Sweet Symphony of Spring

Earth Day inspired post

2009-04-23T08:54:00.003-04:00

As I've been exploring my career options and choices, I've noticed a lot of push to the new "green" way of life, which I think is excellent. My father has always been fairly environmentally friendly and I think I inherited some of that from him. One place they have really started to look at the way they have been doing this is my targeted industry for my career, construction. In speaking with a local architect, one of the most important things for all members of the industry is to gain Leed AP certification. This is a rating system designed to rate buildings on their sustainability and impact on the environment and is quickly becoming the industry standard. I think it's impressive that the industry is now starting to take responsibility for the way we have been building for the last 100 + years.

The area that I think is really interesting is working to make current buildings (particularly homes) more energy efficient and self sustainable. The government has lots of incentives to improve your homes energy efficiency, money towards buying new toilets and other appliances, rebates on buying solar energy, wind and geothermal systems for your home, and free energy saving items from union gas. I've been considering attempting to open my own business to consult with home owners on what they could be doing to improve their home environment and of course do the drawings for work required, but that seems like a huge undertaking at this point, so maybe in a few years.

First real day of spring!!

2009-04-18T13:40:00.002-04:00

I'm so excited, I just got back from my first outside run of the year!! It's a glorious day here in S.W. Ontario!! My little illness is gone, however most of my friends are sick so there will be no going out to play soccer like I had hoped, but it was a beautiful day for a run - and I just had to comment about it.

It's also really nice patio weather - so hopefull I'll be able to enjoy that fun past time in the next few days also!!

Feeling under the weather

2009-04-16T12:36:00.002-04:00

Well I've finally come to accept the fact that I am a big whiner when I'm sick. For the past two days my stomach has felt a little off and all I can do is sit here and moan about it. Yesterday I did absolutely nothing, just lied on the couch and watched some movies, in the hopes that what ever was in my system, would get out. Unfortunately, hings didn't work out the way I planned. I woke up this morning feeling much better, but as I started to get going on my day, the good feeling didn't stay. I forced my self to get up and do the errons I was to finish yesterday, then went to the gym. By the time I finished my work out, my tummy was still grumbly and started to get worse. Both yesterday and today have been beautiful days here in Kitchener, and I had been planning all week to go for my first out door run of the season yesterday. Today I tried to make myself do it but all I could do was walk around the block as my tummy just kept rumbling.

The thing that worry's me the most about my little illness is that a) nothing helps, lying down doesn't make it better, walking, standing sitting - no, no, no! Taking antacid medication and asprin also don't make a difference. And b) I have absolutely no desire to eat!! What the heck is that all about. It's not that eating makes it any worse, but I just don't want to eat and I can always eat!!

Here's hoping this thing gets out of me, soon!!

Small things amuse small minds...

2009-04-13T17:11:00.002-04:00

It's been almost 2 years since I wrote in my blog - but I figured, now is a good a time as any to start again! I've been out of work for the last month, and there are only so many video games you can play on your computer. Of course I should be applying to positions, or getting up the courage to do these new exciting informational interviews!! (can you feel the sarcasm) But I seem to be so much better and putting it off...

I have been trying to figure out the reason for not keeping up with my blog and I think the best thing that I can come up with, is that life just got in the way. There are so many things that I feel I should be doing in life, yet somehow, I still don't do them. But I also couldn't believe I had been writing on it for a year and then gave up. I've never been one to keep up these sort of things though. When ever I tried to do a diary as a child, I would write for about a week or two and then forget about it. Maybe it's just not my thing. But maybe i'll be able to write something once in a while and it will help me work though stuff as I go. We'll see how it all works out...

Delayed update on the Raptors game

2007-04-03T00:18:00.000-04:00

It's like I almost forgot to write about the game... I think i will blame it on Facebook, I'm addicted... it's bad, but there are so many people on line... anyway
The game was really cool. We had a hard time finding our seats. We got to the ACC a little late so the game was pretty much started when we were looking for our seats and we couldn't hear the directions anyone was giving us.. but we made it eventually. They were box seats that Andrew won from work so we had a nice place to keep our bags and jackets and we hung out there a bit at half time but our server was kind of snotty. You could tell she wasn't impressed that we weren't going to spend a tonne of money but she'll get over it. It was a lot different then I expected. I assumed that all boxes were up higher but had a view right onto the court/field / ice, what ever you happened to be attending, but these ones were around the corner from the actual game but it was still very cool. The atmosphere was very, for lack of a better word, crazy. They really encourage ADD at these games, there's always something going on. Even when the game is on they are playing really loud music, not just when there is a stop in play like at hockey games, but during the game and there is dancers off in the corner, more people coaxing you to be jumping up and down in your seat, and of course the mascot running around encouraging you to Cheer. They game we went to see, Steven Cobegale was there to taunt raptor so it was fun to watch the two of them goof around. Raptor actually tacked Steven at one point and I thought it was hilarious!!!
So anyway the raptors won and it was a good game to watch, Chris Bosch is AMAZING!! I was smart and parked at Yorkdale and took the subway to and from the ACC, saved a lot of frustration in traffic, but it was still a sea of people walking to the subway station.
So that is my game update... just for all you facebook folks, I've put pictures from my England trip up on my page, it was way easier then flicker, so go take a look at em!

My how time flys

2007-03-20T21:37:00.000-04:00

I realized the other day it's been quite a while since I last blog ed, but what exactly have I been doing that I haven't been able to take a half hour a week just to jot something down. I can't even say I've been working on my scrapbook of my trip, or organizing my pictures, because I haven't. I know it took me a good week to get back into the swing of things. I was pretty much useless at work for that whole first week I was back. That weekend I had some funny bug thing and wasn't feeling well and last week, well last week just flew by me apparently.
So what has happened in the last three weeks, well I did get my scrapbook started, got to see my parents and siblings, my mom also came down to KW to visit me and we did some shopping and I also got to visit some friends.
I have also had to deal with a lot of soccer crap, we thought we had the team settled then the "captain" changed everything that had been discussed so we've now decided to create our own team and that way we get to play with who we want to which will be good. It's really been more of a hassle for Andrew then for me but I have had to deal with a bit of it to so it has taken up my time also.
This past weekend I went out in London for the first time since I moved to KW a year and a half ago. I went to a pub to watch my friend play in his band and ran into some people I used to work with so that was fun. My friend Steph, her boyfriend Jer (the people who came with me to the bar) also went to check out Jer's old band in downtown London. Steph and I used to go to the same bar every Friday night to watch the guys play. It was fun to see them again! We didn't get back to Steph and Jer's house till about 3 which both Steph and I were amazed at since we are such old ladies and used to going to bed at about 10 at night. We had a really good time though!!
In work news I'm switching departments again, and going to the Housewares side of the world as of April 1st. I'm a little nervous because it's a much bigger department then my tiny bath one but also all the stock that comes in to the department is VERY heavy, but at least I'll be getting good work out.
Some more exciting news, Andrew won tickets from work to a Raptors game tomorrow night. We have to rush after he's done work (I'm off for the day) to get to the game on time but we get to sit in the Manulife VIP box seats which will be and interesting experience for sure, even thought neither of us are really in t Basketball. I'm sure we'll have a good time though!!
I'll update you all on the excitement of the game on the weekend!!

Coming back... to a big storm!

