Unless you've been living under a rock, you are probably aware that today is Halloween. The husband and I love to hand out treats and it's so fun to see all the cute little trick-or-treaters. At our old apartment we would set up in the porch with about 100 treat bags and our pumpkin and would always run out of candy. This is our third halloween in this apartment but we've never passed out candy here before. The first year we were here my grandma passed away and we had to make a mad dash for Ontario, then last year the husband was working and I think I went out with a girlfriend. So this year we didn't really know what to expect for how many kids we would get. I went out and bought a whole crapload of stuff today thinking that even with the snow we would have some kids. Right now my clock says 8:44pm - so far we have had 5 kids.
Update: It is now 9:20 (I took a break to chat with the husband and watch the end of Law & Order and then forgot what I was doing) and I've blown out the candle inside Frank's head. So that's it - we had five kids and now we have a mountain of candy left over. I'm going to have a tummy ache until we've eaten every last piece.
It started snowing this morning at 10 and here it is, nearly 10pm, and the snow is still falling unrelentlessly. I think this snowfall might stick around. This is my office view at 4:30 this afternoon, it's so grey that it doesn't even really look like daytime.
The husband just got off nights, so when he woke up this afternoon and saw the blizzard he decided to come and pick me up from work. I had actually driven to work this morning so he took the bus all the way downtown just to pick me up! He even cleaned off the car while I was all cozy inside. It took us an hour and 15 minutes to get home (the longest it usually takes is 39 minutes) - the roads were insane.
This picture is for Zig...I know how much he likes pumpkin guts. I squished these guts in my hands and ended up with them under my nails and stuck to my pants and shirt. What disgusting fun!
Here is the final product - usually I carve one silly pumpkin and one with lots of detail that takes me a long time, but not this year. I decided to go with something easy, and so this goofy Frankenstein was born. We're calling him Frank for short.
Yesterday was a busy day in the life of Ali. Not that I did a lot of things, rather just that I was out all day. My dad, brother, 3 uncles and I helped my aunt move out of her apartment. She actually bought a condo last year that was supposed to be finished for the end of this October. Of course, it isn't finished and now they are telling her it will be ready for the end of April. She didn't want to pay rent for the next six months so she put nearly everything in storage and moved in with a girlfriend from work. So from 8:30 yesterday morning until about 3:30 in the afternoon I was lugging around boxes, furniture and my tired ass - trying to fit a crammed two bedroom apartment into an 8 x 10 foot box. Let's just say my aunt must have been dilusional when she decided everything would fit in there - we did a lot of creative cramming, and several things ended up in the basement of the place she's moving into. Needless to say I was exhausted when I got home. The husband is working nights so I took the evening to lay on the couch, do a favour for Reggie that I promised him would be done on Friday (so sorry by the way, I promise you will have it today), look around at my messy apartment and feel guilty that I wasn't cleaning it, and then finally dragged myself to bed at 9:30.
Fast forward 12 hours...I felt the husband get in bed this morning at around 8:30 and immediately went back to sleep. Opened my eyes at 9:30 and decided that I better get up because I had lots to do today. Stumbled my way into the kitchen to make coffee where I realized that I had to load the dishwasher before I could make coffee because there were so many dishes in the sink that I couldn't get any water out of the tap. Made coffee, ate some cereal, read everyone's blogs, layed on the couch and watched the last half of an episode of Law & Order that I've seen 10 times already, then walked back to the kitchen to get more coffee. Then I stopped. I backed up two steps and looked at the clock in the dining room. It said 9:30. I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Now it said 9:31. Huh? I had got up at 9:30 like an hour ago. I walked into the kitchen and looked at the clock on the microwave. It said 9:33. What is going on? I went back and looked at the dining room clock. It now said 9:32. Wait a second here, had I been moving at the speed of light the past minute or so? How could I have cleaned up the kitchen, ate breakfast, surfed the net and watched t.v. in the space of about 3 minutes? I seriously stood there for another 2 minutes or so, mentally scratching my head. Then it dawned on me. Ding! The clocks went back an hour last night. And miracle of miracles, the husband actually changed all the clocks except my alarm clock because then he would have woke me up. Bless him for doing that, but it always works out that when he actually does something nice like, I'm usually so confused that whatever he's done is actually done, that it turns into more of an event that it should.
Anyways, it's time for me to get dressed - which is going to hurt, let me tell ya. My arms, legs and back are aching this morning from all the lifting yesterday. I think me and ibuprofen are going to spend the day together. I've got to put together a baby basket, go visit that new baby and her mom, get groceries, do laundry, clean up this disaster area I'm living in, finish Reggie's thing, do all the work I brought home, make supper and pay bills - all without waking up the husband.
