Canadian Adventures In Canada

How Very Interesting

2010-09-05T15:27:00.000-04:00

A while ago I stumbled across this website.

I don't know how exactly - some link from here to there and back again, I'm sure.

It intrigued me though - certain aspects of this website, these ideas, this philosophy.

Little bits of truth that are out there in the universe, that we all intrinsically know or could know. And usually, at some point or another (and some more often than others) need a reminder of.

So I signed up, figuring what was the worst? They sell my email and I delete myself from their email list and block any spam mail? It's happened before, and I'm sure it'll happen again. The next morning - what did I find? Another email in my inbox. Except this one had a sort of unusual sender - 'cause it was, from, you know, THE UNIVERSE.

So I started getting emails - and I could have sworn that someone was crawling into my brain while I slept, figuring out what I needed to hear..what I needed to be reminded of - and then sending me that info in a nicely worded email every morning.

Here's a few of my favourites - that have always seemed to have something to do with what I'm thinking at the current second, and just..fit.

_________________________

The ease of change, Erin, is directly proportional to one's willingness to reconsider what's best for themselves.

I say let it be easy -
The Universe

_________________________

Somewhere, over the rainbow, Erin, there's a world where birds sing into every night, flowers bloom across every land, each problem has 10,000 solutions, and people live lives only to love and be loved...

Just like under the rainbow.

Ain't life grand?
The Universe

_________________________

One of the coolest things about time and space, Erin, is that it's impossible to kid oneself indefinitely.

Pow,
The Universe

_________________________

One of the many fringe benefits of having sneaky, pushy, and demanding people in your life, Erin, comes when you realize - usually at the end of a long day, deep in thought, with a pot of warm cherry Kool-Aid by your side - that in spite of all the drama, huffing, and puffing, no one can keep you from yours.

Yeah, baby -
The Universe

_________________________

It's one trick, Erin, to manifest exactly what you want.

It's another to bring about something even better.

Leave the door open,
The Universe

_________________________

Erin, you're the only person who knows what's right for you.

The only one.

And if you already know what this is, commit to it. If you don't, commit to nothing.

Only you know,
The Universe

_________________________

You can choose to go, do, be, and have, and in the end you'll exclaim, shocked and bewildered, that because of all the synchronicities of your life, all the "clicks" and "coincidences," and the many happy "accidents," your bounty and good fortune must have been your destiny.

Or, you might choose to wait for a miracle, a savior, or divine intervention, and in the end you'll exclaim, shocked and bewildered, that because of all the synchronicities of your life, all the missed chances and disappointments, and the many unhappy accidents, your lack and misfortune must have been your destiny.

Erin, do you see what the difference is?

It ain't me,
The Universe

_________________________

Of course, Erin, the most deceptive of all illusions is very likely space.

You know, that thing between "here" and "there" that would have you see yourself alone, instead of as the bridge between them. That medium between you and the rest of the world that disguises your role in creating it. You know, that veil through which the physical senses must explore your chiseled secrets.

See? Aliens are the least of your worries...

Phone home,
The Universe

_________________________

It's a rather interesting social experiment...telling people (aka - me) things that - yeah, I already know..but so often either have forgotten, gotten distracted by the millions of other things going on or just avoid trying to think about for one reason or another. Two minutes to read an email and change - even just a little bit. To remember, to try and be better, do better. To remember what life is all about. That I'm in charge of my own life. That it'll all be okay in the end.

AND - they haven't even sold my email address to spammers.

Yet.

Babies & Blogging

2010-08-26T09:49:00.002-04:00

So evidentally babies and blogging don't mix.

Yep. That's right - there is FINALLY a new bebe in the hiz-ouse.

And let me tell you..he's basically the cutest thing that has ever lived.

Like, FAR too cute for words.

And he's already a week old today - WHAT?!

People always say that the time goes SO QUICKLY..but seriously?! A week?! How is that possible?!

Life these days is a crazy mix of trying to do a million things at once all the while giving out kisses and cuddles like they're going out of style...and that's what I'm off to do now...a million things at once...and THEN I'll finally get in some good old fashioned cuddles..woohoo!

What's My Age Again?

2010-08-11T16:41:00.000-04:00

So yesterday I was all "Let's write a post detailing why I sometimes feel like I'm seven"

Which wasn't actually about why I feel like I'm seven. But more just about why I don't feel like I'm in my mid-twenties and supposedly "grownup"

But then I had to run off to work. Which I suppose IS a grownup thing to do. Except that I only had like..five minutes left to get dressed and brush my teeth..so I ran and brushed my teeth. And pulled on some pants. I hear wearing pants helps to disguise you as a grownup. And then I walked downstairs and suddenly..

SNAP! ZAP! POP!

Which is not to be confused with Snap, Crackle, Pop - which would have been AWESOME.

It was definitely Snap! Zap! POP! that left my neck feeling like it decided to just call it quits.

Like, excruciating pain.

Can't turn your head to check your blind spot kind of pain.

Pretty sure it was my bodys way of laughing at me and going "Ha. You may feel immature and like a little kid and like you're way out in left field in those whole LIFE thang...but just so you know..next time you try to pretend that..I will make your body that of an 87 year old. Sucka"

So now I'm sitting here..alternating between heat and ice...and wondering where the heck I left my A535.

...I hear forgetfulness is (yet another) sign of aging.

Bebe Watch

2010-08-10T12:31:00.001-04:00

Baby Watch 2010 is still in full swing 'round these parts..

Sometimes I look at my cousin and all of the sudden I'm like 'WHOA! DUDE! YOUR GONNA HAVE A BABY! LIKE! SOON!'

Except that I (mostly) try to say that kind of stuff in my head. Because she'd PROBABLY thing I was a little nutso. And since her due date is two days away...she's kinda got that crazy pregnant lady look going on. The look where she might kill the next person who says the wrong thing.

You know the one. The one where she's like "HOW WAS THIS POSSIBLY A GOOD IDEA...THIS NEEDS TO BE OVER. NOW."

To say that she's uncomfortable would be an understatement. To say that I'm scarred for life about the idea of having children...would be the opposite. (an overstatement? hrm.) She's been in pain for two weeks. Like, constant 'I can't sleep pain' and her doctor is all 'yeah, sometimes that happens! I'll offer you an induction a week after your due date if the baby still hasn't come!' Plus, she's been having irregular contractions on a regular (not regular enough) base for weeks. I know it's only going to get worse, more painful, more tiring and more EVERYTHING..but I keep trying to reassure her that eventually the baby will be here and she'll forget all about the crappy stuff (that part has to be true, or how else would ANYONE ever decide to have more than one child?!) and luckily for me...her husband is taking more of the 'stop saying stupid things death glares' then I am. Infact, I don't even think that I've gotten ONE yet. Although I'm sure that'll change before the baby comes.

So we're still waiting over here for the little one. Wondering when he'll come. We all keep saying 'TODAY has GOT to be THE DAY' - alas, we are all proven wrong at the end of everyday. I've started using reverse psychology and telling her belly that I don't really WANT the baby to come, and he should stay in there forever and I'm really busy and don't have time to kiss cute little chubby cheeks ANYWAYS.

It's still not working though..

And I feel myself getting closer and closer to pregnant death stares everyday.

Maybe TODAY will be the day.

At least for the death stares.

..The whole baby thing? Yeah...you can't trick me into thinking that it's going to be today.

If Irony Could...Sleep.

2010-08-10T09:26:00.002-04:00

I had the last couple of days off...which is nice...except now I have to work in half an hour..and I'm pooped.

Why you may ask?

Well, it's quite simple. I thought it would be a GENIUS idea to stay up a little later than normal perusing the internet, cable tv and other such wonders..because you see..I could SLEEP IN on my days off.

Cue me waking up before 7am BOTH DAYS.

And of course, not being able to even come close to falling back to sleep. All day. Both days.

And then today? The day that I'm going back to work? I press the snooze button on my alarm clock for an hour, drag myself out of bed at 9am and am contemplating holding my eyelids open with toothpicks.

Figures.

One Of THOSE Days

2010-08-05T21:04:00.004-04:00

Today was another one of THOSE days.

The days where you try to wake up but can't drag yourself out of bed. One of those days when you can't find the pants you were going to wear, you run out of time for breakfast and you miss your turn even though you know exactly where you're going.

Days where you feel so out of control and just can't handle one more person letting you down. Where you just want to scream because you're so exhausted and just want something, anything to go right.

Days when someone is rude, then someone else is demanding, yet another is arrogant and the final one is greedy, with a side of selfish.

Days when you're convinced that it couldn't possibly get worse...and suddenly it's POURING rain. Not just raining, but a torrential downpour. And despite your best efforts...the water climbs over your ankles and comes at you from every angle. All while you stand under thin tents shivering and wishing you could just crawl into a ball and end today right here and now.

Days when it finally stops raining...and you somehow manage to stub your toe, pull an muscle and hit your head...all while simply trying to turn around.

Days when you set something down and it ends up all over the place. Days when you think that you've come up with a solution and 17 more problems arise. Days when you get annoyed by the smallest things because you lost the end of your rope weeks ago. And days when the largest problems seem impossible to ever correct. Days when you're reminded of how stupid some people are, and how angry they make you. Days when you wonder and second guess decisions and life and all of it's uncertainties..even though you know it's for the best.

That was today.

And then some.

I'm in dire need of some sleep.

A girls night with some lovies.

And while I'm wishing....might as well take a winning lottery ticket too.

I'll be waiting Universe...anytime you wanna throw me a bone on some of those...that'd be swell.

Home Again, Home Again

2010-08-01T22:06:00.000-04:00

Remember when you were a little kid and you played house with your siblings/friends/cousins/random strangers your mom told you to play with and be nice to?

You were so little that you never actually THOUGHT you'd be old enough to own houses, have mortgages, get married and do all of that crazy stuff?

And then suddenly you wake up..

You're almost 25

And your little brother is moving into his first (and let's be honest here, probably only) home.

A real fixer-uper.

But the land? The land is so worth it - a real beauty of a farm...and the house..well...it and it's 100 year old roof...they gots them some mad potential :)

Happy moving weekend to Jenny & Benny (he'll so beat me if he ever finds out that I called him Benny...) and their dog...Penny (Bawhaha) I can't believe that you're old enough to move into your first home.

Let alone begin to believe how old that makes ME.

PS - My SD card is a hater - photos latah

Le Sigh

2010-07-31T22:45:00.001-04:00

Today would have been his birthday..

It's hard to look at the number in my phone and not try to call it.

It's hard to know that there will be no more birthday dinners, phone calls or WHATEVER.

Sometimes I build up this wall. I go about my life doing the things that need to be done..and I repress all of the things that make me sad, worried or upset.

And then days like this happen.

Days that are important.

Days I wish things were different.

Days I wish I had magical powers to fix everything.

And you can't help but have a little meltdown, the tears falling freely as you flip through photos.

It's been months, and at times...it still doesn't feel real. Death and I don't get along very well...we have this system set up where I like to make believe that I just haven't seen (fill in the blank) for a while...

But then birthdays, special events or something else happens..

And those walls that were built up so carefully come crumbling down.

Humans are such odd creatures..

Whaaat?!

2010-07-30T09:17:00.002-04:00

Sometimes...people confuse the bejeezus outta me.

At the farmers market a little while ago a woman said to me that she was getting hungry because it was lunch time...so I said to that woman something along the lines of "oh, you should check out what's going on over there (while pointing) and grab a free sample..all of the things the chef has made today look really good!"

Because you know, you're hungry...and free samples from a chef from a yummy restaurant...that's cool...isn't it?

Evidentally NOT. Because then this woman decided to tell me her entire medical history.

About how her doctor told her she needed to lower her cholesterol. And her salt intake. And how she had this and this and this wrong and she really had to watch her diet.

I was a little bit perplexed...as the chef was cooking (small) samples of food with fresh, local ingredients...that sounded like a pretty healthy option to me...but alas...I was not her and didn't know all of the particulars of her medical condition...so I smiled and wished her a good day.

A little while later though..she was back.

She was browsing again, and thought that I'd be interested to know that she'd found some lunch from a really nice place and brought it back to the market to enjoy.

I smiled and mmmhmm'd and didn't think much of it..

Until I saw the MCDONALDS bag in her hand.

I...uhh...WHAT?!

You pass up freshly cooked, delicious local food...for MCDONALDS? When you're supposed to be watching your salt intake and your cholesterol???

Really?

No, REALLY?!

Sometimes all you can do is shake your head in disbelief..

I Love Sleep. And Babies. I Love Babies That Love Sleep.

2010-07-29T09:34:00.003-04:00

I use to be able to go without sleep.

I use to be able to function on a couple of hours.

I use to be able to pull an all nighter, write an essay on something and then go to class the next day...and then go and hang out with friends after that. And then maybe after a couple of days without sleep...crash into a pile, sleep for a few hours and do it all again.

Getting six hours of sleep was good - eight was fabulous.

If you got eight two days in a row? WOW..fun! There was always something to do and someone to see and papers to write and things to do. Sleep was for the weak...who slept? That's just SILLY. Don't you know that there are millions of ways that you can procrastinate on the internet instead of sleeping? 'Cause there REALLY are.

Now though? Now...I just can't.

As evidenced by my meltdown and subsequent 13+ hours of sleep...I just...cannot handle a lack of sleep anymore.

And that worries me.

Not in a "man, I wish I was young and crazy again" way...because as much fun as it was...oh dear...it actually WAS tiring.

I'm pretty sure I actually spent about four months of last winter catching up on sleep for the last SEVEN to TEN years.

What worries me...is that in TWO WEEKS (give or take) I will be living with a NEWBORN.

And in 5 weeks...I will be living with that newborn with my cousin and NO ONE TO HELP US AND TELL US WHAT TO DO.

Dude. Ima have to be...grownup. And stuff.

That's CRAZY TALK.

Especially because in 7-8 weeks..that newborn will be doing the most crying it does throughout its infancy. True story, I learneded it in my prenatal classes...babes cry the most from weeks 3-8 of life. Also when there are the highest rates of postpartum depression and shaken baby syndrome. Scary.

But yeah. Babies cry a lot.

And I'm not so worried about that. I can deal with that...I'll learn how to deal with that. And they eat a lot..but I can't do a whole bunch to do with that...I can cuddle...and love...and play...I'm good at THOSE things...

But no sleep?

...I'm a little worried about that.

Because if there is one thing I've learned about growing up?

It's that sleep is pretty darn awesome. And that I love it. And that if it was possible...I might even marry it. Me and sleep are BFF's. Our love was a friendship, set on fire...and all that other ridiculous stuff.

Let's hope I can teach this baby to learn from my mistakes and have a love affair with sleep early on....except when I want to cuddle...and kiss his cute little chubby cheeks. He's not even here yet..and already his cute little chubby cheeks have me under his spell. He's gonna have me wrapped around his little finger in no time...Hopefully wrapped around his cute little chubby sleeping finger.

Tomorrow Morning

2010-07-28T19:20:00.000-04:00

I'd been obsessively checking facebook waiting to hear news of the arrival of my friend, Bec's, beautiful little girl..and last night my stalking skills paid off and I saw that a couple of people had posted 'CONGRATULATIONS!' posts on her wall.

Cue: Pure excitement!!

I was so pumped and excited for her, and so happy that the wee little one was finally here and she didn't have to play the waiting game anymore.

I told my (still pregnant) cousin that Rebecca's baby had arrived and she was like...oh cute! When was she born? Morning, night, what day, etc.

And that's when it got a little confusing..

Because as it was 9 at night when I heard the news...but that meant that it already well into Monday morning there...and so I had no other option but to tell her that baby Gretta was born...tomorrow morning.

Because now it is yesterday there, and when it happened, it was tomorrow here.

Confused yet?

Oh date lines...how you confuse the heck out of me. Thirteen hours time difference from here to Australia is just way too much to fathom! Especially when there are cute pictures of adoreable little babies for me to stare at! Only another couple weeks (or less!) until we have a new little babe of our own in the house! It's baby central 'round these parts...and everyone is anxiously playing the waiting game!

Semi-Charmed Kinda Life

2010-07-26T08:31:00.000-04:00

A lot can happen in a year.

That's probably obvious - but of course I'm going to blab on and tell you all about how 'I know this from experience'.

One year I packed my life into two rather large suitcases and moved to a foreign country. Wherein I was far too often treated like dirt, wherein I learned a lot of things about myself and wherein I traveled so much that my soul soared with happiness.

And one year ago TODAY...I returned to my life as I knew it.

Overall, I learned a lot - about people, about life, about the world and most importantly for me...ABOUT me, the person who I am..and more importantly...the person who I wanted to be.

The year following that crazy year abroad has turned out to be a rollercoaster filled with high high's and low low's. With changes, twists, turns, and extreme variations of exhiliration, saddness, anticipation, excitment and terror of the unknown. Sprinkle in with a bit of insanity, a warm dose of love and a hefty side of hibernation - and you have my year.

I've made a lot of changes in the last year. I've stood up for myself in a lot of different ways. I've purged some things and I've indulged in others. I've smiled, cried and laughed more times than I can count. In a lot of ways, I feel as though the last year has been a little bit of that 'one step forward, two steps back' mentality. I've done things that I wanted to do, need to do..for me...for the first time in a long time. For the first time in maybe FOREVER....But at other times, I've slipped back into that old comfortable routine, or I've questioned everything and wondered if I'm doing the right thing or not.

In a lot of ways, it was easier to be the person who I wanted to be in Switzerland. Not that I'm not the same person...but...it was just...different. I've written about it before - this weird phenomenon where when I left, I left a lot of emotional baggage behind, or rather, the airport seemed to have lost it. Unfortuantly though - when I returned, it was right back there...waiting for me when I got back. Things that bothered me, upset me and hurt me were right there, even though it felt like eons since I had last let those things plague my mind. It was as if there I was able to reinvent myself and my brain just cut out the things that I didn't need to hold on to anymore..and I could just..be ME. I was free to be the person I wanted to be...without any restrictions or emotional baggage.

I had worried of course when thinking about coming home. That things would be different, that things would change...but no one I talked to about this seemed to take these worries seriously. This is no fault of anyones, and I think that this probably happened because they saw me in the same light they always had - how were they supposed to know that some unmeasurable quality was different? Especially when so many other things were exactly the same....

Alas, it really was as if I were staring at one of those 'spot the differences' puzzles - and I was the only one that could see the differences in myself. So blantantly obvious to me, but impossible to spot for everyone else. The longer I was home, the more some of the differences faded and the more I fell into old routines...with this of course came some old bad habits, things that I thought I had left behind. I felt this tremendous urge, this push...to just fall back into old habits and old routines...and the more that happened, the more that scared me. I had changed, grown and become so different - even if it wasn't necessarily measureable or observable to most...I had...and watching that slip through my fingers was frustrating beyond belief. I had made a promise to myself that it was okay for certain things to be the same, to go back...but that there were some things that I couldn't let change. That I had to stand up for myself, things I believed in and things that I wanted. I promised myself that I wouldn't let my own integrity or the things that I wanted out of life be held hostage, simply because they had been in the past. I wanted more, and even worse..I'd had more...and felt it slipping out of my reach. After a while back, I felt as though I'd lost a lot of those things - when that was the biggest thing that I had promised msyelf I wouldn't do.

This is the hardest thing to put into words, because there are simply none. How do you describe an overwhelming peace, happiness and general feeling of acceptance of oneself? And worse yet, how do you try to describe fear of losing that? The act of being physically able to feel the loss? How do you describe the feelings of those things disappeared and your frantic attempts to retrive them? All the while trying to explain that those things have gotten all muddled up and you can't figure out why or how and can't even come close to pinpointing what made life so intrinsically DIFFERENT - or explain how or why you want those feelings back...or even what is now different.

Thus, there has been a lot of reflection of all of the positive things that have happened this year...and of all of the things that I still sit and wonder about. All of the things that have changed because that's the way that life was going, because the pieces of the puzzle just didn't fit anymore, and because that piece that didn't seem like it would ever fit...seemed to just fall into place without any problem at all.

I always wonder though - am I making the right decisions? Am I being true to myself? What if's are bound to always plague my mind....and when I finally accept them...new (or old..) sources remind me of them and make me re-think it all...over and over and over again.

Thankfully, I have some very understanding (and wise) friends, family and confidants that believe in me, that understand, or are at least accepting of these changes and are okay with what is going through my head and (thankfully) remind me to really examine what I'm doing and whether or not I'm doing it for the right reasons..even if they have no idea that they're doing that.

If knowledge is power - then one would assume that I can only go foward from here...

But dude. Ignorance really is bliss...because this knowledge thing..it's a lot of work and thinking and sleepless nights filled with questions, worry and endless thoughts.

There has been a lot of wondering what comes next...where will this next year lead me? How will I change, grow and differ from the last? Will I travel, make new friends, or fall backwards - and land flat on my face? There are so many things I want to do, to be, to have...and I feel like it's taken me the better part of this year to get my head on straight and adjust back to this life and all of the things that come with it. To decipher between all of the things that surround me, and to be selfish and make decisions because that's what I want, what's best for me...all the while attempting to keep some sort of integrity and my own concept of self.

I still can't help but wonder though..what the future has in store for me...

