Domestic Canadians

Being a stay-at-home mom when you're not quite a mom yet allows quite a bit of time for projects. In fact, having projects to work on is part of what helps keep me sane during the day.

For my birthday, I received money to buy myself a sewing machine, which is something I've been wanting for awhile.  This week, I finally bought one, and I love it.  I even got a sewing box and a few other things to go along with it.

I thought I should keep my first project simple, since it's been a few years since I've used a sewing machine and I wanted a chance to get familiar with this new one. Burp cloths seemed simple enough, and here was the result (I thought my mom would particularly appreciate the I Love Grandma ones, since this is her first grandchild).

I've actually gotten into a lot of different kinds of arts lately, especially drawing and painting. Here's another baby project I did awhile back:

That's right, this is now one of those blogs where the writer posts all kinds of fancy schmancy homemaker-type projects she's done, with the secret hopes of receiving admiration from all her readers.  Just wait until the baby's born and you get 15 pictures of him taking a bath.

On a side note, yesterday I was listening to one of the radio stations I've found since moving here, and I guess I had never really paid attention to the commercials.  Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised when they started talking about Ontario elections, web addresses that end in ".ca" and things to do in Windsor, Ontario.  I even heard them say "zed."  Crazy Canadians.

Birthday Bronco Market Week

We have now been in Detroit for almost a month, and we are still looking for a place to live. We have now set our sights on the downtown area. We've been apartment hunting for awhile--we really like the convenience and atmosphere of living downtown (for anyone who's thinking, oh no, downtown Detroit?! Don't worry, it's actually quite nice).

Ben's birthday was this week, and we did a lot to celebrate. Not only was there ice cream cake, but we got to go to a Boise State football game!

They played (and won) in Toledo, OH which is about an hour from where we live. The people there were really nice, and we found a tasty chili dog stand.  We were not, however, impressed with the town itself--it's pretty sketchy. One guy at the game, upon finding out that we live in Detroit, said, "I'm sorry" (which is not an uncommon reaction, almost always from people who have never actually been to Detroit). Ben and I both thought, sorry man, if you're from this town, you have no room to make fun of anywhere else. No offense, Toledo.

This morning in the midst of our downtown apartment hunting, we went to the famous Eastern Market, which is a 43 acre farmer's market in the city.  It was awesome. They have all kinds of produce, flowers, bread, honey.... the list goes on. And we loved it there--we plan on going every week if we do end up living downtown.

Part of the market is located on this intersection, which we thought appropriate to document. Don't worry, the E stands for Esquire.