Today was a pretty good day - lots of happiness around.But I also had a date today...with a vampire.I regularly have dates at my friendly neighbourhood vampire clinic, and today was no exception.
I start work at 9 am so I decided to get to the clinic for when they opened at 8:30 and beat the rush. Only problem is that's what everyone else was thinking too.I actually only had to wait about 20 minutes before I got in but when the nice vampire decided to use my right arm first, nothing happened. As in, she put in the needle (they are very hygenic at my clinic and tend to use a needle instead of their fangs) and we waited. And waited. And waited. About 2 drops of blood came out.
She kept the needle in there for a full 2 minutes before I said "uh, maybe we should try the other arm."So, attack the other arm she did, and drew enough blood to feed a family of vampires for a week. Ugh. I hate having blood taken. Give me a gun full of needles to get a tattoo any day, but stay away from me with those one needle blood suckers! Now I have bruises on both of my arms and the one on the left that didn't actually produce any blood has a big hard circle underneath the surface - the husband says that the vampire went through my vein, go figure - you'd think that someone who makes it their life's profession to draw blood wouldn't go through a vein.Whatever, I should be off the hook for another 3 weeks or so.
Had another great day today - was in a wonderful mood and so was everyone else at work. There was a lot of laughing and dancing going on all day; well the boys were just laughing, it was the girls who were busting a move. After work the husband picked me up and we decided to go grab some supper and then go and do one of our favourite Halloweenish type of activities. We went to Boo at the Zoo! I'm not sure if this happens anywhere besides Winnipeg, but every October the zoo here is turned into a "scary" land of zombies and witches and goblins etc. This is really designed for little kids and families but the husband and I go every year and it's lots of fun. Most of the stuff is very juvenile and not very scary to the average adult - but for any of you that know me very well, you know that I scare easily. Half the time I'm just fawning over all the little babies and toddlers all dressed up in their cute costumes, but sometimes things actually freak me out! Tonight I only actually screamed one time. It's dark when you go and there were a couple people dressed in black sitting behind a bench. They just sit still and then when people forget they are there they pull out these little gremlin hand puppets and sit them on the back of the bench. It's freaky because you can't actually see the people - just the gremlins. I know how silly and totally unscary that sounds but I screamed! The husband had a good laugh about that. The theme this year was "Hollyween" and they even had the Hollywood sign replicated up on the cliffs in the polar bear exhibit. They had stuff set up everywhere to make it look like we were on a movie set and when you first walk in they have this soundtrack of an announcer talking like he's on the red carpet of the Oscars or something. There are spotlights flashing and actors everywhere and it's just a lot of fun - even for grown-ups. Everything was so cute (and a tiny bit scary). I can't wait till we have kids of our own so we actually have a good reason for going to it every year! This guy above is actually the headless horseman but it's hard to see that he's missing his head in the dark!
Good morning everyone! I am in the middle of getting ready for work right now so this is just a quick little post to let you know that I am feeling much better. Thank you all for your warm wishes. I've catapulted out of that funk into a fantastic mood and yesterday was a great day because of it. I didn't post last night because I got a small freelance cheque I had been waiting for and the husband and I decided to go out and see a movie instead of bumming around the house. As you can tell from the picture we were deliriously happy yesterday - it doesn't look forced, does it? That's how happy we always look, I swear! ;-) Anyways I better go get dressed and get my ass in gear, you all know that I'm never late! Have a wonderful day!
I loathe feeling this way. I am so miserable that it's ridiculous. The stupid part is that there isn't really anything wrong with me. There are so many things that can affect my mood. One of them is other people. When people that I am around a lot are down, I'm down too. It's not that I'm feeling bitchy or mean - just kind of sad and woeful. One of my problems is that I worry a lot about other people. I tend to always want to know what's wrong. Not because I'm being nosy but rather because I'm trying to find out if there's a way I can help.
I've also been feeling very sorry for myself about the baby issue and it makes me even sadder when I know that Alyssa is going through the same thing. Over the last few days her blogs have been bang on with what I'm feeling and my heart goes out to her since I'm in the same boat. Sigh...some things in life are just not fair. I know there are many people worse off than me but it's so hard to stop myself from feeling this way, you know?
I want my husband. He'll be home in a couple hours and I have a feeling that we're going to do a lot of cuddling tonight - I need it.
*I apologize for being such a downer - I will try my best to be happy tomorrow and have some ridiculous story that will put a smile on your face.
I'm tired, I'm cranky and I'm feeling sorry for myself.