But for now, all I know is that a year ago...I stepped off of a plane...and I walked back into my north american life and left a life of europe behind me. When I returned, I loved a lot of things, yet was scared of others. I kept some promises to myself, and broke a few more than I've kept...but I'm working on it. I've made some changes, but still need to make some more. This year has been an interesting one...one filled with lots of thinking, lots of growth and lots of changes...it's a little bit scary, this whole 'growing up' business...but I'm a little bit excited (in the 'holy cow I might pee myself' kinda way..) to see how it all turns out...

oh blah

2010-07-22T23:26:00.002-04:00

This post is brought to you by last nights insomnia followed by a full day of working in the hot sun.

No need to thank me...especially before you read the following incoherant ridiculousness.

So I go through these spurts where I'm like UPDATING! I LOVE UPDATING! BLAH BLAH BLAH RAMBLE RAMBLE RAMBLE LA LA LA SPAAAAAAAAAAARKLES!

And then I work.

And I get drained.

And I have no idea which end is up.

And I'm trying to balance everything.

But instead of balancing I'm juggling everything.

Barely.

Most times, unsucessfully.

And then I sleep.

And sometimes I get grumpy and I stomp my feet and snarl.

Next I'm running around like a chicken with it's head cut off.

Always going somewhere...never seeming to get where I need to be or do the things I need to do.

Always someone who wants more, needs more.

Always feeling inadequate about my lack of ability to balance people, places, times, things.

Always feeling sleep deprived.

Always wishing I captured more, lived more, danced more.

Wishing I knew how to make things work.

Wishing I didn't feel like I was flailing about in my attempts at adulthood.

Wishing I could be more, do more.

Wishing life was the same...but different.

Blah.

It's Not Even Halloween

2010-07-12T10:05:00.002-04:00

I'm relatively convinced that robots are taking over the world.

You know, in the form of alarm clocks.

If you MUST know...I lost my alarm clock. Well, I didn't really LOSE it...as I took it elsewhere to be used...and then it became a permenant fixture there.

And then I took it somewhere else...and I left it in my car.

And then that alarm clock went and shacked up with someone else.

I know - my alarm clock has an exciting social life. Lucky it.

Wasn't such a big deal...as I've just been using my cellular device for my getting up neccessiities...except that more often than not...I'm flipping back and forth between houses (whilst feeling like I'm living out of my car and/or random bags of clothing I happen to be carting around whilst hoping that someone SOMEWHERE takes pity on my and does my laundry - ps - I love my mom for so many reasons, but doubly for when I show up with a bag of clothing and then it magically all goes POOF and ends up being clean.) and...where was I? Oh right. So I'm living in various houses and this and that and whatever and I have to get up in the morning but OH GOD MY CELLPHONE IS ABOUT TO DIE AND I HAVE NO BATTERY LEFT.

Crap. Yeah - not so good.

Especially when you have an alarm clock with a social life.

So my mom took pity on me and picked me up a new cheap alarm clock so I need not worry about waking up here or carting my cell phone charger between my various locations.

It'd been sitting unused for a while...as for once my cellular device had decided that it didn't hate me and was still charged everytime I needed it...when suddenly LOW BATTERY plagued my poor little cell's screen.

I sighed and resigned myself to setting up my new alarm clock. Exhausted..and not in the mood to press seven million buttons while simultaneously alternating between holding down another three, then six, then four, then nine...I plugged it in and went to go glance at the time to set it correctly.

When I came back though?

It was already set.

To the correct time.

Even the correct am/pm portion.

...Which obviously leads me to one of two conclusions:

1) Alarm clocks are now being programed with robots that know the time and have a pre-set time in which they are going to TAKE OVER THE WORLD

2) Gnomes and/or aliens have infiltrated my living space and are following me around playing tricks on me while I'm not looking to make me think that robots are trying to take over the world so that I become super paranoid about machines and technology and miss seeing the signs that gnomes and/or aliens are plotting to TAKE OVER THE WORLD.

Clearly only bad things can come from this.

Bad, bad things.

Like Aliens. Or gnomes. OR SCARY FLESH EATING ROBOT ALARM CLOCKS.

Football Fanatic

2010-07-11T17:31:00.001-04:00

I've never been a huge sports fan.

It's just not really my thang.

Give me a good book (or even a bad one) over the sports channel..preeetty much..yeah..anytime.

That being said...I have gotten a liiiiiiiiittle bit carried away with the world cup.

I know, of ALL sports to get caught up in...soccer? Or rather..football? Really? Whodda thunk it?

I can't really figure out why I'm so caught up with it..since in North America...soccer...is overlooked in a big way.

Perhaps it's because my cousins have spent the last decade following soccer as they haven't lived in North America...and thus have swept me into the craze that is the world cup with them. My one cousin lived in Italy for a few years..and even lived there while Italy won the world cup in 2006. It also doesn't hurt that my other cousin who just moved back lived in South Africa until last year..so the world cup being held there is kind of a big deal for her. That, and that cousin MARRIED a football loving South African...so even if she didn't enjoy the game..she's mostly obligated to watch now

It also doesn't hurt that my aunt flew back from South Africa a couple weeks ago and brought me my very own vuvuzela..official FIFA gear yo. I'm so cool with my vuvuzela. My brother and my dad are definitely better at making theirs be noisy..but I still love mine. Who wouldn't love their own vuvuzela during the world cup?!

I find it all rather exciting though..it's pretty intense.

YELLOW CARD! RED CARD! FREE KICK! WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

Not to mention that it's a CRAZY GAME. It's not like hockey (I'm so un-canadian-ising myself right now...I'll probably be disowned any second now) where the guys are skating around la de daing...no don't get me wrong..still hard..but in football? THESE GUYS RUN UP AND DOWN A GINORMOUS FIELD. FOR AT LEAST NINTY MINUTES. Basically NON STOP.

That's INSANE.

Have you SEEN the size of the field? It's RIDICULOUS.

Hockey players are all "aw man, I've been skating up and down this little dinky rink for 3 minutes, better trade with someone else!" whereas these footballers are all "what, you want me to run the equivilant of a million miles non stop with a broken ankle.....whatevs...pass me the ball yo"

And they do magic tricks with their feet - I mean..really? You did WHAT with a ball and your feet and a huh now? How did you..uhh..do that? How are you not DEAD RIGHT NOW BECAUSE YOU SHOULD HAVE TRIPPED AND FALLEN ON YOUR FACE. I'll just...wait for the instant replay..because that footwork is CRAZY TALK. Not that they don't fall on their faces sometimes..but just the amount of time that they spend upright WHILE doing crazy things with their feet..well..dumbfounds me.

They also take some mad injuries. They get kicked, tripped and ripped apart.

I saw a guy get kicked full on in the chest. WITH CLEATS.

Dude. One word: OW.

The final kicker though?

The thing that makes me love soccer..probably more than anything?

WHO HAS A TEAM THAT HAS AN OCTOPUS THAT (more often than not CORRECTLY) IDENTIFIES WHETHER OR NOT TEAMS WILL WIN?

Soccer does.

Yeah, they do.

Really, after that...there's nothing else to be said.

Except...holy crap..I'm gonna miss the world cup not being on anymore.

Me...missing sports? Weird.

Ridiculous

2010-07-11T14:04:00.002-04:00

I'm a pretty big deal. This is probably obvious to anyone who KNOWS me...but just in case you weren't aware..I thought that I'd fill ya in.

So the other day....I had a meltdown. I cried, screamed and wanted to bury myself in a hole and hide.

I was functioning on what felt like virtually no sleep..and didn't want to see or deal with anyone...but because I'm SO AWESOME I did it, and pretended to like it.

Although evidentially I wasn't fooling EVERYONE because I had a few people comment on the fact that I needed to take care of myself and ask if I was okay and etc. etc.

Whoops.

ANYWAYS. So I was minding my own business. Dark circle under my eyes, complemented with puffyness from a lack of sleep and an abundance of tears. Even if I'd been wearing makeup, it wouldn't have lasted through my temper tantrum.

Then I look up and some random guy is shoving a camera in my face (paparazzi WHAAAAAA?) and is asking me questions.

I stutter, say a few random things and look like a fool.

I make a face when he finally decides that he has harassed me enough, and leaves.

I'm so confused.

I mean, I know I'm super fabulous..but WHAT?

I've been interviewed for things before..and they always ASK you if they can interview you, give you a microphone and whatever whatever..so I was like..what the heck..who was this dude? Is the paparrazi ACTUALLY after me?

After contemplating my need for bodyguards, I realized that how horrendous I actually looked and thanked my lucky stars that this couldn't actually be anything real and must have been just some random crazy with a camera.

Alas - not quite so random. Although I'm pretty darn convinced about the crazy...turns out it was a news guy.

Turns out it was a "real interview"

And turns out EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD SAW THIS RIDICULOUS EXCUSE FOR AN INTERVIEW ON TV.

And they were polite enough to go "OOOH! LOOK (FILL IN THE BLANK NAME FOR THEIR SIGNIFICANT OTHER) IT'S THAT THERE GIRL FROM THE TELLYVISION!" ever since.

Yep. That's me. The girl from the tellyvision.

So instead of my regular adoring fan base from the commercials, where the old men go "har har har...look..it's the tv star..in the flesh!" or "hey young lady..saw ya on the tv...can I get your autograph..har har har"...I now have extended my fan base outside its regular realm of advertisement lovers.

This is almost as ridiculous as the time that I messed up a take on a special edition news spot and the guy thought it was hilarious and used it on the opening credits of the special edition FOR THE REST OF THE SUMMER.

Doh.

At least that time they let me comb my hair before filming. I'm so glad that a copy of this doesn't exist on the internet.

Don't worry, there is no need to look for it..because I checked..it really doesn't exist. If it had of...I probably would have burnt it. Yep. Burned it from the internet. Despite not seeing it...I'm pretty sure that it really WAS that awful. In fact, it was probably so awful that it burned ITSELF and that's why it doesn't exist on the internet. True story, I hear the internet is awesome like that.

Oh - and FYI - I'm mostly back to normal again...as I slept a good 13 hours Wednesday night..and thus..am not a sleep deprived emo mess of yuck.

The Sun'll Come Out...Tomorrow (?)

2010-07-07T16:54:00.005-04:00

Sometimes you just have one of those days..

Where you get next to no sleep, and that minimal sleep feels even less than it should be because you toss and turn all night.

Then you get up at an ungodly hour, drive two hours into the blazing hot downtown Toronto core, drop someone off...and drive another two hours back home. Mix in a healthy dose of those hours being infiltrated with idiot drivers and exhaustion wearing at you.

All before nine am.

Then you're so exhausted and so hot because the mercury has decided that it's like Barney from HIMYM's playlist (All rise, Baby) and it's so hot you sweat buckets while you sit.

So you gather up enough energy to move yourself into the pool and feel partly human again. You don't swim, because that would take up precious energy..but you sit in the water and wish you could live there.

You leave the pool because you've turned into a prune and your hair is coated in a disgusting layer of cholrine...but then waves of feeling gross and exhausted plague you once more.

So you drag yourself into your sweltering car to drive home, while trying to keep your eyelids off the floor...swearing that you're going to go to bed ASAP, trying to stay awake right then and there because you're so exhausted...but you're so exhausted, sweaty and your general lack of contentment means that every. little. thing. drives you ABSOLUTELY INSANE.

Arriving at your destination, you crawl into bed swearing that tomorrow will be better, that it always is after a good nights sleep.

You lie in a pool of your own sweat, dreaming of winter and negative temperatures because humans can't be expected to survive in this...

..and suddenly your alarm is going off again.

Another day has began.

You try to convince yourself it will be a better day, but yesterday looms over your head.

And suddenly you're dripping in sweat, throwing things and crying uncontrolably...all before 7am.

Ugh....Happy Wednesday.

Tomorrow has to be better...right?

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

2010-06-29T21:09:00.003-04:00

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..

2010-06-23T22:54:00.004-04:00

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

2010-06-19T16:10:00.007-04:00

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..

2010-06-15T09:39:00.000-04:00

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

2010-06-14T07:25:00.000-04:00

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

2010-06-10T08:27:00.001-04:00

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

2010-06-09T20:46:00.004-04:00

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

2010-06-04T09:52:00.000-04:00

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

2010-06-01T21:34:00.004-04:00

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.

Frustration

2010-05-28T10:17:00.004-04:00

Note: I wrote this post a little while..perhaps even weeks ago now...and just now found it sitting in my 'drafts' folder - although it's not necessarily as relevant to TODAY persay, a great deal of it is still is relevant to life in general..so thus, today you get ramblings from the inner workings of Erin's brain when she happened to be in a little bit of a mood. Consider yourself warned.

Todays Letter is F, and the word of the day is frustration.

Sometimes I just find myself in a perpetual state of frustration.

Frustration with people - because they just don't get it. They don't get what's going through my head, why I think the way I do, why I do things the way I do or why I am the way I am. I'm me. That's all I can be. I'm so tired to bending over backwards to try and please EVERYONE and always coming up short. It's as if I've gotten to the point where I've tried and tried and tried and tried and it's never been good enough for ANYONE...so now I just am sitting on the side of the curb, I've thrown my hands in the air and I just don't care anymore. I know that I'm losing people in my life because of it...but I don't know if I can even be bothered anymore because I'm just so frustrated with it always being like this. I'm tired of trying to do everything and leaving myself short. I'm tired of always going out of my way to do extra things and special things - and instead of just toning it down a little - I seem to have just sunk into a black hole of nothing. I'm spent, I'm tired, and I can't think or focus on anything or anyone anymore. I just want to hide from everything - and yet again, no one gets it and I just continually feel like a giant ball of failure. Even when I do manage to get my stuff together, it's never good enough for anyone - let alone lasts long enough to satisfy anyone. All I want to do is hide from everyone, but I can't do that either - so I'm stuck here in limbo - with no idea where the door is.

I'm frustrated with the world...knowledge is power, but it also has the tremendous power to put a heavy burden on your shoulders. Feeling as though there are so many things that could be done, if only people opened their eyes and gave a damn. And feeling powerless to do anything, feeling like anything you can do is so miniscule that it doesn't matter anyways. Even if I KNOW that it would and does. Wanting to do more, to BE more - and never having (making?) enough time, energy or money to do what your heart dreams of being able to do. So many sad stories, so many heartbreaks - and so little that can be done. Watching and participating in things that waste so much time, effort and who knows what else for things that just don't matter in the long run - when there are so many other things out there that need a new idea, a new thought, a helping hand or a hug.

And...as always, frustration with myself, for a million and a half different things that is kind of pointless to even think about getting into here. Wanting to be a better person, but never being that. Wanting to make changes, to make things better - wanting to do more and be more and getting stuck in this endless cycle of frustration - and then getting angry at the cycle of frustration instead of doing something about it.

And now I'm sitting on the internet writing about it instead of doing something about it.

Cue: A new cycle of frustration. Gah.

Some News

2010-05-27T11:18:00.001-04:00

Last week I talked vaguely about the life and times of rumours in a small town...

And well, dear internets...I have some news.

I start classes this week.

What classes you may ask?

Classes of the prenatal variety.

Which means that unless you've been hiding under a rock - you can PROBABLY guess what that means.

...

.....

........

Yeah.

If you guessed that my cousins sister is a big wig at Harvard, her mom is watching the world cup in South Africa and her husband is advancing his future by finishing his post grad in another city - and I'm left to be my pregnant cousins prenatal class partner - then you're DEFINITELY right on the money.

If you thought that I was pregnant and that's what the rumours are about - then I can only assume that you have indeed been hiding under a rock and tell you without a doubt in my mind that you were WRONG. Sucka.

Had you worried for a second there - didn't I?

You may now go back to trying to resume your breathing at a natural pace, telling your heart to quit racing and calm down with the knowledge that I'm not procreating...yet.

Although I'm sure that after these classes - the chances of me EVER wanting to have my own children will be drastically diminished.

I hear that the only reason they get people to take the classes ANYWAYS is 'cause they're already knocked up ;)

What's in a keyword..

2010-05-26T08:01:00.001-04:00

So a while ago I signed up for google analytics. It was new, it was hip, it was...fun. I guess? It's interesting to see who comes to visit your blog and from where...but I don't entirely understand the results all of the time...so I don't spend too much time bumming around on it. Infact, I hadn't been on it in as long as I could remember...so when I quite literally stumbled across it I was like...ooh! Let's go look and see.

Found out a few things - Like I have more random secret readers than I thought. Yeah - I know about you! The secret is out! Liklihood is that I probably secretly creep you too - so I know what it's all about.

But I also discovered this little thing about 'keywords' - which I guess is what people type into google and then come across your blog via.

And I laughed.

Because I had some pretty fun keywords.

Ones that I was like...uhh...how the heck is this even REMOTELY related to ANTYHING that I've EVER written?

So I went back and looked at the entire history of google keywords and these are a few that I found:

whatthehellarewedoingtoday - Dude - I have no idea what you're doing today! Sorry! And yeah. All one word.

"the nanny diaries" - Man - If I had any writing capabilities I'd SO pitch 'The Nanny Diaries Two - I'm totally sure I could do it..right?

what things bump in the night that are canadian - Sorry man..I dunno either - I hear beavers have pretty good eyesight - so I'm just about as stummped as you..

l'arrivé du 1$ au canada - which basically means 'arrive in canada with one dollar' - and if that's true - I'm sorry you just spent that dollah at an internet cafe looking at my blog - whatcha gonna do now?! I don't know who you talked to before you came..but contrary to popular belief..things are expensive here and reading my blog is not going to make you rich. I know, bummer.

But my FAVOURITE - BY FAR? The one that happened YESTERDAY?

Someone came to my blog looking for 'sterilized cheese'.

how. awesome. is. that.

I have no idea what the heck anything I've ever written has to do with sterilized cheese - but I'm so happy that it in some way does..because that's just buckets of awesome and hilarity.

So to the person in Iran looking for sterilized cheese - I'm sorry I couldn't be more of a help - I hope all of your grandest dairy dreams and wishes come true someday!

Forgetful....Something.

2010-05-25T13:31:00.004-04:00

Last weekend I stopped by the hardware store to buy some fireworks for the first long weekend of the season that had been upon us.

As I was perusing the fireworks another display up near the front cash registers caught my eye. As I made my way over to that section - one of the cashiers, a young girl with dark brown hair stopped me in my tracks.

With an 'OH! MY! GOD!

To which I of course responded "Yes?".

But then she started gushing. And talking. And asking me personal questions about my family. While using their names. And then she used MY name.

And then I got freaked the hell out - who WAS this girl? What did she want from me and WHY THE HECK DID SHE KNOW SO MUCH INFORMATION ABOUT MY LIFE?

After making small talk which didn't pertain to anything in particular (staying away from the details helps when you have no idea who you're talking to, yet they still know you) she had to deal with another customer so I slipped off back to the previous fireworks display.

My cousins husband started questioning who the girl was and how I knew her - and quite literally the only answer I could give him was that I had NO idea what-so-ever.

As I came up to the cash registers to pay, I was like..Oh jeeze..please don't let her be my cashi-Aw, crap. Too late.

She started talking again - asking about my time in europe and then started talking about herself.

I was like...oh no...danger zone..danger zone...I don't know what she's talking about...and then while I was trying to figure out how to get out of there without her realizing I had NO idea who she was she was like 'yeah, did you know that Spencer had a baby!?' and I was like 'No - I had no idea' and she started talking about how CUTE the baby was and how she was so sweet and blah blah blah - And I'm all - I don't KNOW any Spencers - I vaguely know one who is a few years younger than me, but why the heck would I care if he had a baby - and he couldn't have had a baby because I defintely know his ex-girlfriend and she DEFINITELY didn't have a baby - let alone have a baby 18 months ago.

So I rack my brain and by this point she's telling me something about her parents - and in my head I'm all..dude..why would I know your parents?

And then suddenly it hits me.

Yeah - the fact that I love self absorbed teens that talk about themselves...because I just put the pieces together.

It's Christine, who has a sister named Julia and a brother named ...DING DING DING!....Spencer!

All of whom I use to babysit....

Suddenly it all fell into place.

I still see their parents around and about on a regular basis - but haven't seen the kids in YEARS....so between the fact that they've grown up - and the fact that she now has black hair instead of blonde - it kinda makes sense that I didn't recognize her.

But it kinda means that I'm officially REAL old - 'cause the kids that I BABYSAT are now having kids.

I hear that memory loss happens as you get older..but sheesh.

Crap. Please excuse me while I go get my de-wrinkler-cream....I totally forgot about it.

Swiss Love

2010-05-25T08:56:00.000-04:00

Sometimes things are so the same, and it's just so awesome.

Of course - this isn't always the case - and even if sometimes things APPEAR to be the same...they aren't...that's just a fact of life.

But a couple of weeks ago (when the blogging fail BEGAN) my friend flew down from northern Ontario to spend a few days here before she jetted off to Cuba. A friend from the lovely land of Swiss who I spent countless days having adventures, making good food with and complaining to about the horrid slave I had become.

She spent a few days hanging out with her brother in a city not TOO far from here, and then made her way to Toronto before she grabbed another one of our 'Swiss' girls and made their way here to my humble abode.

And as they called me for directions as they drove hopelessly lost through my city I couldn't help but smile. It was typical. The laughter was infectious - I was excited.

I stood on the front stoop waiting for them - and when they finally arrived we rejoiced on the driveway, we laughed and we all were talking way too fast about everything and anything inbetween.

