Tired both physically and mentally

Well, I was hoping to start up my post without having to complain but this morning dealt me a wonderful little bundle of rejection. It's my first time back at my regular desk in the office in just over a week. I was sitting at my desk, doing some work when one of my co-workers comes in. She's the one who seems to have something up her *ahem* when it comes to me. She comes around the wall (my desk is next to hers), she looks at me and makes this look (tight lipped but more of a "hmm" than a "ugh". I tell her "good morning!" and I get no reply, she doesn't even look at me after I tell her. Lovely! Then, later, she wants to chose a paint colour to go with some sample she has with her. Her friend comes around and sits at her desk, I ask if they're looking to find good matches "yes" so I start to push away from my desk "we're fine, we can do it", "ok then" "thanks". Not even 3 minutes later they were 4 girls looking at the colours and giving their opinions. I still wonder what I ever did for her to treat me like this. Did I somehow shit in her cornflakes not only this morning but every morning? Do I smell bad? I would seriously like to change where my workstation is and am considering perhaps asking if I can work in my studio more often - at least the warehouse people there are a lot nicer.

Ok, enough complaining. I promised recipes! A few weekends ago, I prepared 2 healthy dishes and thought I would share them with you (that means I liked them). I took them from the Oxygen glutes issue.

Tuscan-style tuna salad:
Makes 4 servings
2 x 6oz can chunk light tuna, drained
1 x 15 oz can white beans, rinsed
10 cherry tomatoes, quartered (I used regular tomatoes and cubed them)
4 scallions, chopped
2 tbspn extra virgin olive oil
2 tbspn lemon juice
1/2 tspn salt
black pepper to taste
*please note that I also added some left over coriander I had lying around in the fridge

Combine all ingredients and refrigerate until ready to serve!

I actually really liked this dish! It was amazing! I even gave some to Salem for his lunch and he really liked it too.


Stuffed roasted red pepper
Makes 2 servings
1/2 cup of nonfat or 1% cottage cheese
1/2 tspn minced garlic
8oz poached chicken breast*, chopped
2 whole roasted red peppers, canned or jarred - Please rinse them! I didn't and had to deal with a slightly pickled meal!
*I poached mine in chicken stock and herbs as I felt it would be too plain simply poached in water

1. In a small bowl, combine cottage cheese, garlic and chicken and stir until combined.
2. Distribute cottage cheese mixture inside pepper. You can serve warm (45 seconds in the microwave) or cold.


I also made mahi mahi but I don't have the recipe on me at the moment. It was quite good (my first time making something with this fish) and Salem brought the leftovers with him for lunch the next day. He said it was even very good reheated. :-)

I need to work on some pictures to post up on here. I haven't been at home much for a while and I'm all over the place at the moment. I just want to sleep.

On my awesomeness and worries

On my awesomeness
I had to take pictures today of some pants at work. The male mannequin is has a waist of about 32" (yes, he's tiny!) and the smallest pants were size 46" waist! Errrr... yeah. So I got creative and made him a makeshift fat suit! I took some cotton shopping bags and draped them over his neck (front and back) and then wrapped him up in a white sheet. I had to pin the pants on because he still wasn't big enough, but I did the best I could. Pictures to come!

On worries
Salem's neighbour, Tante Alice, a really nice 71 year old Armenian lady has not been feeling too well for a while. The other day, she cooked for us and told us she was still feeling short of breath and that this and that hurt. I'm getting worried... very worried. She won't go to the hospital for fear of not being let out (and I think for fear of knowing what she has and being forced to go through treatments) and she won't tell her daughters about her problems. What should I do? Actually, I know there's nothing I can do other than repeat to her that she should go to the hospital... How should I deal with this? I seriously have the gut feeling that she has lung cancer (she and her husband smoke a lot, shortness of breath, etc)... :-( I don't know. It makes me sad to think about this. Even though I don't know her very well, she almost feels like a grand-mother to me.

On not being part of the team and birthday annoyances

Well, I often wonder if I think too much or if I read into things too much. Lately, it's been getting to me a bit, please excuse me as I vent/complain/voice my concerns out loud.

