Replay perfection

The last time my laptop crashed, I decided not to install any music downloading software. This was a pretty painful decision, since I used to listen to music constantly, but it seems to have helped with keeping my laptop going (that, and a fan I bought to put underneath). So I've been relying on youtube whenever I get the itch to listen to music; I find a song and usually play it on repeat for about an hour (it drives Keith CRAZY). But this song sums up my attitude these days perfectly; it started playing and I spontaneously started singing along to it.



Go on, have a listen - I dare you not to sing along too!

(Not-So) Wordless Wednesday

• Found out via Facebook that Tim Wojna's killer was found guilty. Relieved doesn't even begin to cover the array of emotions I'm feeling right now. Mostly, I just miss him.
• I beat my weight-loss goal this week by a pound. Total loss over five months? 35 pounds. Go me!
• Just went to put my laundry in. Kay, in our laundrymat, we have two double load front-loaders, and the rest are just regular old washers. Both were clearly showing they had two dollars owing to them to make them work - so I start loading one up. Naturally. And then this old lady with an incredibly thick accent comes over and quite loudly says "I PUT MONEY IN THAT, THAT'S MINE!" No, no you didn't, lady, it says - 2.00$. If you put money in it, it wouldn't say that. Asshat.
• My mother arrives this afternoon. Hilariousness will ensure, I am sure. /sarcasm.
• The elevator smells like hot garbage.
• I'm effing hungry. And lazy. Someone come make me lunch. Or buy. I'm not picky.
• Sigh.

Rewards

For the past eight weeks, I've been a standstill, weight-wise. I'd lose up to 2.5 pounds just to gain it all back the following week. Lose, gain. Lose, gain. Part of that was going back onto food, and owing the gym 226$ (since fixed and now going semi-regularly), but now it's mostly just fustration and lack of motivation from the lack of success. I realize I need some concrete goals tied to when I hit specific amounts of weight, so I've been thinking -

On Tuesday, if I lose what I gained last week, plus another half pound (2.5 to be exact), I get new headphones for my mp3 player.

When I reach 270, I'll treat myself to a mani/pedi.

Reach 240, and I will get my hair professionally cut, dyed/highlighted, blown-out, etc. etc.

Reach 200/180, and I will treat myself to Lululemon pants. I'm kinda drooling right now thinking about them, to be honest! (The reason for 200/180 is that I'm not sure I'll actually FIT into Lululemon pants at 200, so we'll see.)

Reach 150 and I will get my make-up professionally done and learn how to take care of my skin and do my makeup properly. Also will invest in some quality makeup/skin care stuff, as well as contact lenses.

And when I reach my goal weight, which is around 140 to 135, OR if I maintain 150 successfully and happily for 6 months, then I'll buy myself a violin. And lessons for 6 to 12 months, depending on cost. (I have no idea what my 'ideal' weight is because I've been heavy for so fricking long; it might be 150, it might be 135, or it might be anywhere in between - I won't know until I get there, really. )

I'm also giving myself around 14-15 months to complete this, but I'm not going to beat myself up if I'm not 135 by that time. As long as I'm working towards the end goal, if October 2010 rolls around and I'm higher than that, I won't really give a shit. The main reason for that is I want to be as close to my "ideal/goal" weight as possible when it's time to go dress shopping (and I don't think I need to get into all the reasons for that line of thinking, I'm pretty sure you can figure it out), but pffft. Dress shopping can be pushed back a month or two (or six).

I like that pretty much all these rewards have something to do with making myself look better. I haven't liked how I've looked for a really long time now and I think by celebrating my new self by improving other cosmetic aspects (hair, nails, pants that make your ass look delectable) is such a great thing to do. And, as I move from student into young professional, probably necessary as well. The violin thing is because I've wanted one for a long time and I miss playing so much that I think it should be my end goal.

So what do you think? If you're on the weight-loss train, what goals have you set for yourself that work? Have you achieved any of them?

Why do these things exist? WHY?

Cleaning out the second bedroom has yielded some treasures, let me tell you.

Treasures like this book;

Why! That sounds promising, let's just open it up and take a gander, shall we?