We made our way into the house where we ate too much food. Laughed too hard and caught up on all of the adventures we've been respectively having in our lives since we parted ways in Zurich months ago.

We reminissed, we talked about the future and we clinked our glasses with such familiarity that it was as if we'd never been apart.

It had been months (almost a YEAR) since the three of us had been together...and it was hard to believe that it had been that long..because it was just one of those things that automatically fell back into place.

The house was a little different, the food was a little different and the surroundings were a little different - but us? The self proclaimed 'non sexual, heterosexual polygamist love triangle' - we fell right back where we left off. It was as if the last 9 months hadn't happened. As if we were back sitting on the edge of lake Zurich, meeting in the hauptbanhof for a night of freedom, or watching Marissa roll around on the floor because she'd eaten too much and didn't know how to stop and was now writhing in excruiating pain while eyeing the chocolate fondu sitting on the kitchen table.

It was so familiar. It was so lovely...and at a point...we all just...stopped. Looked at each other...and were like..this is weird. In a GOOD way. But still just...weird. How is it possible that things just slip back to where they left off? That we all still had so much to talk about? That we all loved each other just as much as we did a year and a continent ago? It was so nice to just surround myself in the warmth of people who I love, who understood what I was thinking before I said it...who love me unconditionally and laugh at my stupidity ~~at me~~ with me.

Now all I need is for someone to fly my (preggers!!!) Aussie to me, a couple of gals to the east and perhaps a Kiwi or two and I'm set. For REAL.

Oh the triangle - LOVE!

I love Jenn for many reasons - but probably the best one is the fact that she would play tradsies with me for gelato in Prague. Yeah we did. Mango and chocolate? BEST COMBO EVAH.

<3<3<3

Some of my faaaaaavourite Swiss girls - I couldn't have survived without them - and miss them so!

Europe withdrawal symptoms suck. And they never seem to go away...but the longings for those friends? Those friendships? Killer dude. Killer.

Life Is Good

2010-05-23T16:07:00.002-04:00

This weekend was a long weekend in the 'great white north'...you know...to celebrate a queen who died a LONG ASS TIME AGO in a country that isn't our own.

We're cool like that - don't judge.

I don't usually do anything for this long weekend - and spent the week thinking I wouldn't really do anything and wondering if tentative plans with some friends might work out or not...by Thursday night at like, midnight we were trying to rush and figure out and finalize what we were doing for the weekend, if anything.

Thus, our plan went a little like this:

Erin: "Whatcha wanna do this weekend?"
Carly: "Absolutely nothing"
Erin: "Wanna do it at the cottage on the dock?"
Carly: "YEP!"

So we went. We ate WAY too much food (95% of my pics from the last two days would make you go NOM NOM NOM and then drool.) and played games, we talked until I basically lost my voice (I now sound like a pubesent boy...for realz.) and sat on the end of the dock reading trashy magazines that I haven't read for so long.

It was just the two of us and we laughed, shared stories and chit chatted until what felt like forever. It was relaxing - we did virtually nothing except chill on the dock, go for walks and sit on the deck.

It was exactly what I needed and I'm SO glad she made the trek the three hours to my cottage to visit! It always amazes me how much we have in common, how we can talk about nothing and EVERYTHING and NEVER run out of things to talk about..how it's never awkward or weird and we can just swap stories about things that have been happening in our lives like we do it on a daily basis...we can talk about travelling on our european adventures. (which so few people really GET) We can talk about our families and our lives and the things that are going on in them, and we can talk about politics and world events and things "that we've read...somewhere".

It was exactly what I needed - A weekend to do..nothing...with one of my favourite girls EVER. Even though we didn't REALLY take advantage of the long weekend and she headed back today instead of us staying another night it was just...perfect.

We chit chatted in the living room with a fantastic view

We ate icecream

We took cute pictures - to prove that we were both there ;)

We chilled in the beauty of the cottage on the dock!

AND - We played with fire!

It was a perfect weekend.

But even more perfect? We're having dinner with the fam tonight - With nothing less than surf & turf, laughter, carrot cake AND fireworks - the perfect end to a perfect weekend.

Life is good folks - life is good.

Turn That Frown..

2010-05-21T08:02:00.002-04:00

I'm living with my cousin right now and it's good - but the thing is...lately I've just been feeling lethargic, tired, like I have the world sitting on my shoulders.

It's draining beyond belief to be sitting here overthinking E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G.....ALWAYS.

Then the other night I went out to dinner with a couple of friends of my cousins that were in town for a night from Halifax and we laughed, chatted and shared stories like we were old friends - even though I'd only met them mere hours before. It was so nice to just relax and chill and enjoy each others company - even though they weren't old friends...we just got along so well and it was such a nice enjoyable evening.

To be honest - I needed it.

Things in so many places of my life have just been such high stress situations lately that I needed a place with people in which I could just be myself and enjoy myself...and I took full advantage of that.

It was the perfect evening....good food, good company..and one liners that had you trying not to pee your pants. Even some coming from ME. Yeah. ME! Who knew that exhaustion made me hilarious?!

It felt like one of the few times since I've been back in North America that I've actually....been myself. Really, truly and honestly been myself. No holds barred, not overthinking everything I think or say or do and actually enjoying myself instead of trying to convince myself that I'm enjoying myself. It was amazingly refreshing, revitilizing and eye opening.

Eye opening because I just realized how much I need to take deep breathes, how much I need laughter in my life and how happiness is worth more than...anything.

So that night, while I was falling asleep with a smile on my face...I made a decision; To be happy, to smile, to embrace all of the good things in life and discard the rest.

Life is just too short. There are too many things that aren't worth it. There are so many things that I want to do, to be, to love...that I don't have time for the stupid things...it's just not worth it.

I mean...for crying out loud...I'm TWENTY FOUR and have my ENTIRE LIFE ahead of me.

I can be whatever I want, I can do whatever I want...I'm in control of my life...I can choose to not let the crap get me when I'm down. I can choose to smile and have a conversation that brightens my soul. I can CHOOSE to be happy and enjoy the good things...and I WANT to do that.

Then yesterday, I proceeded to talk to some wise older-than-me women who confirmed what I thought. Who gave me the courage to go forward and not feel selfish for feeling the way I felt. Who re-affirmed the good things, clucked and told me it was all okay, that it would all be okay, and that it was just a part of growing up. Who talked to me as if I was their peer, instead of someone 20, 30, 40 years their junior. It was refreshing to talk openly with people who GOT it. Who understood what I was thinking, what I was going through and who shared my thought process. People who I could have these fun chats and debates with, who I didn't feel were bored with what I was saying or wished that I would talk about something a little...less intense.

I just feel like this massive shift is happening in my life...and even though I despise change...for once...well...I'm a little excited. But that could just be the exhaustion speaking....I'll keep you up to date.

The Addict

2010-05-20T08:26:00.000-04:00

I'm getting a little frustrated.

You see - I've been hooked on a few too many tv shows. Quite frankly, I blame Europe.

Don't understand my logic? WELL - Try working a split shift EVERYDAY FOR WEEKS STRAIGHT. You work from 7am until 9-10am and then from 4pm until 10pm (or 11, or 12, or whenever the hooligans felt like falling asleep, doh).

Point being - IT MESSES WITH YOUR MIND.

Then - don't have a weekend off - no, just work through those too - oh - but work 12-18 hour days instead. And for fun, let's throw in a day of skiing through the Alps (I know, boohoo me) and overtired children and needing to be a zombie.

It means that you need distractions. And because you've got from 9-10am until 4pm OFF of work, everyone back home is just starting their days. If you're lucky you catch someone at 3am before they've gone to bed (doubtful - but amusing when it happens) or they sign in just as you're heading off to pick up the kids from school. Not so good for the social life - and since everything in Switzerland is SUPER EXPENSIVE - your choices for doing anything or going anywhere are pretty darn limited. Like - super limited if you want to have ANY money left over for your awesome weeks of holidays - which is the real reason you're there anyways - so you're trying not to blow it on on a five dollar CAN of coco-cola (True dizzle - I once did this.)

So I spent a lot of time moaning and complaining to my nanny comrads (love.) and watching far too much illegally streamed tv. Thank YOU, Megavideo.

But after watching the one or two shows I watched on a regular basis I got bored. I read of course, and talked on the phone, walked around the village, took some beautiful photos - and then was like...hmm...I gots me another 49 weeks to kill...what in the world am I going to do during the day?!

So I started watching tv shows - and I'm pretty sure that all of us slaves did it. We just watched seasons - we'd start with episode one and go from there. Wherein I got absolutely HOOKD on some really funny tv. Amusement was key to my lack of explosions on small children - so really, it benifited all.

Except that now...well...I got hooked. On hilarity - which is good - but also on some REALLY AWFUL AWFUL tv shows - some of which are SO BAD that I cannot even name them here. Luckily, those ones have gone - but the decent (erm..half..decent) ones have stuck - and I'm still watching. Hours of endless amusement mean that I spend far too much of my life being a zombie - but a zombie that is laughing so hard she's trying not to pee.

Fair tradeoff if you think about it.

Man - I type a lot.

Point is - it's that time of year when seasons end - which mean - GASP! AH! SIGH! Cliffhangers.

Don't get me wrong - I love me a good cliffhanger. Well, Actually...I don't...because then it means that I have to wait 734108741208 years (Real time: Approximately three months) until I get to find out what happens. So I understand in theory what they're trying to do...and I don't mind..it's all part of the biz (I'm so cool with the lingo)

But here's my bone to pick - Seriously.

WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE TO DIE.

Why does every ad for every cliffhanger I see involve someone dying, almost dying or some sort of deathly situation. WHY?

I don't like death. It makes me sad. I don't like being sad. When I'm sad I stop what I'm doing and hide.

I don't like when characters I love die.

I don't like when characters I love are sad because people that character loves died.

It's not fun. I don't find it amusing...and I'm getting fed up with it.

Is that all that shocks us anymore? Death? And it can't even be a 'normal' death - but it has to be something so extreme and out of the ordinary that it's unbelievable - that shock, horror and awe sells I suppose...but...there's just something that makes me cringe. That makes me run. That makes me hide...and makes me go and watch How I Met Your Mother - where the worst thing that happens is that, well, it's five years later and he still hasn't met Mrs. Right - Oh well, so sad. We all know that he's going to meet her EVENTUALLY (the kids kinda give it away) and that there will be hilarity and possibly a slapsgiving or two along the way (If you don't get that reference I demand that you go and watch the show starting with season one - NOW.) Or perhaps I'll go and watch The Big Bang Theory - Because man..those nerds are ridiculous and hilarious. Sometimes I'm watching and I will just burst out, full fledged, can't help myself laughing and it's awesome. No one DIES and it's not sad - and guess what - I'M STILL WATCHING.

I'm almost about to veto watching the drama's I'm hooked on.

Except that I need to know that Bailey's okay.

And Pete and Violet just need to kiss and make babies. Again. For real.

*sigh*

My name is Erin - And I'm addicted to WAY too much HORRIBLE television. Eck.

Murphy Strikes Again

2010-05-19T10:22:00.003-04:00

After my first run in with Murphy I had a little bit of a bone to pick. So last Thursday I was prepped. I was ready. Murphy was GOING DOWN.

I showed up and it was a beautiful day. It was so beautiful that I was convinced that Murphy had run off, scared, with his tail between his legs.

Cocky Attitude? Mistake number one.

I set up, had everything ready to go and was enjoying the beautiful day.

Just as I was about to admire that it was a much nicer day than the previous week, the black clouds came rumbling in.

And how they rumbled.

But I was like...pshawww...no worries...Murphy pulled this trick last week - He's all cloud and no rain.

More Cocky Attitude? Mistake number two.

As the raindrops started to fall I scrambled for cover. My tables were right near the edge of the tents, and I feared for my precious jam labels safety. I quickly moved my tents out, so that I didn't have to move my tables with tons of glass bottles on it - and I thought I had him fooled.

Just when I was about to pat myself on the back, my words came back to bite me - and suddenly drip drip drip came THROUGH the edges of my two tents that I'd squeezed together, directly onto, yep, you guessed it...my jam labels.

Feeling like a fool, I rigged up the edges so that no drops came through.

My genius was pretty full of itself and was feeling mighty fine and the rest of the market was uneventful. My labels stayed dry, I had some good chats with my farmers market neighbours and ate some somosa's. Mmmmmmm...somosa love.

Thinking that the score was Erin: 2, Murphy: ZERO I was about to do a happy dance as I was taking down my tents.

I shook off the rain water as I was about to take down my tents, lowered one of the legs - and realized that Murphy had somehow held some water back, and as I tried to take down my tent...poured the water DOWN MY BACK.

I finished packing up shivering, cold and wet..and re-evaluated the score to be a tie.

So Murphy - If you're reading this...please know that I've come to grips with the fact that you may possess some powers of awesome...and can make my life...yucky...if you so desire. So please take this as my white flag. I'm throwing in the towel. We're tied, and that's that. Should you decide to pop your head over to this neck of the woods this week, you can be sure that I hold no ill will towards you and am ready to make peace. So if you could bring a bottle or two of sunshine - I'll take that as your peace offering and maybe we can have a nice summer together afterall.

853

2010-05-18T18:00:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I was driving down a main street in town. It was a one way street, one that some of my favourite girls from university lived on. I was driving - la de la - when out of the corner of my eye I glanced towards the house where they use to live was.

AND SAW A GIANT HOLE WHERE THE HOUSE SHOULD BE.

The house where we had birthday parties, talked until all hours of the night and danced in. Where the floors slanted that odd sort of way, and the cupboard doors opened on their own. The house that there are so many memories wrapped up in, and even though I'd "said goodbye" to that house years ago, it still choked me up to think that it was gone.

What were they doing? Trying to change the whole street? I thought to myself as I continued driving - first they tear down the crazy ladys house, and then they tear down 853!? How COULD they? Sure - it's true - the floors were definitely anything but level - but that's not a reason to BULLDOZE A HOUSE.

I couldn't help but get a little teary eyed to think about that house being gone - and had to make sure it was really gone - so at the next corner I turned and made my way back up the other one way street. As I sat on the corner waiting to turn I tried to catch a glimpse of the house with my lower lip pouting in a vibrant display of how much change sucks. Then I rounded the corner and a giant tree (that I definitely don't remmber) clouded my view. I pulled over to the side of the road and sighed.

But it was a sigh of relief - as I had pulled right infront of the still-standing, perfectly in tact, slanty floors and all house.

Turns out my peripherial vision SUCKS and I had mistaken the hole where the crazy ladies house was for my beloved 853.

Yeah, I REALLY need to get my eyes checked.

The Rumour Mill

2010-05-18T13:09:00.001-04:00

I live in a small town. It's actually smaller than small, but either way..it's tinsey-tiny. There's not a lot to do here. Most people tend to venture into nearby (relatively) larger towns and cities for any sort of entertainment or attraction. Unless you're looking for chinese food (we've got the best - go figure) or you're here in the middle of the summer. Then we're hot stuff. But regularily? When it's not cottage season? Yeah, people are not so excited to be in these parts.

Especially if you're a local and haven't got one of those there fancy bajillion dollar cottages.

That being said - there isn't a lot to do here. We have three restaurants that are seasonally opened, a hardware store, a grocery store and a liquor store. Oh - and we have two convience stores - each that rent out movies. I know, stop the excitment - it's almost too much.

So people get bored. And when people get bored..they talk. And when they talk..rumours fly. And when rumours fly...well...there's usually at least a hint of truth in them.

That being said - I never really realized just HOW fast they fly. When you're in your own little bubble and think that you know what's going on in your life and are keeping it pretty personal - and suddenly EVERYONE KNOWS.

And I mean EVERYONE.

Everywhere I go, I'm asked if it's true.

And oh man - Do I enjoy messing with peoples minds. It's pretty amusing to watch them drooling to be like...CAN YOU CONFIRM THIS RUMOUR!? TELL US THE DETAILS! And then sit and give them little scraps and bits of vague details until they're practically drooling and begging you to just let them know.

I'm a sucker for torture. In the gossip mill sense at least.

When I head off to a farmers market or am doing an errand in town I'm asked. When I got my hair done, when I was talking to some media reps...they're all curious and digging for dirt. Even strangers have taken to asking me what's happening and I'm like...HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS RANDOM INFORMATION ABOUT ME WHEN I HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU ARE?! Suddenly when an old relative on my mom's side who lives on the other side of the country (literally) starts inquiring as to whether or not the rumours are true - it's just too funny. How do these rumours spread SO far and SO fast!?

Ah the life of a small town celebrity is so taxing - so many people who want the gossip - so little time.

Bawhaha. Yeah, right.

Small towns amuse me. Especially their gossip mills.

Now if only I could harness this wildfire gossip mill for advertising purposes...I'd be set.

And a bajillionaire.

Okay - back to work on THAT now.

Sucky Sucky Blah

2010-05-17T17:41:00.000-04:00

Death sucks.

Plain and simple, it does.

As much as someone may be suffering and in pain..it still just sucks.

Today I'm going to a wake of a man, in his late eighties who had lived a good life. I didn't know him well by any means...I can remember his face from church when I was a little girl, from the markets as he and his wife supported our growing business and our families were old friends. My aunt babysat their kids 50 odd years ago, my grandparents use to go to church functions with them, their kids grew up with my grandparents kids. He was a sweet old man whose presence will be missed.

So I wanted to go to the wake - but I hate wakes. I hate funerals..it's just not how I grieve. I understand that some people need the closure and that time..but I would rather pretend that it never happened in the first place and just pretend that I haven't seen __(fill in the blank)__ for a while. It's my coping mechanism, and probably a terrible one, but so far it works for me.

But I will still go - even though these kinds of things don't suit me. I get far too emotional, stressed out and upset....but I suppose everyone does. Regardless, I will go and hug his wife, who has always been so nice to me and my family. I will go and wish them well, to tell them I'm sorry that they've lost a husband, a father and a grandfather. So even though I hate these kinds of things. I will put my big girl boots on and I will go for them - not for me - because that's what these things are all about afterall. People who love you, respect you and are important in your life coming together to comfort everyone who is left behind to put the pieces of the puzzle of life back together in some sort of sembelance.

When did growing up become so..yucky?

Yawn

2010-05-17T09:21:00.002-04:00

I hate mornings. I really do. They're disgusting, and gross and stupid.

Well - at least they are when I don't get enough sleep. Like last night.

Why couldn't I get enough sleep?

Oh you know, I was in bed at a decent (ish) hour. Enough to get me my 8 hours of sleep.

Then as I was drifting off to sleep my body realized that my leg had poked out of the covers. My subconscioius weirdo who freaks out if my legs and feet are not covered by blankets when attempting to sleep jerked me awake and I started the 'falling asleep' process all over again.

Cue me evidentally being restless and this entire scenario happening about 27 million more times.

Then when my alarm went off at 7 so that I could be up at get a start to my day...I totally just pressed snooze until the alarm clock was like 'you obviously don't wanna get up right now, I'm just gonna shut myself off for everyones sake'

Cue me waking up not so long again.

Great start to the day Erin. Great start.

Oh weirdo tendencies that prevent sweet slumber...why must you plauge me so?

Artistic Differences

2010-05-14T07:25:00.000-04:00

When I was a child my brother and I sometimes grumbled and complained when we were in the car with my mom. It wasn't the car, a long day or the fact that we hadn't snack that was the issue though. No, the issue was the radio station. Which I get is a common problem with kids. Last year when I was in the car with three kids...I learned how much of an issue it can be. This person doesn't like this song, but it's that persons favourite, but this person NEEDS to listen to their song on a cd and IT CANNOT WAIT OR ELSE THE WORLD WILL END.

Oh how I learned.

But my brother and I didn't fight with each other ~~much~~ about the radio. We were too busy fighting over other things. I joke. Okay, I don't...but we didn't usually fight too much over the radio. This was for a couple of different reasons...but probably because we lived in the boonies and only had reception for like, three radio stations.

There was one station for Country, one for Rock & Roll and the CBC.

In my mom's car though, 99% of the time, it was CBC time. Which meant that my childhood memories of car rides are filled with A LOT of talk radio. And a lot of fighting about talk radio. Because it's booooring. And stoooooopid. And BOOOOOOOOORING.

This usually either resulted in my mother turning up the radio to tune out our whining or turning off the radio so that NO ONE got to listen to ANYTHING.

Her favourite argument though? The infamous "you can listen to what you want when YOU'RE the driver".

Oh and how I memorized that statement and burned it into my brain when it came for me to have my learning permit. The minute she reached for the dial it was "I'M THE DRIVER AND I GET TO CHOOSE WHAT WE LISTEN TO." Which was quickly ammended to "you get to choose WHEN YOU HAVE YOUR OWN CAR".

I didn't drive much before I could drive on my own.

Artistic differences. Literally.

Take That, Murphy

2010-05-13T10:41:00.000-04:00

Last Thursday was the first day that I went to a new farmers market in the area.

It was cold.

It was windy.

It was darn cold and darn windy.

I had about 17 layers on. And a skirt.

Luckily, I threw on leggings right before I ran out the door.

That's not really pertinant to this story, but whatever.

The fact that it was windy and cold and cloudy and gross however, that IS pertinant to this particular story.

SO. I was all setting up my booth at the farmers market. My tents, tables and goods that I was selling...no biggie...same sort of thing I've done a couple of times a week since I was a wee lass.