I started a new job a month ago and I've only recently started making any kind of progress socially. Even at that, it's hard! My cubicle is in the same area as 2 other girls. One barely even responds when I say hello and gives me the impression that she looks down on me. The other one responds to my hellos and we've had brief conversations. Yesterday, 3 girls were laughing at some sort of forward on the computer (one was almost crying from laughing so hard) so I said "something must be funny if she's on the verge of tears"... No one even aknowledged me. I have no clue what was so funny... Am I just wasting my time?

Also, it seems I try to always please others. For my birthday dinner this weekend, I decided to go to a Moroccan restaurant because 3 people I had consulted before were quite interested. I searched all over the place and decided on a restaurant. Now it seems half the people I invited can't come (I know, I invited people at the last minute) and people have complained about the parking (it's on St-Denis - parking is hard there but not too bad if you don't mind walking for 5 minutes)... So now I'm considering moving the whole event to a more parking-friendly area (and somewhere closer to the homes of the people coming) but they don't have Moroccan restaurants! So Now I'm looking at Thai places (I like Thai food) and of course, I'm wondering "will people be happy?"...

*SIGH* Big, Freaking SIGH!

When am I just going to make up my mind and not give a crap whether people are totally happy at my expense? It's my freaking birthday! Just one day a year where I'd like to have things 100% (or even just 90%) my way! I don't want to hear about the parking or that the soup that came with the table d'hote didn't have enough salt or that the proposed time is too early, etc etc etc. Seriously! It's just one meal out of the whole year! One! Maybe 3 hours of your time! Can you please just suck it up? Do I complain when people tell me where they want to go for their birthday? No! Why? Because it's their happiness that counts, it's their day!

It seems it's the same problem every year. Perhaps next year I'll just take a vacation somewhere sunny and not have to deal with any of this. It'll just be me, myself and I ... and the sand, beach and sun!

Distractions make me a bad, bad girl!

Well, I've been quite distracted lately by 2 things:

1 - Mom's 60th! I took her out to a Peruvian restaurant on the day of her birthday and gave her 75% of her gift. Why only 75%? Well, I got the other 25% but a part is missing so I have to return it... Of course, I've been slow in getting it to the post office. Surprise surprise!

2- I just started a new job last Monday! I love my new job! We are currently setting things up, I will be working out of 2 offices (in one of which I get to have my very own office/photo studio!) Wow!!!!!! The people are super nice, the benefits are amazing, etc etc etc!

Oh... And Salem's mother was down for 10 days or so! I got to spend a lot of time with her. She's very nice and I think we got along very well.

Overall, I am quite happy with things. I just finished up some slippers for my dad (I just need one last thing to be done).

Ok, bedtime! I need to wake up at 6 am! Ugh!

Gah! I'm super late!

This is just a quick update on what's going on. I know, I've been a bad, bad girl! So bad that I only realized now that one picture from my package post is only half displayed! I'll get around to fixing that ASAP! Sorry!

Also, I'm so behind on answering the SP13 weekly question (or... well... this was in December)
Part A: Are you doing any holiday knitting?
Hehehehehe... no! :-D

Part B: Have you finished?
If I have none, then I guess I am finished! Amazing! For once I'm ahead and not way behind!

So.... what new? I am starting a new job in just over a week and a half! Weeeeeeee!!!! Note to self: get a book on digital photography techniques. I'll be working on putting items on a website, taking pictures of said items, writing up item descriptions, working with other departments to make one HUGE website... and I get to be creative! Oh, and benefits after 3 months, pension plan after 6 months and... AND... get this! Vacation time after a year! WHAT'S THAT?! **all wide-eyed** I can't wait! What's this company? It's a company that has an office in Montreal and 14 co-ops in the North of Quebec (and by North, I mean WAYYYYYYYY up north, as in permafrost my friend!). We supply all items for these 14 co-ops (food, clothing, gasoline, storage, building materials, programs, etc etc). It's a really neat company and big on helping out everyone in the community.

