Can I have a badge now?

I survived! I ended up swimming about 4 hours all told, not including the relay race we did for the last hour. My team won, despite being half dead. Well, I guess that didn't really matter since we were all dead so it was equal! I was just going to swim it normally, but we had the swim coach on our team, so he pushed us super hard to beat the team next to us, and ended up beating the other team as well!

It was a little wierd, as we were allowed to break all the pool rules! We brought the couch from our managers office onto the deck, and built a system of nests for sleeping. Daren didn't sleep overnight, so he crashed really hard in the morning. He slept though pretty much everything for a bit. Including Jason poking his face. They're brothers, so I think he was used to it.


Over all the whole thing went pretty well, though I swam super slow. Next year I'll try to swim harder. We were all full of injuries anyway. I got a friction rash on my underarm from my bathing suit after the forth half hour swim. I had to bandage it to keep swimming. We joked that it looked like I was in a gang. The other arm got it when we were doing the relay, but I didn't have time to stop and bandage it, so I just slapped a load of Vaseline on it every little while to keep it from getting more irritated. Jason and Daren both messed up their knees from doing too much breast stroke and all of our arms ache. Even Fabian, our swim team coach is sore, and he's a machine.

I have to say we learned a lot from the first time. Next time will be better. And yes, I will totally do this again. The thing that I didn't think we would need was the Vaseline, we all used it, and I should have used more. It stops your skin from drying out and helps with irritation. We were totally helped by the insane amounts of food brought by Dale, who is a mom of a bunch of kids in our swimming program. We call her David's Mom, though I finally learned her name last night! She is a caterer, so she would show up every couple of hours with trays of food she had made for us. I know we would have died with out it. Bananas were also essential. There was a crisis at about 11:30pm when Fabian realized that we were out of bananas, he had to run out to a 24 hour grocery store to get more.

While I managed to rescue my hair for the most part by showering (shampoo and conditioner) after almost every swim I did, I went and got my hair cut today.


It's super short! I loves it. It's the shortest I've ever had it done. I have a policy against getting my hair cut in the middle of a swim session, I always wait until the few weeks we have off in between. However, because of this swim insanity, I had to wait an extra week, which was driving me crazy! It'll be perfect for teaching though, since it's so short it won't get anywhere near the water!

Swim-a-thon, along!

As many of you know, I am a lifeguard and swimming teacher.


At this fine establishment, St. Alban's Boys and Girls Club, 843 Palmerston Ave.

Tonight the lifeguards and a bunch of regular lap swimmers are doing a 24hour swim-a-thon to raise money for the swim team and the youth programs at the club. Because of class I won't be a regular swimmer, but I'm going to be there for emotional support and as a back up overnight. I will definitely be swimming from 9pm-9:30 tonight, 7am-7:30 and 9:30-10am tomorrow.


I will also be knitting (of course!). Come on by to support us, or just to say hello. Donations are tax deductible, but we will also accept food! Carbs will be much appreciated. We also need people to count laps for us. The aim is for the teams to swim 600 laps in celebration of the club's 60th anniversary. While it sounds like a lot, it's not so bad... I can swim 54 laps in half an hour, which is a kilometre. We have a very small pool!

Hope to see you there!

401 Richmond

I went to get some supplies for a project at DeSerres art supplies store on Spadina. My mom is working at Open Studio in 401 Richmond, across the street, so I popped in to say hello. I have a serious crush on that building. I love it's history and how artistic it is.

These sculptures are currently hanging in the entrance, they are made the tops of of old 1L pop bottles.

There are actually two buildings, which are connected by a walkway. In between there is a lovely courtyard. It is public, but is also used by the daycare at the studio. It's kind of hard to see in this picture, but there is a sculpture of a person hanging off the stairs. The text on the stairs reads "The spirit within us fashions all this", which I thought was brilliant.

Since it was originally a factory building, the cielings are double height, which makes for some really beautiful light. Toronto is however, still grey, so these are a bit crap.

My favourite part of visiting my mom is walking through the hallways. They creak in such a satisfying way.

My mom was almost finished the class she was taking, so she convinced me to wait a bit for her. I went across the street to Le Gourmand for a tea, and to tackle some of the report cards I have to write for swimming. It's my least favourite part of my job. They are pretty easy, but I make them take forever since I procrastinate so much. I feel like I'm writing the same thing over and over again, since we aren't allowed to make any comments on the child's behaviour and everything is sugarcoated. In the end it's all a load of crap. Either they pass or the don't. Oh wait, they Complete or Incomplete, there is no fail in swimming.


Ugh, how many more to do?

Thermal-is

I was going to show some pictures of what I'm knitting right now, like my Casbah sweater or some mittens I finished, but it's raining cats and dogs out right now, so all my photos look like butt. So instead you'll get a project I knit a few weeks ago.

This is a Thermis, knit for my dear friend Claire's birthday. I have known her for about 9 years, she was the first friend I made in grade 7, when we switched schools. She is an amazing person, super smart with the most amazing heart. She also introduced me to Doctor Who, which is just awesome. I have taught her to knit, however she is taking baby steps.

I've had my eye on this cowl pattern for quite some time and when we got this Cascade 220 in at the store I decided that the match was perfect. It's Thermis, which you can get off The Rav from KrisKnits. This purple matches her winter coat, and the star buttons are leftover from my Loppem. I got them at Courage My Love, in Kensington. I'll defininetly be making one of these for me soon. So cute and functional!