But this was a new market. And Murphy showed up.

You know, Murphy...the sneaky little jerk that comes around when you least expect him to. When you want to see anyones face but his ugly old one.

The one who likes to play a little game called 'would you rather'.

Thursdays game surrounded the question: 'Would you rather have the wind rip through your tents like a maniac or be rained upon?!?!' And instead of just ASKING the question like a normal person...he decided to play chicken with me.

I know, I told you he has a jerk.

So here we were...brand new opening of the market...where Murphy was hoping we'd be like...holy cow it's mighty windy...setting up your tents is dangerous - don't do it!

And most people fell for it - and didn't set up their tents.

I however, being of a particular brand of genius that's just well, plain old awesome...saw through him. And right up to the black clouds that loomed overhead.

So I held my ground...and was one of the few to try to put up my tent. And one of the even fewer who kept their tent up.

Infact, by the time the market was half done...I was the only one ~~stupid~~ ~~crazy~~ awesome enough to still have my tent up.

Becuase you see, I've heard of this Murhpy fella before. Him and his "laws". I knew that if we all took down our tents, it would pour down rain all over me. And all of the new labels I'd put on jams and maple syrup.

Not so cool Murphy. Not so cool at all.

So I held my ground, and despite the whipping wind...I didn't cave.

I added more ropes and tightened them with all of my might and hoped that I, along with my tents, stayed put...because I knew that trickster Murphy - and I knew that if I succombed to taking down my tent...he'd be like...HA! SUCKA! and make those big black threatening clouds rain down on me. And my labels. No one likes rain on labels - so I stuck my tongue out at Murphy and hopped that I didn't follow in Dorthy's footsteps and blow off to Kansas.

You'll be happy to learn that thanks to me holding my ground..it didn't rain. On me, or anyone. I took one for the team (who were all exposed to the elements) and hid under my desperately wanting to fly away but not quite able to fly away canopy.

Erin: 1, Murphy: 0

But it's Thursday again..and if I know Murphy like I think I do...he's bound to be mad as a hatter that he didn't get me last week. ..and you can bet he'll be up to his old tricks again this week...

What particular trick that IS...I'm not sure. But I'm sure by the end of tonight I'll have a better idea....and we'll see where the score lies after round two.

Bring it on Murphy...I'm not scared of you.

La De Da

2010-05-12T21:35:00.000-04:00

I had a lovely little chit with my brothers fiance Jenny the other day.

This warrants a few points.

First point? I knoooooow. How the HECK is my LITTLE brother old enough to have a FIANCE? Yeah. I have no idea either.

Second point? I love her. SO MUCH.

A friendly goodmorning turned into my lunch break as we chit chatted the last minutes of the morning away. Chit chatting about the future, the world, friends, life, and everything inbetween.

It just made me so happy to know that my brother has snagged such a lovely gal. Someone who I can chat with, who loves my family, who loves my brother so much and is such an important part of his life...because everyone should have but...but of course the older protective sister in me always wants to believe that her baby brother deserves the best of the best.

It's just nice to have someone who shares similar values and ideas. Who can laugh and talk about something so ridiculous and insignificant and then can just turn around and flip and have a serious conversation with you about this, that or the other thing. Who will play boardgames with you, who will listen to your stories (even if she's heard them 17 times before), and makes REALLY good cookies. Because cookies are awesome. Especially when Jenny makes them.

I love that we can tease each other, we work (and work well) together, that she gets what I'm saying before I've ever said it and always seems to have this happy and cheerful disposition, even when I'm sure she could be anything but. I love that she came with us to South Africa, that she's a part of our family business and that she's not afraid to tease my mom when she does something silly...just like the rest of us.

I'm so excited for them to buy a house, to get married and let me pretend I have a sister (it counts - right?). To have babies that I can spoil (and give back!) who will love me bunches because I'm their crazy fun aunt. Emphasis on the crazy.

They're perfect for each other - and she fits perfectly in our family...and I'm so happy to have her in my life.

Now all I need to work on is finding me a nice boy who fits into our family too.

Yeah. Erm. Ha. Well. 'Bout that...

Have you NOTICED the quality and calibre of guys around here? Makes me kind of nervous just thinking about it. Kind of makes me want to stick to being the crazy aunt. Gimme a few (more) cats, a sister in law and a rocking chair and I'm good.

You know, in the crazy way.

Letter To The Editor

2010-05-11T18:26:00.002-04:00

Dear Mother Nature,

I know you're a little touchy about people criticizing you..but...uhh..what. the. heck.

I wrote a little diddy about you in this little corner of the internet a little while ago. Wherein I talked about you mixing up your months. And the possibility of you doing drugs. And other fun things like that.

I know you're getting old - and don't mean to be disrespectful...but I think that it's time that you seek help - because based purely on the fact that I was wearing flip flops in March...well..there are issues. Not that I don't LOVE wearing flip flops in ANY month. But still.

SERIOUSLY though...It's COLD. Crops are freezing to death. Literally. And I'm just a little fed up because, well, I stuck up for you. I was all 'Mother nature doesn't do drugs! That's crazy talk!'...but I'm starting to wondering if maybe you DO have a problem..because holy cow batman...it's freezing again. And it's MAY. MAY!

So really - you have two options. From the way I see it...you either need to go into rehab (but perhaps turn on some heat first?) or get some help at an adult learning centre to help with your reading problems. March has five letters and is generally cold --> warm. May on the other hand has THREE letters and goes from warm --> warmer.

Not negative temperatures.

And no snow. I don't know if you're aware - but it's not supposed to snow in May...like it did this past weekend.

So just a little heads up - Literacy is your friend. Doing drugs that make me freeze when I'm supposed to be warm and make me warm when I'm supposed to be cold is not.

Love Always,

The girl freezing under 363947293 blankets.

Fail

2010-05-07T17:16:00.001-04:00

I've been a big old bowl of blogging fail lately.

Yeah. A WHOLE BOWL.

That's a lot. It's like...a bowl.

But to be fair - I've been a whole bowl of fail in regards to a whole bunch of other things too...soooo....it's not you...it's..me?

I don't really have any excuses.

Yeah, I just tried to come up with some...and still..nothing.

Yeah. So on that note.

MONKEYS!

My plan is definitely not to distract you with random words in hopes you forget about my big bunch of life and/or blogging fail. Nope.

Crazy Cute

2010-04-26T08:32:00.001-04:00

There were some crazy squirrels out and about at the farm a little while ago. They were of the crazy squirrel variety - you know, the ones that like to eat everything and destroy even more...so my dad set up some live traps to try and catch the sneaky little things before they did even more damage.

Then I came by and from a distance saw something in one of the traps. As I got closer...I could see it was a raccoon. A cute little semi-baby raccoon. That was all cute and little and was sitting with its head in its paws.

I felt so bad for it - and as I got closer I cooed over its cuteness and awwed over the fact that it was stuck in this trap.

It looked up at me with the worlds saddest ~~puppy dog~~ raccoon face and my heart melted.

And then it started making the WORLDS SCARIEST NOISE.

Yeah. It started HISSING and GROWLING at me.

WHO KNEW THAT RACCOONS COULD GROWL??????

Yeah, not me.

So todays lesson? Raccoons seem cute, sweet and innocent - until they pull out the CRAZY.

Love & Marriage

2010-04-24T20:02:00.002-04:00

Did I mention that my friend Steph was getting married?

I forgot to?! How COULD I!?

Well it's true - My little Miss. Stephanie got herself married yesterday - and what a day we had!

Taping hems, flower fixing, a bright red dress, a four minute ceremony and a happy couple! We took a TON of pictures and I'm happy to say that they turned out REALLY well! Their photographer cancelled a little while ago (boo!) but it actually turned out more than great anyways because we had so many people taking pics that it was like the paparazzi was there and my lovely cousin came to help us get some group shots and the like so we have 8 million WONDERFUL photos that captured the beauty of the day!

It was a great day - low key - no stress, no worries. We went with the flow, chatted, ate good food, toasted to the happy couple and took a gagillion photos! All of the ones I took were on Steph's camera (which I had a little love affair with...ha) but I have a few (hundred) that my cousin took on my computer of the bride and groom gettin' themselves hitched at city hall and then coming out to the farm for fun and photos :)

The newlyweds as Thomas and I sign as their witnesses!

I wonder where they got married!? :P

Some of the goodies after - chocolate peanut butter cupcakes...YUM!

And then we just went about and took a bunch of cute photos! :)

I'm so happy for one of my best friends ever and her lovely HUSBAND!

Congrats!!!!!!!!!

Fuel Fairies

2010-04-22T00:03:00.002-04:00

The other day I filled up my gas tank...paid the gas dude and went about my daily business.

Then the next day I did some driving, went home and yadda yadda.

The next day - I was all...driving around..when I was like..what the heck, yo. Car, I filled you up DAYS ago - and you're still at full. Are you MAGICAL!?

Thinking I had hit the motherload with a magical car I got all cocky and was about to start creating a song about how awesome I am in my magical car...Then suddenly - to my dismay, my gas tank was like...HA! GOTCHA! SUCKA! YOU TOTALLY FELL FOR THAT! HAHA! YOU LOSE! and the needle dropped.

Boo.

But the next time I got into my car? Totally more full than it had been before.

And after that - it would play a little game and alternate. Sometimes it would be full, sometimes it would have dropped a little - but it never got THAT low...

So I was all...what. the. heck?

And OF COURSE - the only logical conclusion to come to was that I had one of the mysterious, rarely seen but always sought after fuel fairies.

I know. Be jealous.

Knowing that the fuel fairy had found me in this time of need...when gas prices are stupid high and annoying...and knowing that I am full-o-awesome...well..you can imagine that I was pretty excited about my fuel tank being randomly filled up by magical little fairy-elf things.

But then - to my dismay...my car turned on..and the gas tank was all...DANGER WILL ROBINSON - DANGER!

And my fuel fairy was gone.

The orange light telling me I had no fuel was back.

And my bank account took a blow it never saw coming.

If I didn't know any better...I'd say my crap-a-licious car had decided that breaking itself more would be fun...good thing I'm in the know that stupid fuel fairies are notorious for getting peoples hopes up and leaving them on empty.

Jerks.

Country Girl Vs. City Girl

2010-04-21T07:10:00.002-04:00

For the vast majority of my life...I have lived in the country.

It's where I feel comfortable. It's my home. It's lovely.

Sure, I was born in the city. Well - let me rephrase that. I was born in the "city" - I'll use that term loosely - as the place I was born is preeeeetty small (now it's BOOMING and it's population is above 70,000) and its demographic is just...weird. The saying goes that this town is "nearly wed or nearly dead"...and being a town with a university and a college - as well as about 178 nursing homes..it rings fairly true.

That being said - I moved outside of this "city" when I was 5. Returned when I was 17 for some schoolin' and have bopped back and forth since. It's not like it's THAT far away - my parents farm is only 20 minutes from the university.

Recently though, I've been staying at my cousins house in town..and it's a little bizarre.

When I lived in town before...I lived in residence on campus - which is unlike anything else in itself.

Then I lived in a house where our backyard basically merged with a giant field.

Next I moved to an apartment on the 7th floor of a building where all you could see was other apartments, where we generally kept our blinds closed as to not end up being creeped by people like the characters on Friends.

Now though - I'm in a very residential area.

It's friendly - it's cute.

But man...it's weird.

I'm so use to being like...la la la...I'm standing on my deck and can't see or hear anyone...whereas at their house...I'll go outside to sit on the deck...and there is someone else on their back deck looking at me...a kid in the yard nextdoor eating bugs and an old man duct taping his house back together (True story. Really happens. Not even joking a little bit.)

When I was little...we had two neighbours - both of who were (in city language) probably a block or two away from us. Down LONG rural driveways on the opposite side of the road. Unless we biked to see them in the summer - we couldn't just be all HOWDY NEIGHBOUR! Infact we never saw them unless we made the effort to see them, or yanno, saw them driving down our long backroad.

It's odd to get into your car first thing in the morning and wave to everyone else in suburbia as they also head off to start their day. Or collect the mail and bring in the recycling bins as everyone else on the street is doing it too.

To actively know stuff about your neighbours - when you've never met them.

And then get UBER creeped out because they probably know stuff about you - EVEN THOUGH THEY'VE NEVER MET YOU EITHER.

This city living thing is okay - but I'm not convinced it's for me.

Give me some neighbours I can wave to when we pass on the road, some fencelines and trees seperating us...not being able to know what anyone else is having for dinner without asking...and hanging out your laundry without wondering who is watching you...and I'm good.

AKA - A few acres, a cute little house..and neighbours off in the distance.

Yeah - I'm down.

Creeper

2010-04-19T10:13:00.003-04:00

I have a confession.

A confession which most of you already know.

Which most of you probably would do too. Don't judge me.

I, am a creep-a-holic.

Now - in the age of facebook and the internets and all of that fun stuff...it's not difficult.

Only thing is - I feel like a super creeper.

You see - I was all...this isn't so creepy..until I thought about it. I actively went out of my way to search for (and find - my skillz are le awesome.) the blog of the girl who took over my job last year.

Actually - it wasn't that difficult. I just like to make myself sound AWESOME.

Anyways - the first time I searched I tried to use serach engines..but when people don't want to be found..they can just click that little box that lets them be unsearchable. Boo to hindering my creeping. Boo I say.

Next - I just started typing in random URL's based on information privy to anyone on facebook.

First URL? Winnah.

Kinda scary.

KIND OF AWESOME.

It's so interesting to read about her life there and be like..OMG! SO IT WASN'T JUST ME! ITS FOR REAL LIKE THAT!

To know that the same challenges, frustrations and situations occur.

To know that I'm not the one who was crazy and ridiculous.

I want to comment. I want to be like..I've been there, I know. I know what it's like..and I'm sorry for being in a good mood, for having my rose coloured glasses on when I talked to you. As much as I know that she's enjoying the travelling and the adventures..the job part...eck...kinda sucks. But I can't comment or write..because I'm terrified that if I comment...she'll be like..WHOA! HOW ARE YOU SUCH A SUPER CREEPER?! AND then get freaked out and censor herself and the hilarity that comes from me reading her blog - lmao.

It's funny too..because as I go through her blogs..I'm like...HEY! WAIT A MINUTE! I WROTE THAT POST! I'M SURE I DID! I KNOW I DID! And I go back and find an almost identicle blog post about something that they did or said or WHATEVER and I'm like..holy CRAP! How is that possible?!

And then I get freaked out and worry that she found my blog and is just duplicating it.

Except that..well..some of the stuff she writes about didn't happen to me. And we travelled to different places with different people. But the job part? I'm pretty sure that she's probably plagarizing my old blog.

Well. Except that that one had super high security settings because I was freaked out that they'd find it or someone else would find it and be a super creeper on my life there.

You know, kind of like how I'm being right now.

Whoops.

Love Is All You Need

2010-04-18T20:09:00.006-04:00

This weekend was lovely.

Pure and simple - I was in a little bit of a funk. I was frustrated, exhausted and needed a break from life...it was needed.

So girls came from near and far...and we piled into my car...and we drove. And then we drove. And we drove some more. And then for fun..we drove a little bit more.

And we chatted and caught up. We laughed and smiled. And then we kept on driving.

Finally - three hours later - we arrived at our friend Carlys house.

From there - a million and a half more chats ensued. Laughter. Giggles. Far too many carbs. All sorts of awesome.

If you want some words that describe this girls night it goes a little like this: carbs, cheese, cards, chit chats, carrides, cute cats & chill.

There is no way that I can even begin to describe how much I loved hanging out with my girls last night.

It didn't matter that we were in a city we'd never been to before - that most of us hadn't even HEARD of before our Carly moved there for work. It didn't matter that we haven't had a chance to get together just the five of us..probably since our fourth year of university...where if more than a day or two went by without us all hanging out...it was absolutely craaaaaaaaazy. But it didn't matter that things have changed, that people have changed, that we've lived in other countries, travelled to other countries, gotten raises, new jobs, new boys, rings, houses, cars and all of those other things that happen in life. We sat around the coffee table in a living room like we've done a thousand, million times. We shared. We laughed. We reminissed. We talked about how we MUST be getting old...and we played our favourite games - yeah - we played bid euchre. In a word? AWESOME.

It made me happier than I could ever describe to have myself surrounded by people who I love so much..that love ME so much.

It made me grin from ear to ear to laugh and talk as if we were 18 again and sitting in residence blabbing away for hours...to just transport back to that time and realize that despite everything..some things never change.

And now - because I forgot/lost (?) my camera card somehow on the WAY to go visit the carly...I give you some oldschool pictures...because I took a bunch of pics..but they're all on CARLYS camera card..which is with..her...and not..me. Boo.

Happy, silly, ridiculous, classy, and everything inbetween...love! :)

Wherein My Skin Crawls

2010-04-15T00:07:00.002-04:00

Tonight I heard a little "arrahhh...Erin...will you...heeeeeeeelp meeeeeeeeeee" coming from upstairs.

Thinking that the dog had stolen something she wasn't supposed to have or the world was ending or some other disaster...I lept up the stairs ~~like a klutz walking in pants that are too big up multiple flights of stairs~~ like SUPERMAN TO THE RESCUE!

I inquired as to what I could do..and my cousin pointed to the bathtub.

Wherein I saw the most disgusting bug I've ever laid eyes on.

And I grew up in the country - I've seen some pretty disgusting bugs. And I'm not really afraid of them. I was *that girl* who would pick up spiders and taunt her bug hatin' friends with 'em....but alas...this little fella...well...he creeped the bejezus outta me.

In complete disbelief of what he could be I immediately ran and grabbed my camera to document what I could only imagine could be a strange new breed of GDB (gross disgusting bugs)...was he a spider? A caterpillar? Some sort of...hybrid? I didn't know....I just knew that he was disgusting.

And fast.

He ran around the bathtub like he was running a marathon.

Which of course got me even more freaked out.

Between the antenna on both ends of his body. The myriad of legs and the rigid nature of his body...I had no idea what I was up against when he started running.

But I did what I needed to do. I put on my big girl country pants and asked for my bug killin' tools..and smushed the heck out of that thing.

And then from underneath the paper towel I had covered it with BEFORE killing it...I could see it twitching - and being the kind person that I am...I didn't want it to suffer...so I smashed the living daylights out of it again.

And man - am I glad I did.

Because I googled that thing.

And it has eyes.

And venom.

AND LIKES TO FOOL THINGS INTO THINKING ITS DEAD BY TWITCHING AND RELEASING ITS INJURED LEG TO GET AWAY.

Let's just say - by the time I was done....it was not getting away.

Ugly gross thing couldn't fool a country girl like me.

And because I know you're all sitting on the edge of your seats worried - have no fear...the shoe is okay. It was protected by a brave piece of paper towel (which sadly, gave up its life for our dear shoe...) and is now resting comfortably and recuperating after being sterilized where all traces of possible contamination were removed.

And now yours truly wants to go and have a shower to remove any possible trace evidence of gross off of herself...and to stop her skin from feeling as though bugs are crawling all over it...but she fears that she is probably scarred for life from showering...seeing as though the worlds most gross disgusting bug climbed out of the drain today.

Vicious cycle. Vicious, vicious cycle.

Tetris Addict

2010-04-14T12:32:00.002-04:00

Sometimes I like to hide from the world.

When there is lots going on and tons for my brain to process...I hide.

Well, I don't REALLY hide. I'm here. I just...don't do much.

I sit on my computer and stare at the screen...I read books..I watch tv...I do anything to avoid thinking about the real world, real life or all of the things I should be doing.

One of my favourite ways to hide, to forget about the world...is to play tetris. I play and play and play...and forget everything else. I play so much that I don't even need to hit up my favourite online free tetris website...I just close my eyes before falling asleep and all I see is tiny little multi-coloured blocks falling down...and then I put them into place.

I don't need no stinkin' technology. My brain does it for me.

That being said...during my waking hours...I do play.

And lately - I play A LOT.

I would just like to point out how much hiding I must be doing...because..well..last night I sat down and played...and got the highest score I'm pretty sure ANYONE has ever gotten.

My previous high score was something like...level 40.

I must be stressed. Level 71? Seriously? I dare you to try and beat that. It takes a lot of stress and a lot of hiding..this I promise you.

Hurry Up! Hurry Up!

2010-04-14T11:01:00.002-04:00

I forgot how much I love some of my old university friends.

It's going on a few years since I've finished university..and it's starting to hit me how much I miss certain people and how nice it was to have everyone in the same town for those lovely years which we spent in university together.

The other night at Jenna & Jeff's house though...our other friend Jeff was there..and I walked in and he gave me the biggest hug...and it brought me right back to our university days...he's always given super good hugs..and there is just something comforting about being like...we don't live in the same city, we rarely see each other...so many things in our respective lives have cahnged...but we can still just see each other, give each other a hug..and it's like nothing has changed.

I love that comforting feeling of being hugged by a familiar friend. Just seems to make the world better - no matter what is going on.

I love Jeffrey hugs - it makes life happy.

Another thing that makes my life happy? My bestest university girls randomly getting together in a strange city where one happens to be living...so that we can eat far too much food, catch up on all of the gossip in our respctive lives..play some card games...be a little ridiculous and probably stay up WAY too late giggling.

Oh weekend - hurry up! More of those 'old familiar friend' gatherings are waiting for me!