2007-03-02T15:39:00.000-05:00

I'm back, I made it safe and sound!
It was a very good trip but it was nice to be home and sleep in my own bed, use my own shower and have clean clothes!!!!
It was very different atmosphere at the Gatwick Airport as compared to Pearson. It could have been the simple fact that we left Toronto at 11pm and I was tring to leave London at 10 in the morning, but there was a half hour line up to get thought the pre-boarding screening. The Duty Free Shop is pretty different too though. It was like a huge mall in London where as in Toronto it was a bunch of little stores and they were all seperated and you had a ways to walk between them. One constistant thing is how over priced everything is in the airport. I paid one pound 35 pence for a 750ml bottle of water that in the city cost me one pound and in some small towns I could pick it up for 75p!
I had a small scare just before I got on the plane, as I was walking, taking my time and enjoying the scenery, to board my plane, i looked up at one of the screens and somehow it had already got to last boarding call even thought it was 45 min away. Of course I don't know how it works and figured they could easily leave without me which would so not be cool. I tried to rush but of course at that time all the old people in the world decided they should be walking slowly in front of me. I made it on to the plane and didn't have to rush at all becase we even held up for 10 extra minutes, waiting for other passengers.
I ended up sharing a 3 seat section with just one other lady so we both had alot of space. It was a very comfortable flight and i got some sleep in between watching "Stranger then Fiction" the first inflight movie. I even ended up crying at it and felt like a big losser but anyway.
When we landed the weather looked like CRAP. There was snow all over the terminal, from what I could see anyway, I was hunching myself over and trying to plug my ears because i get really bad pain when landing because of the air pressure.
I was out of customs and everything by 2 and give my friend Caity a call cus she was picking me up at the air port. She had Andrew with her and they had left Kitchener at 1:15 and when I talked to them they were just in Guelph, it took them an hour and a half to get out of the city!!
I spent the next four hours just waiting at the airport. It was interesting for the first bit, but them people started geting on my nerves. I tried to move around a bit so I could get annoyed by different people every 5 min instead of listening to the same person over and over again.
They finally made it at 6 and we headed back on to the 401. We took a break at Dixie road and almost decied to stay over night because we didn't want another 5 hour drive but after our stop it was much better.
It was very weird to come back to all this snow... this is what my car looked like.
Not fun after not having to deal with snow for two weeks... aw well welcome to CANADA!

I've also uploaded some of my pictures on to Flickr but haven't really taken time to organize them or anything yet... but it's a preview for you.
I'm not sure how to have the link set up but here is the website if you want to take a peek
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7144587@N02/

My Trip Comes to an End

2007-02-28T11:57:00.000-05:00

It's already my last day here in England, I can't believe how fast the time has gone by. With only 10 days to see a whole lot of stuff, it doesn’t leave a lot of time for blogging. Fortunately I’ve been able to check my e-mail every few days and keep up with stuff to a certain extent but I haven't really had time to sit down and write a post. Today however, it's bitterly cold in Liverpool and raining off and on. The wind is what is really the kicker thought so we've decided to come inside to warm up for an hour or so. And since the library offers free internet access, what the hell!
We've been really lucky with the weather. It's only really rained for 3 days of our trip. We had two maybe even three days of sun and the rest of the time it's been like spring back in Canada. We've stayed at some very interesting hostels, from a scummy only vet centre to a gorgeous Victorian house that was beautifully re-modelled, to a fairly new conference centre offering all sorts of amenities. I've taken pictures of them all and will post some when I get home.
We've also seem some really cool sites, from the big cities of London and Liverpool (which is quite a bit larger then you think, I could easily have filled 3 days here) To the great outdoors of Wales and their two biggest national parks, Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons and all kinds of little towns in between.
I'm pretty sure I’ve also heard every possible variation of the English accent during the last few days. The London accent, we had a Scottish tour guide on our 3 day tour of Wales where we obviously heard some welsh accents as well as the ancient Celtic language itself. Also on that tour were quite a few Australians and Americans which gives another wide spectrum of the language and now the Liverpoolan which ties with Welsh for the most difficult to understand!
I've also noticed some other differences between Canadian Culture and the British culture but I’ve made a whole list of them and plan to do a separate post all together.
Well till I get back home,
Cheers

Waiting it out

2007-02-19T18:36:00.000-05:00

So it's 6:30 on Monday Feb 19th and I'm about to leave for the airport on my trip to England. It's been a really long day. I tend to be very impatient, especially when I have something really exciting to look forward to. I've kept myself busy for the day so I'm pretty impressed with my self and my house is clean for when I come back, what a treat.
I would like to say thanks to everyone for all your well wishes on my trip and I'll try to write a post while I'm gone but for sure when I come back with pictures and all!!
I would also just like to mention how AWESOME my brother Rob is. He committed to driving Dianne and I to the airport as of Saturday, such short notice and didn't even hesitate. He is an awesome brother for sure. I would also like to say that my friend Catiy is also awesome because she offered to come pick me up at the airport.
Alright well my brother and Dianne should be here any minute so I'm off...

My First Real Vacation is Almost Here!!

2007-02-16T19:22:00.000-05:00

My first real vacation is just around the corner. I can't believe how fast it has come. My last post I wrote about finally finding a backpack I could use for my trip and I had to pay for it. Boo to that I say. The next day i was talking to a lady and work and she said her daughters both had a bigger backpack they had used when they went to England so I could borrow one if I wanted. Since that was a way cheaper option, I was all over it, just think of how many pints I can have with that saved 120 dollars!
My most recent challenge has involved finding a carry on bag that can double as a day pack but also be carried with the backpack. Who knew this would be so darn difficult, but I think i found one that will suffice. It's not the most comfortable when combined with the backpack but it will do. There is plenty of room for all my stuff that I would need for day trips which is very exciting!
I've also been exploring options on how to get to the airport. I was all set to drive myself when my friend Caity, offered to pick me up when I get back.... mmm again saving myself 80 bucks... more Pints!!! So now I'm calling in some favors to see if i can get a ride there. My bro has said he could probably do it and my parents are still a possibility but they are out of the country until the day before I leave so it's a little sketchy but we'll see.
I've now even have all my stuff packed and taken my bags for a trial run to see how heavy they are. Andrew has been pestering me to do this forever now it seems and I'm really glad I didn't listen to him before now because I feel like i should be going to get on the plane tomorrow!!! I'm afraid the next 3 days are going to go so slowly that it will be painfully. I feel the worst could be tomorrow as it is my last day of work before 2 whole weeks off!

And the countdown is on!

2007-02-06T21:05:00.000-05:00

So here we are down to 12 days till i leave for England and i've finally gotten my act together. I know what shoes i'm bringing with me. We have hostels booked, our trip basically maped out, our bus tour booked, picked up my plane ticket today, get my passport on Friday and after 3 hours of driving all over Kitchener/ Waterloo and Cambridge, I finally found an affordable, travel backpack. Leave it to me to procrastinate for so long, but it's taken care of. I've been looking around for the last few months to see if i could find anything but decided yesterday, being my day off would be the day to take care of it. I spent some time surfing on the net trying to find some good luggage stores, to no avail, and hiking stores for the right kind of equipment. I went to about 4 stores yesterday with no luck and went to, I swear, every other possible place I could think of today until I made it to the Hiking store just down the road from me tonight at 7ish and found a decent pack for 120 bucks. After researching on the net last night I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find anything for less then 200 which I couldn't justify spending on something I would probably only use once. So luckily I found this pack and think it will work and I’ll be able to use it in the future also.
My parents gave me some extra money so I decided that I would splurge and buy a digital camera. After two weeks of looking around and researching on the internet to see what I actually wanted I found one tonight too. So needless to say my brand new credit card was very well used today. Next on the trip list is figuring out what all I need to bring and to make sure I can handle carrying it all on my back. That's Friday's project!

And the votes are finally in, the 6 weird things about me are...

2007-01-24T23:45:00.000-05:00

I was tagged at the beginning of December to write 6 weird things about myself. I was very excited to post it because it seems very fun. I started writing my reply right away and now I've finally come up with the 6th and final (at least for this list) weird thing about me. Here it goes...

1) when I was younger, I assumed there were little people (kinda like the Fragels from that show in the 80's) that were living inside electronic devices like computers and TV's. They would make the decisions on what would go on inside these devices and when they got made at each other, there would be fuzz on your tv. Very elaborate I know, I was a creative kid.

2) When I'm doing something monotonous, like unpacking boxes at work, or cutting up food, I count the number of steps it takes me to complete the task. Like all four stokes of cutting a box open, how many steps it takes to get the merchandise out of the box or how many cuts I make in the food. I don't keep track of these numbers or use them to try to improve. It's just something for my brain to do.