I was in a pretty good mood this morning for about 2 hours - then all hell broke loose. I got about 2 hours of copy-editing done, then decided to go see my chiropractor on my lunch break because my back was aching. After I left her office still in pain (my back has really been acting up lately - damn crappy office chairs!) I developed a wicked headache. I was late getting back to the office after lunch, sat down for 10 minutes then had to go out for a meeting at an office about 20 minutes away. Had a long meeting where a lot was said and nothing was accomplished. Got back to work and couldn't concentrate on anything. Came home and brought all the work I didn't get done at my office with me to do - instead crawled into bed when I was supposed to be making supper because I had a chill. The husband came home an hour later and found me passed out in bed (my plan was to have supper waiting for him when he came home). Now I still have my chill and my headache, I'm tired, my knees have been aching for a few hours now (damn Canadian weather) and I'm miserable. Sorry for such a whiny post but if I can't feel sorry for myself here, then where else am I allowed to do it? I'm off to the bathroom for a hot shower and then to bed for a good sleep. Goodnight.
A few months ago I posted when I got my hair dyed dark for the first time in a long time. For the past 4 years or so I've always done blonde highlights with darker lowlights, but for the most part people would tell you my hair was blonde. So a few months ago when I went to see my hairdresser I decided to try going dark for something different. Dark with auburn highlights and no blonde. The second I set eyes on my new hair colour I was in love. My husband was very uh...appreciative, of it too. (The picture above is this past Wednesday - see how much it faded from the last time I dyed it?) The weird thing is that I feel more grown up with dark hair. Up until about a year ago when someone would ask me how old I was my first thought was always 19. It seemed to me like I was 19 for about 6 years - believe me I know how dumb that sounds but it's true. When I turned 25 I bawled and bawled. If you're like anyone else that's older than me you're probably rolling your eyes and saying "You think 25 is OLD!? Come on!" It's not that I think 25 is old, I don't even think 65 is old - it's that I had always had this plan of where my life would be at 25 and I just wasn't there yet. I always thought I'd be married, living in a cute little house with my husband and at least one kid and working at my dream job. But when I actually did turn 25 I was married but living in a rented townhouse with a crappy job, no money and facing infertility. Not where I wanted to be. And the worst part was that my cousin, who is the same age as me, had just finished school to become a Pharmacist (making tons of money), had bought a $250,000 house and a brand new $50,000 Chevy truck. I know it sounds petty but I was jealous - not even so much that he had all of those material possessions but more because my entire family was just like "Wow, he's really made it - look at how well he's done for himself!" He was always the one I got compared to my whole life; if he got 100% on his biology quiz and I got 96% then there had to be some sort of explanation. If he could do it then why couldn't I? The husband has been wonderful in making me realize that although my cousin had all that stuff that he didn't have much else. He had no girlfriend, no family and really not many friends. All he did was go to work and stay home alone. A lot has happened to me in this past year, I've gotten a wonderful job, we've been toying with the idea of buying a house in the next year or so, my husband had surgery on his back that increased his outlook on life and happiness imensely, and I finally got a specialist that is working with me on my infertility problems. My life feels on track now and I've realized that setting a timeline for all my life's events is ridiculous - I just need to take things as they come. Whoa, I really went on a tangent there considering this post was just supposed to be about my hair! I guess what I'm trying to say is that since I've mentally become more of an adult in the past year (I know some of my friends would beg to differ, but it's true!) that I guess my hair makes me feel more like an adult in the physical sense. Really anything that makes my husband react in the way he does is bound to stay around for awhile!
*By the way, the above picture is very much a fake sexy pose, I assure you that I don't walk around this way and in fact as soon as I saw this picture I started to laugh so hard that I set off a coughing fit which ended in my eyes watering and me in desperate need of a Kleenex.
Go play this game! I am so addicted that I can't even post a proper blog - maybe later tonight or maybe tomorrow. Must...go...now...must...park...car..... http://www.107.peugeot.co.uk/peugeot.swf
I don't know what is wrong with me this year but the thought of snow is making me want to run screaming for the Bahamas. Being a hard-core Canadian girl I should be prepared for this by now, considering I've been dealing with it for 26 years - but this year I'm just not. I still love the snow and the beauty of everything on a frosty -40 morning. I love sliding down huge hills, going for walks, snowmobiling, and building snowfamilies. But I HATE driving on icy roads. That causes me more grief than I care to totally delve into this morning. Usually by the time I get to work on a really bad morning my hands are aching from gripping the steering wheel so tight, my voice is raspy from screaming everytime I have to stop at a red light and my nerves are shot because most of the time you slide to a halt mid-intersection instead of at the stop line. The few flakes in this picture aren't too bad...but just you wait.
