While making Tres Leche Cake last week I got a little bored….

There are like a half dozen of these with even more rediculous faces as I was playing around with the camera settings and killing time.

I think I have adult onset ADD. Look what happens with 20 minutes to spare. I really should be spending my ‘extra’ time doing important things like folding that never ending pile of clothes heaped on my dresser. ha

BTW, Price got me this apron at David Squared, a cute local store, a while ago. It’s by Jessie Steele. Oh man so many cute aprons!!!!

Betty White is just awesome. I love her. I grew up watching her on the Golden Girls. When Bea Arthur died last April I watched a crazy marathon of the best Golden Girls episodes. Cheesecake please?

Betty White is fantastic because well she just is. She just did a great commerical for Snickers that aired last night during the Super Bowl. In general, the commerials were bland but this was great.

Thank you to everyone for all the birthday wishes! Everyone on facebook and twitter, all my girls in SS, Rich and Jenn who called me to scream Happy Birthday! at 7:30 in the morning and of course my darling daughter and sweet husband who texted me right at midnight. I ♥ all of you!

Tonight I’m having a family party with Taylor and Symphony, and I’ve heard a rumour that presents and cake are involved.

Tomorrow night Taylor and I are going for dinner at The Corner Suite Bistro Deluxe with Rich and Jenn and then to the bar at Market for drinks afterwards. For some reason it’s always hard to get a reservation at a reasonable time on my birthday weekend, plus Jenn’s a vegetarian and I’m really picky about food. The Corner Suite just opened this week so there were still had tables available, and the menu says in big letters vegetarian and vegan options available upon request. Perfecto!

I am not proud of the fact that I haven’t gotten Chapter 11 finished, especially since I know what’s going to happen, it’s just a matter of sitting my butt down and finishing the chapter. I’m annoyed at myself that I haven’t updated in two weeks, but it looks like I won’t be updating until tomorrow at the earliest. I’ve been busy, but I’ve also been lazy and just…well, needed a break. My creativity tends to work in spurts and waves, sometimes allowing me to pound out pages and pages worth of material and sometimes frustrating me beyond words. I haven’t been completely sitting on my ass, you realize. I’ve…

• Helped my brother finish some college-related essays. He’s trying to get into a med program and last week, he suddenly asked for some help with his scholarship applications, interview prep, etc. I agreed, but it took nearly the whole week, with back-and-forth cellphone texting, IM messaging, and telephone conversations that began with “When you write this…what are you trying to say?” My brother’s biggest problem is that he exaggerates accounts to the point of lunacy and I have to keep telling him, “Just tell the truth. Embellish it a little, but if you make it ‘gold-plated’ when it was just ’silver-plated,’ someone’s going to raise their eyebrows.”
• Been working on my personal projects. I had to get my personal work done for critique group. I am currently writing a novel and it is nearly finished [italics for frustration]. I’m so close to the golden end of my novel, which I began a year and a month ago, that I can taste it. My critique group works on a chapter-by-chapter basis, and I had a buffer of chapters to send them which made it easy for me to spend more time with fanfics, but now the buffer is gone and I want to finish my NiP (novel-in-progress). The critique group demands a chapter a week, so it keeps me working towards the end.
• Been playing way too much Mass Effect 2. Oh gods, Bioware can make awesome games. I am a huge fan of the first Mass Effect and Dragon Age: Origins. In fact, I even liked the Star Wars video games Bioware made years ago, and I’m not a big fan of the Star Wars franchise. However, as a result, Mass Effect 2 has been eating my life up; I’ve been spending way too much time playing that video game. In my defense, the S.O. has informed me that he wants to re-play it (we’re sharing a copy), so if I want to finish it, I have to do it now otherwise I can kiss the game goodbye for two weeks. I want to get to the end before then!
• Dealing with various family drama, life-throws-you-a-curve-ball kind of crap that crops up every now and again. No, I don’t want to talk about it.

So, yes, those are my excuses — and yes, I hang my head in shame at my lack of updating. But I will finish this chapter by this weekend even if it kills me! I am ready, willing, and I have Saturday blocked out (if I don’t finish it tomorrow)! Please bear with me.

The US always seemed like the center of the world, but we are one of the few antiquated places still using the empirical system. I went for a jog the other day and ended up going roughly 11km or 5 miles. All I could think about is how long each kilometer felt. We grow up knowing metric measurements are smaller than empirical, but it still felt like it was taking ages. I usually go on the Waitangi-Haruru Falls walking track because it’s hilly, well maintained, and a measured 5k. Usually I see 20 or so others hiking along, but the woods have a way of pulling you in. After only a few solo minutes you feel like you could follow this path back in time to old New Zealand. It helps that there are some pretty views and a massive waterfall at the far end.

