If Emily was a milkshake maker, this is what she'd be.

Small appliance envy: $9.99 at Goodwill

I found a deal on avocados. Five for $2. The good thing is the price. The (near trivial) downside is having to eat five avocados in the 6 hour window when they are all perfectly ripe.

Fruit: $2 for five at No Frills

Fruit basket: $0, roadside find

I care very deeply about things from New Orleans. Super Bowl! Who dat! The raucous party begins now . . . replete with bumpin' jazz & gumbo file-laden sea food.

In reality, football, jazz, seafood, and parties of the raucous type are experiential nightmares for me.

But Michael is from New Orleans and he is one of my favourites.

Select '60s coffee table book: $2.49 at Goodwill

Poster print: $.99/2 at Goodwill

Keeping your PhD advisor happy: Much goodwill.

To hack or not to hack? That is the question . . .

. . . and hack is always the answer.

Potential: $1.99 at Goodwill

I wonder at what point an addiction to beads becomes maladaptive.

I need to engage in beading more and more to get the desired effect (i.e., rockin' jewellery)

I get sad and agitated when I don't bead.

I feel animated and excited when I get beads or play with my beads.

I can't cut down or control my behaviour.

I've never walked by a bead store without buying something.

I gear my social and recreational activities toward beads and beading.

I am preoccupied with beading and the beads people are wearing.

And, perhaps worst of all, my friends are all pushers. P-U-S-H-E-R-S.

Vintage destash from Susan: $0

Before.
After.

Time until it looks like the after photo? About three rushed mornings.

New treasure chest: $4.99 at Goodwill

You gotta give me credit on this one. I start all my days off the same way: I wake up with these romantic visions of nursing a cup of watery coffee whilst semi-reclined in bed, enjoying the most interesting of thoughts. Flannel philosophy, you know?

At least 46% of these occasions end with me dumping coffee on some combination of my duvet, me, or a library book.

Perhaps this 3lb, broad bottomed, narrow necked beast of a mug might be the El Dorado I seek.

Mug: $3.99 at Goodwill

Dry-cleaning of duvet: Hopefully not.

I have naively grand visions for notebook usage in my life: address book, projects yet unmade book, journal of burn-when-I-die-please writing, travel journals, scrapbooks, and whatever else my cerebral cortex imagines to be an excuse for buying cute things.

A true testament of personal growth would be for me to fill up any one of the seven notebooks I have on the go right now. Even more so would be not buying any until 2014.

Blue: $0, roadside find

Stripe: $2 at Dollarama

Dots: $1.25 at Dollarama

I have this 'friend' who may or may not watch (on occasion) Two and a Half Men. I tell 'her' all the time it's dreadful and skeezy, but will 'she' change her viewing habits? oh ho ho no.

Charlie & Alan (brothers forced by circumstance to live together) share some particularly apt banter on home decorating:

*Charlie annoyed with Alan for buying a decorative candy dish*

Alan: Decor? You call this decor?

Charlie: What would you call it?

Alan: Random crapola.

Charlie: And this! I hate this lamp.

Alan: I bought it two years ago, Charlie.

Charlie: Yeah, well, I just noticed it now.

So imagine my surprise when my Dad saw my terrific new magnets on the freezer door and said, "Hey, did you get some new thingys?" Impressive!

Magnets: $.50/2 at Michael's

Basic cable: $19.95 a month plus the cost of selling my soul

So here's how it goes:

Move to Toronto. Go to school. Have class with Mikey. Meet Mikey's crafty-ass wife, Emily. Need job. Get job. At bead store. Ball of fire, Susan, owns bead store. Alex starts to hawk beads with us, too. Intelligent. Insightful. Karen partied at store with friends one night. Makes silver creations during day. Mai-Liis finds us. Susan hired. She paints. We force obsessive love of beads on her. I need another job. Get another job. New gig needs website. Susan's friend Kelly does websites. Kelly is also insanely creative. She likes chickens. New job also has committees. Dan is on committee. Dan's Laura is another artist. This time books, fabrics, inks, and more. Back to the bead store. I love the bead store. It's Hotel California. I can't quit. Jamie finds us. She's off the hook. Nadia finds us. Beads, beads, beads. More beads. Nadia makes her own. With torches. Lights gas on fire. Rods of glass. She's bad ass.