Don't have anything really enlightening to write about today so I just thought I would post this disturbing, yet funny, picture. That is, it's funny to anyone who's as immature as I am sometimes. Last night the husband and I were tired and couldn't decide what to make for supper. He finally decided to make smokies and I decided to have eggs and toast - thrilling I know. So he makes his dinner and then I hear him laughing from the other room as I'm buttering my toast. I went in and he was laughing at his plate. I asked him if he set it up to look like that and he told me he didn't intentionally (whether or not I believe that is hard to say) but it was funny anyways so I decided to take a picture. It's gross, but funny - I hope it makes you laugh too.
Since I posted a few weeks ago about how I've let my passion for drawing get away from me, I've been thinking more about it and have decided to really make an effort to take it up again. That got me to thinking about why I love to draw people's faces so much. I mean, they're very contoured, there's a lot of shading, the angles are insane, sometimes the symmetry of someone's face is off - so if you're trying to draw someone you know, you have to be bang on. One eye a couple of millimeters too high can make it look like a whole different person. But I love faces. That got me thinking about what I notice about people when I meet them for the first time.
For me, the instant draw is always the eyes. It's true that they are the window to the soul. When I shake someone's hand I always look right into their eyes - I note the colour, the shape, their eyelashes and sometimes you can even tell what kind of a person someone is from their eyes. I am an intense eye talker - I find that sometimes I can convey things more powerfully with my eyes than with words. It's amazing the difference in people after they get to know you a little. One of the guys I work with was intensely intimidated by the fact that I looked him right in the eye when we spoke - it made him very uncomfortable. Over the past six months, little by little, he'll keep his eyes up just a little longer each time we talk - and he seems more confident because of it.
The second thing I notice is someone's mouth. I always look at their teeth, and the shape of their lips and how they smile. Another weird thought that runs through my mind alot when I look at someone's mouth is if they are a good kisser. Now I don't mean that I would like to find out personally if they are a good kisser - just that I wonder if they can make someone swoon because of their kissing ability. For guys and girls - kissing is an important thing. If you are affectionate like me, you kiss someone hello when you haven't seen them in awhile, you kiss them goodbye when you part, you kiss a child to make a "hurt" feel better, you kiss the one you love to convey just how deeply, you may kiss someone who's passed or is dying to let them know you love them and that it's okay to let go. People's mouths and eyes are a very important part of communication and conveying emotion, and are features that I notice very intently. So, if you and I should ever meet, please don't be surprised if I look you deeply in the eyes or focus on your lips - I'm just trying to see what kind of person you are.
Today was a miserable day here - it was a little chilly, rainy and very, very grey. Oddly enough I was in a fabulous mood. Usually my moods are affected quite a bit by the weather - you know, sunny, warm day = sunny, warm Ali - chilly, cranky day = chilly, cranky Ali - and so on. I also started out this morning with about 20 great ideas about what I could blog about today. Some days I know exactly what I want to write about, but others, like today, I have no real plan in mind and so begin toying with different ideas of what might strike my fancy. I distinctly remember driving to work, screaming (my version of singing) along with some Poison and Peaches lyrics (2 separate bands by the way) and random ideas popping into my brain and going "oh, that's a great idea." Of course I told myself, like I always do, that when I got to work I would write them down. As if that was really going to happen - Monday mornings are meant for catching up on everyone's weekends, not writing down blog ideas. Needless to say, every time I was near paper and pen today I couldn't remember even one of the ideas and so, hour by hour, they all slipped quietly out of my mind. So now I've been sitting here for 20 minutes trying to decide what to write about.
Ten minutes later...So, now 10 minutes after I finished typing the above, I've decided to just write about how weird my day was. Not weird in a where did I park my car, I forgot to put on deodorant, a crazy man just asked me to give him a ride on my unicorn, hey is that a human finger in my Coke can, since when does the photocopier talk to me kind of day. More like a day where dumb things go wrong, or that things that should be easy are difficult.