I’ve also had the pleasure of becoming addicted to Cadbury’s chocolate caramello bars. They come in 55g, 110g, and 220g sizes. Thinking I was being thrifty, I would buy the biggest bars and freeze them. They never lasted more than a day or two, even though I had tried to convince myself it was for the whole week. Luckily they don’t come in kilogram size.

Running became my retalliation against Cadbury’s. Thinking about the presidential fitness test we did in middle school, I decided to clock myself. I actually hate running, so I mostly power walk (arms and everything) and take an average of 9 minutes 35 seconds per kilometer. This speed leaves me happily satisfied with my workout 6-10km later. But as I approached the track today, I decided to run for it. One kilometer later I was unhappily breathless. 7 minutes 20. That is roughly the time I got running one mile ten years ago at age 13. That’s depressing.

While running will never be my athletic preference, it was still a nice work-out. Most people use simple measurements to observe the world around them, all based around the weight and volume of water. Perhaps kilometers would feel shorter if I had grown up on metric, and maybe someday we will switch over. But for now, I`m happy with the eccentricities of empirical and will be even happier to drive on the right-hand side of the road back in America.

I’ll stop dumping my trash on EF.

So I’ll cry here instead.

I’ve changed quite a bit of the layout. I really like this new layout, it’s clean and crisp, yet original. I made the header using the tapestry “The Unicorn Defends Itself.” I also added progress meters for all my fanfics, just in case you were wondering how far along I am on a chapter. It’s purely for fun, and I think I’ll be able to keep them fairly up-to-date.

I was out-of-town most of the weekend, so I got a big fat 0% of writing done, however I did have an idea of how I want the next chapter of “State of Mind” to go. I mean, I knew what I wanted to happen, but SoM is unique in that it doesn’t have an outline, most of my ideas are in my head. I’m actually surprised at how well the story is going, considering that I don’t have a written outline. I wonder if this is a sign that I’m growing as a writer?

I’m furiously trying to finish the next chapter by Tuesday morning. I don’t know if I’ll make it, though, and I definitely don’t want a late night. I already had very late nights these past 3 days and I think I’m ready to collapse. We’ll see how that goes; I mean, it’s only Monday and already I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by all that’s happened.

For one thing, I completely forgot to renew 4 of my library books last week and ended up with $5 worth of fines. I felt like kicking myself. *sigh*

The problem is that I check out way too many library books at one time. I just keep adding ones to the “order in” list, and invariably they come into the library faster than I think they will, before I’ve finished my last book. Right now, I’m reading Traitor of the Blood but I think I’ll have to put it aside so I can finish The Looking Glass Wars, since I can’t renew that one anymore.

I also went to the doctor today for a consultation and while there, I said, “You know, I got this really odd call…something about lab work? I was wondering if it was from here?” My doctor looks at her chart and says, “Oh yes…we never got your lab work results back. We did schedule an appointment to do the lab work, I see.”

“We did the lab work,” I said. I remember, I had to wait 2 hours despite having a 9:00 AM appointment just for the privilege of being poked, prodded, and generally made uncomfortable.

“Well, when this happens, we don’t know if we’ve lost the lab work or if it’s been lost at the lab’s end of things. We can do it again now or schedule an appointment for a future date?”

I felt like asking if they lost lab work often (after all, that whole statement of “when this happens…” doesn’t fill a person with confidence). Instead, I sighed and said, “How long will I have to wait if I do it today?” I really didn’t want to sit in the waiting room for 2 hours again.

After assuring me that it would only be a 10 minute wait, I was led into an examining room. 15 minutes later, I went through the uncomfortable process again and left. I’ve been feeling really tired all day…I actually fell asleep on the sofa and woke up an hour later, realizing I had to pick up the S.O. and that I was horribly late.

Anyway, tomorrow I have a mostly free day! I’m looking forward to it and plan to get a lot of writing done. Plus go to the gym. I was lazy and didn’t go today. *ahem*

It’s Sunday night and as usual I have a ton of housework to catch up on- a load of dishes, a bunch of laundry( thank goodness I have a high capacity, high efficiency washer & dryer!), vacuuming everywhere and both bathrooms to clean, as well as the catbox and the hamster cage. Every weekend I swear I won’t let the house fall into disarray and every weekend it does. I just have a hard time motivating myself to clean things around the house when that’s what I have to do all week while I’m working, especially when there are other, funner things I’d rather be doing all weekend!