Cripes! First off, who's bright idea was it to stick random roses on that girls dress? Did they think it would make it look better??! And secondly, ANYONE who makes someone wear something that hideous to be a part of their wedding party SHOULD BE SHOT. No questions asked. Seriously. That is the mother of all butt-bows, that is. Yuech.

And then there's this gem:

Seriously, Keith? SERIOUSLY? I can't believe you spent money on this. And if you got it for free, I'd re-think your friendship with them. Whoever gave it to you needs their lobotomy reversed.

But the best one is a board game (and I use that term very, very, very loosely here) called French Kiss. Check what's written on the back:

Be prepared for the sexual act? Your sexuality will be in extasy? What.The.Hell?? First off, ecstasy is spelled wrong, and um, be prepared for the sexual act??? I'm surprised the game didn't come with a sheath of condoms.

And then you open the baby up, and WOW, IT'S MICHAEL JACKSON! Nice celebrity endorsement there, although anything endorsed by him should have normal people running for the hills, in my opinion. And he's next to an .... ostrich?! Wha? What do ostriches have to with ANY part of the "sexual act"? Unless you're into that sort of thing, and in that case I think you should be looking in the yellow pages for a licensed therapist, not playing an "erotic" boardgame. Just sayin'.

And I don't know about you guys, but a random coloured strip of practically naked baby cherubs dancing around does NOT do it for me. What a horribly inappropriate thing to have on something like this!! WHAT CRACK ARE THESE GAME DESIGNERS SMOKING???

Needless to say, all the items mentioned above WILL be donated to poor unlucky Value Village sometime in the near future. Even if Keith wants to keep them. There is absolutely no effing way I am having them in the house. NO EFFING WAY.

In which I talk about an issue you're supposed to pretend doesn't exist -

Money.

Ugh. Even the word is making me cringe. We're in that awful last month, where my student loans are so tantalizingly close to being disbursed and all the money from the last student loan is gone. The part-time job I got three weeks ago is a huge help in keeping us afloat right now but we're still definitely feeling the squeeze.

Case in point; within the next two pays, we have to find the money to pay for Keith's part-time course for the fall semester. These courses aren't cheap! Five hundred and some change a pop. Geesh. However, it's a super necessary expense, absolutely non-negotiable. Five hundred has to be found, and paid, and that's it.

Ideally it would be the next pay, but the next pay is technically rent. You know how they say your housing costs should not be more than 30% of your net income? Yeah. Right. Excuse me while I laugh. We don't live outside our means; we just don't make enough. I go to school full-time and work part-time, Keith works full-time and goes to school part-time. There's not much else we can do. (And I am, in NO way, saying we live in a fancy place. We don't. We actually live surrounded by a pretty bad area of town; our "pocket" is nice, but that's it. Renting in Ottawa is INCREDIBLY expensive.)

Add to the mix that paydays are wonky for the next little bit - as in, next payday is August 21st. Rent? Due Sept 1st. Payday after that? You guessed it. The fourth. Sigh. OF COURSE. And the fact that we're in a loop for payday loans right now adds to the stress.

On the 21st, we will not be paying rent. We will write a self-cheque for the amount on the 30th, put it in the bank account, and keep writing cheques until the payday on the 4th. On the 21st, we will be paying back the payday loan, the gym cheque, Keith's course, some groceries, and gas money for Keith's parents. That's all we can afford right now. The Rogers bill will go unpaid, as much as I hate doing that. Oh well. There's really nothing you can do if you don't have the money.

We can't afford to even go to the movies, or dinner out, because if we do, then we're scrambling for money for the next three pays. Yes, we go on "vacations" and trips home (and in all honesty, I've been home twice with Keith, 2 weekend-trips, and one week-long one. In a year and a half), but those are carefully planned, budgeted excursions. I think you'd all agree everyone deserves a little R&R. So please, no judgment.

It absolutely SUCKS living like this. I won't lie; the big draw to me to start working in a professional career when I graduate as opposed to going to University for another 3 years is the money. I'm so tired of struggling. I dream of the day we can pay bills and rent with ease. I dream of the day we can look at our bank accounts and have money left over for saving. I dream of the day we don't have to resort to a payday loan, cheques don't bounce, and we don't have to resort to writing ourselves cheques to cover rent.