3) I hate smoking, I think it's disgusting habit and was so happy when the cities in Ontario passed bylaws to omit smoking from public places. It meant I could go to the bar and come home and not have to have a shower before going to bed because I smelt like an ashtray. However, recently, I've noticed that when someone lights up a fresh cigarette, I really enjoy the smell. It brings back childhood memories or something and makes me think of my dad, who has smoked my whole life. Whenever I smell it, I think of him. Even though I believe he really should quit!!

4) I love to eat!! Food is sooo good to me. But I hate cooking, cleaning up after cooking and grocery shopping to get food. I also don't enjoy eating out all that much because the food is never just the way you want it. So I'm really not sure how IÂm supposed to get food into me to eat. I also like things neat and tidy but don't want to be the one to clean them up, even though I live alone and I'm the one who made the mess...Maybee it's really that I'm just lazy

5) This one was pointed out to me by Andrew recently. The more I do, the more energy I have, the less I do, the more lethargic I get. ItÂs typically bad when I have a day or even worse a weekend off and I end up hanging out with Andrew where we really donÂt do anything all weekend. I still feel incredibly tired and lethargic on Monday when I go back to work. ItÂs a really bad routine to get into. You would think a nice lazy day or two would give way to a refreshed person, but no, not I.

6)When I make hot chocolate, I boil water and pour my mug 3/4 of the way full with boiling water, then add the chocolate powder, then fill the mug the last 1/4 with cold milk. I do this for 2 reasons, one to cool the drink down because I'm a big wimp and don't like really hot drinks and two, because with just water it's really thin, and I like me hot chocolate to have more supstance, like when you buy it at Starbucks or Second Cup.

Since most of my friends have already been tagged, and the rest either don't read my blog, or blog themselves very often, I'm going to tag, Matt; www.vernhout.net, Tasha; huladreams.blogspot.com and Rachel; koetsier-gang.blogspot.com
and we'll see what happens

I hate it when...

2007-01-18T16:53:00.000-05:00

I hate it when your driving by yourself and some lady walks by wearing a light Pink faux fur coat that looks like it belogs on a 4 year old. Stuff like that is just not as funny when there is no one else to laugh about it with you.
I also hate it when you realize you were wearing your warm up pants backwards when you walked into a sports store... Yeah me :)

Holidays part 3

2007-01-10T19:40:00.000-05:00

I can't really remember what I was going to write about in my supposed 3rd holiday post. I did work on boxing day which was nutso. I forgot how much shoppers attitudes change in that day they can't be shopping. They go from being normal, all be it a bit demanding and sometimes up tight, but neat and tidy at least. To tearing everything apart, and throwing everything on the floor. Not to mention not willing to pay more then $5 for any one item. The actual week between Christmas and New Years was far more stressful and annoying then the 2 months leading up to Christmas. It's funny to because I really do forget that every year. Luckily that week is a short one, I only ended up working for 3 days, but I think that is part of the problem because you can't get anything accomplished. I should have actually worked 4 days also but was sick on New Years Eve day. I wasn't to worried about calling in sick because we all figured it would be dead at the stores be we were very wrong. Apparently there was something very crutial to the New Years Party at Linens n' Things.
So I spent my New Years Eve Day in bed hoping to allow my self to at least me social for some of the night. It worked to some extent. I had a good time and was able to participate in the Wii playing we did as a group as well as the drinking but I also slept most of New Years Day away and still really don't fell like I've totally kicked the illness... uggg... Very frustrating!

So now that I'm caught up I'll share with you my fun day today. Today was the day I finally got my Passport together. I had gone down to the office last week but meet up with a co-worker and was told that the line was 2 hours long. However if I filled out the form online, I could be rushed to the front of the line and avoid waiting that long. I came home and tried to fill out the form which I wrote about last week but really to no avail. Since the guarantor still has to sign that form and all the people I know who are eligible to do so live near my parents, I opted not to take the drive back and suck up the waiting. I prepared myself today, had my book with me and a bottle of water and got to the office around 11. A lot of people had told me that I should go as early as a good to avoid waiting as much but I really needed to sleep and didn't have much else I needed to do today so I figured I would stick it out. When I got through the pre check they said it would be about an hour to an hour and a half. I was 100 numbers down. I waited patiently, in the same seat, which is amazing for me, for over 2 hours, finally got to the front of the line, to find out that the pictures that I had were no good because you could see my teeth. No, not that I had smiled or even really opened my mouth, but the way my lips were, there was a tiny gap and you could see the tiniest bit of my teeth. So of course I'm a little frustrated with myself. I've been sitting with everything ready since September but just never bother to make it enough of a priority to set something else aside and make sure I had the money to cover it. Now I'm rushing at the last minute to get this taken care of. Another bad stroke for procrastination. So luckily I was given a special paper which allowed me to skip to the front of the line when I came back with new pictures. I went back to my car, where I found a parking ticket! Guess while I was waiting, I should have come down and added money to the meter considering I only had enough change for 20 min. I headed to the mall near by, grabbed some grub and got my second pictures taken. I got back to the passport office, payed an extra 10 bucks and am guaranteed to get my passport delivered there on the 9th of February, 10 days before my flight... thank god.
So the though part is over and now it's back to the fun part of planning. I have the weekend off so I should be able to finish reading my Britain book and decided where I really really want to go. Sunday I'm going to meet with my traveling partner Dianne and were are going to make some decisions and do some booking!!

Holidays... part 2

2007-01-07T21:51:00.000-05:00

Working in retail at Christmas time tends to be stressful as you can imagine. It's not very often that you get your days off placed together but this year I got lucky. I ended up with the 23rd, 24th and 25th off, which is pretty darn cool. The only unfortunate part is that I have to work boxing day, which it turns out I would rather have the two days off and not work boxing day, but that just means I have to smarter next year and book it off ahead of time.
Most people in retail find that on the 24th your brain and body take an early leave of absence, because you've been working so fast and hard for so long, you can see then end and you start to give up before it's really here. Well since I didn't work the 24th, mine came a little earlier, around 5 on the 23rd, which isn't bad except that I had to work until 10... opps. I was expecting a really busy day so I was ferociously trying to get things done before the big rush. When it never came, and I realized it wasn't going to come, I pretty much gave up, even though I still had stuff to do. I paid for it on Boxing day but i'm still not convinced that anything I actually would have done would have helped me, but it's one of those live and learn things.
As for my days off they were quite nice, peaceful, laid back and full of good food, fun people and lots of drinks. On the 23rd I meet up with my old high school friends, had a fun 'tacky gift exchange" which kept us laughing for quite some time. Caught up with everyone and had a few to many drinks. Even pass out on the ride home... ahh back to the good old days.
The 24th was much the same, went to mass, hung out with my family at the neighbours place and again had to much to drink, but this time stumbled home instead of riding in a vehicle.

Christmas Day is a very exciting day for me, usually one of my favourites of the year. I love going to church and seeing all decorated for the holidays. Relaxing and hanging out with my family all day, and the present thing isn’t so bad either. This year I was very nervous for most of the day. It was the first time I was to meet Andrew’s parents after dating for almost 9 months. He had been feeding me horror stories for the last 3 or 4 months on how his parents would behave. Yelling while guests are present, not necessarily because of anger but this is how they discuss things they’ve even gone as far as throwing dishes at each other while other people were present and of course, my favourite, at some point his mother would take me in a room by ourselves and talk about sex… I still can’t wrap my head around it. I was comforted by the fact that his older brother and his brother’s girlfriend would be present to take some of the tension away from me

Needless to say for the entire drive I was very nervous, probably talking to my self for the whole trip! When I arrived I was visible nervous and even repeated my name twice but that was the worst scenario of the whole evening. Andrew took me on a quick tour of the house so I managed to get myself back together. We had some very interesting conversations, mostly his mother, father and brother all trying to talk to me at the same time. And yes they are really loud and opinionated, but I kind of expected that, because that is how Andrew is. I had to bite my tongue when his father was teasing his brother for being so opinionated, when I know for sure is father is the same way. But we got thought the conversation, Andrew and I even took a nice little walk before dinner to work up an appetite. Dinner was delicious and even managed to not spill on myself!!! We watched a bit of football after we eat, then the weather turned kind of sketchy so I ended up staying the night and leaving for work in the morning. I was very happy to have everything go over so well and I’ll think I’ll be able to handle any odd questions that come my way after getting the worst part over with. Plus I know they like me so life is good.

