Mikao's World

Hello April

Monday, April 03, 2006.

One of my original goals with this new template was to have a new header each month. But a month quickly ends!

This month's header is going back to an old look that some of you may remember from last spring. But I always did like the little red paper car on the green. Originally it was a card that can be seen here.

Here's to a great month!

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Lily Purse

I had to go and pick up some fabric this weekend in Bracebridge for a custom order purse that I've been asked to make, and while I was there I picked up this great brown-print linen fabric. Sunday aftermppm I made this purse, I really like it, love the fabric. I didn't buy much of the fabric as it's linen, and therefore pretty pricey, but I still have a bit more left so should be able to make a couple more things out of it.

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Flashback Friday: March 1990

Friday, March 31, 2006.

When I was in college taking a "modern religious movements" class, I put this photo on my dormroom door for awhile. And, you just might recognize the outfit. This photo was actually taken inside the Winnipeg Shrine Temple... from the time I won the Shrine Circus Writing Contest in grade six. You can read the story I wrote here. The girl on the left of me, her name was Mary Ellen. I thought her ESPRIT shirt was cool, but her name was definitely something I was glad not to be burdened with. The girl to the right of me was named Michelle as well, and I had decided she was definitely overdressed. Mary Ellen and Michelle won the short story contest for the grades 4 and 5 sections of the contest. The guy on the left, his name was Chick. I think that was just a nickname. Or at least I hope it was just a nickname. The adults in the photo were all bigwigs in the Shriners organization.

I had just gotten a new 10-speed bike a couple of years earlier, and a ten-speed was definitely way cooler than a BMX, so the prize wasn't all that exciting to me . But I did use the Mirage for shorter bike trips. And my brother used to always ride it and slam it on the road when he was done and he totally scratched up the flourescent paint job.

I remember we had fried chicken and coleslaw at the big presentation dinner, held in the Shrine Temple basement. It was cold in there. It was in a huge old mansion-type house, and the wood panelled walls were painted with gold palm trees and camels.

All of us winners also got tickets for our family to go to the Shrine Circus later on that year, and we actually got called up to go to the centre ring, which was quite exciting. Somewhere my Mom has a photo of it, but it's one of those "my flash wasn't strong enough and I can't tell what is in the middle of the stadium". What I really wanted a photo of was me riding an elephant, but elephant rides were too expensive.

Speaking of elephant rides, I think I'll add that to my life to-do list. I've already got "visit a cult" crossed off. ;)

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Chaotic Resolve

Wednesday, March 29, 2006.

You may remember about a month ago I posted a post about how excited I was for the new Plumb CD coming out. In fact, I ordered it that day. I ordered it from a site her MySpace linked to, because they were offering an advance copy, and it was signed, what more could you ask for? Althought, I'd never heard of the company before.

But it was of course an American company and me being in Canada, that made it an "international order", and shipping was an additional $7. Seven bucks! But it was Plumb, and thus fully worth the excessive shipping costs. I had to special order my last Plumb CD at the Briercrest bookstore, and it was more expensive than this one ended up being.

But after two weeks I thought this international shipping was a bit slow.

And after three weeks, on March 17th, I gave them a call. "Oh, because it's an international shipment we have to wait a month before it is declared lost." Oh, okay. I'll call back on March 21st then.

So I did. And the guy said he'd ship out another copy that day for me.

Then this week I got a copy in the mail. Strangely, the postage tape and the customs declaration slip were both dated March 17/06.

So I checked my order status on the website and it said the second shipment was still being processed. So I called the company to let them know I had recieved it, but I just got their answering machine so I left a message.

Then the next day I got two emails saying my replacement shipment had been fixed.

Then yesterday at home "Mark" called to ask what shipment I had received, and if I received any more could I please return them?

Sure I can, but the chaos of it all kind of makes me chuckle.

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Suddenly I Feel Very Confident in My Mechanic

Tuesday, March 28, 2006.

So... I just called my mechanic and asked when I could have my car looked at. Because when I took it for an oil change a week and a half ago (to another place, not my regular mechanic), Hot Rod had suddenly gotten very loud and they told me my muffler clamp had rusted through. I'm totally not sure if the two are related, or how serious they are. I hope for a yes and a not serious and a cheap/easy-to-fix.

Anyways, I was talking to the guy on the phone. I asked when I could bring Hot Rod in. So the guy kind of half puts his hand over the phone and says to another guy "When can we take a look at Michelle's car? It's got a problem with the exhaust system and the power steering."

What? I said muffler clamp.

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Fungi

Monday, March 27, 2006.

I bought six mushrooms from the bulk mushroom bin at the grocery store yesterday. The total came to $3.00. THREE DOLLARS! Three dollars for six mushrooms! That's 50 cents a mushroom! And they're just regular old mushrooms. They had better taste extremely good in my tomato sauce.

