Summah Time...And The Livin' Is...?

I love summer.

Really, I do.

Last summer..lying poolside overlooking lake Zurich...beautiful.

Bopping from country to country via sketchy trains..fun!

Lying on the beach in Greece without a care in the world? SIGN ME UP.

Summers here? Busy. Lots to do. Stress filled. Anxiety ridden.

There are definitely good things, there are definitely things I love..but there just never seem to be enough hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done and this summer my patience levels are already running short.

I walked into the house last night and sat down. In the front hallway. I finally crawled (literally) down to my room twenty minutes later. I managed to climb back upstairs and eat something before I lay my head on the table and pretended that I was okay, that I wasn't melting into a ball of exhausted mess. After everyone left, I crawled (again, literally) downstairs and melted into the couch. Where I sat in a zombie like state, half asleep, until I finally crawled (literally) into my bed.

Whoever said 'summertime and the living is easy' never had their busy season during the summertime.

Odd fact though...that songs lyrics are on repeat on my computer right now.

I love Eva Cassidy. And this song...apparently.

Summertime and the living is easy
Fish are jumping and the cotton's high
Your daddys rich and your mamas good looking
So hush little baby, baby, don't you cry

One of these mornings you're gonna rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings and you'll take to the sky
But till that morning there ain't nothing can harm you
With daddy and mommy, mommy standing by

One of these mornings you're gonna rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings and you'll take to the sky
But till that morning there ain't nothing can harm you
With daddy and mommy, mommy standing by
So hush little baby, baby don't you cry

Let's hope these lyrics come true. Let's really hope so. Because we're now eight days (?) into summer...and I'm plum exhausted.

Oh What A Day..

Weather warnings suck.

Tornado warnings suck more.

I just hope that the damage isn't too bad...

So tired, so exhausted...should have been in bed hours ago...but instead am glued to the weather network and am freaking myself out thanks to the ridiculous scare factor of any sort of news station.

BLAH!

Even the dogs are behaving...that's got to mean it's bad.

Getting a good nights sleep while the livlihood of..everything...rests in the balance....so not happening. Fun.

Happily Ever After

Today is my parents 39th wedding anniversary.

I KNOW.

THIRTY NINE?!

How is that even POSSIBLE?

I can't even FATHOM thirty-nine years, let alone being married that long.

I don't have much to say about the subject - except...holy crap...that's basically..crazy.

And since I'm just dumbfounded by the fact that they've been married THAT LONG (and subsequently thinking that I'd better throw them a party/get them an awesome present for NEXT year) I'm just going to go in for the win with a photo post. Including
some sweet oldschool photos.

Enjoy!


Then - A hippie wedding! Thirty-nine years ago today! Is it just me...or does it look like they're twelve and playing dressup?!



Then - Were parents even ever allowed to be this young?!



Then - My parents were so cool..they took pregnancy photos where my dad pretended to have a belly too. Foreshadowing...Maybe...haha! :P (Love you Dad!)




Now - hanging out in the gaudi park in Barcelona when they came to Europe to visit me :)



Now - My parents after we climbed a mountain at dawn in South Africa a couple years ago


So - that's that. Thirty nine years, a pile of adventures and stories, two of the best kids ever (I'm so modest.) and they're still together. I have no idea what else one could possibly ask for :)

Happy anniversary Mom & Dad!

They Say Bad Things Happen For A Reason..

I would like to believe in happiness.

I would like to believe that things happen for a reason.

I would like to believe that the world is a place where lollipops and rainbows flourish.

Unfortuantly, I know better.

I read the news - and dude, shit happens. In a big bad way.

Bombs explode, families mourn, sickness plagues, people lose their way.

And I am an emotional person. Often times, I find myself tearing up...getting upset about things that are so far beyond my reach and scope of normality that they effect me even though I cannot even fathom them.

Sometimes they're things that hit closer to home - and they're just upsetting.

Sometimes I just get upset about things - things that aren't in the news, that aren't huge things that change the entire course of...everything.

But because they're a matter of life and death - and death that could be avoided.

It's difficult for me to understand death - I just don't like it. I like to pretend that it doesn't exist. I play make believe and hide from it. I push it out of my mind and pretend that I don't have to deal with it.

In this case - I don't know the girl...I've never met her...and she lives half way around the world from me...I'm linked to her only from brief snippits of stories and words. A few facebook pictures and the odd little wall post. Nothing really..and yet...I can't help but be sad.

People say that bad things happen for a reason - but most times...it's hard to see past the tip of my nose how there could possibly be a reason for such sad things to happen in the world.

So I'm sad. Sad for a life lost far too young when it didn't have to be this way. Sad for her family that now is missing a part. Sad that this is the reality of life. My heart wishes things were different. That things weren't sad. That things could always be happy. It's true that knowledge is power...but in this case...ignorance would really be bliss...because my heart yearns for days when things weren't complicated and sad and heartbreaking...even though I know now that the world is full of these things...both on huge large earth shattering, news making ways...and in quite simple ways that go unnoticed by the vast majority of the people out there.