On my plate for the next week or so:
1- Finish up everything at the office here
2- Impress Salem's mother! I mean REALLY impress! She's in town until the 25th and I plan on cooking a crazy meal (yet I'm not too sure what to make yet).
3- Finish organizing Mom's 60th birthday dinner (shhh.... don't tell her I let her age slip out).

Projects I am currently working on:
1- Picture frame earring organizer (pictures to come soon). Of course, it'll be decorated with henna!
2- Dad's thrummed slippers (almost done!)
3- SP13 knitted item #1
4- Lama's scarf (may be frogged, I noticed a mistake - damn!!!!)
5- Mom's ab... abbyl...abhlynn.... errr.. cowl. I just need to add beads and hope she's a bit more enthused about it when I present it to her for the 2nd time (oh, the grimace on her face the first time I showed it to her. I must admit it really hurt).
6- Whatever I just forgot.

Upcoming projects:
1- My giant above-couch painting/mirror project! I swear, I'll do it!
2- Salem's Henry scarf
3- Do the 2nd herring-bone mitten
4- A shawl for Nanan
5- Henna jewelry and ... housewares (it's a secret!)
6- My personal website
7- Get back to my Bettie Page poster (done in Illustrator)
8- Make a hat for myself (if it's the Fishy hat, then I might even use various scraps!)
9- Various projects with dad (including a fold-down table/counter for my tiny kitchen and a deep shadow box to display my growing seashell collection)
10- I'm sure I'm forgetting something, I just can't recall what it is... :-S Sorry!

"Dish bitch" is not in my job description!

Hello kids, it's me again, and I'm back to do a few things.

1. SP13 Question of the week (from last week - I'm fashionably late, of course): What are you most thankful for this year:
I'd have to say that I'm very thankful that my tonsils are gone, my number of translation contracts are up, Salem and I are talking marriage and babies on a regular basis, that I have everything I need available to me (job, money for rent/food/utilities/spending), that I've finally found my religion and that everyone around me in in (relatively) good health.

2. A big THANK YOU to my SP13 spoiler "Arnold" for my first gift! (yes, I'm very late, sorry! I've been so busy sending you novels). ;-) It's the Farmer Fox pattern by Jennie Lamond! He's amazingly cute and now he's MINE!!!!!

3. Re: Dish bitch. I was helping out with a conference one of my co-workers organized yesterday and guess what happened! The caterer came by and set everything up and then told us "we won't be able to come pick up the stuff until tomorrow or after tomorrow". SO basically, my co-worker and I were stuck carting everything (3 food trays, plates, cuttlery, serving trays, cups, etc) and cleaning up the mess at the end of the day. Did I mention this event had 25 people attending and lasted ALL day? Do you have any idea how dirty people are when they know they don't have to clean up after themselves? Not only did we have to store everything in our office, but we had to rinse everything as well to make sure nothing started rotting in here. I spent almost an hour and a half rinsing this crap! What the hell kind of crap ass caterer was this?!

October - that means Halloween is coming!!!!

First, I would like to appologize to all my readers *cough* for not posting for a very long time. I spent the whole month of September day fasting, praying and coming home only to sleep.

Work has been ok but 2 fairly recent slaps in the face have made me decide that it is finally time to look for something else. I am currently looking for jobs in translation (in Quebec or Ontario). I am also thinking of moving overseas next year (to the Gulf) to teach English and French. To tell you the truth, it all depends on what happens with Salem.

Today, I will be signing up for my first official Secret Pal swap - Secret Pal 13. I had a lot of fun organizing my own small Montreal Knits one (although there are some issues that are still unresolved 6 weeks after the final deadline). But I think ti was a nice experience and plan to host another Montreal Knits swap in the new year.

And now, for the best part of this month: HALLOWEEN! Yes, I know, I am a Muslim, not a Pagan, but Halloween is still one of my top 5 days in the year! I get to dress up, have an excuse to spend all day in costume and no one can call me a freak! Wooohoo!!! I really want to dress up like Medusa (even though Salem and his sister really don't want me to - they rather I dress like a disco queen or something else.... Yeah, riiiiiight!). I'll see, I might be going to a theme party where I have no choice but to dress up as somethign specific - ugh - in this case, a superhero - double ugh!

That's all for my current, quick update!