Friday
After work I managed to squeeze in a super-quick trip to the gym. Taylor and I were supposed to go together on Thursday evening but laziness prevailed and instead we watched tv shows and got poutine from La Belle Patate, which has like, 30 different kinds of poutine! If you’ve never had it, it’s french fries and cheese curds smothered in gravy. Basically, it’s the opposite of working out! To make up for it Taylor went to the gym after he finished work on Friday morning, and I was going to go later that night after Sym’s bedtime.

As luck would have it she was invited to her friend Ali’s house for a playdate that afternoon. She and Ali were in preschool together, but even though she lives just half a block from us she goes to a different elementary school, so they don’t see each other often. Anyway, both girls were going to be coming back to my house at six-fifteen, so I figured that if I left right when I finished work I could get to the gym, run on the treadmill for a half hour (and live tweet it, haha) and get home in time to meet the girls. Normally I hate going to the gym right after work because it’s so busy, but only crazy meatheads work out on Friday nights so it was really quiet. As it turned out I rushed for nothing because they ended up staying at Ali’s until seven-thirty, but at least I got to have a shower before they got back!

After Ali went home and Sym was in bed, Taylor got us beer and Japanese takeout and we watched some Neon Genesis Evangelion. Taylor says I have to watch it with him since he watched the whole of Sailor Moon with me, although he really didn’t. After like, three episodes we were both ready to pass out, even though it was only ten-thirty! Apparently, we’re old now. Oh, and I conquered my up-until-three-every-night insomnia. The trick is to get up at six-forty for work every morning. Seriously, good luck staying awake until three am then!

Saturday
Since I’m no longer a sleep-deprived zombie I was able to get up early on Saturday morning and take Sym out shopping. She’s grown like crazy since her birthday, and most of her pants and jeans were getting to be too short and too tight. She’s really picky about her pants (won’t wear skinny jeans or leggings) and shopping with her can be a huge drag, but the trip was surprisingly painless and fight-free. We went to a few different places but the only store where she found anything she liked was Gap Kids. She picked out some black and navy blue yoga pants, three pairs of jeans, a dress and some glittery flip-flops (early, I know, but she’s preparing for when we go to Hawaii in March). They had an extra 25% off for Sprize members, so I ended up saving $40 on her stuff. That’s how I’m going to look at it anyway. I saved money!

After we got home Ali came over to play again- this mostly consisted of them running in and out of the house shrieking about the neighborhood boys who were having a Nerf dartgun fight outside, alternating with them sitting quietly and reading, wrapped up in blankets. While this was going on I managed to do some dishes and read some of my book (Girlfriend in a Coma, which I hadn’t read in about ten years). Taylor was out getting his hair cut and came home with all his shagginess gone! He also trimmed his woolly beard this weekend and I’m still not used to this new, more streamlined husband.

Sym’s dad picked the girls up and took Ali home at four-thirty. Taylor and I were going to go grocery shopping (what a fun Saturday night activity! Remember, we’re old) but we only got as far as writing a list of about three items before we accidentally fell asleep and had a three hour nap. Whoops! Taylor actually had an excuse- he was up stupidly early that morning, like three-thirty or something ridiculous like that. My mistake was lying down next to him on the bed and letting his energy leech powers wash over me. He is like a black hole of nappiness! I finally managed to drag myself out of bed at around eight and harassed Taylor into getting up and coming with me on a much more minor than originally planned trip to the store, where we picked up the essential food items of Coca-Cola, two different kinds of oranges (blood and pink) and pomegranate-raspberry sorbet. When we got home we watched Friday’s episode of The Tonight Show, followed by Forgetting Sarah Marshall before heading to bed at around one.

Sunday
I managed to wake up fairly early again and after coffee and a quick breakfast Taylor and I headed off to the gym. That’s three times in a week, yay us! We came home to shower and change, and then walked down to Yaletown to have brunch at one of my favorite brunch restaurants, Glowbal Grill. We had our post-elopement wedding brunch there last May. The food is super yummy- today I had wildberry panettone french toast with marscapone cream and a shot of hot chocolate, so amazing.