Sigh. It'll get better; it has to. Some day.

Frozen boobies will occur

The past few days I've been feeling the cleaning bug and getting a few apartment projects that I've been wanting/needing to do since I first moved in. A year ago.

I finally got tired of waiting around for Keith to feel it too and decided I would think of myself as "single" in order to get these projects done. As in, if I lived alone, these would be done already, so stop waiting on the other half to help. That sounded a lot worse than I intended it to, but sometimes that mentality helps. It sure does in this case.

Basically there are three things that need to get done; cleaning out the hall closet, cleaning and re-organizing what we affectionately call "The second bedroom", and putting the damn shelves up.

I cleaned out the hall closet yesterday and donated a whole black garbage bag of jackets, mitts/scarves/toques and other assorted items that were left over from K's ex. I was expecting it to be a whole lot worse than it was; it turned out to be a quick hour (or two) job. I don't even know why I waited a full year to even look at it. And now it's all organized and cleaned and PRETTY.

The second bedroom is a bit more of a challenge; its probably going to take me two or three days to get it done - really it's an onsite storage closet that has served as a catch-all for EVERYTHING over the years. There's a small freezer in there as well as a couple of deep wall shelves and two shelving units with doors with floor space left over, but we have so much on the floor that you can't really use any of the storage stuff. The shelving units used to be used as extra pantry space, but honestly? There's candy in there thats 4 years old. (Aside: Does anyone know if canned spaghetti sauce goes bad? Gatorade?) The freezer runs off the lightswitch; guess who turned out the lightswitch for months unknowingly? Yeah. NOT looking forward to opening that baby up and seeing the damage.

And then there's just STUFF. STUFF that's piled to the ceiling and Keith hasn't used in years and just really needs to be thrown out/donated. Am expecting some resistance to this, because Keith, as it turns out, is a fucking pack-rat. Doesn't want to throw out ANYTHING. Even if he hasn't used in the 2 years I've known him, and I can't see a situation where he would, ever, HE WILL NOT PART WITH IT. Which explains why I'm facing this predicament right now, doesn't it?

The shelves. Ah, the shelves. The f%&@king shelves. A YEAR AGO, I said, let's take them down. A YEAR AGO, I said, lets spray paint them red. And then winter happened. And I said, let's do a second coat. IN MAY.
They are now sitting in my living room, have been since JUNE, and they are mocking me in all their reddish glory. They need to be put up, they need to be put up NOW. And then I will ignore them for the rest of existence (or until we move).

Oh, TMI, but it has to be said: Do not lean over to reach the bottom of the freezer (which, incidentally, has a giant candy cane stuck to the bottom - those don't go bad, do they?) while not wearing a shirt. Frozen boobies will occur.

Who DOES that?

Who has class at 10am every single Thursday for four months, and yet on the last Thursday of the semester (on which day they had to be the judge in a mock trial presentation) thinks class starts at noon?

WHO DOES THAT!? WHO?

Me, apparently.

My idiocy astounds me sometimes. I don't even understand where the "class starts at noon today" thought came from - as I said before, it's been ten am EVERY SINGLE THURSDAY. FOR FOUR MONTHS. And yet, suddenly, I thought today started at noon. FOR SOME UNEXPLAINABLE REASON.

This is just proof I will NEVER work in a civil law firm. I am a flake. An incredibly unreliable flake. I feel so incredibly stupid - and rightly so. I don't even really want to tell my teammates the reason I missed the presentation today, because the excuse is just that lame. Seriously. "The dog ate my homework" is a better excuse than, "I am incredibly stupid and flaky and I totally blanked on when class starts even though its been THE SAME TIME EVERY SINGLE THURSDAY FOR THE PAST FOUR MONTHS."

SERIOUSLY, WHO DOES SOMETHING LIKE THAT?

how I'm going to do this in 'real life' is a mystery

getting up at 6:30am sucks. Sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks sucks. To make it worse, Keith gets up with me and today he is singing. Singing! WHAT THE EFFING HELL?!