And all of a sudden my life is filled with artists, creators, inspiration, wonderful women, and beautiful friendships.

Go visit them. It'd make me happy.

Alex told me, "You need a concept, man."

Jamie gave me a workbook to help me pick a career path.

I have 17 hobbies, 2 part-time jobs, 3.5 degrees, 22 visas in my passport. Right now I'm reading a book about scurvy, a guide to the understanding of painting, a treatise on sociobiology, William Faulkner, and Jell-O instructions. Simultaneously.

My friends are observant, eh?

Candles: $0, gift from Alex

Re-worked workbook: $0, gift from Jamie (which I will finish . . . promise)

I have a hard time identifying with Angelina Jolie. You know, the entire mopey fame thing, dragging a herd of children around, the gauntness and disposable income, and that whole Brad Pitt scenario. I pretty much can't stand the poor woman. However, we recently shared a cosmic moment via Entertainment Tonight:

"If I want to do something, I'll have already gone and done it." - Angelina Jolie

Etch that sucker on my tombstone.

Old-school backpack to facilitate travel whim indulgence: $0, roadside find

The best thing about craft Holy Grails is that you don't know you're looking until you find it. This one was an unassuming strip mall bead store in Miami, curated by a woman channeling her inner fortune teller, floor to ceiling and back again, heaped with buckets, bins, and boxes filled with glorious treasure. I pawed through this crate like a rabid dog.

Move over Indiana Jones, this chalice is mine.

Twelve hundred antique brass, copper, wood, bone beads and miscellany: $60, bulk

My Spidey Sense is tellin' me that some folks are less than satisfied with the thing we're calling 2009. Hmmm. To be fair, it's probably because I'm reading tales of misery and hearing them too, not due to some radioactive sixth sense.

Indulge me for a moment of seriousness?

Two thousand & nine was the best year of my life. Here's why:

- my dad moved in with me

- he cooks

- took a cooking class

- affirmed my contempt for cooking

- took a yoga class

- affirmed my hatred of spandex

- took a tea class

- affirmed my love of solitude

- took a lino class

- affirmed my ability to get hurt doing just about anything

- took a rock climbing class

- affirmed my sucking at climbing

- affirmed my loving of dangling

- took dark room lessons

- yup, I'm an introvert

- took a paragliding course

- learned that face plants at 25km/h aren't so bad

- took a book binding class

- re-affirmed my ability to get hurt doing just about anything

Still here?

- moved to the next stage in my degree programme

- enjoyed my job (and I think it's because I'm getting good at it)

- grew into 6 really terrific friendships that I don't want to ever go without

- I created, destashed, acquired, and found too many treasures to count

- went to Winnipeg, Japan, Hawaii, and Miami for the first time

- my friends made me laugh a lot

- found some gems from my younger days

- moved some things from present to the past

- brought things from the future to the present

- luck brought me crazy opportunities for work and school

- people forgave my screw ups

- my plants are still alive

- my collection of beads and yarn grew

- my needs and wants shrank

- blood pressure is excellent

- I made some people laugh and took fourteen pictures of the moon.

IMG_15113: $0

My 2010 arrived in the form of a bed-headed six and a half year old. Let's call him Sebastian. 'Cause that's his name. He was an endearing little human snooze button. Probably cause I get to return him to his parents. 6:47am, 7:42am, 8:34am, 9:20am.

I'm a surprisingly good negotiator before the rooster crows. So is he. I was playing some incomprehensible Japanese card game before the first shot of coffee hit my belly.

Trusty little sewing machine: $80

35mm slide case (now with a purpose): $2.99 at Goodwill

Sebastian: He pays me in Legos & love