After brunch we went to a bookstore, where I stocked up on four more books, which should take me about a week and a half to get through. I should probably just cave in and get an e-reader, or ask for one. I do have a birthday coming up! When we got home Taylor was going to help me clean the house, but as we all know that didn’t happen! Instead we both curled up in bed in our cozies and read all afternoon. So much better for the soul than doing chores! Taylor went to sleep at three (he has to work tonight) and I kept reading until Symphony got home from her dad’s around six. She and I worked on our Farmville farms (her Grandma got us both hooked on it), then I got her to tidy her room quickly and tucked her into a pile of blankets and sweaters on the couch so she could watch Ponyo while I started the housework I listed at the beginning of this post. I’ve actually been working on this post on and off for two hours, in between cleaning, reading Sym a chapter of Charlotte’s Web and putting her to bed. Now it’s nine-thirty, everyone is asleep (except for my pest of the cat) and it’s the quietest part of my week. I guess that’s why I tend to leave all my housework for Sunday night- to fill the loneliest hours.

I don’t want to go to work tomorrow. I love having fantastic weekends but hate that they come to an end.

On Friday Price surprised me with cake. I have revolted from boxed cake mix- except for funfetti. I love funfetti!!! So when I saw he posted a picture of the cake on facebook during the day on friday I was thrilled because he made me a cake. It was so unexpected and so nice.

Plus my friend Natalie and I went to a Yelp Elite Event!  Great event with great food, booze, and some cornhole. I love yelp!

On Saturday we had plans to go to the Museum of Science to see the Harry Potter Exhibit early on in the day to beat the crowds, instead we slept in until 10.30. Although we had a late start and had to deal with crazy crowds we had a good time. I even got into a little bit of a friendly debate about NASCAR at the bar where we had lunch. Which lead Price to say “Never a dull moment” as he pulled me away from the guys outside. But guess what- I totally won beat 4 guys in that one

I was disappointed that the people at the MOS working the Harry Potter Exhibit were such Nazi’s about taking photos. There really should have been a few opportunities to take some good HP stuff. You cound not even take a picture of the poster outside the exhibit!  Crazy! At least they had a chess piece from HP and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Price and I are now MOs members so we are looking forward to going back to see other exhibits. Plus there is a network of 300 museums and zoos that have a reciprocal program so we can get in there- including the Bruce Museum (Greenwich CT) and the museum of Science and Technology (Syracuse, NY).

And then I scrapbooked, watched football, and we made a turkey today. Which is an amazing feat since we cooked it in that tiny thing over Price’s shoulder. It was good but I made crappy gravy. Oh well, at least the turkey was a success.

So i’ll have to brave the rain and the 50 mph wind gusts that we predicted for tomorrow. happy monday.

Last night a bunch of us from work and school got together for my birthday. I won a party at Felt  through a silent auction at a charity event and used it for us to get out and play some pool. Now I have to note that I have not played pool in years and I rediscovered how horrible I am. Fortunately, I discovered my friend Emily is just as bad- she even managed to get a ball to go flying down the stairs at this place.  At least her horrible playing was funny to watch.

I loved that we got to go out together to hang out. I would love to show, and scrapbook, tons of photos but I’m an idiot and did not charge my camera before going out and it died so I only have a few photos and missed taking pictures with most of the people there. Pure genius. ( I have to figure out why they look horrible now too- lots of photoshop to fix them maybe?)

After pool some of us went out to the Rattlesnake Bar to continue the test on our livers. Price and Emily ordered spicy pickles that Price inhaled- I wish I had it on video. They were crazy hot- like infused and covered with pureed Habanero peppers. Insane.  

A big thanks to Kellie, Nataliya, Irene, Alfred, Laurel, Emily, Cooper, Tara, Kirsten, Chris, John, Essa, Dasha, Jovan, Jason, Natalie, Rachael, and my Pricer for all coming out

*this is what my older bother used to say after he’d played a particularly good joke on me or one of my sisters.

Around my house, I’m pretty famous for playing super awesome tricks and pranks on my husband that more often than not go horribly awry, and usually not in my favour. Things like when I buttoned myself into the duvet cover with my head sticking out and my hands and feet in the corners and tried to walk across the apartment like a big… rectangular… blanket… monster? I’m not exactly sure what my plan was, but I barely made it out of the dining room before I fell over on a beanbag chair and laughed until I got a cramp. Others work out perfectly, like when Taylor was in the shower and I discretely filled a jug with freezing cold water from the sink and threw it on him, or when we were sharing an intimate moment and I thought it would be a great idea to purposefully make a really weird face. Like, seriously weird.