Okay, so I got to work late - big surprise - where I was told the server was up, but that not everything was working properly yet. Apparently we were getting emails, so I pressed send/receive on my email and 21 new messages came through. Not so weird sounding, but when you factor in that our server has been down for 4 days and that I sometimes get more than 20 emails after I leave for the night - it's a weird number. Fine, someone said that all the emails aren't coming through yet - no problem. Then Reggie emails me (his came through - yay!) to say that it is one degree colder in North Carolina than it is in Winnipeg - what!? That's crazy - I thought the Carolina's were a lot warmer than here. Whatever - he was pretty excited and I thought it was funny. Then I had to go do an interview a few blocks away for a freelance piece I'm working on. I was meeting this woman during her lunch hour in an old grain building that has been converted into floors of offices. The entire building was silent as a tomb and a little eerie. So as I walked into the interview, the woman I was interviewing stood up and I shook her hand and sat down in the chair in front of her desk and we began to talk. The weird part is that there was a woman on either side of her each at their own desk (and their desks were close together - maybe 2 feet apart) who quit working and stared at me the entire interview. They weren't any part of the story I'm working on but listened to the whole interview and didn't speak - it was a little unnerving. When we stopped the interview for a moment so my lady could take a phone call, they spoke to each other in German and then stopped again when she was done on the phone...weird. When I got back to work I had trouble speaking. As in, for the rest of the afternoon I had to think very carefully about everything I said. It seemed like every sentence wanted to come out in one word - 10 words all rolled into one. I spent much of the afternoon saying "Whoa, let me try that again." Then on the drive home I was going about 40 kms per hour the whole way. What's weird about that? Well the speed limit on the particular avenue I drive is 60 and I usually drive about 70. The drive took me over 40 minutes! On a crappy day it takes me 30. I didn't even notice other drivers, I'm sure I was getting some dirty looks and nasty gestures. Then tonight, the husband called me from work and said that a couple of the guys he works with were getting together after work to go have a couple beers and watch football or something. He said he wasn't sure if he wanted to go but I insisted he'd have a great time and that supper would be ready for when he came home and that I loved him. Huh? Normally I would be kind of huffy because I had already started making supper, and I would say we have no money and that I felt like seeing him because I missed him all day (which I did, all day). But I kept insisting he go, not that there was anything that I wanted to do, just because I thought he would have fun and that I could see him later.
This all may not sound weird to you, but to me it was a fairly "interesting" day. Maybe I was in such a mellow mood because I had a really relaxing, satisfying, cozy weekend with the husband. I dunno, but weird or not - it was a great day!
Logziella asked me to post a picture of the new wallet that I "didn't" buy myself. So here it is...in all it's cute, skully, non-bought glory. I must have snapped this at the store while I was drooling over it...husband, that is NOT our living room wall in the background. As I mentioned, I went for my monthly manicure last night so I figured I'd post a picture of the little spider I got put on one of my nails. It's all in the spirit of Halloween of course and his name is Bert.
The cup to the left is one that has been in my family for generations...actually it's been at my parents house since 1987. That was the year my dad bought a new Stihl powersaw. This cup and 5 matching ones were his free gift for buying the powersaw, wow, I know. They are this gorgeous bone coloured plastic and as you can see have the Stihl slogan and powersaw picture on them. Absolutely stunning. I started drinking coffee at a very young age so when my dad got these cups I though they were great because I was allowed to use them - it's much more difficult to break plastic. My mom is absolutely appaled by these cups and has tried on numerous occassions to throw them out or "misplace" them. Each time my dad and I protest and have hissy-fits and she finally relents and puts them back in the cupboard. There are now only 3 remaining at my parent's house and I have one at my house. When I left for college when I was 18, my dad made a big ceremony out of giving me one "if I took good care of it" to take with me and have as my own. You wouldn't believe how that stupid cup made me feel better when I was homesick and 23 hours away from home. It's very difficult to pinpoint exactly why my dad and I love these cups so much - I mean they're plastic, they're beige, they have a powersaw on the side - and believe me, deep down I know how ugly they really are. It's silly, but when I drink coffee from my cup like this (as I am right now) or when I'm at my parents and I walk into the kitchen in the morning and my dad has two cups poured with fresh coffee for us, it's like a bonding thing between us. My dad and I are extremely close and we are always on the same side of the table if there is some sort of family argument or decision making going on. As ridiculous as it seems, I'm sure that when I finally have babies of my own and we go down to my parents house - my kids are going to want to drink out of the "Powersaw Cups" too.
The server was still down today at work so we were all very un-productive. I got in at 9am (more like 9:15am, of course I was late) and Zig and two of the other chicks we work with were all sitting in the main part of our office drinking coffee and chatting. I was excited, not that I enjoy not being able to work, but because sometimes it's nice just to hang out and gab and be silly. However, provided the server is up by next week, we are going to be crazy busy. I've heard that for every day we're down, it will take a week to catch up. Yikes, we've already been down for 3 days! Anyways, we sat around till 10:30 and then my boss said she was hungry so we all piled in her car and headed to this awesome little place called Cora's about 10 minutes away. We gorged ourselves on waffles, fresh fruit, toast and crepes and then headed to a little store in Osborne Village (Osborne is a street in Winnipeg where there are cool little shops and funky buildings and even funkier people) that my boss likes. This store was loaded with cool stuff and I ended up buying this cute wallet that has little skulls all over it (the skulls are actually very cute, not creepy), and now I want to buy everything else in the store. Husband, if you are reading this...I am joking about buying the new wallet, cough cough, you know I would never buy something like that, cough, when we are so strapped for cash...cough. After looking through my new favourite store we headed back to work (just before 1pm) and then we sat around again and just talked about all sorts of things. As you can see below, Zig was being very productive at making art with spring clips. What a stellar employee! I left work early and swung by our favourite Greek market to pick up some souvlaki, pitas, lemon potatoes and tzatziki for supper and then went to my nail place to get my monthly manicure. On the drive home the sun was beginning to set and every time I stopped at a red light I snapped another picture of the sky. Something about clouds just make me feel hopeful and content and a little childlike. These cotton candy ones made me want some cotton candy - go figure! The husband just got home so now we'll eat, curl up together on the couch and maybe rent a movie. What a good night!