It's day 9 in a row of me having to wake up at 6:30, and if you haven't guessed, YES I'M CRABBY. Grrrrr. And somehow I am incapable of going to bed before midnight. Don't know exactly how it happens, but every night despite my best intentions, midnight rolls around and I'm still awake. Such a pissoff.

I figure that if you get up and you have no e-mails waiting, ITS TOO EARLY. Way, way, WAY too early.

And it's not ending any time soon - I have class all week and then Saturday I work at 7, meaning I have to get up even earlier. AS IF THAT WERE POSSIBLE.

Last Month Crunch *squeeze*

Hey guys! Reporting to you from the trenches of "the last month crunch". Papers are flying thick around here and we're right in the middle of the action. WOW! This is intense! Now, shiny teeth and hair person, back to you in the studio. I'm Sarah XXX, CollegeNews.

Ha. All joking aside, it's been an intense week and I still have two and a half weeks to go until basically the end of the semester. I kid you not, this week I have had 5 different projects due and next week I have the same amount to slough through. Since I work better when I concentrate on one project at a time, that's a project a day to finish. And since my English credit is only 5 weeks long (well, 2 and a half by this point), she assigns something each day to be done for the next class. Pretty intensive course.

Of course, I'm crazy, so I got a part-time job last week and now I'm trying to fit in training on a day-to-day basis until I get on the schedule. Ugh.

Anyway. I had an oral presentation to do for English today and I was so nervous and stressed about it because the topic was "How I got here". (How to tell it's full of immigrants....Really? You couldn't?).
So I did it about my, um, housing challenged period. It actually went super well! The prof actually called it "profound" and wants a copy of my powerpoint slides. Nice. And a couple people came up to me after class and congratulated me on having the courage to present something like that, etc. One girl actually gave me a little piece of paper with all the comments/marks she had given me (we were peer evaluating each other) and told me I was the only one she had given 40/40 to. Nice!
She wrote: "Profound/moving! Well presented! Awesome! Awe-inspiring! Emotional with fantastic use of slides! Took a lot of courage! Educational and informative!"
(yes, she put an exclamation point after everything. It sounds! so peppy! and upbeat! OMGZZZ! Like, really!)

ANYWAY. Just thought I'd come here to brag, cuz ya know, I'm klassy like that. And now that my head is sufficiently blown up from all this ego-stroking, I shall go back to drafting a f#%king bill of costs. Yippeeeeeeee.

new project

Just a quick note to say that I've started a new project. Because clearly, I don't waste enough time in a day.

The basic gist of it is that it's a story-telling blog for the Legacy Challenge in Sims3. You create a Sim with humble beginnings, and then through 10 generations try to lead them to fame, fortune and success.

The most obvious rules:
Can't cheat (obviously)
Can't pick your traits for your Sims, other than the Founder.

Both those are hard rules for me to follow. I usually move my Sims into a house, and then give them 50k to afford the best stuff. And, I never let my Sims have "bad" traits, like Klepto or Insane. I much prefer them to have characteristics such as Brave, or Athletic, or whatever.

Also, the house thing. I've NEVER built one in all my time playing the Sims (2 & 3), nor have I ever done any kind of story-telling within game either. So those are definitely going to be challenges as well.

Anyway, if you want to check it out, it's called The Wisk Legacy.

I can't promise it'll be as good as The Broxton Legacy and it definitely won't be as good as Alice & Kev: A tale of being homeless in Sims3, but I'll try my best!

(Housekeeping note: the blog layout and style is still very much under construction. Thanks!)

Feel free to laugh, I sure am

This post is a part of 20SB’s Looking Back Blog Carnival, and Ben & Jerry’s is awarding free ice cream to lucky bloggers and readers. For more info, check it out here.

So this is from the very first month I started blogging - I was 15 and living at home and I had a boyfriend named Chris who lived 45 min away from me (oh, gotta love Huron-Perth county!) and holy CRAP, does that ever feel like a lifetime ago. Oh, and about the Shakespeare thing? Yeah, we didn't have to write it in iambic pentameter - I did that just for kicks. I'm kinda geeky like that.