Sometimes my jokes have mixed results, like the time I was being a horrible shrewish nag about something really boring, like cleaning the oven. I felt bad about it, so when Taylor went to the store to buy Easy-Off I drew a Snidely Whiplash mustache on my face, and when he got back I pretended we were having a normal conversation- for about five seconds until I burst out laughing. I say this one had mixed results because although I achieved my goal of relieving the oven-cleaning tension, I used waterproof eyeliner to draw on the mustache and it took some seriously solid scrubbing to get it off.

Tonight Taylor and I were laying in bed talking about important things (dogs, preschool teachers I know, and whether or not my eyeball would get infected from the shard of claw I got in it while trimming the cat’s nails) and I decided it would be really fun to take a great big swig of water from my water bottle and then drool it on myself slowly while Taylor was talking. Unfortunately, I almost immediately started giggling, but I couldn’t open my mouth because I would have sprayed water everywhere. I couldn’t swallow it because I was laughing and it definitely would have gone down the wrong pipe, and I couldn’t spit it back into the bottle because the neck was too small. So I did the only logical thing: I pressed my face against Taylor’s shoulder and drooled it all over him and all over the bed and then laughed until I collapsed. Seriously, if laughter is the best medicine then I have NOTHING to worry about with that cat claw infected eyeball thing. Besides, Claire said she was sorry about that.

Oh yeah. She loves me. And WOW the top of my hair looks blonde here!

Today I took care of my former client Rachelle’s 7-week-old daughter Maya, and now I think I have the baby madness! I kind of had it before, but this morning as I sat holding this little wee squidger and she was sighing and making funny baby faces at me I was just like, OW MY OVARIES. I told Taylor we should have a baby boy and name him Jeremy. Jeremy Laramie. Say it out loud.

Also, the other month Danielle at Sometimes Sweet posted about buying the MbMJ Totally Turnlock Baby Back diaper bag and saving it for when she has a baby, and I thought this was a GENIUS idea. I told my friend Jenn we should each buy one, have some babies, quit working and just concentrate on doing yoga (her) and painting unicorns (me). I was totally broke at the time (financial crisis, ya know) and then once I was less broke the black was sold out and it was only available in caramel. No offense to Marc Jacobs but the caramel colour is sick. It looks like the inside of a baby’s diapers. Gross. HOWEVER, this morning on some strange whim I thought to check if the black was back in stock and not only is it in stock BUT it’s also on sale for $206 (regularly it’s of $458, that’s like 55% off!). WHAT THAT IS CRAZY. Even with all the extra charges (tax, duty, delivery) it was under $300 USD. Soooooooooo yeah, I totally ordered it. I figure if I don’t end up having another baby I can just sell it, or use it to carry a little dog around in. This is a no-lose situation. Edit: I had to call and verify my address so they could finish processing my order and the customer service rep had the most adorable southern accent.

As for my financial crisis, it is over, thank goodness! I did book that new client to start in March and I have all her paperwork and her deposit cheque already. Even more importantly, though, the family who I had to give notice to in December is back! Through no fault of their own, their child care subsidy payments were been cancelled by the government and I ended up not getting paid for November and December (which is why I gave notice- I mean, how long would you work for free?), but I let them know that should the matter be resolved I would be more than happy to look after their son again. Last Thursday I was checking the mail and there it was: a new subsidy authorization form. And it was backdated to November! I faxed the claim forms right away and today two and a half months worth of fees were direct deposited into my severely depleted chequing account. Hooray!

Project 365

I always wanted to do Project 365 because I think it’s a fun way of quickly capturing what’s going on in your life, one day at a time. I started it this year and I hope that I can stick with it- I’m not one for consistency. I have never been able to keep a reliable date book or a diary when I was a kid because I would do it daily for a week and then leave it for 6 months. Hopefully posting the pictures on the blog will help me.

Plus, I am determined to have a full set for Shuttercal. I’m kinda OCD when it comes to having complete sets- like glasses, silverware, plates, etc. This all started when I was younger with crayons. I would freak if I lost or broke one because the set was ruined. I’m quirky but I think this will be cute to have. Check out ShutterCal to have a cute way to organize your 365 photos.

I celebrated my 25th birthday with

a beautiful flower (gifted in a flour sifter) at my desk from Helen

maple layer cake with maple buttercream frosting from Julie, plus she gave me the cutest bunny earrings from Figs and Ginger

pizza with price

This has become a tradition for my birthday. It’s the fifth year making pizza together on my birthday. We make pizza at other times during the year but we have to do it on my birthday… it just would not be my birthday without it. I have the same toppings on my pizza every time, pineapple and jalapenos, but this time pricer also got some ham to make it a real hawaiian pizza. I think this was our best pizza yet.

and

flan cake from kellie that we ate before I remembered to take a picture! Damn!!!