Dinner Partays

2010-04-10T22:29:00.005-04:00

Tonight I headed over to my friend Jenna's house for a BBQ.

Something that we've done a million, bazillion times.

But something that we haven't been doing much lately..as, well, it's only just become BBQ season..and because I've been uber anti-social/tired/blah/etc. lately as a general rule in life.

But tonight, we gathered. And it was fun :)

....It was a crazy wakeup call though.

That we're getting old. And older. And older still.

That maybe we're not just getting old..but we're also growing up.

The boys had cooked at the BBQ while the girls gossiped around the kitchen..

Instead of talking about cute boys and music videos...we now talk about rings and furniture and whose having babies when.

Instead of throwing together some bought burgers onto a paper plate and eating off your lap...we had homemade burgers with potato salad and roasted veggies. On real plates. At a dining room table. WITH SERVING DISHES. Delicious?....yes. Grownup?...Oh boy you betcha.

Instead of leaving the dishes where they were and forgetting about them..the girls gathered up everything and tidied up...put the leftovers away and wiped down the table.

And then the boys made ridiculous jokes and comments about this, that and the other thing.

And suddenly we were 18 again.

I had rewound seven years.

We were these silly little kids. Making each other laugh. Loving life. Being ridiculous.

And I missed those times.

I love grown up dinner parties. I always have. They make my heart happy..but sometime..you just can't beat laughing so hard you're trying hard not to spit out what you're eating.

That's the sign of a REAL dinner partay.

Ketchup Terrors

2010-04-07T09:36:00.003-04:00

I'm weird.

If you know nothing else about me..you probably know this.

But of course, this weirdness presents itself ONLY in awesome ways.

This is just general knowledge, and although I don't HAVE to write it - I thought it'd be nice to just...state some facts.

Like the fact that I have a fear of ketchup.

Now I know you're all scratching your heads and being like..what the heck Erin? You LOVE you some ketchup.

And you're right. I DO love me some ketchup.

But it also scares me. Bunches.

For obvious reasons - such as the fact that it doesn't look or taste ANYTHING like the thing it comes from...but also for not so obvious..very peculiur reasons..that don't have any explanation or make any sense.

If I were going to eat french fries..you're darn right I'd love some ketchup on those. Yup, dump a puddle of it on my plate and let me dip away - yum!

Hamburgers? Sure!

Well - as long as I don't have to put it on myself.

If I have to put it ON food myself - and am not just dipping something into it..yeaaaah...no.

I'm not so down with that.

I won't put ketchup on my own burger, or hotdog or anything else like that.

It flat out freaks me out.

But sure - I'll eat it on a burger or other food - if you put it on there for me. And you're darn right that I'll enjoy it - lots. Well, as long as I don't have to see you putting it on. That kind of freaks me out too. And when it's really cold. Ew.

Make me put it on myself though...and I'll avoid it like the plague. Mustard? Yes please! Relish? Of course! It's one of the most overlooked condiments EVER! But ketchup?

Yeah. Kinda freaks me out.

You have my complete and utter permission to judge me...now.

The Coffee Date Crasher

2010-04-06T23:48:00.003-04:00

Tonight I went out for coffee with one of my bestest friends, Rhiannon.

Now - Rhi and I lived together for many a year.

We get each other.

We can not talk for weeks, and then it's like..wha-bam - didn't I see you yesterday?

Yet we can hang out 24/7...and never run out of things to talk about.

When we haven't seen each other or been able to catch up for a while..coffee dates are our thing.

We order a large of something (the coffee part of the date is optional - especially when they often take place late at night..) and sit.

And then we talk. And talk. And talk some more.

We people watch.

We talk about the latest this or that.

We share what's been up in our respective lives.

And we have spent countless hours...just sitting. Often in ONE sitting.

Yeah - we've been known to have to have multiple pee breaks and multiple warm beverages in one night - because we've been sitting at 'our table' for 3, 4 or 5 hours. Just chatting.

It's kind of our thing.

Well - tonight...she had to run an errand..and then she had to run another one at the last second...so I came with her...as did her fiance. We were going to drop him off before we went for coffee..but he said that he'd come with us since we were driving right by 'our' coffee place anyways.

He had no idea what he was getting himself into.

After eating some food and drinking his drink...we'd barely made a dint into our drinks OR or conversation..and he was staring at us like we were crazy...as if he couldn't believe that this was ACTUALLY what we did when we said we were going for coffee.

I'm pretty sure he thought that we were going to some wild crazy party whenever we said we were having coffee...and just wanted to check up on us. But no...it's what we do.

After 15-20 minutes he was like..yeaaaaaaaah...we either need to leave or I need to walk home...I'm way too bored for this...so we headed on back to their place where Rhi and I continued our marathon chats and warm drinks..while he zombied out via videogames.

I don't think that he'll be crashing anymore of our coffee dates in the near future...ha! There are just some things in life that the opposite sex doesn't seem to be able to understand...and evidentally women's coffee dates may be one of those things.

Crazy Going Slowly Am I...

2010-04-06T08:43:00.000-04:00

As I was lying on the couch in an extreme bout of lazy...I smelt..burning.

Campfire.

Smoke.

So of course I freaked out.

And was like...OMG!WHATSONFIREIVEGOTTOPUTITOUT!AHH!

I glanced around - nothing.

I looked at the fireplace - not on.

I looked everywhere.

I checked the stove.

The furnace.

Even the BATHROOMS for some sort of source of fire.

Thing is though - it didn't smell like smoke anymore.

So I went back to being lazy and lying on the couch...

And then..as soon as I sat down...I smelt burning again.

What the heck?!

I got up...and I didn't smell it.

I sat down...and I smelt it.

Up - yep.

Down - nope.

Fearing my sanity...I turned to my cousin..and with all seriousness was like...why do I smell burning only when I sit down?? What's WRONG with me?

Thinking a brain tumor or some other weirdo neurological disease (Yes, I have been watching to much Grey's Anatomy)...my mind only stopped racing when my cousin looked around, laughed and then pointed out the treat that one of the dogs was chewing while lying on the couch beside me. A treat that just so happened to have a weird, bizarro smokey flavour - and made everything within its reach smell like...burning.

Diagnosis? Not crazy.

At least not in this particular situation :)

Icecream Cake + Lazy = Lucky # 100

2010-04-05T20:43:00.000-04:00

So today I've been all bummy. You know, doing nothing. As some of you may say, I'm taking a day off...whatever THAT means. It's a new phenomenon these days...but not an unwelcome one. In the summer I work a lot, and it's busy...maple season also happens to be busy like that...which means that days off are few and far between.

Despite having the day off...I've been up since 5:30am. Yep. Of course. The day that I CAN sleep in, I'm up in the wee hours of the morning...figures. So by the time 10am rolls around...I was working on my fourth load of laundry (So many clean clothes! And towels! And sheets! Huzzah!), I had loaded and unloaded the dishwasher..and then found some more dishes to tuck away in there for another load of dishes. I'd taken out the garbage, sorted the recycling, folded 2 loads of laundry and put clean sheets on three beds. I'd tidied up my room, scrubbed all of the counters and whatnot...fed the birds and the cat...and even changed the cat litter.

Oh, and I watched a movie. AND showered.

I was a busy, exhausted-but-can't-sleep bee. Evidentally early mornings are productive? Who knew?

Generally the sand man has my complete and total attention at these time of the day - but for some reason...I was all...able to get stuff done.

After doing my tidying and cleaning and general fun like that...I was bumming around reading random blogs and noticed Amanda's post about her next post being her 100th on her blog.

Out of sheer curiousity and boredom I was like...hmm..I wonder how many posts I'VE written in this blog.

So I looked - and found...that I also had written 99. And that my next would be my 100th. Sometimes I'm convinced that Amanda and I are twins. Except different quite different. Besides the whole..living in Peru, being married and yadda yadda...basically the same person.

Anyways! To think - I almost missed the occasion! Luckily - my almost-but-not-quite twin was all over that.

I've been blogging, journaling and writing in various places for the vast majority of my life...so I guess it's not THAT big of a deal...but it's always fun to celebrate..because who doesn't like to celebrate?!

So in celebration I am watching fireworks...and eating icecream cake (Awesome.)

Okay. Not real fireworks. But I did win a game of solitare and it's now shooting off fireworks on my computer screen..which has gotta count for...something? AND I really really really AM eating icecream cake (for real - not just virtually!) - and we all know that icecream cake is REALLY what matters in life anyways.

So here's to the next 100 posts..should anyone actually ever have read the last 100 and care to read the next ones :P

And should you be in the area...come on over and have some icecream cake to celebrate. And while you're at it..bring me another slice. After my cleaning spree this morning I've been lying on the couch and fear that I've permenently attached myself to it and will need more sugar infused with reese's peices to gain enough energy to drag myself to bed...and am feeling a little too lazy to go and get myself some more of that delish cake fun. This just in - sugar infused girl going craaaaaaaaaazy and needs more sugaaaaaar.

So come one, come all..and bring sugar. Stat.

A to the We to the Some.

2010-04-04T18:50:00.003-04:00

Let's not beat around the bush.

I have many awesome qualities.

I mean..common..I'm ME...How much more awesome can you get?

(You can stop laughing now)

(Okay...really, stop)

(No seriously...you need to stop)

(Okay..you're kinda bruising my ego now...)

But SERIOUSLY folks.

I'm just filled with bunches-o-awesome.

Take today for example.

We're nursing a sick goat back to health (yeah, it's what I do...erm?) and I was trying to feed her some apple. And I was like...WHA-BAM with my mighty powers of awesome and ripped that thing in half. And then in quarters. WITH MY BARE HANDS.

See? I told you. A-W-E-S-O-M-E.

I mean..between THAT..my ability to pick up things with my toes (Ha. I just made my friend Carly puke a little in her mouth...I'm SURE of it.)and my ability to remember random useless facts...how much more awesome can you want in a person? Much more and I'm sure it would be an awesome overload.

Okay. This post is done. Filled with way too much laughter regarding my levels of awesome...Pssh.

And I Shall Call You...

2010-03-30T22:38:00.000-04:00

I've been...cat sitting..kind of.

While my aunt is back at work in South Africa for a couple months, I'm staying with my cousin to help her with various things..one such thing being to take care of their animals. She doesn't really NEED help, but there are a lot of things on the go and with four dogs, two birds and a cat...on top of a million other things..it's a lot.

Since the cat has always been my aunts, she kind of falls under my domain.

Thing is, she's KINDA CRAZY.

Take for instance the other day...she stayed in my room for a couple hours while we were out and about. She doesn't mix too well with the dogs always..so when we're going out we'll sometimes leave her sleeping in a bedroom or somewhere where they can't bother her and she can't bother them.

We've done this about a KAZILLION times before, and she's really use to it.

THEN we left and evidentally she had a little EPISODE.

Oh, do I ever have photographic evidence of the crazy.

The first thing we saw? Oh yeah...she was mad at that there carpet. Mad as a hatter.

Next? She decided to try and get out not UNDER the door, but by opening it. And scratching the heck out of the door frame.

Evidentally that didn't work out so well for her, so she took out her anger on the door knob. Yep. Scratched that all to bits too.

If you're wondering how she managed to attack the doorknob, because well, it's high and what the heck, she's a CAT - well, then start questioning how she put HOLES in the DRYWALL. All the way up to the window. Which is a good 5-6 feet off the ground.

Don't believe me? Okay - here's the closeup:

Oh yeah she did.

Oh crazy cat - From now on I shall call you...destruct-o-cat. Yep. That's ACTUALLY her new name.

Coping (Or Lack Thereof)

2010-03-29T21:05:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I convince myself that I'm doing okay.

I go spurts without tearing up...and I'm okay.

But that's only because I've managed to momentarily forget.

To push it out of my mind.

To pretend. .

I've done more laundry in the last few weeks then I've done in my entire life.

The dishes are done.

I force myself to cross things off lists.

I play the distraction game whenever I can...

And even when I talk about it..it's facts, it's this, it's that. It's not emotion. I stay on the other side of the emotion train...because it's a train that likes to pick me up and take me places that make my heart break.

Like when I'm cuddling my puppy, and I realise that my grampa will never show up with his pockets stuffed with cookies for him ever again.

Or when I pass by one of the places we use to grab lunch or dinner at..and just sit and talk...

The pictures that surround me..remind me of so many happy times...

The fact that I will never get another hug or an 'i love you'.. has tears streaming down my face.

That all of those things make me stop and make me realize. They make me realise those times are only memories now..

And it breaks my heart. Over and over and over again.

In the scrapbooking asile in walmart, I get teary eyed.

On the phone with a friend, I can't talk because I'm silently sobbing.

And the shower, I think about conserving water and showering simply in tears - I'm convinced that is the best place to have your own personal breakdown - no one ever knows and your tears just wash themselves away...

Well, no one knows until you post about said breakdowns in the shower on your blog that is.

Whoops.

It's not any easier..this state of numb avoidance...

But I like to pretend that is.

Maybe THAT is my coping mechanism.

Math Vs. Shopping

2010-03-27T15:27:00.001-04:00

I hate math. I really do. I'm not even kidding a little bit.

In highschool I dropped all math classes once they weren't compulsorary anymore - but my guidance counsellor decided that was probably a bad decision - and signed me up for one without me knowing it...thus why I have a grade 12 math credit. Turns out he wasn't such an idiot, because I ended up taking far too many statistics classes in university thanks to one half of my double major, stupid psychology.

Despite taking math for oh, five years longer than I ever wanted to - I still hate it.

Even though I really truly hate it with oh so much passion...I still find myself using it..way too much. Standing in stores, particularily grocery stores, and spending way too much time looking at prices of food and breaking it down to the unit price and finding the best possible deal. Which - GASP - isn't always the biggest size.

I don't know where this compulsion stems from...but I just do it without even thinking.

I guess part of it is because it seems silly to buy in bulk when it's not even close to being worth it...and when so many big box stores and discount stores and yelling from the roof top to come and check out their "deals" when in actuality - they're kinda ripping you off.....or selling you crap that you just don't need.

So this results in me spending WAY too much time saving 13 cents on a bag of carrots.

Or 7 cents on a can of tomatoes.

Or TWENTY SIX CENTS (!!) on a loaf of bread.

Which makes me think that I'm AWESOME - Because HELLO! I just saved FORTY-SIX CENTS! WOOT! GO ME!

Except then then I remember what you can get for 46 cents these days...and when you realize that you can't even make a phonecall at a payphone for that anymore...well...it gets kinda depressing. Especially when you just spent half an hour lurking around a store looking for 'deals' to still be 4 cents short to make a phonecall at some germ infested payphone.

And then you remember that you SAVED the 46 cents and you consider it a complete victory.

Until you realize that the day previously you spent about 46 gazillion times MORE than you just saved on clothes, shoes and accessories and didn't compare prices once.

And - the kicker - when getting dressed - still manage to hate all of the clothes in your closets. Despite having enough for two houses. Whoops.

Okay - so maybe I just hate math when it means that I don't get new pretty shoes.

Yeah, that MIGHT be the problem.

Lesson Learned

2010-03-26T06:51:00.000-04:00

I had some errands to do a little while ago. Stuff that needed to be done in the morning - before I could head out to the farm. So instead of my old gross 'I'm working on the farm' clothes..I threw on some half respectable clothing.

Then decided that even though I felt like garbage...going without makeup just wouldn't do. So I quickly did a once over with makeup and made myself look half respectable.

Then I went and dropped off my cousins.

All was good.

I did my first errand - talked to one person, kept all my stuff together and dropped off what I needed to drop off.

Then I went and did some running around...

And then I was off to my second errand...where I dropped some stuff of.

I was so proud of myself. I was holding things together. Keeping busy. I was doing better.

Then I went to my third drop off.

And I was okay, I talked and chit chatted..with a woman I'd never met before

Then came one question, one look..and suddenly...I was not doing better enough, nor was I busy enough..to not be wearing waterproof mascara.

Lesson learned.

The hard way.

How Sweet It Is

2010-03-25T19:42:00.005-04:00

Spring has sprung! And it has brought us into the thick of syrup season! I often feel soooo lucky to grow up in this area of the world where we have an abundance of this 'liquid gold'. Luckier still? To grow up on a farm whose first crop of the year is making that sweet nectar! Wanna see why I love it so much? Well, there are a million and a half reasons why..but here is a little glimpse into my world in the spring. Mud puddles, the sweet smell of sap boiling and walks through the woods. Love :)

Charlie and I going for a walk in the woods :)

A few snowshoe prints - before the snow melted!

Sticky, yicky, lovely mud!

Drip...drop!

We do it all by bucket! No pipeline for us..hello muscles!

Can you tell it was a beautiful day and I was having fun playing with the camera?!

The sugar shack!!

The sugar shack on a sunny afternoon :)

The steam from the evaporator :)

Putting some more wood on the fire!

Pouring off some of the first syrup!!

Oh Canada - I love you!

And THAT folks, is why I live in one of the most awesome places in the whoooole world.

Playing Grown-Up

2010-03-24T16:04:00.001-04:00

Most days...I don't feel as though I'm really any older than I was 3, 4 or 5 years ago.

But when I look around me...everyone seems to be growing up. But me? Well, I'm just sitting here..watching them go about doing their grown up things.

I mean sure, I did the school thing.

Five years and two degrees later...I've been there, done that.

Did a little bit of that travelling thing too.

As the Germans say...Wonderbar.

But I'm not in any sort of a relationship - let alone a serious one. I'm not engaged, getting married, having children, buying houses or decorating them. I don't think much about RRSP's or climbing the ladder in my job field, paving my driveway or insurance premiums, light fixtures, diamond shapes and six figure salaries.

It's just not my thing right now. I'm not there...I (gasp) don't..care.

So in that respect, I'm not even pretending to play grown-up.

But everyone around me seems to be.

In the last month-ish I've had:

A friend from university have her (SECOND!) baby.
A friend buy her first home with her new(ish) husband.
A friend start a new an awesome grown-up job.
A friend get herself some bling from her now fiance.
A couple people start to show their baby bumps that are due in the next while..
A friend shake things up with her wedding so that they are now TECHNICALLY getting married in a MONTH.

All around me, people are playing grownup - to every degree on the spectrum of grownup. From houses, to babies to marriages - even my LITTLE BROTHER is engaged and looking into getting the first home of his own.

It's just so surreal - to watch people do all of these things that I just feel are way too old for me. I'm not there, and I'm rather okay with that. Sometimes though, I just feel like I'm standing on the sidelines, watching people do things and I get caught up and I'm like...ooo...I want that TOO! And then I get all blah and jealous - until I realize that I don't ACTUALLY want that right now. And I know I don't because there are so many other things that I really DO want to do...but because (practically) EVERYONE around me seems to be playing the 'I'm a grownup' game...I'm like..OH HEY BANDWAGON! LET ME JUMP ON TOO! WAIT WAIT WAIT FOR ME!

When in actuality - I'm quite content with my life right now...even if it does sometimes mean that I'm feeling like a misfit in comparison to the other 20-somethings in my immediate surroundings.

It's just bizarre to watch people all around you do these grownup things when you don't feel nearly old enough or as though you have nearly enough life experience to do ANY of those things. When you can't imagine paying property taxes, are really bad at remembering to take care of yourself - let alone another little human being, and you just want to enjoy being a carefree 20-something. I sometimes feel like I'm wandering around lost - and no one gets it..because they're all playing the game.

And it's not that I'm playing. Despite my best efforts, I AM getting older. I'm doing more grownup things..and I'd like to believe that I may be a little bit more mature than I was a few years ago. I just feel like I myself am (personally) too young to do most of these things. I'm twenty four! Why does society make me feel like I should be doing these things? I have plenty of years for car payments, mortgages, babies and weddings...right?

At least that's what I keep telling myself.

It's difficult because it feels as though the vast majority of people around me right now are at that point in at least some way or another - jobs, serious relationships, husbands and wives, babies, mortages and all of that jazz - and it's hard to explain to them what's going on in my head. They just don't get it - because they're not sitting in my shoes - just like I don't really get what they're going through - because I'm not in their shoes. It's not that I don't love them dearly, and it's not that I don't want them in my life. I love them of course..but it's just odd to feel like you don't really FIT right. Like you've put on a new shirt and the tag is scratching at your neck and it's just not comfy and you can't quite put your finger on why.

Anywho - I'm sure it's just my mind playing tricks on me as I'm pretty sure that the older I get..the more people look like they have everything figured out - but the more I'm pretty convincd that NO ONE has ANYTHING figured out.

For now I'll go back to watching on the sidelines as all of the lovely people in my life play grown-up as I play "I'matwentysomethingthatstillhasnoideawhattheheckshe'sdoingwithherlife" and pretend not to care that everyone else is giving off the impression that they've figured "it" out (whatever IT is).

Sounds like a plan to me.

That Time Of Year..

2010-03-22T11:59:00.001-04:00

This time of year has always been one of my favourites..and I often get asked why. Why do I love the mud? The puddles? The changing of seasons? Why do I love spring the most..and not summer? What's so GREAT about spring?

Wanna know what's so great about spring?

Squishy squirmy mud puddles to ooze your boots into. It means that the ground is thawing and warm days are upon us.

The way the air smells. Crisp. Clean. Refreshing and new. As though ANYTHING and EVERYTHING is possible.

Longer days that make you want to sit outside and take in a sunset - after 4pm?! Who knew?!