I will publish yet another Holiday edition with details of New Years later in the week.

As an update for the passport, it’s still not completed, turns out what I did on the internet was just filling out the form so I’ll still have to go to the office and wait in line….blahhh!! Thanks for the reminder Christielli, I’ll remember to bring something to do with me

Passport... what a pain

2007-01-04T22:46:00.000-05:00

So as you may have previously read, I am going to England in Febuary. Well who know that my trip is already only 6 weeks away!! I had my passport all filled out and ready to go back in September, but some how I kept putting it off and now it has to be done pronto!!!
I went to the passport office on Wednessday, all ready to get everything set up and ran into a girl I work with who was on her way out and informed me that the line up was about 2 hours long! however, there was a woman who had done all her info on the internet before hand and got to skip over the line. I have tried the internet option before but for some reason, it wouldn't accept my browser or some other crazy thing so I figured I would just do it the old fashion way. I decided it would be worth my while to go back home and try the internet option again, as opposed to waiting in a two hour line up. I've been working on it for an hour now and it has been quite a pain in the a**, however, much less then waiting in line because I at least got caught up on my blog reading. I've now finished all my blog reading and am still running into a few little glitches so I thought I would set up a quick post while I was waiting.
Damn internet... I swear, for something so advanced it can be so retarded!!
Anyway I'm hoping to post tomorrow with another Holiday segment, this one will entail the actually days off for Christmas, including the meeting of the bf's parents... very riviting!!

What good excuse can I come up with this time

2006-12-30T10:25:00.000-05:00

So it's obvious that I've been terrible at posting again. This time I choose to blame it on sickness! I would say that I would make a new years resolution to write more but I don't really believe in them and therefore it would really work! I caught some sort of evil cold on Christmas Day (that is one reason it is evil... what kind of sickness shows up on Christmas Day) and I haven't been able to kick it. Usually I'll sleep for a day or so and it will go away but this time I had 2 days off and slept, drank lots of fluids and all around rested but it's now worse then it was Thursday night when I proclaimed to be getting better. So there has been quite a bit of on goings in my life over the last few weeks so I'm going to do some posting in installments.. Basically in chronological order, but just really far behind.
So the first installment will talk about something that I was really afraid of and nervous for for a very long time... Andrew finally meet my parents, and I finally meet his, but that will be another installment. Way back on the 17th my mom and dad had my dad's sister and their kids over for the "McLaughlin family Christmas" We really don't see this part of our family very often and it was strange that asked to get together. They are kind of antisocial and choose not to see us with the exception of once a year.. if that. Since Andrew had been proclaiming illness for about a month and using it as an excuse not to meet my parents we decided that he was going to have to come to their house with me so they didn't develop a complex that he didn't want to meet them or something to that effect. So we got there around 3 sat down and drank some beer and started chatting. The evening went very well. My mom, in the middle of dinner, attempted to "interrogate" Andrew but couldn't really come up with any good questions. She didn't even scare me!! She later claimed it was because my brother had made fun of her so she was afraid to ask any questions ect. But we had a very lovely evening. My siblings, Andrew and I went downstairs and played pool on the newly re-finished pool table and he got to chat with all 3 of them plus get a break from the boring adults.
At then end of the evening we get in the car and before I can even close the car door, he says to me... "Your family is awesome... but your aunt and uncle and their kids... are weird!" I laughed have the way home. This comment is only funny to the people who actually know my aunt and uncle, but none the less, it is funny. Plus it gives you an idea of his overall reaction of the evening...

9 shopping days till Christmas

2006-12-15T20:03:00.000-05:00

So it's here, that last big weekend before Christmas starts. At my store we're all assuming that next weekend people will have already started celebrating and not doing to much shopping. I have 6 working days left then I'm off for 3 which will be really nice. I haven't had more then two days off in a row in a while so it will be good to enjoy some time off!!
P.S. I got taged this week for a post, six weird things about me, and I'm still working on it. Can't figure out the sixth. Next week for sure!!

GOALLLLLL!!!

2006-12-04T23:19:00.000-05:00

So I played forward for the first time in a real soccer game and I scored a goal!!! I almost had 2 other ones too!!! I was so excited it has caused me to blog twice in one day after a very long dry spell!!!
I'm so excited I can't sleep... or maybe it's the fact that I ran for a full hour, hard to say...

By the way, my mom voted for Rheo's over Barrs. We had tried them last year, but I couldn't remember the outcome, good thing I have her around!!

Jingle Bells, batman smells, you know the song.

2006-12-04T20:22:00.000-05:00

I haven't thought of that song in a very long time, until it came on over the PA system at work the other day. One of the other mangers and I were complaining about the Christmas music they were playing on the satellite system at the store, and now in every store. It was weird because two weeks ago Friday, I left for the weekend and there was no Christmas music, I came back on the Monday and it was all about Christmas. But not only had we started it but so had everyone else. I guess we passed the day and it was suddenly acceptable, and man was it EVERYWHERE!! So back to my batman version of Jingle Bells, we were complaining because there are no original Christmas songs, it's the same six songs over and over again all day, just different people singing it and adding their own pizzazz if you could call it that. Some of them seriously sound like the singer is on Coke or some crazy thing. It used to be bad in that we would hear the same song day in and day out some times twice in one day, but now it's the same song over and over and over again. Trust me in a 10 hour day you hear Jingle Bells quite a few times. So we were working away and all the sudden the Barenaked Ladies version of Jingle Bells came in and it was the version you used to sing in the playground in elementary school, the whole thing!! Let me tell you, it was a nice break from the sappy slow crap we've been constantly hearing, BLAH!
So truly I am excited about the Christmas season. I really do enjoy Christmas. I take great pride in finding the perfect gift for everyone on my list. I love seeing someone open something they really wanted and never expected to get it, least of all from me. Currently I have 2 people I can not crack and it's driving me nuts. Any unusually gift suggestions would be welcome; I just need Ideas and don't have much time to go shopping, since I hate doing it with to many people around.
I also need opinions from Stratford people, which is better chocolate, Rheo Thompsons or Barrs Chocolates... Got to give the standard chocolate to the chocoholics...
Enjoy your Christmas shopping folks!

You don't know how much you miss it until it is gone

2006-10-31T00:55:00.000-05:00

I’ve been in a bloging dry spell for quite some time. I haven’t even been able to keep up with friends’ blogs and see how they are doing. What have I been up to, you ask? Well, that is part of the problem, I don’t know. I haven’t been doing anything different then when I was able to blog once or twice a week. I’m still playing soccer once a week, I’m stil working my crazy 47 and a half hours every week and I’m still making it to the gym 3 or 4 times a week. My schedule is essentially the same as it was all summer, and yet somehow, I have much less time and for a lot of things. My house hasn’t been cleaned in so long I don’t remember what my floor looks like, I haven’t seen much of my friends, my e-mails are piling up and I’m ALWAYS tired! I’m not sure what it is, but every year around this time, I feel like I lose 3 extra hours out of every day. Okay maybe it’s only an hour but still. I don’t understand where those 7 hours a week go. I get up at the same time, I go to bed at the same time and yet they just totally disappear. If anyone has any idea how I could find these hours, could you please let me know!

Days off are just not long enough

2006-10-11T21:14:00.000-04:00

Inventory is done and over but I'm still feeling very stressed at work. I was talking to our new manager over the phone today and we both agree that there really isn't a team atphmosphere in the store and I think that is a big part of why I'm so frustrated at work right now. Needless to say I was really looking forward to today as it was my day off, even though I was just off Monday. I was really excited for today because I had decided I was going to reorganize my room! Tu, my roomate since May moved out last week so I had a whole empty room again, so I decied to put my computer back in the room and make it my little office. I finally got ride of my old hunk of junk of a computer and have so much room on my desk now it's fantastic. I'm sure i'll fill it up with junk in no time but at least the space is there. My bedroom is also much roomier now as I don't have the desk in the room taking up all that space. Ya more room to thorough my clothes on the ground!!!