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Flashback Friday 1991

Friday, March 24, 2006.

This was taken the summer before grade 8, on a family trip to British Columbia, for my Grandpa's 85th birthday. This particular photo, of my older sister and I, was taken at a campground in Washington state. It's the campground my family still talks about every once in awhile, because when we were trying to find a spot to park for the night some woman told us to "Slaw down," which made us all giggle. Crazy Americans and their silly accents. (That last sentence will be great for Google search hits I'm sure!).

What you should probably note is most sweet about this particular photo is:

a) My sister's wave bangs
b) My sister's coordinating pink Northern Reflections Shirt and pink pants
c) The fact that she was 16 at the time and was still wearing pink. Trust me, pink wasn't cool in 1991, in case you've forgotten.
d) My cool jacket.
e) My bangs. Yes, I did need a haircut.
f) Garbage can in background ( great picture composition!)

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Carpe Diem

Wednesday, March 22, 2006.

I have this problem. I tend not to seize the day. Awhile ago in church I was thinking about this, and these thoughts extended throughout the day and on into Monday.

Monday morning at our weekly staff meeting, the person leading the devotional took us to 1 Corinthians. And in my Bible, sometime, I don't remember when, at the bottom of the page, I wrote "God makes us excellent - with him we reach higher."

This blog, this isn't a place where I tend to get theological. In every day life I don't even tend to get very theological. I wouldn't even say I was very theological in my 5 1/2 years of Bible college and seminary education. I don't tend to be interested in debating the nit-picky details of faith. Perhaps this is to my detriment. I know what I believe but I can't say I'm too interested in amillenialism and premillenialism and Calvinism and Armenianism and the like.

But I digress. Usually in life I don't consider doing a shoddy job. Why wouldn't you do a good job? The thought doesn't usually occur to me. Striving higher, striving for the best, it seems in so many things to come naturally to me. But this often conflicts with my apathy.

In my first couple of years of Bible college I was diagnosed with Graves' Disease, an autoimmune disorder of the thyroid. There are all kinds of signs and symptoms (just reading that Wikipedia article today even listed a few I noticed that I had never been told were a result of the disease!), and what I noticed mostly was the change in my thought processes and patterns.

While I was sick, I had an extremely hard time concentrating and doing schoolwork for any extended periods of time. This is reflected in my college transcripts, which went from barely passing my first couple of sick years, to (mostly) excellent marks in my grad studies.

Today, what I have lingering from this disease is apathy. I want to do the best. I want to excel. It seems so logical. So normal. But sometimes it takes so much effort.

Lately I've been thinking about excellence and passion a lot. How much they are related to each other. I want to be excellent at what I do, but I also want to be passionate about it. But can you become passionate, or is passion natural? Is it inflicted? Does God breath upon us passion for different things?

I once read a book in high school called "Do What You Are" or some such title. It talked about how our career should be directly related to what we are, who we are, what we love, what we're passionate about.

I've been rather apathetic towards my current career. Perhaps that's a dangerous thing to admit on a blog that your co-workers read! I'd like to be more passionate, but how, and is it worth it? It's paperwork. Should I be looking elsewhere? Should I be looking for something that will use my passions and love of Christ and love of youth and my training?

Carpe diem. Seize the day.

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Spring Collection 2006

Tuesday, March 21, 2006.

The two purses on the left are still available if you are interested, Orange Pink Lemonade Handbag and Tenth Avenue Retro Floral Handbag. I also have a number of other items now on sale, so please take a look at my Etsy store.

I'm also happy to take custom orders, so please feel free to contact me via email if you would like anything made.

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Shocking That I'm Still Single

When I have looks comparable to Ashley Judd, Kristin Kreuk, Aishwariya Rai, Preity Zinta, Rachael Leigh Cook, Kristin Davis, Alizee, Anne Hathaway, Kate Winslet, Rachel Bilson, and Eva Longoria. ;)

This comes from the Face Recognition beta program at myheritage.com (found via ysolda).

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Curtains? Who Posts About Curtains?

Continuing my theme of mind-bogglingly intellectual and theological posts, here is one on the subject of my new curtains. And my old curtains.

My bedroom has weird patterned carpet, I tried to find a picture of it but alas I do not have a good one. It's a white-ish-grey kind of colour, with darker grey square outlines and kind of snowflakey-shaped things in the middle of the squares. I've never seen any other carpet like it.