Tuesday, December 10, 2002
I was pretty much paid the biggest compliment
of my life yesterday. And no, it didn't come from Chris. Or my mother. Or any family member, for that matter.
It came from my English teacher. I borrowed the movie we were watching in class
because I missed three classes last week, and she really needed it back yesterday, on Monday. So of course I bring it, and she went "Some people
you just count on to not screw up."
Also, today, we had to pick a topic for our culiminating task for Much Ado
About Nothing. I picked the "in-voice" journal....and I
couldn't really decide who I was going to do it on. So finally I picked Beatrice, and Ms.Kappler was like "I was kinda hoping you'd pick that person." I go..."Why?" Ms. Kappler "Because she's an excellent choice for
you....gutsy and independent" (She's right, ya know.....you gotta be gutsy
to be goin out with a guy like Chris!!....heehee, mwa, I love you sweetie)
Anyway.....anyone EVER try to write in iambic pentameter?! Stupid, stupid
Shakespeare!
Btw, how is getting everything right on a questionnaire about your boyfriend scary? So I pay attention! I'm smart for a reason, people! On that thread of
thought, why haven't I gotten that back about me? hmmmm Chris? O yea, had a very interesting conversation with Erica last night.....::frowns::..
They put too much chlorine in the pool. I swam 2 and a half hours last night and an hour and a half this morning, so my shoulders and face are burning and really itchy. URGH!!! I feel horrible. Ok, an OFSSA time for a 50 free is a
:30.25 Right now my time stands at a :35. If I achieve an OFSSA time, then I
will probably be going to Western Regions, which is a double whammy. And if I
get my time down to a :28 I'm a likely candidate for Provincials. But thats not really going to happen. At least not this year anyway. Yesterday I had choir practice at my church for like 2 hours. I get to sing soprano this year but I was trying to hit this extremely high note and falling flat almost every time.
It was so fustrating, because I'm supposed to be a good singer and able to hit
that note and I just couldn't do that last night.
My poetry blog is up and running....its called Jardin Des Reves and the
address is www.jardindesreves.blogspot.com. I have a link in this blog but since
my links are currently white, they aren't showing up. By tomorrow I should have
a new poem posted. Go check it out if you want. (Tomorrow, of course)
Chris, one piece of advice. When you write something and are finished with
it, just go Shift+Ctrl+S. That'll publish it. Another thing, at the
beginning of each post, go < font color= and type in this six
digit/letter code. 9999FF... > This will make your posts blue....which is
what you want!!

Bebe

Absolutely delicious, decidedly nutritious....

You guys, I have food in my fridge. Real, honest to goodness yummy nummy FOOD.

For three months, all our fridge had in it was diet pop, a jug of water, and a few condiments.

Now we have diet pop, water, condiments, and THIS:You have NO IDEA how excited this makes me.

Oh! And wanna see my dinner? I swear - I never thought I could eat like this AND ENJOY IT.

Basically, that's a quarter cup of whole wheat pasta, 1 cup of tomato sauce, 3 oz of extra lean ground beef, 2 cups of chopped red, yellow & green peppers, a stalk of celery and one green onion with a side of 2 cups of steamed carrots, green & yellow beans with, of course, a diet pop to drink.

Doesn't that look amazing??!

AND, believe it or not, in about an hour (because man am I STUFFED!) I can have half a cup of low-fat frozen yoghurt with 2 cups of strawberries for dessert. Nom nom nom.

it's friday, I'm not required to think

Got this from Kelly. Mwah.

1. What is your current obsession? Sims3. And looking at my very pretty sparkly ring!!

2. What is your weirdest obsession? Collecting different versions of Monopoly. So far we have 3.

3. What do you see outside your window? Straight out: the other highrise in our complex, trees, buildings, blue sky and a highway. If I look down I can see the parking lot, grass and the pool.

