyway her store is this long and narrow corridor and at the back is her workshop, which is filled with piles and piles of fabrics. Totem was wandering along as Efrat and I were looking at the totes, and as he walked into the studio, the lady freaked out...I can understand her attachment to her stash...lol. Then we struck up a conversation, she asked him what he does, she was quite shocked to discover he wasn't doing something artistic, because she could tell it was part of him. She told us she started at a rather late stage of her life, so we still had hope...

After this little conversation we got a little hungry so we went in search of a place to eat something before Efrat had to go to work. The place we wanted to go to was full so we decided to go to Kerem Hateimanim to one of the hummus joints. Most of the places were closed for the holiday and the neighborhood is being dug up by the city, but we did manage to find a place. These places they have a different character to them. The tables are Formica topped and usually a bit sticky, the chairs are plastic. The majority of the menu consists of Hummus varieties, though usually there are also soups and meat skewers. You get your own drink out of the fridge, the bottle opener is usually hanging from a rope somewhere in the vicinity... the food is homey and tasty and CHEAP! The only problem with eating hummus for lunch is the aftereffects... you are heavy and bloated and tired.

After Efrat left the two of us continued on our quest for fabrics, once Totem found the fabric he wanted (to tell the truth he was already getting frustrated when we found this material, so it may have been a compromise...time will tell), we had pretty much had enough. Tuesday is the day artists sell their wears on the Nachala so it is pretty crowded as is, the holiday crowd was about tenfold what they usually are, and we are not great lovers of big crowds.
We decided it was time for coffee and walked over to Totem's favorite coffee shop. We sat there for a while and Totem's buddy Zachi came to say hi and after a while we were each ready to go our separate ways.  I went to the Home Centre at Dizingoff to get some paints for my studio (my one goal for this break that I don't think will get accomplished).  I got too much paint for this little room, but I think once can never have too much paint (I can always use the leftovers for craft projects, right?) and last but not least I went to the craft store again and purchased a few rolls of embroidery threads for my online class.

When I got home I sat down with the tools my mom got me, and cut out the fabrics for my sandwich square. When I took out the batting, I realized that it wasn't the sheet kind, but the filling kind, but somehow I managed to arrange a flat piece (flatter in some places more than others, I admit). I managed to sandwich the pieces and complete lesson one, which was basically making the base for the class project. Lesson 2 was posted on the net yesterday and it involves the design. I still haven't gotten there I am afraid.  I'm also not getting anywhere with the design book we are supposed to keep, but it's just the beginning of the week and since there are no real deadlines in this course, I am not too concerned.

I am oficially on vacation until October 15th (unless I'm called to work on a particular urgent project, which I don't mind so much as long as that's the only thing I go in for, and yet I hope not to have to.)

My plans for my vacation? Well, I had a few. I was going to fix up my studio, make art and bike. So far I haven't gotten around to doing much of anything though.  I find I'm mostly sipping tea and reading art blogs.

Not that I've been entirely unproductive over the past few days.  On Tuesday I went out for most of the day.  The purpose of the outing was to get fabric and embroydery threads for my fiber collage class.  I came up empty with both but I did get some small canvases, a brayer, liquid sculpey, a funky new stamp and some cool wool... I don't know that shopping really counts as productive though, so I'll add that I also did the dishes and a few loads of laundry and I dumped a few more items that were in my Outbox.

Yesterday I had to go to work.  I am so happy I didn't sign up for the whole two weeks.  It wasn't horrible but it wasn't fun either. It wasn't the kind of busy I enjoy. 

This morning I went to the mall to return some holiday gifts.  My boss and his wife gave me a purse, I found out today it was quite expensive (as compared to other holiday gifts I get).  I felt totally guilty about complaining about the things I have to do for his kids last week.  Anyway, as I said I didn't love the purse they got me so I went to exchange it, only I didn't love anything withing that range either so I added a little bit more and I got a lovely new olive green leather backpack. Then I went to return the towels I got from work, and once again I couldn't seem to find anything for the price of the original gift... luckily I still had the voucher we got for the holiday. I got myself a new linen set and a bedspread.   When I got home I made an order of cat litter and cat food for both myself and Rappy, I called the wood place about getting a wood plate to make myself a work table. and then I went out to lunch with M, after which we went gift shopping.  So again I don't know how productive I've been but at least I wasn't sitting at home doing nothing.

I have three bike rides planned for the next three day.  This is sort of a test run to see how I'll do at the end of the month. I am dreading it.  My riding bag is packed, I've carbonated myself and I am now going to lock Ludwig out of my bedroom and try to get some sleep.

Before I go though, I wanted to share these, aren't they lovely? I truly want one of each.