So when I moved into this apartment I decided it might be best to go with a snowflake-themed decor. Thus, I made this curtain:

The fabric is actually a woman's scarf that I found at Value Village. I folded over the top edge and hand stitched it to go on the curtain rod (a cheapo one from Ikea). The bottom edge I hand beaded on assorted glass beads in various shades of blue and purpley-blue and clear and white. Overall, I was quite pleased with the way it turned out. The large dangling snowflakes on the sides are actually aluminum coasters. I got 4 for $5 at the local "dollar" store that keeps changing it's name.

But, I was kind of getting tired of the snowflakes. And the carpet too, but I can't change the carpet.

So a few weeks ago I was at a fabric store, and found this lovely voile print that I really like, and it was only $3 a metre. So I got two and a half metres and sewed this curtain up:

Here is a close-up of the floral pattern. I love this mossy-green colour:

Afterwards I thought it would have been nice to have two curtains, so I could open them up, but I can't really afford a second curtain, so one is doing well. Overall, I really like the way the new curtain turned out. It's more decorative than functional, but I have a white blind that actually serves the purpose of keeping the light out/in. It adds a nice barrier between me and the neighbours now though, I don't feel like they can see me crafting away any more when I'm sitting at my craft table and don't have the blind down.

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Painted Horse

Monday, March 20, 2006.

Those of you who worked at Willow Springs last summer may recognize this:

We had a whole big box of these horses donated, in the form of "STEED KITS". This made me laugh hysterically. They were pretty much impossible to figure out how to assemble, so not too many campers actually took a completed one home with them.

However, by the end of this post you will see that I am now somewhat of an expert at their assemblage.

I had my horse kicking around my room for awhile, and then on Saturday I thought "Gee, why don't I paint it?" I hadn't painted anything in a long while.

When my Mom came out from Alberta to visit me last October, she brought out my box of cheapo acrylics... and from that box I selected these colours for this project:

Here it is in process:

A head shot when making sure it was all painted to my liking:

The finished steed:

In situ:

On of my old roommates defined my decorating style the other day as "Ecclectic Novelty." I'm not sure if I like that term, but I couldn't think of anything better!

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The Start of A New Era

Last night at 10:15pm, me and Hot Rod started off the 200 000s right by listening to the "Return of the Jedi" theme song.

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Flashback Friday: Christmas in October

Friday, March 17, 2006.

I'm sure I've posted this photo before somewhere on my blog, but today I wanted to post a funny photo and this is it. October 25, 2003, from the "Christmas in October" that Jodi, Rachel, and I invited some of our friends too. We got all dressed up and went out for supper at the Overseas Restaurant and Christmas shopping in Moose Jaw. I'm not sure exactly whose idea this photo was.

Sometimes I still think how good it would be to go to the Overseas again. I love their buffet. Seriously my favourite buffet ever. Last summer I really really wanted to go there when we were out in Saskatchewan but alas we didn't have the time.

Anyways, back to Christmas in October. It was so much fun. I got "The Brick Game" (a.k.a. fake Tetris) i n the gift exchange we all did that night. I took it home that Christmas and my parents loved it, I couldn't pry it back out of their hands. They still have it.

I think when I was visiting Rachel last August she told me she saw our couch somewhere in town. We had a long piece of wirethat came out of it, and I restructured into a piece of "art" to hang on the wall, we called it "Gift from The Couch." I like how in Caronport furniture goes on and lives forever in the houses and rooms of students all over town.

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Sugar Smacks

I saw these vintage-y cereal notebooks at this website recently, and I thought, gosh those are neat.

And then a couple of days later a friend said "I was at Michael's and I got you something." And I said, "Let me guess, a cereal notebook?" And then this week another friend, who didn't know I already had one, got me another one. So now I have both the Sugar Smacks and Sugar Pops ones. I like the colours of the other two, they're fun.

I don't keep a paper journal, so I'm not sure yet what I'm going to use them for. I used to keep a book of lists, and I haven't done that in awhile, so I was thinking perhaps I might use one of them to start that up again.

And now that I've been thinking about cereal I've been thinking about Chocolate Crackles, which I haven't made in a very long time. They're kind of like Rice Krispie squares or puffed wheat squares but made with Corn Flakes and syrup and cocoa and other nutricious ingredients like sugar. Now I'm hungry and it's still an hour and a half until lunch!

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Michelle
Ontario, Canada
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As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the person.

I wait for the Lord , my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope.

Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.

...the reality, however, is found in Christ.

He who pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity, and honour.

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© 2002-2006 MJ

Hello April

Lily Purse

Flashback Friday: March 1990

Chaotic Resolve

Suddenly I Feel Very Confident in My Mechanic

Fungi

Flashback Friday 1991

Carpe Diem

Spring Collection 2006

Shocking That I'm Still Single

Curtains? Who Posts About Curtains?

Painted Horse

The Start of A New Era

Flashback Friday: Christmas in October

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