I'm way too cold to write a long blog today. The snow has melted away a bit but there has been a horrendous wind all day that just chills you to the bone. I just actually checked the current weather conditions on the net and the wind is blowing at 60 kilometers per hour - yikes! No wonder my car felt like a pop can blowing in the wind! Computers were down at work again all day, but of course I got some work I could actually do at about 3pm so I stayed till 6 to finish it because I was feeling guilty about slacking all day (not that the server being down is my fault, but still). Then I jumped in the car, motored to my favourite store and bought a couple of long sleeved thermal shirts (I haven't dragged out all my winter clothes yet), jumped in the car again and went and got groceries before I headed home. It took me ten minutes and three trips through the crappy wind/rain/sleet to get all my bags in the house. The husband walked in the door about 45 seconds after I was done dragging everything in - isn't that convenient? I've been so cold since then that I've been on the couch in my pajamas wrapped in a blanket and whining to my husband that I couldn't get warm. He helped though because he came and layed behind me on the couch so I could snuggle up to him and warm up. We are so different in that way - I am always freezing and that man is like my own personal furnace. Anyways, I'm freezing again so I'm going to go hop in bed - he must have my side heated up by now. Good night everyone!
I don't really have anything specific in mind to write about today so rather I thought I would write about all the random thoughts that are floating through my mind.
1. Our server was down all day at work today and I was going through a bad case of internet withdrawal. Oh high speed, I missed you so much!
2. I feel so totally loved by the peeps in my blogger universe, I wonder what it would be like to meet you. All you guys that actually read this on a regular basis leave wonderful comments, and I find it exciting that people like to know what happens to me everyday.
3. Tee asked me what exactly Thanksgiving is. He says they don't have it in Australia that he can think of, so the definition is this: Second Monday in October (in Canada that is - our American friends celebrate it on the fourth Thursday in November); it commemorates a feast held in 1621 by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag (natives). Lots of people use it to give thanks to God for all they have been blessed with. Many people just use it as a day to get together with family and pig out on turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, and all that good stuff.
4. It seems like Fall has skipped right over Manitoba - there were only about 3 weeks of cool weather and now we are into freezing temperatures and flurries!
5. I really need to pay some bills. I have been totally slacking in that department - we're going to receive disconnection notices soon.
6. My kitchen table is absolutely embarrassing because it's so horrendously messy. It's 7 feet long and covered end to end with about 6 inches of paper. The rest of the apartment is pretty messy too, boo...I don't want to clean.
7. I feel like having my mom's stew for supper. I always feel like that when the weather is crappy. Hmm, stew....dumplings.....hmm.
8. Since the husband isn't home from work for a couple hours I should take some time and do some of the drawing that I was blabbering about last week. But probably when I'm done typing I'll just curl up with a comfy blanket and watch tv till he comes home.
9. I have been having intense uh...um..."erotic" dreams for the last 4 days. They make no sense and are so far-out that I'm embarrassed even thinking about them, but I've woken up out of breath every morning, it's ridiculous.
10. I think I'm going to add some more crazy things about me to my "Idiosyncrasies" blog page. I've been noticing some kooky stuff about myself lately and I'm curious to know if anyone else is like me.
11. I'm sick of charting my damn temperature every morning. Ah, the joys of trying to conceive.
12. The husband and I are going to Mexico in February with my in-laws and I'm actually starting to get excited about it now. We got new flippers especially for this trip - man I love snorkeling.
13. Because our server was down all day, I filed everything I could possibly file, made all the phone calls I could possibly make, took all the breaks I could possibly take, cleaned as much as I could possibly clean...well you get the idea. So this afternoon I sat and read a book published by the Associated Press about proper punctuation. And I'm such a nut that I found it extremely interesting and am excited to finish it tomorrow.
14. Wow, this post is really lame - any of you that normally read my blog are probably considering not reading it any more. Please do, I promise to try to be more exciting!
Did anyone miss me? Besides Logziella I mean? I'm sorry that I haven't been posting, yesterday was Thanksgiving in Canada and I was down at the parents for many dinners, tight wastebands and chilly nights. But I'm back now and will just give you all a quick rundown via some pictures of all that went on this weekend. To the left, my 14 year-old brother and the husband play catch with the football to try and work off some of one of our turkey dinners.