4. What is your favourite colour? Yellow, Orange, Red, Silver, Blue.

5. What is your weakness? Books. Gah.

6. What animal would you be? GROUNDHOG! haha. Seriously, wtf?

7. What would you like to learn how to do? Be patient.

8. What do you want to never happen in life? Not sure.

9. What is on your bedside table? My rhiny horno, table lamp, phone, Dsi, book, a couple stray elastics & bobbypins, ring box, purple pen, a tub of mango body butter, two remotes, probably a couple of empty Sprite Zeros.

10. What's the last thing you bought? Little Pink Slips by Sally Koslow.

11. What do you think about the person who tagged you? I worry about her - she doesn't seem to be in a good headspace lately.

12. What was your favorite children's book? The classics - Hungry Caterpillar, Goodnight Moon, Love You Forever, etc.

13. Who do you want to meet in person? Keith's siblings! Damn them living on the other side of the country!

14. What did you want to be as a child? Writer/Journalist/Lawyer.

15. What did you dream about last night? I didn't.

16. Which do you prefer, day or night? Anytime I'm not tired.

17. What's your favourite piece of clothing in your closet? It's a tossup between my enormous black hoody that I've worn everyday (or close to it) since getting it last October, and my new purple tank top with lace at the top.

18. What's your plan for tomorrow? Finish nitpicky things on assignment, class, submit assignment, pay bills, look at my pretty ring, buy food for Elvis, play Sims3, read a book, play Dsi, listen to country music, take a nap & go to bed late. My life is hard eh?

19. What would you like to get your hands on right now? A RIDICULOUSLY ENORMOUS WAD OF CASH.

20. What is your must-have of the moment? My phone. Where the HELL is it?

21. What's your favourite tea flavour? Sugar. And milk.

22. If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go? Europe.

Are you blind?

The whole story really starts at about 4pm on Thursday....I was napping and all I heard was "Hi sweetie, I'm home." He then kissed my head and announced, "and now I'm off to school." In my half-awake state, I thought this was really weird as he usually has an hour or so between work and school, but it didn't stop me from sleeping another hour.

I got up at 5 and checked my bank account - and I saw the transaction from the jeweller (my account has the higher POS limit) and I immediately screamed and got very, very shaky. And then I was half-mad at myself for looking; but really? That's me. It's not that I hate surprises, it's that I'm so impatient that surprises never last long around me.

This was at five. Keith had school until at least 9:30. The next four hours passed by agonizingly slowly - although Keith called me twice, emailed me once, and we had a mini-conversation on Facebook about my status. I also thought that weird, because we're adults - we CAN go 4 hours without speaking to one another, believe it or not. I just chalked it up to him getting a new cell phone the day before.

The next part of the story is really, really embarrassing. He got home at 9:30, like usual. I actually started patting him down looking for the ring! (I can't believe I did that!) Needless to say, I didn't find it - and he explained the transaction away by saying they had made a mistake and the ring wasn't quite ready, but since he was there he just paid off the remaining balance. (He really knows how to deal with me, huh?)

Ahem.

My mood immediately went from nervous excitement to, well, I think you can imagine. I was disappointed, and yet chiding myself because it was silly to be disappointed - I wasn't even supposed to know! I was really tired at this point (about 11) so I decided to call it an early night. I went to bed and finished reading July's issue of Cosmo. I'd like to note here that he had me totally convinced that he didn't have the ring yet.

Keith followed me into bed and we just did normal stuff - watching TV, playing on the Dsi, talking - you know, just stuff. Then we started cuddling and slightly making out, which was really nice since we haven't done that in awhile. I was laying on his chest when he remarked "Are you blind? There was something on my desk the entire time."

I sat up and gulped while my stomach did a nervous flipflop. "What?" I asked. I'm not going to lie, it honestly felt like he was lunging at me while his hand came out from underneath his pillow and suddenlythere was this object in my face. It took me a few seconds to realize what that object was and it was as if his voice was coming from very, very far away - "Will you marry me?"

It was the most surreal experience of my LIFE. I managed to choke out a yes (obviously), but it felt like everything was like when they dub something and its a little off - his mouth was moving but I didn't hear them until a few seconds later. So surreal.