Thank you to everyone who wished me happy birthday and for making it so great.

.

I have been feeling a little off lately. Just not myself which has translated into a scrapbooking slump for a few days. I also think that this contributed to the muffin mishap on Sunday (see earlier post), clearly I was not thinking properly, ha.

Well I finally told myself to shake it off and get back to being crafty. I have been thinking about this layout for a few days but have just been putting it off. It’s kinda simple but that was sorta all I could handle last night. I have had these Stickycut Letters from Stampin’ Up! for a long time. I decided that I would used them for this layout and use glitter to make a bold title.

I made a horrible mess on the floor, table, and my face. Price said he could see glitter all over my face… great, I hope I got every speck off in the shower this morning. Either way I love glitter and I have a feeling I’ll be using these Stickycut Letter a lot since they are made for glitter and beads, and I imagine sand would work too!

The past couple of days have gone by so quickly! I completely spaced on making a post yesterday and last night I didn’t even make dinner (scrambled eggs & toast, I really need to buy some groceries) until eight o’clock. I have a packed evening tonight so I better get this out of the way before it’s tomorrow already.

Spirit Bear: just a black bear that’s been hitting the bleach?

Sunday afternoon I went to the Museum of Vancouver again, this time with my internet friend Leanna. It was actually supposed to be a meet up for this general discussion community I’m in but no one else came. We checked out all the taxidermied animals in “Ravishing Beasts” and then the new “Art of Craft” exhibit.

Leanna saw these horrible jarred specimens preserved in alcohol and was like “Mmm, this makes me hungry!”

These shoes grossed me out so much! The grey fur one with the antlers is bad enough, but the black and red one is lined with dense black fur and those white things on it are teeth. TEETH. So wrong.

The boots on the left have a seashore motif and are decorated with mussel shells. It totally reminded me of the barnacle man, so yes, also creepy.

Afterwards we headed back downtown and met another girl, Kristen, for coffee. She’d wanted to come to the museum but was late getting to the designated meeting Starbucks, and I’d stupidly given her the wrong phone number so she couldn’t get a hold of us. Durr.

Kristen and Leanna.

Monday was a professional development day at Symphony’s school, which made my workday a little easier since it meant I didn’t have to go out at nine and three with all the kids. Two of the daycare kids, K and B, are still getting over being sick, and I actually had the stupidest conversation/argument with both of K’s parents- his dad in the morning and his mom in the afternoon. They are convinced that B is the one who got K (and me) sick, when if you look at my timeline, it’s obviously the other way around:
January 18th-19th: B has a mild cold with a runny nose
January 20th: B develops a cough and after naptime is running a slight fever
January 21st-22nd: B is fine and just has the runny nose, no cough or fever
January 22nd: K gets sick with gastroenteritis that evening, as well as his parents and some friends from work.
January 29th: B gets sick in the morning, I get sick in the early afternoon
January 30th: B’s mom gets sick
CLEARLY it was K and his family who got the rest of us sick, especially since no one else here (none of the other kids and no one in my family) has been sick at all, and another person K’s parents work with also got sick. They just think that because B had a fever that one day, she’s the one who infected their kid. However, a cold =/= gastroenteritis, and if she did have the stomach bug then, why would she be fine for the next week and a half? This was all especially frustrating for me because IT DOESN’T MATTER. It’s not like I’m going to penalize them or assume they’re unclean or provide substandard childcare just because their kid was sick! It happens, and I was actually really happy with them because he was still sick on the 25th and they kept him home. To tell you the truth, they kind of drive me buggy at times- I’ve really bent over backwards to accommodate their weird fluctuating part-time scheduling requirements but they always want more special treatment. ANYWAY. I’m over it now. No more complaining.

Last night I walked into my room and my cat Claire was just sitting there, staring into space with her big googly eyes and her tongue sticking out. She stayed like that for about five minutes, I thought she’d had a stroke or something!

Dougal has been handsome, as usual. He really is the best dog.

Soooooo now I have two more hours left of work, Symphony’s 45 minute student-led conference at school from five-fifteen to six, her piano lesson from six-fifteen to six-forty-five (which I need to take out money to pay for) and somewhere in there I have to give her something for dinner since I probably won’t get her to her dad’s house until well after seven. After that Taylor seems to be under the impression that I’ll want to go to the gym but I really don’t think that’s going to happen.