My favourite cousin Krista relaxing on the loveseat at Grandma's house, Oh God...we ate so much food!
This is my mother-in-law cutting up the second of our turkeys. She made this enormous 21 pound bird for only 5 people! Seems kind of crazy - especially when my Grandma only cooked an 11 pounder for 10 of us the day before!
We decided to drive the 3 hours back to the city this morning rather than when we were all sleepy last night. This morning's sunrise was beautiful - I took about 15 pictures of it - but the colours in this one were my favourite.
Today was a really miserable day - after that gorgeous sunrise the clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped. Then a couple hours later it actually started to snow! Even for Canada, that's crazy!
I am soooooo not prepared for snow yet - I haven't even had a chance to fully appreciate fall yet!
Anyways, it was a great weekend; I'm thankful for many things, especially my family! Hope you all had a good one!
Once upon a time I loved to draw and sketch and do all things creative. In the past year or so I've become so consumed with other things that I've pushed my love of drawing away. One of the guys at work draws in his spare time, and when I say draws, I mean he draws. This guy is absolutely amazing (although he thinks his stuff is crap) and I only wish I had half of his talent. Zig is also quite creative, and quite talented, and I know that he likes to paint. I've seen pictures of some of the stuff he's done and it's fantastic. Painting is just something that I've never been able to pick up - I've tried a few times but for some reason it just doesn't "happen" for me. Obviously (obvious because of my career, not my blog), writing and words are a big part of my creative flow. It's ridiculous how excited I get when writing either for a job or for myself, it's a great outlet. But drawing is just something that I love. I'm definitely not the best at it, but it feels great to see the finished product. Faces are my thing - I can't draw a scenery picture to save my life, but I enjoy the details of people's faces. Someone's face can tell a lot about them. I think I need to make some time for myself and my creative side to come back through. As much as I love my job, you can only think about paginations and editorial so much before you crave a different creative outlet.
Whew...I actually forgot to blog today (uh yesterday now, I guess). The husband is working nights so when he left I watched my 2 Thursday night shows (Thursday and Sunday are my tv nights) then sat my ass at the computer to do a pagination I've been putting off for a week. While doing that I was also on the phone, downloading music, burning seven cd's and of course singing at the top of my lungs. It's 2 in the morning, I'm going for a shower and then hitting the sack. Goodnight to anyone who might still be awake!
Last night when my husband came home he was a little miffed because his beloved car Biff had almost overheated on the way. He told me that he needed a new thermostat and that they were cheap and that he would pick one up today and could change it himself. Fine...I questioned him the whole way to work this morning (he drove me in my car) because I was paranoid that he didn't really know how to change it himself. He assured that it would be fine, he knew what to do. Later today he called me and told me that he had changed the thermostat and that it was fine. But appartently that was not the problem. He said that the radiator hose was split and that there was anti-freeze leaking all over the place. Of course I freaked, thinking how are we going to pay for that, we are totally broke (as per usual), and how are we going to get the car to a garage to get it changed in the first place. The husband reassured me by saying "We have CAA, I'm going to Walmart to buy the part cheap, and I'm going to call Tony (his uncle that works at a dealership not far from us) to see if he can give me a hand doing it or arrange to take it to his garage." As soon as we hung up the phone, I, of course, went on the internet to get instructions on how to do it ourselves, called my dad to make sure that it was an easy operation, then called the husband back to tell him not to do anything till I got home and I would help him. I said that if we couldn't do it together then we'd figure out a way to pay for the garage to do it. So he picked me up from work today, we went to the chiropractor to get cracked, came home and changed our clothes and grabbed the tool box (my tool box actually, and yes, I do have my very own) and headed out to operate on poor Biff. We did all that we could but poor Mr. Hose has passed on and has been replaced by a new spiffier version. My husband had a particularly hard time saying goodbye (as you can see, he shed quite a few tears) but I think that in time he'll be able to get over the loss and embrace Mr. Hose's replacement, Mr. Hoser.
You know, it's ridiculous that I'm late everyday. I mean as soon as I'm late once, then I'll be late to that job for the rest of my life. Not really late, but 5 or 10 minutes for sure. And every morning I get up with the intention of leaving just a little earlier - sometimes I even set my alarm for earlier so that I'll be ready to go ahead of time. But the strange thing is that no matter how much earlier I get up, the later I manage to be. Verrrrrrrryyyyyy curious. So this morning was no exception - I left late. I was half way to work (about 15 minutes down the road) when I realized that all the work I had taken home to do last night was still sitting on my living room floor. Doh!