After I got my rooms all set up, I spent most of my day goofing around. By the end of my shift last night, my feet were killing me so I decided it was time to get some new work shoes, 6 months of 50 hours a week is alot for a pair of shoes. At the gym today I realized I also hadn't bought a new pair of running shoes in almost two years and there were starting to look pretty worn. I spent about 4 hours shopping for new shoes and finally found a pair of runners for both work and the gym at the same place. All and all it was a good day, just not long enough, I didn't really get to relax all that much, and now i'm trying to prepare my christmas list because before you know it.. that will be here too.

And the heat is on!!

2006-09-27T23:24:00.001-04:00

So it's 7 days till inventory day and I'm still no where near ready for it.... OH YEAH. The good news is that I'm not nearly as stressed as I was. There are plans in place to get thing rolling and I'm confident I can get my shit together. It also helps that we have 7 people in from other stores helping out and unlimited payroll to make sure we are good to go.
I've meet the new manger this week and I'm very excited to work with her. She has been with the company for quite some time and knows a lot, plus she actually does work!! So we should be able to turn things around really well!!! I'm a little concerned that there is going to be a lot of girlie bitching and bullshit but hopefully I can work past that crap.
We also had a visit from the head honco of the Canadian Operations today and it went pretty well considering. He did permit the junior managers to work up to 60 hours as opposed to only the 47.5 and that we are scheduled to so that will help out a lot with the work load. He also managed to get the truck that was to be delivered to us tomorrow canceled so that is also exciting... Yeah to big dudes with power!!!

I don't know what to do with myself!!!

2006-09-25T02:23:00.000-04:00

It's official, I'm stressed!!! I just got back from work and I have so much stuff to do that I can't go to sleep. I had to work and "overnight" shift, which is really more of a late night shift, in order to rearrange one of my rooms. The move itself went well, however I didn't realize how much left over stuff there was going to be that, in theory, isn't susposed to be in my store anymore because it's not on my plans. The more likely situation is that the dumbasses in Jersery, where our head office is, forgot to take it all into account. So after we had finished moving everything around and cleaning up the mess we had created, I left instructions for the girls who were working in the morning. Again the Jackasses in Jersey (that has a real ring to it) are screwing me over and sending us 3 trucks this week so I was trying to help them out with the new merchandise that was coming in. My note when something like this; new quilts, ask Jenn, New bed programs, ask Jenn. Ad merchandise that has to stay off the floor, ask Jenn. So essentially I'm just going to let my manager handle everything because I'm so stressed, I don't know where to start. I was thinking about it on my way home and this is way to early to be stressed out. Usually I feel like this around the middle of November which is understandable because of the time frame and so on, but I'm in for a really tough Christmas season if I'm already freaking out....

This is the song that never ends... it goes on and on my friends

2006-09-21T22:52:00.000-04:00

So I had to cut my self short on my title because I really could go on forever. The reason I picked this title is because this has felt like the week that will never end. I had this past weekend off and spent most of it relaxing and being lazy which was very nice. But since tuesday I've been thinking that the next day should be Friday because that is my other day off this week... not that I can afford to be losing that kind of time in my life because there is just soooo much to do, but let me tell you I really need a day off!! We are coming into the 4th quater which is obviously the busyiest time of year in the retail buz. Of course we are getting bombarded with stock. We just got in a new sheet program and I recieved 500 cases of sheets in the last two days that all have to be opened and processed and then I have the fun challenge of finding a home for it all, it a very small store by any standards. In fact, the cases are still filling up the majority of my sales floor space... soo not good. To top it all off, our company has also decied that it would be smart to have physical inventory in the begining of October... yeah, someone should be fired for that decision!!!! So needless to say I'm having my end of the week drink, right now!
We had an interesting chain of events today. The store that i'm now working at, the GM is not a well liked person. He can be very dificult to work with, very self centered and obnoxious but gets nothing done and is in no way supportive. In fact, a few weeks ago when I was staring at a room full of stock, that I had no home for, he said to me... "don't worry, it only gets worse from here!"... mmm thanks for the help Jacka**! Long story short, we were informed today that he is no longer working for the company. We're not sure if he quit or got fired, but really it dosen't matter because he's gone and we should be getting someone to replace him in the next week or so... could be an interesting time!!!

And the lesson for the day, teamwork!

2006-09-09T21:21:00.000-04:00

So I think someone, somewhere, is trying to tell me that I need to learn how to improve my teamwork skills or find a way to influence others to work together. Last night we had the worst soccer game of my life! The team almost literally imploded! There were at least 3 players who wanted to walk off the field, myself being one of them. It wasn't so much that we played horribly, my skill level wasn't up to par, and there were a few others who weren't playing their best games but it was more the issue that we weren't playing together. There was about 6 mini games going on the field but it was all with in our team. It was really disgusting. There were points that we were just yelling at each other which really doesn't help with the team building aspect of things. And then their were the stupid, fundamental mistakes, like passing back with in your own end when your constantly getting beat by the offence to the ball, all the passing going into spaces that were closer to the opposition then to our own team mates which obviously meant that we lost a lot of chances. But the fact that we fought with in our selves for 90% of the game made it the most frustrating of all.
This is not the only area of my life where I am finding team work an issue. I was just recently transferred in my job to a new store, where on the management team of 7 there seems to be 2 who push the other 5's buttons to the point that they don't even bother trying to help out the team members that the do like. It also makes for a really frustrating environment, and I'm having a hard time rising above it, and keeping positive. I'm finding myself getting really involved in gossip and being worried about the actions of others instead of only dealing with what I have to worry about. So maybe that is the real lesson, keeping myself from getting involved in the gossip and other bull that I really don't care about.

Today is the day!

2006-09-08T10:02:00.000-04:00

I've decied, no more procrastination!!! I've been "meaning" to clean my house for a few weeks now but keep putting it off for one reason or another. Well today is the day I say, and my roomate got me off to a good start, he had yesterday off and cleaned up the kitchen, now I just have to scrub the floors in there and then I can reorganize my room. It'll be soooo nice to get things organized, since I feel like I'm currently living in KAYOS. I would really like to get my old desktop computer out of here, but I have no idea what to do with it, can you just trash them. I would think it could be of some use to someone, but whom? I think i will have to do some reasearch on this!!!

Update, still procrastinating!! Didn't get the kitchen floors scrubed, but I did get my room reorganized, more of an organized kayos...

Small things amuse small minds!

2006-08-31T21:01:00.000-04:00

I'm so excited!! I just got back from booking the flight for my vacation in Feburary. I still don't have my passport yet, I still have no idea where i'm going but my flight is booked. This means i'm offically going and that is damn exciting! I've even figured out exactuly what day's i'm taking off work, and i'm going in tomorrow to book them off... I can't believe how excited I am over something that cost so much and is still far away!!

How sad is it when your younger sister can drink you under the table

2006-08-30T12:45:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling pressure from my friend Joanna to increase the blog posting as she as just started a blog as well and has quite a few posts up. Today I choose to write about my sister's 19th birthday.

I am the oldest of four kids; with two brothers and one sister and 8 years between me and her as the youngest. Way back when, when i first found out my mom was pregnant again, I was so excited at the prospect of finally getting a sister as I had been putting up with two boys for what felt like a very long time. When she was finally born, I was still very excited and she was an adorable child. I even got to help name her. Those fellings lasted for about 3 years. Between the time she was 4 till she was 10 I was very annoyed with her, at all times! She had the tendancy to be very clingy and I can remember spefic times when my friends, or even some of my brothers' friends, would come over and she would maul them, quite literlaly. I found it irritating and hard to handle. But after I moved out, and went to college, I saw her less frequently so she got on my nerves that much less, but I still never really considered her a friend. Over the last year or so, I feel like we've both really grown up and become more and more like friends. I even went out with her for her 19th birthday this past Sunday. When she asked me a few weeks ago if her and her friends could come down to Waterloo and stay the night if they went out, I assumed i would just stay home as I had to work the next day rather earily , and don't do well on little sleep. (it's amazing how bad it gets when you get older) Anyway things got changed around and I ended up with Monday off so I decided I would tag along with them and having a good time.
It took us a while, but we finally decided where to go, as it was a sunday night and we figured we'd be limited in options so we thought we would start at a pub, grab some food and then wander around downtown waterloo and see what else was open. At every place we hit she would drink more and more, by the end of the night, we had gone to 5 bars, she had had 10 drinks and 5 shots and was still a very reasonable drunk. She claimed she could walk stright but i think that was pushing it a bit. Still no falling down, no passing out and no vomitting, even despite the praire fire, jajermister and the goldshlager shots I bought her. But at the very least, she had a really good time. The final bar we hit was a slimy little country with, you guessed it, Karokee. Her and one of her friends got up and sang a few songs, they even made friends with a group of guys that were there and ended up singing and dancing with them for a few songs too. We were able to get out of there, the whole group in tack and happy!!

