Crazy Cute

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.