Despite this...I have to believe in happiness, in rainbows and sunshine dreams filled with lollipops and dancing frolics...because if I don't...I have no idea what the point of anything is anymore...and that is a more scary reality than anything.

Deception

The other day I came into the house to make myself lunch.

I decided that a grilled cheese would be yummy in my tummy...so I put one on to cook.

After making it golden brown and toasted to perfection...I decided to add a few pickles to the side.

Because despite my utter disgust for cucumbers...who doesn't love a good pickle?

I grabbed a jar of bread and butter pickles and scooped out a few for the side of my plate. And then a few more. I don't think you understand how much I love pickles.

So - There I was. Picture it. In the kitchen...about to sit down at the island and eat a lovely lunch of a grilled cheese sandwich with pickles on the side.

I popped a pickle in my mouth - and suddenly...my brain froze.

Like, literally...froze.

I was so confused I didn't know what to do.

I was eating a bread and butter pickle...but...it tasted like...a dill pickle.

I ate another.

Same thing.

I sat staring at my plate for a good minute.

Then smelled the pickle, tentatively took a nibble..and put it back down on my plate in confusion.

I was a little dumbfounded as to what had happened. I was expecting the sweet, yet still pickly taste to hit my tongue...yet all I got was dill pickle. But it was in the completely wrong shape - and thus...my mouth and my brain were in complete and utter chaos.

Upon inspection of the jar which I had placed back in the fridge...evidentally someone had bought 'dill chips' - which LOOKED exactly like bread and butter pickles - except they used a dill pickle base instead of a bread and butter one.

I know - mind boggling.

I dug around in the fridge for some sort of 'NORMAL' pickle - but came up empty handed.

By this time - my lunch break was almost over..so I went back to my sandwich in despair.

What is a girl to do when her pickle doesn't look like it tastes?

The only thing I could think of was to eat them...because again...WHO DOESN'T LOVE PICKLES? I love dill pickles too..but there was just something...wrong..about these pickles. It wasn't the flavour - that's usually fine. And it wasn't the shape - that's usually fine too.

Rather - it was the combination of THAT flavour and THAT shape of pickle...that left my brain and my senses at a loss - and my puppy happy beyond belief...because he got to eat a whole mouthful of pickles that my brain couldn't process.

Oh pickle deception - I never thought this day would come.

Fool me once...shame on you...

Fool me twice? When it comes to pickles? My brain might implode.

Whatcha Doin' Yo

This morning I was all

GOOGLE - WHATCHA DOIN' YO

Instead of my nice, clean cut pretty simple google that was easy and nice - it was this weird, ugly google that was hard to read and made no sense.

Not cool, google. Not cool.

So I was all...man..I gotta google what the heck is going on the google.

So I did. And they're all changing their homepage. Which is weird.

Have I mentioned that I don't like change?

So I'm was all grumpy because google changed their homepage and it's UGLY.

I wanted to break up with google, because SERIOUSLY - how could they DO this to me? ...But of course I'm too busy/lazy/eh to rise up in rebellion when it comes to these things so I just sit by passively until my brain forgets that change has actually occured and the change becomes the norm and you almost forget what it use to be like (can we say: facebook changes? - I remember the days before pokes, before status updates and before facebook applications - I'm oldschool when it comes to facebook.) Although I haven't necessarily EMBRACED all of the changes that happen, I tend to take them in stride and get use to them and forget how facebook us to work...which is what I assumed I would do with google. This is why I'm bad at relationships. Breaking up is hard to do....haha.

I was still being a grumpy sourface until I noticed the little 'remove background image' at the bottom left hand side of my google homepage.

SAWEEEEEEEET. Let's hide change and pretend it doesn't happen I thought to myself!

Until I realised that I could pick from a variety of pretty photos.

OR I COULD MAKE MY GOOGLE PAGE ONE OF MY OWN.

AND CHANGE IT WHENEVER I WANTED.

You know, LIKE MY DESKTOP.

Then, suddenly...I loved google again.

We weren't broken up anymore. Or we wouldn't be broken up if I had had enough guts/motivation/energy to break up with google in the first place.

And I didn't even have to pretend that there were things about my relationship with google that made me angry - because I was staring at a beautiful picture of my cottage everytime I opened a new tab. Love. Love. LOVE.

Google, please forgive me for my momentary lapse in judgement - I knew you were plain old awesome the whole time...I mean...how else would you have been able to go from being a noun to both a noun AND a verb in so little time? If that's not the definition of awesome - well, I don't know what is.

Face + Palm

I've always been that girl that wanted kids...even though the thought sometimes terrifies me....it's something that I just...want.

That being said - I've been going to some fun old prenatal lessons and they're kinda sorta making me SCARED BEYOND BELIEF to ever even THINK about having children.

So far it's been...tame.