Happy Birthday Jan

and the answer is.....

2006-08-28T18:18:00.000-04:00

Sorry this took me so long guys... but better late then never.
There are a few answers that I would contest but hey, it's all in good fun.

1. The one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants

know the score or the leader until the contest ends....boxing

2. The North American landmark constantly moving backward...NiagaraFalls. (The rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it every minute.)

3. The only two vegetables that can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons....asparagus and rhubarb.

4. The only sport in which the ball is always in possession of the team on defense, and the offensive team can score without touching the ball....baseball.

5. The fruit with its seeds on the outside...strawberry.

6. How did the pear get inside the brandy bottle? It grew inside the bottle. The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small, and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stems.

7. Three English words beginning with dw...dwarf, dwell, and dwindle.

8. Fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar..period, comma,colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses.

9. The original lakes referred to in Lakers...in Minnesota. The teamwas originally known as the Minneapolis Lakers, and kept the name when they moved west.

10. The seven ways a baseball player can legally reach first base without getting a hit...taking a base on balls (a walk), batter hit by a pitch, passed ball, catcher interference, catcher drops third strike, fielder's choice, and being designated as a pinch-runner.

11. The only vegetable or fruit never sold frozen, canned, processed,cooked, or in any other form but fresh...lettuce.

12. Six or more things you can wear on your feet beginning with "S"... Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes,stockings, stilts.

This is a toughy

2006-08-22T22:57:00.000-04:00

I got this e-mail today and thought it would make a good Blog post! There are some really good questions. I'll post the answers later, I want to see how many some of the teacher folk can get right!!!
Good Luck

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for severla growing season. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

4 Name the only sport in which the ball is always in possession of the team on defense, and the offensive team can score with out touching the ball?

5. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

6. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

7. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters "dw"and they are all common words. Name two of them.

8. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

9. Where are the lakes that are referred to in the Los Angeles Lakers?

10. There are 7 ways a baseball player can legally reach first basewithout getting a hit. Taking a base on balls (a walk) is one way. Name the other 6.

11. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

12. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter "S."

VACATION!!!

2006-08-15T21:12:00.000-04:00

I've been working full time for 4 years now and for one reason or another, I’ve only taken 1 week vacation. Usually because I've been starting a new job so I’m not entitled to the paid time off and can't afford to take off without pay. I assumed this was the case at my current job, I’ve only been there for 4 months now so I figured I didn't have any time owed to me, I was wrong so I took advantage of it post haste! I had already arranged to have the Friday, Saturday and Sunday off so I could go up to my Aunt's Camp, as they call it in Northern Ontario which is just west of Sudbury. So I sweet talked the manager into also giving me Thursday off, which gave me a full day to drive there, one for driving back and two full days there. First of all, it was a good think that I didn't try to drive on the Thursday night after I was done work at 5. I forgot how boring driving for 6 hours on your own is. I have a bad habit of falling asleep as soon as it gets dark also so it probably wouldn't have been very safe either. The other reason it was a good think I didn't try to drive at night is because the camp is buried 30 min off of HWY 17 in, basically the middle of a bush, with a lake in the middle of it. The road twists and turns and you actually lose sight of the road quite a few times. It's also very difficult to drive a standard vehicle up steep hills on gravel so there were 2 hills I had to try to take twice. I also had left gas as long as I could in hopes to find it cheap somewhere, not thinking that I would be literally in the middle of nowhere and an hour away from a gas station. Needless to saw the beginning of my drive home involved a lot of praying of sorts, but that's another story.
So I arrived around dinner on Thursday night which was also my mother's birthday so that was a nice treat to see her, since I really haven't seen or hung out with her for quite some time. My dad, aunt and my parents’ friends who were also over for my mom's birthday made an amazing steak and potato dinner, the only thing missing was corn on the cob, but we had that the next night. We also made a camp fire and watched the stars which were awesome because we were so far away from civilization, the stars were so nice and bright and the fire created a nice relaxing atmosphere.
So I had an awesome sleep which I was surprised at because of the not so soft looking bed but it was really very comfortable. So we all slept in a bit and enjoyed a nice big breakfast and then said goodbye to my parents’ friends. The rest of the day, my mom and dad, my aunt and I spent sitting on the back deck, facing the gorgeous lake and reading. My aunt and I did take a break from all the excitement to go for a little paddle boat ride which was enjoyable. I haven't been on one of those for years. But it was a good way to see the whole lake settlement which is quite big. Around dinner my brother came with his puppy who is a 2 and a half year old Rottwhiler, and the sweetest little thing you could ever meet. Pat and I goofed around with his dog for a bit and got to chat and hang out in general. We also had a sit in the Sauna which is one of my favorite things to do but I’ve realized that I don't enjoy steam baths, and i understand why they tell you not to put water on the elements anymore, doesn’t make for a very good experience. I tried going into the lake after the sauna but was just to chicken to take the cold water. I haven't done much swimming for a very long time and had wanted to swim to the island that was about 100' from my aunt's dock but thought better of it since I might get half way there and not be able to swim back. We had another campfire and some more star gazing which lead into another really good night's sleep.
The next morning I got up and tried to go for a run. I took the dog with me but he is so attached to my brother that we would just get off my aunt's property and he would stop, turn around and look for my brother. So back he went. I ended up taking a walk instead of a run because the hills were so killer. I would be running down and feel like I was going to slide down and hurt something so I decided that walking was better then nothing and still ended up working up a pretty good sweat. After I got back, my dad and brother decided they wanted to go fishing. They tried to bring the dog along with them but he was to chicken to get in the boat (he is a big suck) Once they were about 20' from the dock, he realized my brother was going away from him, he jumped in the water and tried to swim after him. The poor dog got about 80' out and then started swimming in circles because he was tired. My aunt being the wonderful person she is grabbed her Kayak and went out to rescue him. The made it to a sand bar and transfer Zeke into the boat. And no they didn't catch any fish! The rest of the day was a lot of lounging around and reading but I ended up going on a Kayak tour of the island which was fun because it was my first time in a Kayak. My other aunt, her husband and their 2 kids showed up and we all ended up going swimming. We had another big dinner and another nice campfire and yet another good sleep. But that was the end of the vacation time. I did mange to get a lot of sun which was really nice. For the first time in a long time I'm a nice and dark colour, no pasty white for me :)

Heading to the old country!

2006-08-04T08:37:00.000-04:00

I've have started to plan my on trip to the old country, where my good friend Christelli is now! Another one of my friends has been overseas since April, her plan was to go with SWAP, which is an agency that helps you find work and accommodations internationally and of course get your visa. Her intention was to go there for a year and work and live in both England and Ireland. She started in Ireland where she ran into a lot of trouble getting work and getting paid. After that she decided to just travel and forget about the working crap! She has now run out of money and is kind of bored by not working so she is on her way home. However she can't return on her original ticket until October and can not wait that long so she has decided to purchase another return trip, come home on that now and then head back to England in the winter for some more traveling.
My original plan was to go over and visit her in the winter (when I had enough money saved) and then return with her when she came back home from her year away. Plans have now changed! Even when she was talking of coming back early, I still had wanted to go overseas because it's something I have wanted to do for a really long time, and if I don't make the plans, I'm never going to go! So now, I am going to go back with her on her trip back and we are going to be in Europe for 10 days, it should be a great time. WE really haven't decided what all were going to do or see, were just in the preliminary stages of planning, in fact I still haven't got my ticket or passport yet. But it is very exciting to know that I am finally going on a real vacation!!!

