Jananas

A while back I came downstairs one morning and found some red acrylic yarn and a pair of knitting needles on the coffee table. Only they weren’t mine. Strange. When Jason strolled down that afternoon (he works nights), he confessed that he had tried to teach himself to cast on. I guess he wanted to be able to show off his top notch knitting skills and look all impressive. He showed me what he’d tried, and while it was partway there he was getting three loops of yarn for every stitch he cast on using the long tail method (I have no idea!). So, I taught myself to cast on using long tail (previously I’d just used a basic knit stitch) and then taught him to cast on and knit. It was slow going at first, so we switched out to some bigger needles and he found it easier to handle.

The first foot or so was tough slogging. He somehow managed to increase from 25 stitches to a maximum of 39 less than 10 rows in. Thankfully he then taught himself to decrease and got back down to 25 stitches, so that the final product looks scarf-like. I think that the holes were basically unaware yarnovers that were knit into in the next row, hence increasing stitches.

Jason knit off and on until he finished one ball of yarn. At that point, the scarf was still too short to really be scarf-like so he put it down while waiting on me to teach him how to knit in the next ball of yarn. It took a few weeks, but I finally showed him last night. Look how manly knitting is.

He finished the second ball of yarn this morning and was ready to bind off. Here’s an action shot.

And at long last, the scarf itself!

And because I’m a terrible lady and think that the wonky part of the scarf is cute, here’s a close up…

So there you have it folks, I taught the mister to knit. Hopefully he becomes as obsessed with it as I am!

When I started playing Akoha, it was mostly because it was fun to play missions and see my karma points collect. Almost six months later I’ve begun to notice a change in the rest of my life. I used to think mean things about the people around me. Come on, we all do it! You know, the “ugh, what’s with that haircut?” or the “those colours don’t work together”. I think we all have those petty, small minded thoughts. In the last few weeks though, I’ve noticed that I’m starting to become more positive. Every once in a while there is a “that person looks like they’d be fun to have coffee with” and a joy in people’s idiosyncrasies (strange laughs, hooked noses, penchant for wearing clashing patterns).

What I really notice though, is that I say Thank You an awful lot more. Often times its just in my head, but more and more I’m willing to stop people (whom I don’t know) and say Thank You. These things make me smile and brighten my day, and hopefully by passing that on I can make someone else’s day better.

So thank you Akoha, for being the catalyst.

I walk past the Bohemian Embassy sales office on a fairly regular basis. They have the following sign in their parking area. The part that I love is that “unauthorized vehicles will be tagged“.

Notice that they say tagged. Not towed, tagged. Are they going to put a toe tag on my car like they would if I was a dead body in the morgue. Do they pay a gang of hooligans to hang out in the back alley, waiting for an authorized vehicle so that they can jump out and spraypaint my car with their poor graffiti tags. I’m not really sure how effective this “threat” can be given that it makes me giggle at their less than effective choice of verbiage.

So Jason made me cashew crusted baked tofu, vegetable quinoa, sauteed collard greens & roasted red pepper coulis last Friday. He’d seen it on Vegetable Love 2009 (basically a contest for awesome veggie/vegan Valentine’s Day meals). It looked and sounded so amazing that we had to try it out and it totally lived up to its promise. We made a few substitutions – quinoa for isreali couscous and collard greens for kale – but it was really because they were things we already had around.

All I can say is that I came home Friday after a long day of classes and group meetings, helped put the finishing touches on dinner and got to eat some amazing food. I’m a very lucky lady.

Its funny, we went out for lunch with my cousin and her boyfriend yesterday. I guess they don’t know many vegetarians/vegans and had a tonne of questions about eating, ability to find food, etc. I’m no vegan, but I certainly enjoy having vegan food in my diet. And with meals like this, how could I not?

My friend Badur has been producing a line of aftercare products for piercings & tattoos (through Bodyartpro) for the last couple of years. During that time we’ve had a bunch of conversations about him wanting to expand his product line out into skin and hair care. We’ve been testing products here in the Jananas household for the last few weeks and they’ve met with a resounding awesome! He went live with them yesterday, so go check them out. Because my mister is vegan, I always ask if things are/are not. Turns out that most of what Badur was using was already vegan, which begged the question – why not shift entirely & market the product as vegan? I’m proud to say that I was able to add value!

The other awesome thing Badur just launched was a travel pack of all five products. The small bottles he normally uses are 2 oz and TSA-compliant, so I asked why not market them as travel packs? Personally, I love when my favorite products can come with me on the airplane, because it means that I’ll actually take them with me!

I’ve been using the conditioning shampoo and the leave in conditioner (although I’ve been washing it out, because I don’t like the feel of product in my hair). I’ve also had friends commenting on how nice my hair looks, so its doing wonders! When I was using drugstore/big name hair products, my hair would get greasy and gross on day two. It doesn’t do that any more because the shampoo doesn’t strip my hair dry. Instead it still looks fantastic!

But really, you should all go check his products out and support him!