Not having to wear a jacket anymore! HELLO WORLD! THESE WHITE ARMS COULD USE SOME SUNSHINE! THANKS!

Flipity to the flops. Hallelujah. I love you and how my toes can wiggle about freely.

Baby animals. Um. HELLO. Cute to the extreme. I think yes.

But my numero uno reason why I love spring?

It's maple season.

The sweet smell of sap boiling...indescribable. The taste of warm syrup just after it has come out of the evaporator...irresistible. Taking a walk through the sugar bush and catching some sap on your finger...irreplaceable. The smell of a wood fire burning while you catch up on the goings on of the day? Lovely. Amazing. Wonderful. And all of the other pretty adjectives that exist in this world.

It's in my bones. It's in my soul. I just..love it.

Sappy Fam Lovin's

2010-03-21T22:25:00.000-04:00

There have been a lot of controversary and issues in the past while..things that break my heart..things that I never thought people would think or say, things that I never thought that I would think or say. People who have disappointed me in the worst ways, who have shown me their true character and made me bawl because I don't know what to do anymore.

I understand that there are always people like this in the world, and I know that there's not a whole heck of a lot that I can do about it..but it's just so hard to accept. Especially when these people are people who are related to you, who are in your family, who you're bound to for life.

Like it, love it or hate it incessantly..you are.

But sometimes, even when you're at odds with certain family..and you just don't know what to do anymore..and you've given up hope..other family steps up their game and pulls up the slack when you least expect it.

They restore your faith that good people exist.

They help you out when you're in a bind and can't rely or trust anyone else.

They dole out hugs and a listening ear like it's nobody's biznaz.

And they make you smile..just because they're them.

At a time when I'm so frustrated and upset..when there is so much going on and I'm stressed and have a million things on my plate. When I'm so worried that everything is going wrong and I just don't know what to do anymore...they're there. Rounding up troops. Sending in backup. Changing their plans. Making dinner, making coffee, making smiles. Making sure that everyone keeps on trucking and doing the best job possible.

Sometimes I'm amazed at the gems I've been lucky enough to uncover in certain family. Feels like I've won a million bucks.

Well, not that I know what that feels like. But I'm not so opposed to finding out..should some kind, wealthy, annonymous donor like to be a part of that social experiment ;)

Reasons I Shouldn't Be An Adult

2010-03-20T21:03:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I don't know how I'm allowed to be a functioning adult in society. I mean...I'm pretty ridic.

This is a list of SOME of the kinda, sorta MAYBE important things I need to remember to do:

Eat

Drink

Pee

You would think by the ripe old age of 24 I would have at least some of these down...

But no. Today I ate breakfast at 7am.

I then didn't eat again until almost 6pm.

BECAUSE I WAS DOING STUFF AND THEN FORGOT ABOUT EATING.

I also forgot about drinking that entire time. And peeing, until just now. That's TWELEVE HOURS.

How does one just FORGET about these things?!

My brain is just a WEE bit scattered. Oi.

Little Miss Popular

2010-03-20T19:28:00.004-04:00

Sometimes it's hard to be me.

You know, because I'm so freakin' awesome.

Take for instance this morning...I walk into a garage on my way to the farm...to buy a newspaper.

Nothing too out of the ordinary.

I grab a paper, get out my toonie and put it up on the counter to pay.

The girl looks at me. Then she looks at the newspapers behind me. Then she looks at me again.

Then she's like..uhh...aren't you going to buy the newspaper that you're in?

Seriously - I just can't go ANYWHERE without being recognized anymore.

That, and now I felt kinda obligated to buy the paper I was on the front page of. She had pointed it out..and it seemed kind of rude to be like...pssh...I'm too important to look at myself in the newspaper. ;) Or, you know, admit that I had no idea it was there..ha.

But seriously..between the tv and the papers and everything else...I'm just WAY too popular for my own good.

Or you know, live in WAY too small of a town.

But it's probably the popular thing. Just wait until the newest commercial hits the air this spring - I'm probably gonna need a bodyguard.

Mother Nature Does Drugs?

2010-03-20T01:15:00.004-04:00

It's midnight.

It's pitch dark.

I'm wearing a tank top.

And walking outside on the deck.

Is it just me.. ...or is there something SO wrong with that picture.

Not because midnight's not cool..I like it..even if sleep is kinda sweet too.

And not because I don't ENJOY being comfortable walking around in a tanktop outside.

But..yanno..it's MARCH.

IN CANADA.

What's up with that yo?

We've got no snow, temperatures in the double digits and plenty-o-sunshine.

I'm pretty sure that mother nature got her months messed up and switched May with March. There's really no other logical explanation. Seriously. Well, unless you choose to believe that Mother Nature is doing drugs. Then that explains EVERYTHING. But I personally like to believe that mother nature is just a little forgetful. Not a crackhead.

Now that I've said that...we're going to get dumped with a snowstorm and I'll have to trade in my flipflops and cry.

Aw man. I just looked at the weather forcast for next week..and I totally jinxed myself. BUT..by saying THAT...I double jinxed myself which I can only assume is a double negative which means that I unjinxed myself...but by acknowledging the double negative I just ruled out the double negative so that means that I've yet again jinxed myself...or...have I?

Schiesse.

I'm going to bed before my head implodes. Or before I have to rapidly alternate between airconditioning and having a roaring fire going. Whatever comes first.

Ewwa

2010-03-13T21:10:00.005-05:00

I've been sick for the last couple of days..

Nothing serious, just a cough, sore throat and a little bit of an ear ache.

Oh. And the sniffles. Gotta love THOSE.

I'm basically walking around like I'm the sniffle monster.

Which means that just about every where I go, I sniffle.

Not so surprising when you have a cold...but it's still kinda gross, and I hate being sick...

Just the feeling of being blah is so gross...but I didn't realize quite how gross it was though...how icky the sniffling was...

That is, until my cousins parrot started IMITATATING my sniffles.

Holy disgusting man.

Now, every time I walked into the room..the bird starts sniffling as though it can't breathe through its nose...and it sounds like gross. And a half. Making long disgusting (definitely exaggerated) sniffling noises.

I need to get better, quick.

Because seriously..if this is what I sound like...I'm pretty sure I disgust myself beyond belief. Ew.

A Grandfather

2010-03-09T21:54:00.001-05:00

Grandparents are special people. Grandfathers are special people.

Mine gave wonderful hugs, always had an ear or three to listen to me babble with his quiet, serene nature and took me out for icecream. When I was little I would go to church with them every week - where he called me a wiggle worm becasue I could never sit still in the church pew we sat in together...and then held me in his lap while I leaned against his chest, feeling his heart beat as I calmed down and became a little less wiggly. He taught me how to keep my money organized while I was working at farmers markets, a system that is so ingrained in my mind that I'll never be able to do it any other way. He taught me how to make beautiful displays of fruits, and to always say hello and smile, no matter what. We went on roadtrips together; the cheese and/or chocolate factory (you can't do one without the other when they're down the road from each other and you've driven an hour to get to ONE) to the east coast - just the two of us. Where he showed me the farm where my father was born, where he owned a store, the church that they went to and so many of the other stories that went along with his life there. Where he taught me to love seafood, instead of hide from it. And our biggest trip - Africa. Where we saw where the oceans met, drove through the mountains and saw penguins playing in the ocean.

He always smiled his sweet smile, pulled a dog cookie out of his pocket and made friends with whatever dogs happened to be in the vacinity.

Through his gentle nature, I learned how to be patient, kind and loving. I could never begin to tell you how many people I have met over the years at the farmers markets who asked about him every time I saw them, because of the impression that he left on their lives. The little old ladies from his apartment building and men from the dairy he worked at, who talked so highly of him, who made me even more proud to be his granddaughter.

I learned from him..that sometimes letting your little brother win at a game of cards was okay, that he made the best scrambled eggs in the world, and that sometimes it was okay to cry.

We had a special bond, even if we were different in a lot of ways - and I’d like to believe that in a lot ways, in the way that we loved, shared and enjoyed life - we are alike. I believe that the best parts of him live on in all of the great things and people that he’s left behind, that he’s passed on to the people he loved over the last eight decades. All of the good that he has done in his life can never be forgotten because it lives in the people and places his life has touched.

It breaks my heart to say goodbye, to let go...to hold on to the memories that tug at my heart while moving forward...but I do so knowing that he did so many wonderful things, that he was such an amazing person, whom I love so very much...and I know that he would want me to...so I am.

It's a process, there will be good days along with the not so good days..but I just have to remember these words..the one I found quite a while ago..that just..fit...so perfectly.

You can shed tears that he is gone
or you can smile because he has lived

You can close your eyes and pray that he’ll come back,
or you can open your eyes and see all he’s left

Your heart can be empty because you can’t see him,
or you can be full of the love you shared

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday
or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember him only that he is gone
or you can cherish his memory and let it live on

You can cry and close your mind
be empty and turn your back.

Or you can do what he’d want;
smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Grampa Myron
July 1926 - March 2010
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

All You Need Is Love

2010-03-09T00:16:00.003-05:00

I am an extremely loved, lucky indivdual.

At a time when I am feeling immense amounts of sadness, when I'm mourning the loss of an amazing man...whose hair was filled with silver and heart was filled with gold...when I'm at odds with certain people who I thought I never would be...at least not like this..There are still huge pillars of support.

People from all walks of life, who I would have never expected to come to the wake of my beloved grandfather.

Aunts, uncles, friends, school teachers, old family friends, neighbours...great aunts that I haven't seen in half a kajillion years.

They showed up en mass, to pay their respects to the quiet man they ran into on our farm, and to give us hugs and tell us they're sorry for our loss, and that they wish there was something they could do.

They can't. But by being there, they did more than I could ever imagine.

I've never thought that funerals and all of that jazz were were very important to me. To me, it's the memories I hold close to my heart. The times we've shared together mean so much more than standing around a room filled with people.

But tonight..I realized a little bit that importance.

The importance of building those communities of people who love you, who will do anything for you, who go to things that are difficult, because that's what people do.

The ones who when they don't know what else to do...send food, food and more food.

Simply because they care.

They wish they could do something to make it better, and they wish that they could take away the pain..but they know they can't...so they do what they can, and they show up, with kleenex and a hug...and perhaps a lasagne or two.

In a time when I'm questioning so much. When I'm sad, frustrated and in absolute disbelief of certain people in my life..this is what I needed. A slap in the face reminder of how loved I am. Of how loved my family is. Of how good people can be.

Perhaps I will sleep tonight, afterall.

Tomorrow is going to be another long day..before real life reminds me that the sap is flowing..and there is maple syrup to be made. Literally.

Real life doesn't slow down for the bumps, curveballs and potholes life throws you...good thing we've got enough food to feed an army. Or three.

And So It Is..

2010-03-08T08:57:00.000-05:00

I avoid religion discussions generally as a rule.

I have a few people who I will have a general theological discussion with..but with the vast majority of the population, I avoid it.

Not because I don't have my own beliefs or ideas, I do.

And not because I look down upon whatever yours might be - because I really don't.

I just find that so many of those sorts of things are such touchy subjects for so many people, that it's easier to just avoid that topic and move on to other things. I'm one KAJILLON PERCENT okay with people believing whatever they choose to without any sort of conflict or confrontation taking place...God, Buddah, Allah, or Aliens..as long as you can show me WHY you believe....or on the other hand..why you decide NOT to...I'm down.

Death makes you sit down and question these things though.

For a long time, I've had my own little ideas of religion and beliefs. They don't fit perfectly into any one little bubble..it's basically as if I learned little things from bits and pieces of them, put them together with some morals, tied them in a bow of values and that's where I am. There is nothing that really seems to FIT with my own little beliefs. To some, it may appear that I have none, but this couldn't be further from the truth.

Needless to say, the 'Church of Erin' has some weak points in its belief system.

Not everything is exactly worked out perfectly...yet.

And I think that's okay.

Would it be easier if I could have this magical blind faith that many around the world speak of?

Absolutely.

Would I love to have all of the answers to lifes perils?

With out a doubt.

But am I still going to be okay searching and looking for answers without a major religion in my back pocket?

Yep, I am.

My patchwork ideas are okay with me...and maybe someday I'll have enough guts to share them with the world..

But for today...I will sit with the quiet contemplation and the arduous sorrow that fills my heart..filling my mind with memories of the grandest nature.

Today's Rainbow

2010-03-05T18:13:00.005-05:00

After a week of sleeping horrendously. Of being on edge...of getting those dreaded five o'clock in the morning phone calls that say 'come now, we don't know what's happening'...I finally got an early morning phonecall that made me smile.

One of my best friends EVER, my roommate for years and YEARS was calling to tell me some good news, some happy news.

Some RING news.

Yep. She gone done and did it...and got herself engaged. Or rather..he did it. Picked out a pretty ring...and a puppy ;)

And let me say - he did a good job.

Another engagement, another wedding to schedule into the books...holy crap we're growing up.

I'm so excited for her..I stopped by her place on my way home from work (before she was heading OFF to work..) and got to see the new bling and chit chat for a few minutes. She was so excited and so happy..that I couldn't help but smile and be happy and excited for her.

Amid clouds of saddness there is always a rainbow. This was my rainbow today..

All the best Matt & Rhi! xoxo

Numb

2010-03-04T20:19:00.002-05:00

Death notices are such odd things.

Simple pieces of paper..that make everything that much more real.

How do you encapsulate 80 odd years into a miniscule section burried in a newspaper?

Married to, worked at, children, grandchildren, things they were involved in..

Almost 84 years, put into a hundred odd words. How is that even possible?

I could fill books with words.

With pictures.

With memories.

Someone decided that grief has five stages...denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance...but I think that numbness comes first.

Or maybe I just skipped directly to immense sadness and that is what this feeling is that I'm feeling now.

Alas, this too shall pass..and eventually the memories will come without the tears.

I hope.

Ball-O-Emo-Mess

2010-03-02T21:47:00.003-05:00

I am a rather large ball of emotional mess these days.

I am angry, sad, frustrated and confused...at the best of times.

It looks as though my grandfather is dying, and I'm not convinced that it is necessary that this was the path that needed to be taken. Decisions have been made that I ethically and morally don't agree with. Things have been said that can never be taken back.

Since Friday, I have been shown again and again peoples true colours. I'm terrified because it makes me disgusted, frustrated and at odds with humanity.

I hate seeing the worst in people, even when they may deserve it.

But I have believed for a long time that the idea of karma exists.

That people get what they give in this world...that I have to continue to be the best person I can be because of this, despite everything that has happened in the last week.

I have to believe this because if I don't, I fear I may go insane.

Especially after this.

A Momentary Pause

2010-02-28T22:59:00.001-05:00

I have been rather busy..

I was at a conference out of town for most of the last week...

We have since returned..and have had an emotional few days with a very ill grandfather and some family members that I was already at odds with, who I'm now even more frustrated with.

After a scary few days, and a very long weekend filled with a lot of worry...the beloved grandfather now seems to be on the (slow) road to recovery...

I cannot believe that March starts tomorrow. So much has happened in February..and so much more is happening in March. We start making maple syrup soon..and I have A LOT of work to do for that. So much so that I need to get off blogger and get to bed, so that I can get up bright and early and get to work.

On a final note. Canada rocks my socks..and I knew we'd win that hockey game all along ;) Most gold medals ever in a winter olympics? Consider my socks rocked...RIGHT OFF.

█ ♥ █

Love. Love. Love.

Anywho - In true Canadian fashion...I apologize for the lapse...not that I'm really sure anyone noticed. I'll be back with (somewhat?) regularily scheduled blog posts in my little corner of the blogesphere in no time at all I'm sure.

For now, it's time to get some shuteye.

Selfish Smiles

2010-02-23T15:27:00.001-05:00

Last week I was doing some errands - grocery shopping.

Not the most fun of tasks - relatively menial and relatively boring - but kinda REALLY necessary. I looked around me and to my left saw a grumpy, over tired mother dragging a couple of kids behind her.

To my right was a man scowling at an empty display of something that had been on sale.

And infront me, a young couple arguing over a bottle of olives.

Yes, olives.

I have to admit, I wasn't in the best of moods. I was running late, I had a million things to do and I was relatively stressed about certain things. As I looked up inbetween trying to decide which apples to add to my cart, that was all it took to convince me to switch my mood and take control of my attitude. Seeing people so miserable, when they probably had little to nothing to be THAT upset about..just makes you think.

Just the fact that they were in a grocery store, the fact that they had money to buy food - that should have been enough reason to smile. We are so lucky in this part of the world to have the things that we have, to have the resources that we have, and yet, so often...we take it for granted and we put on this grouchy miserable face and stomp around as if the world owes us everything.

So, I played a game that I sometimes play.

The one that people sometimes tell me is creepy - but I love playing anyways.

The one where I smile at strangers, in hopes of putting a little something extra into their day. Where I go out of my way to say excuse me, or laugh or just ask how someones doing. Sometimes people are a little taken back, but most times..their previously grouchy exterior softens, and they go about their day with a little more pep.

The critical moment of this game came at the checkout. The woman before me was snippy and rude to the cashier - and you could see that it was taking its toll on her. She seemed to just be having an off day, and it was clearly evident that every little, tiny, miniscule error was turned into a huge blow - and the customer infront of me was definitely not helping.

So when it was my turn, I stepped up to the front of the conveyor belt, put on my biggest smile and asked how she was doing with my friendliest, most cheerful voice.

She was clearly taken back, but then answered with a sheepish smile that she was doing okay.

As she ran into a small problem ringing through one thing, she started to apologize and I again smiled and told her not to worry about it - it was no big deal.

We tittered back and forth as she finished ringing up my purchases and I smiled yet again as I handed her the exact change.

As she handed me my reciept, she smiled the first, real, geniune 'I'm not just smiling 'cause I'm being paid to' smile and said thank-you. I left there hoping maybe the smiles I'd given her would stick around for a little while, and be passed on to someone else too - it's rather infectious once you start.

Truth is...I like to try and convince myself that I was playing it for everyone else in the store. REALLY though..whenever I play the game, I always end up with the biggest smile sticking on my face the whole day. Maybe I am being selfish and playing it for myself...but if that's the way I'm going to be selfish, well..that's pretty okay with me.

The Heart Of The Matter

2010-02-22T10:48:00.001-05:00

My parents have always eaten some (relatively) strange things. At least they were strange when you live in a rural small town in the middle of nowhere Ontario.

If for instance we would eat guacamole back in the day (before it became 'cool') I'm sure peoples reactions would have been (and probably still are for a lot of people 'round these parts) would be something along the lines of "..uhh..there's some sorta green in this here - uhhh you forgot to put the MEAT on my plate"

Or take for instance my other childhood favourite (until I realized what they were) of escargot. I'm sure people would (and..uhh..probably DO) say "SNAILS BELONG IN THAT THERE GARDEN - NOT IN MY MOUTH FOOL! GET ME A STEAK!"

And then there were artichokes.

A delicacy loved by many..and yet..one of my biggest childhood fears.

I have very distinct, vibrant memories of sitting on our pantry floor, staring at jars of artichokes.

Or of being asked to grab something in the pantry and my hand brushing a glass jar of them and shuddering in absolute horror.

Or watching with what I can only imagine is a look of pure disgust on my face as my mother opened a jar and ate one - whole. And then proceeded to proclaim just how AMAZING they were.

It wasn't until years later, an age I'm not going to disclose for fear of being shamed right out of the vegetable farming business, that I realized that vegetables can have hearts too.

Yeah they do.

And low and behold...eating hearts aren't actually gross - they're increderifically yum. Well. Hearts of the vegetable variety anyways.

Sighs & Hugs

2010-02-19T17:46:00.003-05:00

Today has been a long day.

Today was the day that we moved my uncle into a long term care facility.

I can't even begin to imagine what he's thinking. At moments he was absolutely fine. He was his normal, regular, happy self. He was flirting with the nurses and teasing them incessantly. He was looking through pictures and enjoying himself. But at other times..he just looked confused. Distant, worried and generally uneasy.

It was bizarre, because he does need 24 hours supervision, and he can't be left unattended - it was necessary that he be put in a secure unit. Codes in, codes out and special precautions taken to avoid wandering. His memory is...crap. But his cognitive abilities? His body? His general being? They're still completely there.

As he pointed out, he was unlike almost all of the people in the same unit as him...and to be truthful, in a lot of ways, he was. He was also very guarded - he was on his best behaviour - not unlike how he is with a lot of people out in public, or how he was when he first moved back to Canada. The thing is though - now I know that this is not actually how he is on a regular basis. He can be so normal, so much his usual self but when he's not - that's when it gets difficult, impossible and heartbreaking.

We left and I managed to only tear up a few times - and I was extremely proud of myself for that. I expected to be a constant mess of tears, but from somewhere I managed to find a source of inner strength. Even though a part of me wanted to break down..I knew that I couldn't. It was necessary to be strong, to not let him see that I was upset and to be a pillar of support for my cousin - who was, and still is, on one of the biggest an emotional rollercoasters of her life thus far.

It is so odd to be here without him. To sit on his couch. To not answer the same questions every five minutes. To not be on a strict schedule of meals and pills and all of those other things. In a sentence - it doesn't feel real. It feels like a weight has been lifted, but another element of worry, a different kind of weight has crept into my life. I've always been a worrier - even when I know something is okay, I just can't help myself. The nurses were all so nice and helpful and good - I would never worry about that..but worrying is just what I do. I think that it will be better when he gets a chance to settle in and be himself, and visiting will help to relieve the worry I think.