Lessons about baby care. Babies 101. How to hold, bathe, and love your baby. Basically.

Then we learned A LOT about breastfeeding. Not all necessarily things you want to hear after a 12 hour day - but the reality of life and things that you kinda need to know if you're having a baby (but wait - I'm...not....? Hrm.)

EITHER WAY - they're both just warmups.

Because this weeks lesson is entitled 'giving birth - realities of childbirth' - WITH VIDEO.

..and I thought I was scared before.

After tomorrow - we'll...we'll just add an extra r and change it to scarred.

Oi.

..wish me luck - and that I get a seat near the door in case I (the girl with the worlds weakest stomach) has to puke.

I joke - I'm sure I'll be okay...right?

The Dunce

As I've written about before, my cousin had to make one of the most difficult decisions ever and put her father into a home.

It was more difficult than you could ever imagine...having to watch someone you love so confused, so upset, so heartbroken - and then there was my cousin feeling the same intense wave of emotions, yet from the completely oppospite perspective.

Although he settled in with such ease that it almost had us dumbfounded - there were definitely still issues.

The biggest one being that he was in a 'secure' ward - locks in, locks out, no way to get out...but it also meant that the people there were REALLY out of it. They HAD to be in the locked unit, they were so completely out of it that we encountered many...crazy situations. He's now been moved - but the people on that floor..the ones who have no idea who THEY are, let alone who I was - are still some of the sweetest people I've ever seen. Sweet - but man, they were FULL of the crazy.

There was one who wandered the halls and would just follow you around - which was pretty normal for that floor.

Then there was Edith who would take my hand, kiss it and try to take me for a walk...and when she wasn't doing this...she would 'patrol' the halls - watching everyone and everything...once she came up to us - asked what we were doing, said 'okay, fine - send it off RIGHT AWAY!' and took off shuffling down the hall.

There were the girls - Katherine and Sadie - who giggled and gossiped with each other and would wander around the halls with their walkers and their purses, discussing where they would go today - 'oh would you like to go to the garden? Or we could watch a movie? Perhaps we should get a cup of tea this afternoon before dinner' etc. etc. and then they'd go and ask what time it was and flitter about doing their daily tasks while wandering around chatting with each other waiting for meal times or bath times or whatever else they were waiting for..

Then there was Irene.

She wandered around trying to cuddle with you, talking or singing to you in a high pitched voice through her missing teeth.

She had my heart - but that could be because whenever she saw me she'd sing "beaaaaaaautiful laaaaaaaaaaaady....i loveeeeeeee the laaaaaaaaaaaaady...what a wonderfuuuuuuul laaaaaaaaaaaady...i loveeeeeee the laaaaaaaaaaaady' while she took my hand and tried to get me to go somewhere, anywhere with her...haha

But one day...I was standing in the hall with my friend Jenn, minding my own business...waiting for my cousin and uncle to catch up with me as we were taking him out for the afternoon...and this woman in a wheel chair who I had never heard say ANYTHING even when she was asked questions or spoken to comes up and looks at us and then exclaims "you're just standing around like a bunch of dunces...dunce dunce dunce...why are you standing around like a big old dunce'

And then rolled off and about as if nothing ever happened...while we stood there wondering what the heck had happened...and what exactly a dunce stood like.

Oh the special care floor...what a bunch of characters.

Love Hate Relationships

I have a big, bold statement to put out there into the world of the internets.

Yeah.

I know.

Me, taking a stand for something, anything. Whodda THUNK it?

Not me. Or probably you. Or you over there sitting in the corner...you know you wouldn't have. Seriously, just admit it.

Anyways - here is my big, bold statement.

I. Dislike. Pie.

....

....

....

Okay. The screams of horror need to end.

I know some people make valid arguments. Take for instance The Scientific Approach written over at Hyperbole and a Half.

Yeah.

Those would be some darn convincing arguments.

Can't argue with science dude.

Except....that...I do.

It's true...I cannot tell a lie...99% of the time...I don't enjoy pie.

Not because I don't enjoy delicious fruit filling - because I DO....it makes my heart AND my tummy happy.

But pie crust?

Ewwy, ewwy, YUCK.

So yuck infact...that I would rather eat cake. I would give up all of the yummy filling..because I don't like pie crust. And I would trade it all in for cake.

Yeah. CAKE.

Well - unless my mom makes the pie....and then the pie crust is flaky and melt in your mouth and delicious and wonderful and it doesn't taste like you're eating pie - it only tastes like you're eating heaven filled with yum.

Yep. Go Back. Take your time. Read it again.

One more time for the books?

My mom's piecrust is HEAVEN FILLED WITH YUM.

Today's lesson? Yum is good. Ewwy ewwy yuck is not. Therefore, you should all come over and try some of my mom's pie...because it's pure awesome.

Except you probably shouldn't...because it's mine. All mine.

Okay - Today's REAL lesson? Erin's bad at sharing...at least when it comes to her mom's homemade pie.