Here we go again… I’m kinda addicted to these silly nothing holidays. I find the fact that someone decided that today would be <insert something rediculous> day just hilarious. There are definitely days that are worth remembering but I kinda question National Pancake Day… except that is a delicious day.

 Adopt a Rescued Rabbit Month (you know you want a cute Bun like this)

Black History Month

February 1-Bubble Gum Day

February 2- Ground Hog Day

February 3- National Men’s Grooming Day + Elmo’s birthday (1979)

February 4- National Stuffed Mushroom Day

February 5- Weatherman’s Day and World Nutella Day

February 6- Pay a Compliment Day

February 7- National Fettuccine Alfredo Day

February 8- Boy Scout Day

February 9- Toothache Day

February 10- Umbrella Day

February 11- Don’t Cry Over Spilt Milk Day

February 12- National Lost Penny Day

February 13- Get a Different Name Day

February 14- Valentine’s Day

February 15- National Sea Monkey Day

February 16- National Almond Day

February 17- Random Acts of Kindness Day

 February 18- Drink Wine Day

February 19- National Chocolate Mint Day

February 20- Love your Pet Day

February 21- National Sticky Bun Day

February 22- National Margarita Day

February 23- National Spay Day (Last Tuesday of February)

February 24- Inconvenience yourself Day

February 25- National Chocolate Covered Nuts Day

February 26- National “For Pete’s Sake” Day

February 27- International Pancake Day

February 28- International Floral Design Day

(February 29- Leap Day)

When one goes travelling, the worst fear is something disastrous will happen and you have to go home early. I met an 18-year-old German boy who had a death in the family and had to return before seeing any of New Zealand. I also recently lost a sorority sister Elizabeth White to a three-year battle with cancer. When I return home in a few weeks, it will be coming up on the one-year anniversary of the death of Milena. She was a friend to all and had only been initiated into Alpha Chi Omega two weeks before passing away.

When I first heard I regretted her loss, but I continued my afternoon routine checking through various social media platforms. I was repeatedly reminded of the impact of her death through the explosion of Internet activity, commonly described as grief. The same applications we use to stay in touch with family, to connect with other travellers, and to find upcoming parties also becomes a virtual memorial.

I remember watching as friends posted Tweets in mourning, as my Facebook news feed became a wall of loss, and instant messenger’s ‘away messages’ showed the sorrow of their users. We were grieving as an online community, an extension of our physical, human community. This was the way we showed each other that her family was on our minds and the pain of our friends was felt inside our own hearts.

In line with my peers, I left my own goodbye messages to Milena across any social media application I could. I attended a candle-light vigil inside our sorority house and a gathering of friends on campus. And within minutes of returning home after a late TCBY run, I was shocked by the new updates on my news feed. Friends were no longer satisfied with their own posts, but began leaving messages on Milena’s wall.

While this is a typical daily activity for many as Facebook has no restrictions on users, I did not understand the purpose of writing messages that she would never read, especially if only written 24-hours earlier their receiver would have been aware of the note. This new method of grieving was bizarre and unnatural.

I began to explore this idea- of leaving love notes to the dead across social mediums.

A popular place was the memorials for victims of the Virginia Tech shooting three years ago. Students commented that they left messages for their fallen classmates when their favorite songs played on the radio, when memories of good times cropped up, or when other reminders occurred. It was an interesting method for commemorating those taken from us suddenly or before, we believe, their time. For years, victims of car crashes or similar disasters have been remembered by semi-permanent memorials, like flowers on the road side or the stone memorial of the 32 Virginia Tech victims.

But a social media memorial is an interesting creature. At this time, the most recent post for Milena was only two days old, celebrating her birthday which would have been last weekend. How long will this last? We have transformed life from reality to virtuality, and the internet serves as the major connection for young people acrosss the globe. Will our lack of physical community continue to reflect in other aspects of life? Does a virtual memorial satisfy the need to explain humanity and provide an outlet to hold on to those who have gone?

Our apartment is in a state of chaos right now. Nothing really wrong with it but we just 2 large folding tables out in our dining/living room area. 1 for Price’s models and 1 for my scrapbooking. Sure I have space in the office to scrapbook but it would mean I’m alone in that room for hours on end. So when you walk in your are greeted with tables of paper based stuff. Oh yeah, I can’t forget that our dining room table has my final model on there. Can’t wait until I have officially graduated so I can toss that sucker out.

