As the weather improves I've been getting out with my camera more and more so I have a bunch of new photos to post. This makes me happy.
This weekend was great! The weather was sooooo freakin' good and I always feel amazing when we get that first breath of Spring. Winter is dying and I can't wait until it is buried. I have my balcony door open right now and I can smell Spring in the air. It's fantastic.
In addition to the weather, we also did a lot of fun stuff. On Saturday we went to the St. Lawrence Market for the first time in a while and picked up ingredients for chili (among other things). In the afternoon we made the chili and then Chris, John and Matt came over to help eat the chili. Matt even brought an ice cream cake for dessert which seems like an excellent celebration of the the death of Winter.
Today, Kim and I went to the Bay and used some of the gift cards we received at our wedding to purchase a new set of (desperately needed) dishes. It's nice to have enough matching plates and bowls to be able to feed a group of people larger than four all at the same time.
We also made a pot roast braised in delicious St. Ambroise Oatmeal Stout. Before starting the roast cooking, we seared it in the grease of freshly cooked bacon and then caramelized onions in the same grease. All of this then went into the dutch oven with the roast and the beer and some beef broth and it turned out fantastic. We added potatoes to cook in the liquid near the end and they were great because the onions and bacon chunks ended up sticking to them to make yummy oniony-bacony potatoes.
I'm pretty sure the correct beer pairing for the meal would have been the same Oatmeal Stout used to cook the meat, but unfortunately I had decided earlier to go climbing in the evening and so I could not partake in the alcoholic beverages. This made me sad, but I had such a great night climbing that I'm over it now. I'm really enjoying the new Toronto Climbing Academy, although I wish it was a bit closer to downtown. I also can't wait for the Tour de Bloc competition at the end of March that marks the opening of John's new gym, True North Climbing. The construction progress photos look amazing. It's a great time to be a climber in Toronto.
Now that they've officially blogged about it, I think it's OK to mention here that Patrick and Toni have a new, healthy baby girl named Kiera! She was 6 weeks premature, but that doesn't seem to have done much harm. Kim and I are both super excited and happy for the new family. We have to start figuring out when can go to Australia for a visit because we can't wait to meet Kiera and see Patrick and Toni again.
If you're interested, there are already a bunch of photos posted on their blog.
For Christmas, my brother and I got my mom tickets to see Rain: The Beatles Experience, which is basically a concert put on by some of the world's foremost Beatles impersonators. This weekend was the show and we all had a great time. The performers did an amazing job and it was amusing to see all the baby-boomers in the audience really getting into it.
After the show we took my mom to Weezies, a great restaurant near King and Parliament. I had arctic char and the most delicious piece of pecan pie ever. We also enjoyed lots of wine and good conversation. Despite being in the same city as my brother we're still kinda failing at seeing each other regularly so it was nice to catch up.
Today we of course watched the Men's gold medal hockey game. It was crazy after the win, Toronto just exploded. We stepped out on our balcony and all we could hear were car horns and very excited yelling. It was pretty cool.
I love watching the Olympics! Normally I don't watch "sports" as I've never been any good at them but the Olympics are different for some reason. I just really enjoy watching them.
However, in most sports, the actual active competition bits are quite short. And in between competitors there are endless commercials and scads of obnoxious commentator banter. So while watching the Olympics I've also been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation from the beginning (using my laptop). Growing up I watched a lot of the episodes, but mostly out of order in reruns and certainly not all of them. It's geeky, but so far I'm really enjoying them.
I just finished watching The Secret of Kells which is nominated for Best Animated Film at the Oscars this year. The story is about the creation of the illuminated Book of Kells (which Kim and I saw at Trinity College in Dublin last year). The film is hand drawn, traditional animation and is absolutely beautiful. Almost every frame attempts to evoke the patterns and colours of the book itself and the result is fantastic.
Perhaps the film affected me more because I've been to Ireland recently, however I think that it stands on it's own quite well too. I will definitely be buying the DVD as soon as they get a North American distributer (which seems likely given the Oscar nomination).
Check out the official website for more information, trailers and a really nice gallery of images from the movie. To see the movie, either wait for North American distribution or use the powers of the Internet to "acquire" it immediately. However, if you enjoy the movie, be sure to give financial support to the studio (Cartoon Saloon from Ireland) when it becomes possible.
I recently discovered a pretty useful site for finding out when various products become available at the LCBO. It's called Drinkvine and it was made by a guy who enjoys fancy beers but did not enjoy trying to figure out which LCBO had them and when.
You input your favourite beers/wines and your preferred LCBO locations and it will email you when your drinks are in stock at one of your locations. It works pretty well. Of course they're just scraping the official LCBO website, but it seems to be pretty up to date.
Tonight instead of going to bed early I created a separate RSS Feed for my Photos page. It will update every time I add a new photo. Enjoy!
Now that January is over I can post my goals without them sounds like resolutions. Maybe that will help them come true?
In an earlier post I mentioned that I wanted to prioritize some of the things in my life and I figure the easiest way to do that is to come up with some concrete goals and see how well I do at achieving them. Then I can reevaluate those goals next year and adjust them based on how I did. This should also help me decide which things truly are important to me. If I get irritated trying to keep up with certain things then it is clear that those things are not as important and I should devote the time to other endeavours.
Anyway, in no particular order, here are my goals for the year:
The last goal may override and/or be mutually exclusive with all of the other goals. It is also the scariest. I worry that when interest rates go up the housing market will stop being insane and prices will come down. We would like to purchase a house after that point and not before. But when will it happen? Do we just keep waiting forever? Grah.
Anyway, it should be interesting to see how I do with all of this stuff.
