Creampuff Revolution

Creampuff Expands Rosewood Cross and Wintersea

As you may recall, last year Katr fulfilled my lifelong dream of owning a Christmas village. My tiny village filled me with joy every time I looked at it and I couldn't wait until next year, when I would add another tiny residence or business to my collection.

Here's the thing: these Department 56 Dickens Village buildings are not cheapo and I figured that if I was lucky, every year, Katr would pick out a suitable building for me and that my village would grow very slowly, year over year, spilling on to adjacent windowsills, perhaps requiring a shelf at some point.

Then Katr discovered eBay.

I knew for some time that Katr was planning something special for my village this year when she informed me that I would have to come up with a name for the village, because the "planning department" needed to know. We decided that the main village (in the dining room) would be "Rosewood Cross" and that the seaside village (in the office) would be "Wintersea".

All through the run-up to the holiday season, there were strange packages arriving and clandestine local meet-ups but I remained blissfully ignorant of Katr's ultimate plans. For our wedding anniversary in November, she presented me with  not one but TWO buildings for my village - a molasses factory (hahahaha)  and a boarding school (where young girls discover lesbianism). I was thrilled - but I thought she was really blowing her building wad.

Little did I know.

On Christmas morning, I was already spoiled and a little drunk when it came time to open my final gift...which was a small box full of replacement light cords and a note from the Rosewood Cross Development Office. I was mystified. And then Katr fired up the Apple TV and played this video. Which she made. And did the voice-over for. In an hilarious "British" accent. Because SHE IS AWESOME.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HOLY SHIT. I love you, Katr.

So, many unboxings and squeals of joy and pluggings in later, here is a slideshow of new Rosewood Cross and Wintersea, if you are a nerd and want to see them. You know you want to.

Also included are the photos from last year, for comparison - and because I was too lazy to start a new set on Flickr for the 2014 Village. 

(Here's a link to the slideshow on Flickr if you're on Firefox and can't see it ;)

I love my village so much. Maybe a little too much. Maybe I should make year-round seasonal vignettes, like the hardcore collectors do! Ooo, there's also a "springtime" collection that comes without snow! HAHAHAHA stop me before I become one of them.

What will next year bring to Rosewood Cross and Wintersea? I can only imagine what Master Potts has in mind. All I can say is that whomever he invites to town, I say "APPRRRROVED!"

Holy Shit, It's 2014

I kind of love that my last post was basically a bitter rant that stayed up throughout the holidays. HA ha! Happy New Year!

Fortunately, my crankiness didn't seem to scare anyone off - the Vancouver chapter of the Shoebox Project reached its goal of 400 boxes this year and Katr, who did all of the box-sorting this year, reported that there were FAR fewer shitboxes this year than last year. Woooo! Thanks to all our friends who donated their goods and time and boxes. You guys are awesome and there are 400 ladies who got a nice gift this season thanks to you. Huzzah!

In my lack-of-blogging defense, things were EXTREMELY busy here at Chez Roro & Katr. In order to keep paying for things, we keep having to work, which is really cramping our style. I overcommitted on Solstice knitting and spent every spare moment trying to finish the wedding socks I started knitting for my aunts in February. Plus, my brother-in-law Drtr was here, being delightful and he brought a lot of booze. 

In fact, this magical holiday season, Katr and Drtr did a brother-sister project called A Bitter Spirit: Cocktail Advent Calendar 2013.

This wasn't some casual "let's mix a few cocktails" thing - there were Skype meetings and spreadsheets and special orders at the liquor store. There were infusions - fig-infused gin, vanilla-infused vodka, bacon-washed bourbon and shitaki mushroom-infused-shōchū. Our kitchen slowly filled up with exotic  bottles and weird jars full of chai-infused Jim Beam.

Every weekend, Katr and Drtr transformed into mixologists, tasting and experimenting and comparing and testing and taking notes and cleansing their palates with stale crackers. Every now and then, I would look up from my frantic knitting when I heard the magical phrase "Roro would like that" and then Drtr would bring me a drink to taste. Pretty great.

We had our customary Solstice Weekend of Family Awesomeness in Victoria and then it was back to Vancouver for two full weeks of glorious sloth and gluttony.  I knit and ate bonbons and watched Sherlock like it was my job.

And now it's 2014! Shitballs!

I looked back at my 2013 resolutions to see how I'd done. Man, were they ever fucking BORING. "Drink more TEA?" "Do more YOGA?" What's even worse is that I DID most of them, thereby becoming a slightly more virtuous human. God I hate myself. 

This year, I'm jazzing up my resolutions because I am boring me. 

1. See more plays! I barely saw any plays this year. This is embarassing because I write plays. I was going to say "I will see one play per month!" but then Katr reminded me that I will never do that, so now let's say IDEALLY I will see one play per month but I'm only going to COMMIT to one play per quarter. Since I'm going to see my own play in Calgary in March, I thought "Great, first quarter done!" but according to Katr, that doesn't count.

2. Write more plays! I was recently telling my friend Padu about a play I wanted to write and he was like "Oh, cool! That sounds like the play I was just in." and I was like "Great. It's been so long since I wrote a play, other people are writing MY MOTHERFUCKING PLAYS." 

3. Ferment! My sister-in-law Trsm got us a book on how to ferment things so GET READY.

4. Knit more! The last two years I've gone into a knitting frenzy around Christmas and then quit knitting for months. Not this year. I've got too much beautiful yarn burning a whole in my three-drawer Rubbermaid mini-dresser and a swift and a ball winder and a dream.

5. Weekly reading night! I stare at a screen all day for work and then at night, I stare at the tv. We've decided that at least one night per week, we'll read books instead. This is particularly important for Katr, who loves to read and who likes to read non-fiction books that made her insta-furious. These days, we read right before going to bed and you know who has a hard time going to sleep after reading about injustice and stupidity? Yeah, that's right, it's Katr.

6. Board games! Someone I am married to funds a lot of board games on Kickstarter and then we get the games and don't play them, because I am resistant to new things. But then when we play the games, it's fun! So twice a month, it is ON LIKE DONKEY KONG. Plus, on Game Day, I get to have Maple Creme liqueur in my decaf Americano. JEALOUS?

I guess that by "jazzing up", I meant "add exclamation points", because these are still kind of boring.

In any case, I wish all of you a healthy and happy 2014!