The wedding won't be for a couple of years yet. We've both decided that the focus right now is on our schooling and - let's be honest here - neither us nor our respective parents are in a financial position to host a wedding.

But that's okay, honestly. Just knowing I will marry him (and that it's official) someday is enough.

life-changing

I'M ENGAGED!!!!

I'll tell you the story in a day or two. Right now I want to just savour what happened.

(oh, and PLEASE click to enlarge, these don't do it nearly enough justice)

bang bang

• I LOVE unexpected money. In all forms! Like unexpected cheques, a bill for half the amount you planned on, or even just a kind salesperson that says they'll waive the connection fee for both cellphones.
• Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons. Sigh. "Walk Like A Man," "Big Girls Don't Cry," "Beggin'," "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," "Who Loves You, Pretty Baby?" "Swearing To God," "Oh! What a Night," "Grease," "My Eyes Adored You," are all on instant replay in this household.
• Getting very, very fustrated with this whole losing a half pound to a pound a week thing. Although it did take 9 years to put on, so perspective & patience are needed.
• I don't think my Mom will EVER stop working. I mean it. On her vacation this summer, she's headed to China to teach ESL for a month. WORKING. On her VACATION. Intense.
• I can't believe its nearly been two years for Keith and I. Every day I look at him and feel so, so incredibly lucky.
• Our trip was great. We really did tons - Ontario Science Centre, BlueJays game, CN Tower, the Zoo, Jersey Boys, ROM, Casa Loma. We were complimentarily upgraded to a queen suite, which was massive - 430sq ft. I got a wicked sunburn, a huge blister on the bottom of my foot and won a full game of Trivial Pursuit. I wore very impractical shoes and then limped very painfully through 3 hours at the zoo and 3 hours at the CN Tower on Friday, and at Casa Loma climbed so many stairs that until yesterday my legs felt amputated from the thighs.

(see that tower? Yeah. Climbed that to the top. Ouch).

(Favourite room in the entire castle - The Observatory)

gems

new trick

We're packed and counting down the hours until we leave. The one thing I absolutely HATE is having to put Molly in the kennel when we go away, so a couple of nights before, she gets absolutely spoiled with treats and cuddles. I'll miss her so incredibly much :(





(For those interested: weight loss: 3.5 pounds, 1 inch. Totals: 28 pounds, 5 inches)

new & old

Meet my new sexy phone:

It's a Blackberry Pearl Flip 8820
in PINK. (it's okay to be jealous)

My new toy; the game I got for it was Brain Age 2.

And because you haven't seen them in awhile (and they're still incredibly cute):

Can I start packing yet?

Keith's on vacation for the next week and we're off to Toronto in 3 days! Keith and I are SO excited - the last trip we took was in November for his birthday. It was a loooong winter, let me tell you. Sheesh.

The day after we get there, my bestest friend is coming down from Blyth to spend two days with us and oh, I can't WAIT to see her. And on Saturday, my mom is driving from London (after a teachers conference, no less!) to spend a day with us. Mom & I are going to see Jersey Boys on Saturday night and then the three of us are going to the ROM on Sunday morning/afternoon. I haven't seen my mom since Thanksgiving. That's WAY too long, if you ask me. But the trip to Stratford - Ottawa takes a day (literally) and its hard to find the money & time; it's not like you can just 'pop up' there for a weekend.

Because of my diet there's some logisitics to the trip that I've never had to think about before - like realizing last night that we have to bring along dish soap. DISH SOAP. How weird is that? But I need something to clean my shakers out every day.

Other than that there's just the usual to do before we leave anywhere - namely make sure the house is clean and the laundry is done. Which I should be doing now instead of typing this. Ahem.

Trip:
Thursday: Peggy arrives 8:10am at Union Station, then Hockey Hall of Fame, Ontario Science Centre and CN Tower (at night).
Friday: Toronto Zoo! Peggy leaves at 10pm *sad face*
Saturday: Jays Game at 1pm, Mom arrives at 5pm, show at 8.
Sunday: Checkout at 11am, ROM for afternoon, then catching the Greyhound at 6:30. Get into Ottawa at midnight.
Monday: Keith calls in sick? Maybe?