When time just slips away

2006-07-29T15:34:00.000-04:00

So it's been a while since I wrote anything in my blog. I've been trying to figure out why and I've come up with a few reasons. First I went on a mini vacation with Andrew to Niagara Falls. I had 3 days off work in a row and it was a really nice relaxing time. We thought we would be smart and head up the Saturday afternoon and stay till the monday afternoon. It worked out well because there was less people around (at the hotel anyway) and we got the room fairly cheap on the sunday night. We decided to go to Clifton Hill on Saturday which was kinda silly because it was a zoo. But still fun!
So back to my excuses, because of the 3 days in a row off, I had to work the next 7 in a row which tends to be a little taxing.... ahhh the problems with only having 2 weeks vacation and wanting to use it to go across the ocean.
So my day off was this Tuesday and I went to my parents house. I always enjoy being there because it's such a relaxing place to be. Nice and quite area in the country. No one to bother you unless you choose to see people. Plus they have a really nice yard and pool and my mom always finds a way to keep the house super cool, even in the dead heat of summer. The hole reason I went home was because I had a Doctor's appointment and I also had my car into the mechanics to get it's check up as well. I realized how long it's been since I've been home because there were so many changes... and in the country, things don't change that fast. First of all they FINALLY paved the entire road between the highway and my parents place. And they had pretty much the hole thing completed which typically takes them the entire summer, government workers of course.
The church my family goes to, also finally tore down the parish hall which had been condemned for about 3 years now, so really it was about time. It was just awkward seeing this empty space where the yellow building used to be!
They also tore down the baseball diamond that we used to play on as kids. I saw this new development the last time I was home. But they have now built 3 more soccer fields in the space where they diamond was. Turns out there is a HUGE craving for kids soccer in rural Ontario. The new fields were all for the little guys, 5 and 6 years old so they were really small fields. I ended up watching the game that 2 of my cousins played in and it was really cute. There was really only one player on each team who was actually interested in playing, of course on of the older ones, but my cousin was one of them and he was quite good. Made some excellent shots and some really good deaks. Of course it's not very difficultly to deak around someone who was just picking the grass but he still had some good moves!!
So my other excuses for not bloging this week are that I've been sooooooooooooo bloody tired. I went to bed at like 9 two nights in a row and still felt like I was dragging my ass around all day. I even attempted going to the gym one day. I figured that once I got going, I would kinda wake up, but no such luck!! I ended up going to they gym again today and having a great workout and feeling fantastic because of it!! Mmmm maybe I'll attempt to take on the world now!

When the Images in your head are better then the movie.

2006-07-17T20:41:00.000-04:00

I finished reading the Da Vinci Code about a month ago now and I just finally watched the movie. I wasn't in to much of a rush to watch it because most of the people who I know that saw it didn't think much of it but I still wanted to see it for myself. I have to say, everyone was right. I was amazed how quickly it went thought the beginning of the book and how close it was to the actual story line. The other adaptations I've watched recently had really strayed but they were the Harry Potter series and the movies would have had to have been 18 hours long to include everything. I thought the producers had done a good job of keeping it fairly close to the original story line with out letting it drag on. As for the Da Vinci code however, I felt like the took the most interesting parts and smashed them to hell and then took the boring parts and made them seem important. Not to mention they didn't even begin to explain the actual "code" to the lengths it was in the book which made the movie hard to follow. My advice to anyone who has watched the movie, read the book, it will shed a hole new light on the story line for you.
I also got to see a good movie this weekend, Pirates of the Caribbean; Dead Man's Chest. I watch the first one and really enjoyed it but can't remember specifics so I'm not sure which one was better. Johnny Depp once again gives a stellar performance. I don't think there could have been another actor do that character nearly as well as he does. It's a must see!!

Reviewing Dan Brown

2006-07-12T22:49:00.000-04:00

So I'm not much of a book reviewer but I just finished reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown and before that I had read the DiVinci code so felt it was important for me to comment on these things.
I was quite excited to read the divines Code. My dad had read it and really enjoyed it, as well as a lot of my friends. The hype surrounding the new movie that came out while I was half way thought the book was also a good motivator. I found the book very interesting especially in terms of hearing about that part of history from another side of the story. I was raised in a strict catholic family, went to a straight laced catholic elementary school, hung out only with people from my church / school and really didn't get invovled with people of other backgrounds until I was in College so my experiences slash knowledge of certain things was very limited. It was refreshing to hear of something different without having to read some boring journal or newspaper article, which I don't read much of.
For the most part I thought the book was a rather exciting concept. In fact, at some point in the middle, I was so excited that I was late for work one day because I couldn't put the book down. But then I found that it dragged on for about 3 chapters, then pick up a bit again, then drag. Overall I enjoyed the book but I think I was just not used to his writing style.
As for Angels and Demons, I went though rollercoaster feelings about it as well. There were parts that I thought were very interesting, then I thought there were parts that could have been interesting but the way he had written them were just weird and then there were parts that I just couldn't grasp. Not because of lack of understanding but more because of lack of acceptance because it didn't fit in with what I believe. I also have to say that then end of the book, with the two in the Hotel Room was really dumb! It felt like they just got together because they were of the opposite sex and happened to be in the same place at the same time.
So really, I guess a book that can create that many different emotions and responses can't be bad at all!

Soccer extravaganza!!

2006-07-10T18:23:00.000-04:00

This weekend was all about soccer for me! I've talked quite a bit about the volleyball league I play in this summer but I also play soccer on Friday nights on a co-ed intramural league. It's quite a fun team with a lot of really experienced players that are teaching me ways to improve my skills and really helping me out in the mean time. The fact that I'm doing some running on my own helps my fitness level a lot to and I seem to be playing a lot better then I ever remember playing, which also makes it very fun. The downfall to the league is that because it's rec, the conveners have decided not to implement reefes of the field so every game there ends up being some sort of bickering, about calls, roughness a plays and even the rules in general which is frustrating and very annoying. These discussions sometimes last even well into the week. Because our team is filled with experience players, we are getting the reputation as a rough team which is disappointing because that's really not what I'm in the game for. It seems that our players, because of their skill level and how accustomed they are to the game tend to push and shove a little more then some teams expect. Some of these teams expect there should never be physical contact on the field... Which to them I say, go play baseball! I think the saddest part of the whole seniero is that it could all be solved by having an impartial person that to say, hey you know what that was a little to much, or nope you need to stop whining... The nice thing is that generally, after the game, our team still goes out for a few drinks which obviously creates a little more team spirit.
So that was my Friday, Saturday, unfortunately, I had to work so I missed out on the Germany Portugal game which I'm very excited that Germany won, not only because they were the home team, but also because Portugal played like a bunch of wusy for most of the games I watched them in. That Christiano Ronaldo has got to be the biggest faker I've ever seen in my life! The constant diving and looking for calls gives the game a bad name a bad vibe.
Sunday morning, I got up and went to church for the first time in a few months. Then I went to the gym, did a quick weight workout and then headed to waterloo park and played pickup with a few guys from my team for a few hours. Right after the game was over, Andrew and I headed to his place and watched the World Cup final. I have to say it was one of the best games I've seen the whole tournament. With actual goals in the game, that's quite impressive. That was the first time I'd watch the French captain Zidane play and he is quite an impressive player. I was disappointed in his head butt, it seemed a little unsportsman like but I'm glad to hear the still won the Golden Ball award as he was an awesome force for his team thoughout the tournament.

Really starting to annoy me!!!

2006-07-07T14:32:00.000-04:00

So this post is more of a plee for help then anything else. My internet is RETARDED! Sorry if that word offends anyone. At my old job, one of the ladies was pregnant and got really made when I said that cus she thought her baby would become mental challanged if I kept saying, pregnat women, jeez! But back to my crisis. About 80% percent of the time that i'm on the web, I keep getting an error message, saying the website can't be found, no matter what site it is!!
Sometimes it's just a problem on Yahoo, sometimes just one or two sites, and sometimes it's everything. I have ultra lite high speed and i'm not sure if I upgrade, if that will solve the problem or just mean that i'm paying more for the same crap. I also live in a very old house and thought that maybe it was the orignial connection, but they've just replaced that so that theroy is out... Any ideas on how to solve the problem, please... let me know!!