So since I can’t really change the overall shiz going I decided to fix a small problem that has been bothering me for a while. My shoes have always ended up in a heap in a basket I bought a few years back. This often resulted in an overflowing basket or the “rediscovery” of shoes have they have been sifted to the bottom of the basket. So I decided to take some action and get some containers (big surprise there!) to organize my shoes.

So I put my in season shoes in containers under the telephone table and my out of season shoes in my closet. I think I need a few more shoes, but more importantly some help…..

Dear James Cameron-

Congrats on creating the highest grossing piece of crap. Price and I went to see your movie last night. We both knew nothing about your movie- no joke. Neither of us looked into what it was about at all prior to going. So we happily forked over the $25.00 (plus service fee) to see your movie in 3D at an IMAX theater.

I guess you should be glad that we knew nothing about the movie because if we had we would have saved our money and stayed in and played some wii. About 15 minutes into the movie I realize that it really is going to be SOOOOOOO predictable. Good guy, bad guy, save the earth message. We care about the earth- we recycle, use reusable bags, compost, etc- I get it. It’s an important thing that everyone can relate to. Anyway, my problem was the predictability plus I kept thinking that I had seen the movie before, just with a few changes.

This nagging feeling continued on until I remembered FERNGULLY: THE LAST RAINFOREST. That cartoon that came out in 1992 with tone loc and tim curry- as the creepy sexy slim thing. You have kids- granted they were born after this movie came out but you are in the MOVIE BUSINESS. I would think you see a few of them for work related research. And If not, why did no one have the balls to tell you that Avatar is a future version of Ferngully?? Also, both movies were released by 20th Century Fox, did no one there consider the similarities???

Hoping that you are satisfied with having the top 2 grossing movies of all time and you retire now. With your new found free time you should sit down and google “Avatar Ferngully” or ” James Cameron Ferngully” and you can find things to the liking of this.

Signed-

Nicole and Price

Most exciting part of the night was getting jellybeans (juicy pear is my all time favorite) and then going home to write this. Oh yeah and watching a clip of Tone Loc rapping in Ferngully.

Well as it turns out, it’s a good thing I didn’t go to the gym yesterday morning, since I was about five seconds away from getting really sick from whatever horrible virus all the daycare kids have been getting. I ended up sending the one little boy I was looking after home early and putting Taylor in charge of picking Sym up from school and feeding, parenting her, etc, while I took to my bed with a glass of ginger ale and some orange-flavoured Gravol tablets and tried not to puke my guts out until my fever broke at 11pm.

Luckily it was just a one-day disease, because I had an epic four-hour hair appointment today that I didn’t want to have to reschedule. It actually only ended up taking three hours though, since my stylist, the beautiful and talented Aleks at Stratosphere Salon, determined that with the last six months of crazy highlighting we’d lightened my hair enough from the almost-black, super-dark brown I’ve had for seven years we could just throw an all over colour on the roots and pull it through the midlengths to blend it. She also cut off like, five inches of fried, dead ends and my hair is SO much lighter and healthier looking now!

Even though I’m over my one-day sickness, I’m still weak and floppy like a kitten. Walking the six blocks to the hair salon made me exhausted and dizzy, and running errands (buying Symphony some new piano books, returning a cute-but-ripped dress to UO) afterwards totally destroyed me. I made Taylor come meet me on my way home for moral support and once I got back here it was pajama time. We cozied up on the couch and watched some shows I’d been too sick to watch last night.

First was the second episode of Caprica, the premiere of which we watched a jillion years ago. I think the series has the potential to be good, but it also has the potential to be super cheesy, if the opening credits and silly editing are anything to go by. However, I loved Battlestar Galactica, and once last summer I was in the school playground with Sym, and Eric Stolz (who stars in Caprica) asked me where the gate was. True story.

Next we watched the season three premiere of Damages, and OH MY GOD I do not know why more people don’t watch this show because it is AMAZING. The twists! The turns! The backstabs! The Glenn Close! During season two I actually had to stop watching the episodes every week and save them all up for a marathon because it was SO INTENSE that I went crazy waiting to see what would happen next. I actually put off watching this episode all week since I knew it would just grab me and suck me in and it did not disappoint. I’m already bugging out over who did what and why!

We still have the last episode of Dollhouse to watch, a show that I thought was pretty ok during season one, totally directionless at the start of season two and then, as soon as it was cancelled, became totally awesome and mindblowing. It’ll have to wait though, as this picture will show:

Yes, it is the classic Tanie with Sleeping Husband in the Background of all her Pictures.

We ended up going to tampines 1 and the airport instead of the usual movie and dinner(which sucks my wallet dry). It was totally low-key but so worth it!