So when I got my files I stopped for a really super, duper cool photo shoot in my car so that you could get the full impression of just how ticked off and then relieved I was.
Whew, that was close - glad I've got what I need now!
Then I continued on my merry way for a very busy day at work.
Note: This is a particularly mushy, gushy, girly, lovey post. Now that you've been warned, read on...if you dare.
The husband is one of those great guys...the kind that would do anything for you, or make you smile by doing the most ridiculous things. I've complained about him in the past, and I'm sure I'll do it in the future (how boring would a marriage be if there wasn't any fireworks?) but today was just one of those days that made me appreciate him for being him. Let me go back in time about 15 years....I was eleven years old and in grade six. I went to a Catholic school in a nearby town and had to take the bus to school. One morning as we were picking up one of the kids I saw this boy walking down the road to the public school. He was dressed head to toe in neon pink (that was when fluorescent was very in), had a gold hoop earring and had this wave of blond hair in the front that made hime look like a surfer. Instantly I was in love. My best friend (the Bahama Mama) went to the public school and I remember asking her about that boy when I got home from school that night. She told me his name was Chris and that he had just moved to town. The district track and field meet was the next week and my school travelled to theirs with all the other schools to compete in the event. The day was almost over and I went into the school with my friend to get her stuff and he was walking down the hall towards us listening to a yellow walkman. My friend waved him over and said "Chris, this is my friend Ali" and he said "Hey" and walked by. On the walk home I told my best friend that I was going to marry him someday. The summer came and went, I saw him occasionally around town, but we never talked (he was 13, thus way cooler) but I still maintained my huge crush on him. The next two years passed by in a blur, he was in high school and I was doing grade 7 and 8 of elementary. In September of 1994 I started high school (grade 9) at the public school; Chris was in grade 11. Getting to see him everyday just made me think he was even cuter. I remember one day I was standing at my friend's locker and he was there waiting for his classroom to be unlocked and he was drinking a pop. He pulled the tab off the pop can and gave it to me. I don't even think he said anything - but I still have that pop tab in a box of stuff somewhere. Anyways, he was friends with one of the guys that lived across the street from me and they were always outside playing football so I would make a point of always being in the front yard when they were around. That year, Chris got his drivers permit and it seemed like he would go by my house a hundred times a day, so of course I was outside even more. (He later confessed to me that they would drive down my street and turn around at the end to drive by the other way.) We started "going out" on October 8th, 1994 when I was 14 and he was 16. I wasn't allowed to date until I was 16 so we kept it a secret until I was 15 or so. Then I found out my mom new, so I confessed it to her one night, and had a big talk with my dad and convinced them that I was ready to date. We had the occasional break-up along the way, which would last for a month or so (and which I always caused) but it always came back to the fact that I knew he was the one for me. Even though I was so young, I knew that I didn't want to be with anyone else. (Sounds soooooo gay, I know.) I graduated from college in 2000 and moved from North Bay, Ontario to Calgary, Alberta where he was and we got an apartment. We got married on June 30th, 2001. Whew...now fast forward to present day. I love that man more now than I ever have - and it makes me smile when I think back to me telling my friend 15 years ago that we were going to be married some day, and we are. What are the chances? I was watching him today, suffering through the heat (he's always hot and I'm always cold) with his t-shirt and his sweats pulled up to his knees to cool off. Thinking I love his skinny, but very muscly legs, I love that he "gets me", even when I'm having some sort of incoherent meltdown, that he knows that when I need to work he needs to go into the bedroom to quietly watch the football game, that when I freak out at him for something silly he always manages to make me laugh and realize how dumb I'm being. That he always trusts me when I tell him that he should try cutting his hair a different way, or that those jeans would look really good on him, or that on his days off he'll get up early to drive me to work and pick me up later, and that he'll also bring me lunch on those days if I ask. He'll go pick me up cream at 10 at night if I'm mad because there isn't any for my morning coffee (even though there is mild I could use), that he's so obsessive compulsive about keeping the car clean even though our house is a disaster, that he will always answer the door when we order takeout because I have some sort of phobia of doing it myself. It's days like these when he goes out of his way to do things for me, or make me dinner, or help me hang up laundry, that make me love him even more. Plus, it doesn't hurt matters that he's not too hard on the eyes. Wink, wink. I love you shy.
I’m a lover and a fighter. I’m extremely curious. I hunger for knowledge, but I’m hopelessly lazy. I have dreams nearly beyond the scope of imagination. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I adore curse words. I’m easy to read, yet amazingly complicated. Next to my daughter, belly laughs are the highlight of my day.
Essentially I’m a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, rolled in make-believe, dipped in immaturity, and sprinkled with sarcasm.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you are probably aware that today is Halloween.