I know that this is the best for him. I know that he needs this...and I know that he's okay. But I can't help but wonder and worry about him...I can't help but want to drive the five minutes down the road and peek in the windows. That makes me sound so creepy..and I swear I'm not..I just have this unsatiable urge to make sure everything is always okay.

I wish there was an easier way - I wish that hugs could heal all worries and saddness and that people I love weren't faced with situations such as these. That people I love were immune from the aging process. That people weren't faced with immense amounts of sadness and worry. Unfortuantly though, that's life and there is not much else that I can think to do to help, besides being here. All I can do is have faith that it will all be okay, that it will all work out an perhaps continue to give out hugs..because even if they don't help..they make me feel like I'm doing something, anything.

Ugh - emotional situations leave me drained beyond belief. It's 6:13 and I've been ready for bed and lying on the couch in my pjs for hours now. Time for some pizza, some cuddles with the cat and an early bedtime.

The sun will come out tomorrow - cute little red headed orphans never lie - right?

Swisssick

2010-02-18T22:37:00.001-05:00

Sometimes the most random things remind me of Switzerland, of Europe, of a year abroad full of amazing adventures...and I get a little bit...Swisssick

Whenever I see a Swiss athlete competing...I wonder where they're from and imagine them sking through the alps - and remember exploring St. Moritz and Arosa and all of those other beautiful towns tucked up in the mountains. Like the time that my friend Jenn and I roadtripped to this little town in the middle of NOWHERE called Soglio - and it was one of the best things I EVER DID.

Or my cousin makes french onion soup - and tops it with Gryere cheese - and suddenly I can TASTE Switzerland. My mouth is infused with the flavours of fondu in the mountains and raclette after skating. I'm suddenly transported to a different time in a such a completely different world. A world of thousand dollar meals, where everyone has at least a few houses and a porsche in the driveway...but still..the things I miss?

I miss the cheese.

Okay - and maybe the views.

Grownup Heartbreaks

2010-02-17T18:01:00.006-05:00

It has been three weeks since my aunt has moved back to South Africa...and my cousin is at her wits end. She doesn't know what to do anymore.

You see, my uncle has Alzheimer's - and since my aunt had to go back to South Africa to finish her work contract..it's been difficult. He's also diabetic...which just screams with issues in itself. He eats, and then ten minutes later has forgotten that he's eaten and wants to eat again - aka - uber bad for a diabetic.

This means that he needs 24/7 care..and my one cousin has moved to Boston, my aunt is in South Africa...and my cousin-in-law is at school in Guelph. Therefore, it falls on the shoulders of the cousin left here...who is already under an incredible amount of stress and has other issues to be worrying about. He can't be left alone for any time at all - because he'll immediately get into something, anything, EVERYTHING. My mom was watching him the other day and looked away for two minutes..and he had ran into the kitchen and was hiding in the corner stuffing an ENTIRE BANANA into his mouth. Banana's have a LOT of sugar in them..especially when you've already eaten two meals and three snacks that day..and it's only 2pm...not so good for diabetics.

He also doesn't really sleep through the nights anymore - which means that 24/7 care has to be taken quite literally. There is now a gate at the top of the stairs where the bedrooms are to keep him from going downstairs when he wakes up in the middle of the night - so that he doesn't eat everything in sight...and the gate has an alarm on it, so that if he does manage to open it...everyone gets up and tries to get him to calm down and go back to bed. This itself is another huge job..because he's a completely different person at 2, 3, 4am..he screams in Italian, he yells, he tries to break things. He's unconsolable, he's irrationally angry and he's out of control - It's as if he's a completely different person. He is not his daytime self...and his nightime self is terrifying because the situation can get so out of control so fast..and you've just had to force yourself to wake up and are being pumped full of adreneline to be awake and aware enough to deal with the situation. Even at the best of times...his daytime self is still difficult...but add that extra element of aggression and anger - which is just purely part of the disease..and it's..impossible to describe.

I've been there for almost three weeks, staying there, attempting to help in any way I can...and I feel so helpless. I just don't know what to do...especially when it's three am and I'm staring at an angry old italian man who is threatening to kick me out of the house and looks like he might cry because I won't give in and give him a granola bar or a piece of bread until 7am. Funny thing is...I seem to be the only one lately who somehow convinces him to go back to bed without eating everything in the house. I'm not sure how...as it's usually in the wee hours of the morning and I'm half asleep as I'm telling him that we need to head back up to bed and closing cupboard doors and the like. From what I can tell though...he's afraid to yell at me TOO much. And he's only afraid to do that because I'm my fathers daughter, and luckily, my Dad is one of his ABSOLUTE favourite people in the ENTIRE world. Thanks Dad!!

Anyways. It's beyond a full time job, and it's just..too much..for any one person..let alone thinking about the OTHER circumstances of her life right now.

And then today...a phonecall came. From the access centre.

They put him on the crisis list to get him into a long term care facility..because of everything that has happened, and everything that has been going on...something needed to be done. Today they offered him a bed - which means that there are 24 hours to accept or decline, but you basically have to accept or else you get no government help from any agency for the next six months. The admission is at 9:30 on Friday morning...and it just seems so soon. Reality is here, and it seems so surreal..that I don't even know what to think anymore.

Sometimes he is his normal self. He jokes and teases and you think nothing is wrong..until he asks you where he is, if he's married or what day it is. And then my heart just breaks. Again and again and again.

I know it's the best thing for him. I know that it's what needs to happen. They have people who are trained to deal with dementia and all of the classic symptoms that come from it. The anger, the confusion and the regression. They have staff 24 hours a day that can be up in the middle of the night. They know how to distract him, how to diffuse an otherwise volatile situation and they have the things that he needs and will continue to need as this disease continues to progress.

It's hard - but I know that my cousin is at a breaking point, and that she can't handle it much longer. She has been doing this for years now, and there is only so much a person can handle, especially given new things that have arose in her life. I know that she'll be more good to him when she can visit him everyday, a couple of times a day (the facility is really close to their house). Instead of getting frustrated, upset and making herself stressed and exhausted from having carry the world on her shoulders and be the constant 24 hour a day caregiver...but it still breaks my heart.

Growing old sucks.

And for that matter - so does being faced with situations such as these and having to be a grownup.

Today the game of life seems to be filled with epic proportions of suckage...where you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. Where nothing seems fair and no matter what way you turn..you're faced with another obstacle...

Can someone lend me their time machine so that I can go back to being four again?

Ghetto Superphone

2010-02-17T09:54:00.004-05:00

I have a confession to make.

I'm up to date with certain technology...but my cellphone? Not so much.

It's rather oldschool. Well, not Richard Gere in Pretty Woman oldschool cellphone way...but about one step up from there.

It's so old infact, that they don't make anything even similar anymore. It's (relatively) clunky, it has no huge keyboard to type and I don't even think that you can download ringtones on it.

And I love it. So much.

It's not a blackberry, or an iphone. It doesn't get emails or pictures. It can't organize my day or tell me how to get anywhere.

But it has reception in an emergency if I need it.

I know how to use it and never have to think too much to find what I need to find or do what I need to do, which - to be honest - isn't much.

It doesn't cost me huge sums of money to have - but it has also never let me down thus far.

AND I can drop it twenty times in a day and it still works.

I don't know why I never jumped on the cell phone bandwagon. Why everyone I see has a new flashy cellphone and I couldn't care less. My cell phone provider on the other hand...can't get it through their heads why I don't want something new and fancy and flashy. They continue to send me notice after notice about how I should REALLY consider getting some new fancy thing - that would probably break to pieces the first time I dropped it, let alone the 28374th time I dropped it.

My old clunky silver flip phone is fine with me, for what I need - maybe I'll jump on the cellphone bandwagon next decade. Or you know, just stick with my ghetto superphone that kicks every other cellphone out theres sorry behind. Sounds like a plan to me :P

Hiring = Face + Palm

2010-02-16T21:38:00.001-05:00

I'm hiring people right now.

Well, let me rephrase that.

I'm wading through emails in an attempt to hire people right now.

And these are the general conclusion that I've come to..

1. I know that you're busy. I know that you just desperately want a job. But you see that little thing over there? That shift key? It makes certain letters have capitals. Just a little old FYI - CAPITALS ARE IMPORTANT. Also, the period key helps to break up your thoughts. Just a little food for thought. I know I'm not perfect, and I know that I make a ton of gramatical errors when I just type type type and don't edit..but me oh my. If I read one more email that says uses no capitals ANYWHERE - not at the beginning, not for the word 'I' or ANYTHING ELSE - I may become a Capital Nazi. For real 'yo.

2. It should be made mandatory that people know the difference between 'two, to and too', 'buy, bye and by', 'hear & here', 'their, there and they're' and all of those other homophones. If I were in charge of the world, you'd have to know these by the age of ten and you'd be allowed a certain number of screwups per year (Hey! No one is perfect - myself included!)..and then..cut. Yeah, deported. FROM THE WORLD. You can go and live on Mars - I hear they don't care about these things - but here on Earth...at least if I was ruling...it'd probably be the most important thing. That and world peace and all of that other stuff...yadda yadda yadda. It's harsh..but I feel it'd work for rectifying this little pet peeve of mine.

3. Know what you're applying for. At least have SOME idea of what you're applying to, don't just apply for EVERYTHING at random. That means YOU Mr. I.live.2.hours.away.and.there.is.no.way.I'd.ever.actually.work.there. and YOU Mr. I.already.have.a.job.and.want.full.time.work.yet.am.applying.for.a.temporary.position. Just so you know, I've already deleted your resumes, because I know that you don't ACTUALLY want to work here and you haven't even considered what job you're looking at, you just saw a new posting on the job bank and sent your resume to the email listed below, without even scanning the posting. Oh - and YOU guys...Mr. I.don't.even.live.in.the.country. - yeah, I've deleted yours too. I'd appreciate it if you discontinued the spam of resumes for temporary jobs when YOU DON'T LIVE IN THIS COUNTRY. I get that living in whatever third world country you live in sucks. And I understand that it would be an asset to you to get out of there, and that life is tough. I'm really sorry that I can't help..but the job I'm hiring for right now is temporary. It's VERY temporary. That means that you flying halfway around the world and needing accomodation is not really at ALL worth your while - or mine. Oh - and you'd need some serious work visas - which just mean more work for me, and are never going to come through. My apologies, but todays tip is 'look before you apply' - trust me, it'll help.

4. If you email your resume in a docx format, that REALLY sucks - because, well, my computer refuses to open those. So send them in something I can open - and you have a WAY better chance of ANYTHING coming from sending me your resume. I've heard SO many people having problems opening docx - so just say no, and then you're one step further. Also - if you send me a blank email with just your resume attached...I get nothing from that. No sense of who you ACTUALLY are, no sense of ANYTHING..and all I can tell is that you've put zero effort into applying for this job...you've opened your email, attached a file and pressed send. No effort what-so-ever on your part...which translates to me..that THAT is the kind of effort you'll give me if I hire you...which...yeaaaaaaaaah...I'm not so interested in.

5. I haven't started doing any interviews yet for this year..but here are a few ideas. Look at where you're going for an interview - AKA - If you're going to a farm and are applying to do work on a farm, wearing red stiletto's is probably not making the best impression. Don't get me wrong - I love me some red stilettos - who doesn't? But when you step out of your car and sink down so that it looks like you're wearing flats because the driveway is full of mud? It gives me hours of amusement and entertainment. And unless I'm REALLY desperate - gives you no job. Something about wearing high heels in mud combined with the look of disgust that your cute new heels are destroyed gives me the distinct impression that you do not do well working at 5am on a saturday morning...probably because it would cut into your Friday night out on the town in your cute shoes. I'm also tempted to wonder how you'd ever get by carrying 60lbs of corn in a bag, or whether you'd be freaked out about chipping a nail lugging around 4 gallon pails of sap through wet snow. If you wear jeans and a nice shirt - and decent shoes - I'm much more likely to hire you on a first impression basis. I get that dressing up is necessary if you're applying for a law firm, a job for a secretary or probably most other jobs...but this is a farm - looking nice is great - wearing heels and miniskirts makes the interview awkward...and likely makes me mock you behind your back.

6. Be polite, be nice - and refrain from making rude jokes - dazzle me with your personality, your passion for doing the best job possible - and you'll probably get the job.

It's as simple as that. I don't think that I'm asking too much...am I? Am I really being that harsh to ask for a semi-acceptable use of the English language, people who actually know what they're applying for and act/dress appropriately - and perhaps even someone who gives a damn about what they're doing?

I sure hope not - or else I have some serious issues with society and the world in general - and maybe *I* should move to Mars. I have no beef with them. Well, except the aformentioned homophone thing...but either way, I kinda like my little home here on Earth and would like to not have to move to another galaxy just to avoid banging my head against the wall.

'O Canada

2010-02-12T21:36:00.006-05:00

There is just something that brings about a huge amount of national pride..when your country hosts the olympic games.

I've never been terribly atheletic. I'm not big into sports or sporting events.

But I LOVE my country.

I think that it's the greatest place on the face of the earth.

And even though I live NOWHERE near Vancouver..Even though I could fly to Vancouver, Mexico or the UK in almost the same amount of time...it is still MY country...and I am SO excited to be watching these games on my turf. The country is a huge, wide enourmous expanse filled with a variety of amazing people and I will be sitting watching, cheering and filled with national pride...while I wear my red mittens.

Oh yeah I will.

My fabulous cousins when we were at the Olympic Torch Relay where we live :) That's the Olympic torch beyhind them!!!!

VANCOUVER 2010!!!!!!!

Maple leafs forever!!

Go Canada Go!!

Who Knows Where The Time Goes?

2010-02-12T21:05:00.002-05:00

I'm not entirely sure when I grew up.

I'm now staying with my cousin and her dad, who has alzeihmers. Time passes differently for him...he'll ask what day it is and when we tell him..he says 'it's STILL february?' and sighs and proceeds to tell you how it can't be february because it's been February for at least the last six months...and then you know that at that moment, time seems to stretch on forever for him.

And then he'll ask what year it is, or how old someone is and he'll stop, stare, ~~exclaim some form of expletive~~ and then you know, that he has no idea where the heck the years have gone.

It's not unlike how time passes for me I suppose..the days go and go...and then suddenly I look up and time has flown by and weeks, months and years have happened, and I'm still not entirely sure when that happened, when I grew up.

Today was one of those days I woke up - when my little brother celebrated his 22nd birthday. When did I get old enough for my LITTLE brother to be TWENTY-TWO. SERIOUSLY.

Regardless, it does. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it, to pause it, to rewind it...and so like everyone else, we go on...but not only do we go on, we live the best life that we possibly can.

And then, I celebrate the fact that I have had 22nd years with the best little brother that anyone could ever ask for.

Even if you're taller than me, stronger than me, are getting married before me, have more money in the bank than me ~~and are probably smarter and wiser than me~~ you'll still always be my little brother :)

Happy Birthday Kiddo!!!

All I Can Do..

2010-02-10T23:11:00.000-05:00

I hate feeling powerless. I hate feeling like there is nothing I can do, nothing that I can say to make anything better. It's frustrating beyond belief to not have anything to say, to not know what to do to help someone. I hate when people are going through something and you try to be there for them, but it never feels like it's good enough.

As I was driving from my parents house to my cousins house tonight...I had one of those moments when the perfect song comes on the radio. Which oddly enough...seems to happen quite often in my life. Anyways, so a Chantal Kreviazuk came on the radio...and the words just..fit.

As she sang...

All I can do is love you to pieces
Give you a shoulder to cry when you need it
When the day is long
And the night is coming down on you
All I can do, all I can do, all I can do

And all that I could think about..was how true those words were.

I wish that there was a magic wand I could wave so that no one was ever stressed. Where no one was faced with being upset or difficult decisions. Where growing up wasn't so hard and there was always a way to make life simple and happy.

But there isn't...and I know that. And as much as it's diffcult and hard to come to grips with the fact that I don't have all of the answers, that I can't fix everything...and *gasp* that I don't have magical powers....I just have to keep reminding myself that I'm here. That I can still be here and be a shoulder to cry on. I can do what I can..and even if it's not everything..even if it's not enough...it's still all I can do. And I know it won't solve everything, or for that matter..probably even anything. But maybe it will help. One can only hope..

Project Paradise Falls

2010-02-09T23:04:00.000-05:00

I was telling my cousin about making my 101 in 1001 list while I was attempting to compile it...and she was asking what sort of things were on it, how I was going to do this or that and the random chit chat that comes with all of these things.

Yadda yadda yadda.

So I picked a few off the list to tell her and she was like..oooh...fun! And generally thought that I had some pretty neat ideas on there. What can I say? I'm AM pretty awesome like that.

We talked about things on the list that she could help me to do (camping, going to a concert, etc. etc. etc.) and we left it at that. We went on the weekend watching movies, eating popcorn and generally enjoying each others company. After we watched 'Up' - which neither of us had seen before..we both talked about how we want to do so much more travelling - and how we needed to save up money to do that...to go to our own paradise falls. If you don't know what I'm refering to..go and rent that movie right now. So good.

Fast forward to a little while later when I arrive back at the house...to find that she has made this:

She's so super cute - and now we're saving our spare change to go on a fun trip together..destination not ENTIRELY decided - but mostly entirely decided..haha. Either way, there are some pretty sweet options in the mix. Perhaps one that will help me get number two, sixty-two, ninty-five, seventy or a number of others accomplished as well :)

As for you number twenty-six? Consider yourself STARTED.

Life Wrinkles

2010-02-08T22:24:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I get busy, and I try do a million things at once.

I feel like sooner or later this always happens and I get so wrapped up in things that I don't know where to go or what to do. I sometimes get so caught up in the moment that I forget to actually enjoy that moment. I forget to soak in the good moments and the happy times and end up spending too much time worrying about little things that don't really matter. The little wrinkles in life that get in the way but that in the grand scheme of things, make no difference one way or another. Whether you iron them out or not, it doesn't matter - it's how you kept going regardless of them that means something.

Really, when you THINK about ironing...there are SO MANY OTHER things that you can do to fill in that time.

I could call someone I haven't talked to and wanted to catch up with. I could read a good book. I could take a walk. I could eat a dozen lollipops. Watch the stars. Sing at the top of my lungs. Laugh at ridiculous inside jokes. Eat some chocolate. Cuddle kittens. Bake a pie. Dance like a fool in the middle of the street. Point is? I could do a lot more interesting and exciting things instead of ironing.

Now, there are times when it's necessary - I get it. There are things that need to be ironed...suits worn by boys, fancy whatever that crinkle like mad, your jeans that you pulled out of the dryer and left crumpled in a ball in the corner for three weeks. Not that I've ever had to iron something because of that or something. Erm - moving on.

So yeah.

I guess because I spent the entire year last year "ironing" millionaires underwear - wasting hours of my life..that I realized how many more exciting, fun and more IMPORTANT things there are to life.

I've realized lately and just how much I need to stop trying to do all of this ironing in my life.

I figure that since I've avoided the real thing for the last twenty-four years....I should probably avoid the pointless ironing in my life of a more symbolic nature too. If I learned nothing last year..it's that. Sure, there are some wrinkles that need to go, sure there are things that need to be smoothed over, fixed and dealt with...I still need to do that ironing that NEEDS to be done...I need to work on the big things and make them smooth...but the little things? Ironing the underwear? I need to forget about it. I need to move on and do more important things in my life. I need to stop worrying about the little things, the minor details, the things that don't matter - that won't make any difference in however many years whether they're smoothed over, perfect or NOT.

In the words of Paul..I need to whisper words of wisdom and let it be.

Because there are lollipops to lick, streets to dance in and kittens to cuddle.

The ironing can wait :)

Project Day Zero

2010-02-08T11:55:00.003-05:00

I've been working on a list for a while now...things that I want to do, want to accomplish in my life. There are the general 'bucket list' lists of course - and I think that I've always sort of had one of those going in my head...but this list..it's more tangible.

It's written down.

It's measurable.

It's POSTED ONLINE so whole internet can yell at me and throw rotten fruit at me if I don't actually follow through. In other words - there's accountability.

I need deadlines, I need the stress and the pressure (although not too much please - just a little nudge is good) and I love crossing things off lists..

So I thought..why not?

A way to do things that I want to do AND I get the satisfaction of crossing something off a list? I'm SO in.

So anyways, if you're interested..you can find my list here for project day zero - I'll be crossing things off and making little notes as I go long...and I'm sure I'll be updating here with random stories of hilarity, near disaster and other ridiculousness that comes from my attempt to make it through the 101 tasks I've outlined for myself to do in the next 1001 days.

Wish me luck!

Ridiculous Roommates

2010-02-07T18:35:00.001-05:00

I have a new roommate.

She's okay I guess...

Thing is though...she always wants to be around me and she's a little clingy at times.

She follows me around - and complains bitterly when I don't inlude her in everything. single. thing. that I'm currently doing.

She thinks that she's so great - always strutting around, acting like she's the king of the castle.

And the food that she eats - uuugggh. Gross. It smells like ew.

She hates her bed, and tries to crawl into my bed with me all of the time - can we say weird?

And the kicker? If I don't get up right when my alarm goes off? She starts punching me. IN THE FACE.

Oh. And I caught her licking my hair while I slept the other night.

