Well, the trip to BC was amazing. We spent 4 days in Vancouver, Surrey and Whistler, then drove down (in a rented car) to Eugene, Oregon to see Emily and Colin (we miss you guys!) and came back up to White Rock for Sue & Chris’ wonderful wedding on Saturday before flying out of Vancouver again back to Toronto. I’ll be uploading my pictures (as soon as I find the damn cord for the camera) and talking about each day in detail, but for now I’ll leave you with a few of my favorite pictures of Adam’s and links to the rest of the set.

I’ve decided that more productive and faster-loading computer programs are not what I want. To hell with efficiency. When would I get in my daydreaming if not while waiting for photoshop to open?

Our best friends Colin and Emily have lived beside us for years, either in the same house (before we were married) or just across the street, and people marvel that we survived the roommate thing and all still remained friends, but we did, somehow. For the past year we have lived across the street in the same complex and we are always seen carrying different combinations of furniture, food, cats, guitars, alcohol, workout equipment and electronics back and forth as we hang out at each other’s houses. It has been great having them so close.

Sadly, the legacy must die, as Colin begins his Master’s of Athletic Therapy at the famous University of Oregon. As they prepare for the move to the states we offered to let them to stay with us for a bit so they can be free to look for a place in Eugene without being hampered by needing to finish a lease here. To pay us back for the room, Emmy has been cleaning non-stop since she got here. It has been magnificent. I haven’t lifted a finger since she got here, and the house is spotless. She even organized my spices, streamlined by stovetop collection of seasonings and cleaned the backyard.

My only problem? Since she is so good at putting things away and finding a good space to put everything, can’t find anything in my house now if she’s not around to ask. What am I going to do once they leave?

A weekend at the cottage is never complete without certain required traditions, and the creation of some new ones. Here are some of my memories from our most recent cottage expedition, to celebrate “Old Man Wallace’s” 30th birthday.

Getting “While you’re upped,” which means getting sent for a beer when you’re not actually up.

Colin and Aiden getting inducted to the “I’ve tipped in a canoe” club, of which I have been a proud member for years.

Ollie trying to eat a caterpillar, a chipmunk and that ugly bug with wings we found in the cabin.

Learning that Aiden does not require sleep. We think he’s a cylon.

Adam taking record 2 Gigabytes worth of pictures in 4 days.

An 8-foot bonfire for no reason on a perfectly warm night.

Sleeping 15 people in a cottage that is supposed to sleep 10.

Adam endlessly poking the fire because he can’t let it alone, and me endlessly bugging Adam about poking the fire because I can’t let it alone.

Watering the flowers in the rain because “it was a directive.” The weather was great, except for the fantastic thunderstorm as we were leaving, and it was a perfect mix of hilarity and clarity, of laughing so hard our cheeks hurt and sitting still for almost a full hour to stare at the perfect sunset. With Colin & Emily’s move to Oregon just around the corner, our cottage days together are numbered. But even when they are over, we’ll still have all these stupid memories to keep us laughing.

So. I joined Twitter. I figured I wasn’t wasting enough time online since I haven’t been fired yet and my husband still knows my name. For the un-initiated, Twitter is essentially the Facebook ‘”status updates” feature and nothing else. It allows me to send little updates (“New items posted to the shop!”) or random musings (“If everything in the universe suddenly doubled in size would you notice?”) or current observations (“There are 50 snails on this stretch of sidewalk”) from the web or my cell and get updates from other people sent to my phone as well, if I want.

I Installed a Plug-in (I’m all about plug-ins this week, aren’t I?) called Twitter Tools that automatically posts an update to Twitter when I write a new blog post and makes a summary blog post each night from my Twitter updates for that day (in case you were wondering what that post was).  You can also use services like Twitterific to update your Twitter, Facebook Status, MSN or Adium Status and Skype Mood all at once.

I swore I wasn’t going to give in and join Twitter, and then I couldn’t remember why I had sworn that. Give in to what? If I don’t like it, I can just stop using it. I know everyone else is doing it too, but that isn’t a reason for me to boycott. I think not doing something because everyone else is is just as silly as doing something because everyone else is. My philosophy for all these viral fads is just do it if you want, and if you don’t want to anymore, stop.

So, if you want to Cyberstalk me, here ya go: (Love to hear from you all)

Blog: www.sixthandelm.com (you already know this one, you’re there now)
Shop: www.sixthandelm.etsy.com
Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/sixthandelm
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=512543545
Twitter: www.twitter.com/sixthandelm
YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/sixthandelm
Trunkt Portfolio: www.trunkt.org/client.listing_detail.cfm/id/2592

Phew. Anything else?

…to think this was a good idea?

And, being boys, I heard this conversation shortly after:

“Okay, Adam, sit down it’s your turn.”
“But that looked like it really hurt!”
“Yeah, it did, A LOT! Sit down…”
“Okay…”

which resulted in this:

Of course, the chief reason these hilarities ensued was likely due to the ball game and drinking too much of this:

One small keg, six people, dry by 3am. .

Like all great ideas from the depths of Colin’s consciousness, this one was born of many, many, many glasses of beer and a conversation that was way too serious for the current blood alcohol saturation level. Back in October of last year a pact was entered into by Colin and Adam to embark on a great baseball quest (searching for….?) this season, and the first stage took place just over a week ago. Inexpertly titled “A Cacophony of Epiphanies,” the rules, as outlined by a fading Adam and Colin on that fateful October night, are outlined at the end of this post. And near incomprehensible.

The quest was officially started with a trip to The SkyDome on Retro Jersey night. 12 of our closest friends, a few questionable baby-blue retro jersey purchases, a two-day Rock Band marathon (with some actual guitar playing thrown in for fun)  and a mini-keg for the 6 of us left at the end of the adventure sure made this crazy idea seem kinda logical as we all had a great weekend. More pictures can be seen here, and here (the second set is Adam’s).

The Official Rules are listed after the jump, for anyone interested.

(more…)

A couple of my favorites from Adam’s flickr photostream…

From some flowers he bought me a little while ago. Awww… isn’t that sweet….

Welcome to the world, little one…

Love Aunt Tellie & Uncle Adam

Chuki turned 7 this past Wednesday, we think. He was a rescue kitten after-all, and we estimated his age at 8 weeks when we got him in July 28th, 2001, but later the vet thought he might have been 5 or 6 weeks (!) since his teeth were small and he was still suckling at our fingers, like he had been separated from his Mom before 8 weeks. We didn’t update his “birthday date” though, so May 28th it has been for the past 6 years.

Yeah, kitty birthdays are dumb to some people, but we don’t have any kids and have to take it out on someone.

We bought him some toys and a “Furminator” (found Via Mary-Robinette Kowal’s blog this weekend, more on that later) and I cracked out the bead case and made him a few new necklace collars. He liked the wooden bead one best, so he’s now sporting a fancy new collar for the summer months.

Then we ate 1 piece of cheese each and took birthday photos.