Jananas

We spent today playing with fibre (me) and computers (Jason) and decided that our hard work should be rewarded with some more root beer. Sprecher Root Beer is a micro-brewery founded in 1985 and located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I’m not sure when they ventured into the realm of sodas, but they do have a full line of gourmet sodas. Our friend had grabbed two bottles of Sprechers for us – one Root Beer Soda and one Lo-Cal Root Beer (sorry for the not great shot, my camera didn’t feel like cooperating).

Before we had even opened this bottles, they’d already stolen a little piece of my heart. They are big and sturdy and feel good in your hand. In fact, they are so big that they contain an entire pint! Even better, the labels say that they are “non-alcoholic”. That just made me laugh in the ‘really, who made that mistake?’ sort of way.

We opened our bottles up and they both had that amazing minty root beer aroma. The normal version is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup (gross!), but also has raw Wisconsin honey. Not entirely sure about how those two fit together, but… this root beer was good. It was full bodied (more on the minty side) without being overwhelmingly sweet. It had a subtle mint aftertaste without being overbearing.

The lo-cal version was good. It was tasty without being sweet. It had high fructose corn syrup, raw honey, and sodium saccharin as sweeteners. Thankfully there wasn’t that gross artificial sweetener taste or aftertaste. In fact, this diet root beer soda was so good that even Jason gave it two thumbs up – a first so far in our challenge!

We both liked this root beer. And although it isn’t our top choice overall, if you’re going to pick one sweetened with high fructose corn syrup I’d make it a Sprecher’s.

In fact, we enjoyed this root beer so much that we finished our taste testing off with root beer floats. Glad to say that this root beer passes that test as well!

I’ve learned a lot of new things over the last year. The more new things I try, the easier the learning process becomes. I still get frustrated when I don’t pick things up as quickly as I’d like (which is immediately in case you were wondering), but I now recognize that there’s a learning curve. I’ve become more patient. Instead of giving up when my initial attempts aren’t very good, I’m proud that I even tried. And I’m even more proud when my second try is better.

Which leads me to the question – what did you learn this weekend?

Me, I took my first spinning class at Lettuce Knit. Denny is an awesome teacher. I was using the Louet Victoria spinning wheel. Its so tiny. Its strange to think that you can carry a spinning wheel in a (large-ish) backpack. Seriously!

Our first class was really just about learning to pre-draft, treadle, and then spin using the inch worm technique. I had trouble with adding too much twist, which is why the yarn looks so kinky. And when it gets too kinky, it doesn’t feed in well so I had to keep winding by hand. But, but, but I tried my hand at some other spinning last night and there was definitely an improvement. Yay!

I’m excited. I’ve been wanting to learn to spin for a while. I finally committed to it and am now making it happen. Now I have to practice so that I get better. Because of my love for fiber, this really isn’t that big of a deal.

What have you always wanted to learn? What’s stopping you?

In our quest for good root beer, I started googling home made root beer in Toronto. Turns out that two of our local breweries make their own! First up was the Granite Brewery at Mount Pleasant and Eglinton. Reason it was contender #1? Its on the way home from my parent’s place. Yup, I’m all about efficiency.

We stopped by mid-afternoon to try some out. Ordered two root beers and some food so that we didn’t look like total weirdos.

Here’s Jason drinking his fancy glass mug of root beer. We asked if they sell it so that we could take some home and the answer’s no. Apparently this is so home brew that it doesn’t last well when bottled (which is actually fairly common). Home brewed root beer is a class all on its own and doesn’t necessarily compare well to mass produced (even if its fancy bottled) root beer. Thankfully we had tried some before at Iron Hill Brewery in Delaware so we were better prepared to enjoy this one.

The root beer itself was well rounded and scrumptious. Ever eaten something that tasted so good that you didn’t want to eat/drink anything else afterward because it would ruin the taste? Yup, this root beer was that good. It was well rounded, managing to be creamy and smooth and slightly minty all at the same time (i.e. not flavours kicked in as an after taste). It wasn’t super carbonated (when compared to bottled root beer), but it had a nice creamy head to it. Overall, this was a big win. It was so good that I purposefully drank it slowly so that I could savor it, which is impressive because usually I’m a gulper.

And yes, this was so good that we might stop by again. Just for a root beer.

I’m not a super girly girl. I don’t do much in the way of pampering, but I admittedly like having my toe nails done (in part because the colour lasts so much longer). I get my hair cut at Barbarella, so when they opened a nail salon  I checked it out. I’ve been a diehard fan of Heartbreaker since (889 Dundas Street West Toronto, ON M6J 1V9 - (416) 869-0440). Oh and did I mention that Kathy (I think that’s spelled correctly, but don’t hate me forever if I got it wrong!) is a bright, bubbly lady who loves a good laugh. I keep going back because I really enjoy seeing her even if its only for an hour once a month because she makes me day better.

Heartbreaker has amazing polish colours. I’ve had hot pink, sparkly purple, mint green, matte gray, and even minx sugar skulls. My baby toes curl under and so the nails are hard to see. If I’m doing my own nails I don’t bother to paint them as they aren’t typically visible. I’m not entirely sure how it started, but we started painting my baby toe nails a different colour. First it was bright red with black baby toe nails. Then it was hot pink with sparkly purple.

Well, last time I went in I scanned the polish selection and grabbed two – a deep, matte red and a sparkly indigo. Problem this time is that I couldn’t decide if I wanted matte red for the ‘main’ section and indigo for my baby toes or the other way around.

To get all Rotman on your asses, having my nails done doesn’t have to be an either / or scenario. I don’t have to choose the red polish or the indigo polish. All I needed to do was to shift my mental model so that I could have two colours at once. I could have both.

To the hardcore Rotman-ites this might seem like a terrible application of such a powerful tool. I mean, pedicures as an example of integrative thinking? It seems silly and a little trite. But I don’t think that we only have to apply theories like this to wicked problems. I think that it can be applied, even in seemingly innocuous circumstances.

Integrative thinking is an every day mindset. Its not the big gun to attack the big problem. By using it every day, by showing dedication to the practice of the skill, we are already well positioned when the wicked problems present themselves. We’re ready and well versed. The practice on the little things means that we have the mental agility to see outside the box on the big things.

And that is why I currently have neon pink toe nails on my left foot (even if the picture doesn’t do justice to just how neon they are) and a turquoise-ish metallic green on my right. I couldn’t choose between them and so I choose both. And I’m happy.

What little things happen where you think ‘I don’t want to choose’? What is your pedicure vs. integrative thinking moment?

I had an idea for a series of art pieces this past fall. I’ve been slowly working away at starting it. I’d spent some time bidding on lots on eBay, waiting on the mail system, putting the piece together, seeing what was missing. Rinse and repeat. I finally sat down and went through it one last time. This is what, once assembled, will be the art piece.

However, in order to get that I had to order this…

Yup. I have a giant bag of scrabble tiles on my coffee table at the moment.

I have some ideas for a project or two using them. Do you have any suggestions?