Yeah, she's more than a little bit weird.

Good thing she's cute.

Guess I'll keep her ;)

Artsy Fartsy

2010-02-04T20:19:00.001-05:00

I'm really not artsy.

I can appreciate a good painting, photograph or other artistic endeavor. I enjoy going to musicals and plays and the like. I like reading good books, this is true.

But I am not artsy in the artsy way.

You know the way I'm talking about.

The way where everything has this deep rooted symbolism behind it...or it's just something that doesn't really seem to make much sense..but yet certain people go absolutely CRAZY over it.

Anywho - I went to this artsy preformance with a friend a little while ago. A friend whose parents had given us the tickets. Free tickets? Free anything? Sign. Me Up. Because...well...why not?

So we went..and were interested to see what it was all about. The first dance act was interesting and rather beautiful - I saw the symbolism which I can only guess was on a fairly rudimentary level. Plus, the dancing was beautiful and it was nice.

And then there was the second act.

Which was so artsy, my mind couldn't wrap itself around it...and my senses were screaming for it to stop.

I'm sorry...and excuse my ignorance...but WHAT exactly is the symbolism of two men holding hands and moving their other hands around as if they're windmills? To an old man with a raspy, awful smokers voice...singing the exact same 6 words over and over again...the entire time. Ten minutes later (or maybe it just felt like it was ten minutes?), they finally stopped windmilling..and continued doing some other random moves. Like rolling around. And bunching themselves into balls and lying there. And then there was MORE WINDMILLING. Over and over and over again. To the Exact. Same. Six. Words.

And I just really didn't get it. And maybe it's because I couldn't move myself beyond the "music"...but holy cannoli...what the HECK was it?

And then - it ended. I breathed a sigh of relief.

And all around me...people were applauding, and cheering...and WHISTLING. And the dancers just took it in, bowed and smiled as if to say...'I know, isn't it just the greatest thing that you've ever seen?'

And the people around us ate it up...while we looked at each other in disbelief wondering what parallel universe we had transported ourself to.

The entire place was filled with a buzz about how ah-ma-zing the last dance was and how they just couldn't believe it...and I sat there going...oh..my god. What's wrong with me? Why don't I get it? I had the distinct feeling that if I got up on the stage and started waving my arms around like a windmil I would be immeadiate boo'd off and ushered out of the building...so what was I missing that these two guys had done that I just didn't GET?

So now I'm stuck with this quandry...where I feel a little bit stupid for admitting that I didn't *get* it like all of these other people did...and I'm left wondering what exactly the other people GOT.

After the show...I was waiting around for a few minutes..and couldn't help but hear people chitter chatter about it. They all seemed to be of the same persuasion..that it was amazing, great, wonderful, striking, etc. etc. etc. But no one said one specific thing about HOW it was amazing or what EXACTLY was amazing...just that it WAS. Well, except for a little girl who while walking by said "and then they hugged - that was pretty funny.." That was the closest I got to understanding the preformance...despite listening in on a whole lotta conversations. No one ever pinpointed what was great or how it was great...just used a bunch of abstract terms smushed together to convey that it was somehow amazing..in a general sense. And the general consensus was that the other two dances (the ones I really enjoyed) were nice, they were okay...but were too simplistic...and didn't TOUCH them like the second one had...yet again...being very vague about what exactly was so touching and wonderful. The whole thing kinda bugged me and got a little under my skin, because i just wanted to know WHAT was so GREAT about the second preforamnce. In case you weren't aware...I'm a REALLY SUPER CURIOUS PERSON.

This all led me to wonder how many people ACTUALLY got what the coreographer was REALLY trying to convey..and wondering just how many were simply playing along...and how many were just as "what WAS that?" in the dark as I was.

It's funny because so often I wonder if people are just putting on this big act - and the other night was such a classic example.

As we left..my friend commented on how that was a very 'artsy' event for a very distinct crowd...and I couldn't help but agree and continue to wonder...was it me? Am I just shallow and unable to see the deeper meaning behind this supposedly beautiful work of art? Why don't I see what this artsy crowd sees? Am I shallow or dumb? What was it?

...Or was some coreographer dude laughing away in his penthouse suite in absolute disbelief that people continue to pay a relatively large amount of GOOD money to see this dance that really was inspired by a drug induced haze?

I'm apt to believe the later.

But that's just me..and as I said before...I'm not artsy.

At least not in that...erm...artsy...way.

Please Stop Taunting Me

2010-02-02T17:30:00.002-05:00

Dear American TV;

Sometimes I watch you, when you're playing a show that is something that I think will be amusing, educational or otherwise mind-numbing after a long day. It seems like when I'm at my cousins house, I watch you more than I watch your Canadian counterparts and I'm not quite sure why this is because sometimes, you're kind of a rather big jerk.

I have to admit it - I have some beef with you.

For REAL.

Turns out I'm a little bit upset with you..because...well..

YOU'RE MAKING ME HUNGRY.

And hungry with cravings for things that I cannot have.

Why ya gotta be like that? Seriously - That's not so nice. Not so nice at all.

Every time I turn around there are commercials for restaurants that we've never had in Canada, or that no longer exist in Canada...and the excessive taunting is becoming a little over the top. When you continuously show me commercials for things like Olive Garden, I start to get a little bit annoyed...and after annoyed comes down right angry. Like fist shaking angry. And you don't want me to get fist shaking angry.

You see, I haven't been to an Olive Garden in probably 20 years...and basically forgot about their existence for a LONG time. I think that the closest one to here closed down when I was six or something crazy like that..

But now everytime I turn the tv on, and you're there...and it's all...WHA-BAHM - IN YOUR FACE! OLIVE GARDEN DELICIOUSNESS! WOOOOOOOOOT!

And my tummy is all..mmm...that looks soooooooooooo yummah.

And now, all I want, EVER, beacuse of YOU...is Olive Garden. And I have no idea whether it's actually decent or any good...because I haven't had it in six katrillion years. ACTUALLY. And who remembers whether or not something was good six katrillion years ago. Not me, that's for sure.

Now you have left my cousin and I in quite the situation. We're continuously talking about how we need to drive over the border and find ourself an Olive Garden to fulfill the craving, or at least verify whether or not it's any good. We kind of hope that it's not..so that we can come back to Canadialand and never crave it again. Just so we don't feel the need to roadtrip to the States everytime we see one of those stupid commercials ~~because we're slaves to advertisments and giant conglomerations~~. That would probably become super expensive, not to mention super-duper time consuming...and generally not such a good life plan.

So long story short - I'm pretty mad at you and I don't know if our affair of mind numbing television can continue if you and your advertising continue to get the best of me.

You should probably stop being such a jerk, so that we can be friends again. There are three options I can think of so that I act can go back to watching random shows on your stations (each with their own ridiculous forms of ~~entertainment~~ education). You either need to build an Olive Garden nearby, deliver Olive Garden directly to my door OR stop showing mouth watering commercials 24/7

If you could get all over that, I'd really appreciate it.

Love, Erin

Holy Random Batman

2010-01-31T13:21:00.001-05:00

ENTSCHULDIGEN - Wo Bist Januar gegangen?

Seriously.

Where. The. Heck. Did. January. GO?

Also - where that that German come from? Random. I have no idea why some german (or at least my brutalized version of german/swiss german) just randomly likes to pop into my head. Because seriously...I know no German. Psh. And even if I wanted to take up another language (which I kinda do) would I brush up on my french? Eh. Maybe. Would I try to take the little German I know and expand upon it? Eh. Probably not. Too much hacking and gagging. And besides that..there are only some words that I really like. Like entschuldigen or genau - such good words with minimal hacking and gagging. I digress - so, would I be interested in learning Spanish? Yeah. Definitely. Would I learn Italian? In a heartbeat - except that where else besides Italy are you gonna speak Italian? Besides speaking to like..my cat..I really don't know how often I'd use Italian...I love Italy and want to go back soon..but I have a funny feeling I won't be going there enough to keep up with Italian or justify learning it.

Wow. End tangent.

Anyways. So - 2010.

We meet again. Well. It's not like you LEFT or anything..and I've been here..mostly..sorta...kinda...present..at times...but still. What the heck twenty-ten.

Think you're so fancy with your double names eh. All 'I can be twenty ten OR two thousand and ten - bow down to me suckas'..and little did we know that you'd be the year that likes to fly by faster than all others.

I thought that all of 2010's brothers and sisters were flying by...last thing I remember is that we were partying like it was 1999...because it WAS 1999...and now it's already 1/12th of the way through 2010. Explain to me how exactly that HAPPENS please?

I think that I'm going to have to make a little request that this year be slowed down. And by slowed down...I meant stopped until I can nap until I'm completley caught up on sleep, catch my breathe, get caught up with all of the other things I've been slacking on.

Sometimes I feel like life is a whirlwind tornado that I just have happened to have gotten myself caught up in.

How bizzare, how bizzare.

PS - If you aren't singing 'ooooh baaaaaaaaaaby...oh baby! it's making me craaaaaaaaaaazy! how bizarre, how bizarre" after the previous statement...then my heart is a little sad. And you're leaving me wondering how the heck I got so old and how the years have passed me by - and how you ever managed to grow up without that song and referencing it EVERY time someone says 'how bizarre'. So please just pretend. Please?

So, if you (the whole 2.5 people who are ~~probably~~ ~~likely~~ ~~maybe~~ unlikely reading this) could try to attempt to figure out how to slow down time too..I'd appreciate if you could gimme a shout when you do. As I've said...I don't do science shmience stuff...but I can probably steal your ideas and defy the laws of...something...somehow. Which would be pretty cool. And it'd mean that I could nap all day...everyday. Awesome.

Literacy & Exhaustion

2010-01-30T11:52:00.004-05:00

I am not a morning person. I'm just not. When I get in a routine and a schedule (see: going to bed at a decent hour and getting enough sleep) I can tolerate mornings..but I still don't like them. I especially don't like mornings on the weekend though..because weekends are supposed to be for sleeping and being lazy...and not for being awake and productive and a contributing member to society...nuh uh I say.

All of this is made a little bit ~~funny~~ ~~sad~~ ironic by the fact that during the summer...I'm up somewhere between 4am and 5am each and every Saturday from June --> October. Saturdays are early mornings...it's just a fact of life when you're living and working on a farm. Come November though? Saturdays are supposed to be glorious sleep in days.

Ha - at least that's what I thought.

Then I took up a job tutoring a little girl that I know and so far..it's been really fun. We've now set up a regular day and time to meet..so that's kind of nice because it just ensures continuity...but it kind of sucks that the regular time is 9am Saturday mornings. Sure it allows me to get on with my weekend right after that..but...uhh...Saturday? Saturday MORNING? Ew.

Alas...it is what it is. And that's b-r-i-g-h-t and e-a-r-l-y folks. And of course by the time I get there I feel like a zombie because my body is like...SATURDAY MORNING! SLEEP! WHY ARE YOU AWAKE AND ATTEMPTING TO FUNCTION! SLEEEEEEEP!

And the little girl is like this:
ERIN!YOU'REHERE!WHATAREWEDOINGTODAY?!DIDYOUKNOWTHATWHENYOUPUTTHE'E'ANDTHE'A'BESIDEEACHOTHERINAWORDTHEYMAKEAN'EEEEEEEEE' SOUND?!
COOLEH!
YOUTAUGHTMETHATLASTWEEK!
WHATAREYOUGOINGTOTEACHMETHISWEEK?
CANWEPLAYTHEGAMEILIKETOPLAYWITHTHEWORDS?
CANYOUCOMEOVERSOMEDAYANDWEPLAYPIRATES?
WHAT'SYOURFAVOURITECOLOUR?
ILIKEBLUE!
BLUESTARTSWITHA'BUHBUH'B!

And I'm like...Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Calm down there Peppy McPepperson...I'm excited that you're excited about learning..but FYI - It's Saturday....MORNING.

Luckily..my brain and I are on pretty good terms and it lets me stay awake for the couple of hours I'm there while we do some phonemic awareness stuff, practice stretching out some letters into words and play some games to help with vocab, phonics and a variety of dipthongs. When my brain is about ready to call it quits..it's time to go home where I can apologize to my body for waking it up early on a Saturday morning..and make up to it by having a delicious Saturday afternoon nap.

Oh - and just to confuse myself even more...this morning...I was all ready to go. I had my lesson plan and all of our activities planned..and I even had some extra stuff printed off in a couple in a few different areas on a couple of different areas (both higher and lower) in case there was a lack of concentration or some frustration happening and I needed to switch more than usual (like I had to last week..) and what loop was thrown at my tired, old Saturday morning brain? Oh yeah...just throw in an extra child for me to work with without any warning what-so-ever! No worries!

Luckily..it all worked out well..mostly because I was awesome and ~~accidentally~~ had double of almost activity I was going to do with her...which actually happened to be REALLY close to both of their indivdual literacy levels. I must have KNOWN on some weird deeper level that was going to happen. Even when I didn't have double the activities...I quickly converted what we were doing into a group activity that they could both manage...instead of something for one kid. I'm not sure whether flexibility is my middle name or if it's just awesome.

And yes, you may now call me 'the most awesome tutor who has ever existed and rocks the socks right off of everything'. I'd be okay with that...because...well..I even rock my own socks.

And on that note..I'm now rocking my own socks right into bed where I intend to nap for the next couple of hours. Ah delicious naps...whoever came up with the concept of you is a freakin' genius.

That should totally be somewhere in my next lesson plan....eh...I'll sleep on it.

Canadian Camouflage

2010-01-27T17:31:00.002-05:00

I bet you never knew that Canada had magical powers. But it's true..I swear to you...it is..we REALLY do.

You see, around and about this time of year...we as a country have amazing magical abilities. In fact, we're so awesome that we're actually almost the mighty morphing power rangers - it's seriously true.

It's a funny thing about living in this area of the world...winter hits and everything is lovely and sparkly and white. The whole world glistens this beautiful glow...

And then...

It happens.

I'm not sure whether it's because of a national security threat, or it's basic training in the possible event of a national security threat....or if it's just because we're just too plain old nice for our own good...but it HAPPENS.

What happens exactly you want to know?

We CAMOUFLAGE. Together. AS ONE.

Like I said - we the Canadian people...are the mighty morphing freakin' power rangers.

You see, as the winter goes on...the snow starts to look a little...not so nice. It gets brown and kind of gross and instead of being its ~~nice, white, lovely self~~ regular white yucky ..it's this brown icky everywhere you look. So, being the far too nice people that we are...we don't want to make the snow FEEL bad...so we camouflageingly morph our cars to look exactly like it.

Don't believe me?

I came home the other night and said "who the heck is here driving a BROWN CAR?"

..and then I realized that it was my mothers silver car.

Classic case of guilt induced camouflage morphing.

Classic.

"Someone"

2010-01-26T22:39:00.004-05:00

You know "someone" is way too use to being the driver when:

"Someone" is at some sort of an event which requires that ve-hic-le transportation.

Probably because "someone" lives in the middle of nowhere.

This may or may not be an artsy fartsy sort of event that "someone" was attending.

(I don't know why I felt it was impertinent to this story to include what event "someone" may have been at...since where "someone" was has absolutely nothing to do with anything to do with this particular story.)

ANYWHO.

So this "someone"...was waiting around in the lobby for the friend she was with to return from the washroom. While she was waiting she did what any car driver does as they're about to leave a place and head back to their car...she got out her keys, made sure she knew where they were and put them in her coat pocket for easy access once she arrived in the general vicinity of her car. This was done to ensure that jumping in the car and getting out of the cold could be done as soon as possible.

Because nobody likes to wait around while the driver searches for their keys, especially in Canada, in the WINTER. Duh.

As the evening wound down, "someone" and her friend said their goodbyes and then left this artsy-fartsy event...walking back to the car so that they could return home.

As they walked into the car park.... "someone" pulled out her keys and clicked the 'unlock' button and watched as the headlights flashed and the car unlocked.

Then "someone" stood there staring with her mouth agape at the car...wondering how the heck she'd opened up someone ELSES car.

Then "someone" wondered where HER car was and why it wasn't unlocking.

Then "someone" started looking around the parking lot like a fool...and it was only then that "someone" remembered that she hadn't driven to said event and was merely a passenger standing in a parking lot wildly flailing about, clicking her remote unlock car thingy while "someones" friend looked on with mild curiosity, a hint of amusement and a slight nuance of worry.

PS - I don't want to give it away or anything...but I MIGHT be one of the two people talked about in this story...and I'll leave you with that...you can decide whether or not you think I'm the idiot or the person watching the idiot...the call is all yours.

Sewing Escapades

2010-01-26T09:23:00.003-05:00

My friend Steph is getting married in a few months. Infact, the ticker on her blog says it's only 129 days away! Whoa!

As her maid of honor, it means that I've got some jobs to help out with - and since she's a super creative do-it-yourselfer kind of girl and both her and her fiance are students on a serious budget, it means that there are tons of fun projects for me to partake in! It's fun to help out where I can, and I'm really excited to be a part of their wedding. I've been in a few different weddings in my day, and attended quite a few more, so I've experienced everything from the super expensive country club kind of wedding to the potluck at the rec centre kind of wedding...Both of which were perfect in their own special ways. That being said, I'm excited for Steph's wedding because even though I KNOW that no two weddings are the same....I REALLY just know their wedding it will be completely unlike anything I've ever been to or been a part of before and I'm so excited for her adoreable wedding at the cutest venue with a bunch of wonderful people!

Last weekend I headed over to her place while her fiance was out of town and we had some chit chats and catch ups and then she pulled out her newish sewing machine that she has been teaching herself how to sew on. Then my oh so domestic self (Please stop laughing - I can hear you from here.) attempted to pass along my ~~somewhat limited~~ all knowing and awesome knowledge of all things sewing.

My mother laughed and laughed. And then LAUGHED SOME MORE when I recounted that I has passed along my sewing skills - asking which sewing skills exactly I was refering to.

Either way - we were awesome and the project turned out famously!

See?

Getting the project started..

Look at me go!

Steph gives it a whirl! And rocks the sewing socks right off of...everything.

I'm so excited for our next project - because it definitely means that I'll be hanging out with one of my favourite girls while we laugh, giggle, chit and chat the day (and project to-do list!) away :)

Drywall Demeanor

2010-01-25T12:32:00.009-05:00

We live out of the city - which means that when you're going INTO the city, you need to make sure you're getting everything you need, want or desire because you're not necessarily going back right away, and there is no point making extra trips when a single round trip is upwards of an hour or more round trip - just to get in and out - that's not even including the time spent doing whatever you need to be doing. Or the time spent in traffic. Or stopping for Ride programs. Or time spent behind some idiot going 20k below the speedlimit. Or you know, the other hilarities life might decide to throw your way.

So before heading into town...I always try to ask if there is anything people need me to pick up or do and remind them that I have my cellphone if there is anything that they think of that I can pick up while I'm in town doing errands or visiting friends or what have you.

Today as I was about to start heading back home, I got a phone call from my Dad, who is keeping busy working away putting the kitchen back together again. Turns out, he needed something and wanted me to pick up some more mud stuff for drywall - and of course I obliged.

Well, let me clarify.

After a few minutes of him trying to describe what he wanted me to pick up for him he eventually told me that he'd call and get them to get it all ready for me. He then gave me some very exact directions as to how to get there, which door to go in and the people I should talk to in the department I needed to go to....and THEN I was of COURSE able to oblige.

Anyway, so I showed up thanks to the precise directions and told them who I was and what I was looking for...and the man sort of looked at me, laughed and said so you're stuck doing the errands today eh? har har har. I sort of laughed a little and was like..yep..that's me..the gopher.

But then another man that worked there walked by and was like So you're the gopher doing the errands today eh?! Somebodys putting you to work eh! Har har har and I just nodded and smiled my sweet, innocent ~~slightly confused~~ smile and continued waiting.

After I signed some paperwork to put it on my Dad's account the guy pointed me in the direction of the warehouse I needed to go to pick up the stuff I needed.

I showed up, I showed the guys my papers and he was like....someones got you doing all the running around picking stuff up today eh! ha ha ha!

And I was like..uhh..yeah.

And then another man came out and wouldn't let me carry the stuff to my car...even though I assured him that I was quite capable of carrying a measly fifty pound box of stuff, he flat out refused to let me carry it and carried it all the way to my car for me and told me to have a good day now, and to make sure I had someone to carry that big heavy box out of my car for me at home.

It seems that they all were completely and totally convinced that I was a little incompetent girly girl and that there was no way in hell that I would be buying drywall material...for myself.

I really don't know what gave them that impression.

Okay - so I'm not a guy.

And granted, I didn't have any drywall dust and muck all over me.

And I have to admit, I'm not the most adept about all of these things - but all I had to do was ask for one thing...it wasn't rocket science. And I don't think that I messed up....but I just couldn't figure it out - why were they ALL so very convinced that I this little ditzy girl that only ran around doing errands?

After thinking about it for a little bit...I figured that it was probably the fact that I had forgotten my truck at home and was driving my car. Which subsequently was the only car in the parking lot filled with trucks.

But it's not like I was dressed in a ~~completely impractical but oh so cute~~ pea coat, pashmina and ballet flats in the middle of January in Ontario or anything.

Definitely not. I mean, I wouldn't do that EVER. Let alone at a building supplies store.

Yeah, it definitely MUST have been the truck thing. Oi.