Side note... please forgive the horrid spelling, the spell check on Blogger isn't work and I don't have my wordproceessing program up... i'm very sorry Christy

Now it's the internet connection...what next

2006-07-06T22:27:00.000-04:00

So last week I got my new computer hooked up and online. I had it running for 4 days. I get home from work sunday, and my connection is totally down! The modem wasn't online and it wasn't connecting to my computer, nothing. So I call Rogers to get some troubleshooting assistance but they couldn't fix it over the phone and had to make an appointment (for Wednessday) to come and check it out. With my connection being down, I did get alot more stuff done, like I actually got my house cleaned, I got to do some reading, watched on of the best soccer games I've seen durning the world cup this year, and even got to do some quality napping. So on wednesday, the technician shows up around 9 and starts playing with and testing everything to find out what is wrong. Two and a half hours later, he's finally got it up and running after running a new wire to the house from the underground cable and another one from the house connection to my appartment. He ended up making some new holes in the house, and there are wires hanging all over the place, so I don't know how happy my new landlords are going to be, but hey, I have internet access!! I just hope nothing else goes wrong with my sytems for the next little while!!!!

Volleyball fun

2006-06-29T22:07:00.000-04:00

So I had wanted to write about this last week but with the computer issuses I was having I just didn't get a chance. The "spring" beach volleyball season ended last week. We were in the 13th place game and ended up losing, coming in 14th. However, it seems that the team has finally been convinced to enjoy a beverage or two after the game, of course it's at the end of the season, but it was still enjoyable. The bar that we most often go to, gives out free nachos to groups of 6 from teams that show up as well as a free burger or sausage to every play who comes. Our group was sitting out side and got a plate of nachos, enjoyed our burgers and beverages but decided to head inside as there was presentaions for the winning teams. Just our luck, when we switched tables, and managed to get a second free plate of nachos!! Wohooo! We sat around, listen to the presentations, marveled over the prises and stated that we would get them from the summer season, then left on our marry way. All in all it was a good time. It was fun to meet and hang out with some new people. Our summer team is esentailly the same except for two of the guys decided not to play with us, which is kind of dissapointing cus they were quite fun. They showed up to our last game drunk, pushing each other down the hill towards the court in a shopping cart. Just to give you an idea of some of their antics.
I've included a picture of the team from the second last game of the season

On a side note, the "summer" team did go out for drinks tonight so it looks like the tradition should continue!

Excuses, excuses, excuses!

2006-06-29T10:04:00.000-04:00

So I haven't posted in over a week but I swear it's all because I couldn't get online. I got my new computer over a week ago now and had it up and running right when I got it home. The next day however, I tried and the connection could not be found. I had to resort to the beast to get my e-mail, check my banking ect and spent any free time I had trying to figure out why I couldn't get online. So Tuesday I had the day off and spent most of the evening talking to Andrew's roomate trying to figure out what was wrong cus he is the network pro. Even he couldn't see a soultion because the modem was finding my computer and the computer was finding the modem but it just wasn't working. I broke down yesterday morning and called Rogers, who was of no help either. I went digging for my old router, which i finally found and then last night, Tu and I got both of our computers set up online! I even got to start downloading stuff today, quite fun. It's still being a little saucy but for the most part it is working so that is good news! Turns out the majority of my problem stemed from the movement of the original connection when Tu moved in, we've now got the router and modem set up in the orignal place, instead of paying rogers, 35 bucks to come in and change it, jerks, and everything is working okay!
This should mean more posting from me...yah! I just have to get the new accesories that I need like my wireless card and router then will be all high tech and stuff.
Happy Thursday to you all

Finally caught up to Technology!! Well sort of :)

2006-06-20T21:43:00.000-04:00

So two weeks ago while Andrew and I were shopping, we happened upon this little computer store with really great service (the remembered him from a year ago when he had bought stuff there) and really great prices on computers. I had been thinking about upgrading for a while before that because I've had my machine since I started college in 1999 and it's ridiculously old, slow, and stupid, not to mention totally incompatible with anything! I was worried about the cost and didn't think a new computer would be in my budget, especially since I wanted to get a laptop, I figured I wouldn't be able to find one for under $1000. So when we found this store I got quite excited.
Yesterday we went back to see exactly what they had available, the spec of the machines and of course cost. We left with a flyer and were discussing options ect. I decided to do some research and found other items of similar specs but higher prices so I decided I would go back sometime in the near future and buy one. I was over in that end of town while I was doing some errons so I decided to stop in and ask some stupid questions, just so I would know what I was getting myself into. Turns out the system I had my eyes one was gone! But then he started showing me some of the used options available and there was a model with more ram and a Pentium 4 instead of a 3 for the same price. Since it was the only one there I decided not to wait any longer and I bought it. As of tomorrow afternoon I will have a real computer! Tres exciting!!

Why does it always rain on me?

2006-06-19T18:12:00.000-04:00

So I had a three day weekend this week which is awesome.
Saturday, it was super nice weather for my friends wedding and for all the pictures! It was a really nice wedding very small which made it nice for mingling and catching up with my old friends. I found it quite strange that there were no single people there besides the group of us that went. I've never seen that at a wedding before but we all agreed that we are coming to the age where, everyone is married which I don't find fun, but that's a whole nether story! I was very excited to get to some drinking at the function but for some reason it just wasn't hitting me like it should. The drinks were going down well but at the end of the night, I probably could have still driven.
Sunday we got up and went for brunch with the whole wedding crew (obviously not the bride and groom) but had an enjoyable dining experience with the exception of the slow service. We then went on a secret mission to create a surprise anniversary scrap book which was quite fun. I don't scrapbook very often so it was nice to do something creative. I then headed back to my parents house for fathers day dinner and got to hang out with the fam for awhile which was also nice.
So today was really my only day off but I have done well to do nothing. I did get my ass to the gym and get most of my laundry done, except for the folding part... yuck. So that was pretty productive. I had planed on doing a lot of sitting on the hammock in the back yard reading but for some reason, when ever I have a day off with no plans, it rains at some point and puts a damper on my sun enjoying time.
Here's hoping the next day I have off is hot, humid, and not rainy

World Cup!!!

2006-06-13T20:27:00.000-04:00

Yes this is my 3rd post in 3 days...quite exciting hey. Every since I couldn't post last week I've had this build up of topics to write about... better ride it while it last!!
So I've been playing soccer since I was 10 or so, but this is my first year watching world cup action. I really enjoy sports but I've always been more of a player then a watcher. I enjoy going out with friends, watching a game and having some beers, which is what I did on Friday night while watching the Poland, Ecuador game. But then found that I really wanted to watch games just for the sake of watching the games. The tournament is only on once every four years after all! Now I'm hooked on watching the games but don't get TSN so can't watch them... How disappointing. I guess that just means I'll have to go out drinking more often during the next month! Mind you it's probably a good thing that I can't watch every game. I"m truly in awe at how far these guys can kick the ball. I imagine when I get on the field, part of me will believe I should be able to kick that far as well and it will frustrated the heck out of me that I can't!
If you get the chance take in a least. Or a bit of one anyway. They have some really cool traditions like switching jerseys with your opponents at the end of the game. That is a good way to get some free clothes. Sure you have to wash it first but think of all the colours that would now be in your wardrobe!
Enjoy the games!!

The Wonderful World of Blogging

2006-06-12T09:41:00.000-04:00

One of the reasons I'm really glad I started blogging, is that it makes it easier to keep up with what is going on in my friends lives. Granted, I only have 3 friends who are blogging, but without it, I wouldn't have know that my friend Tasha http://www.vernhout.net/ and her hubby Matt http://www.vernhout.net/ have bought a house in Pickering. I'm very excited for them because they have been living in a wonderful apartment for the last few years but got married last summer and now have no room for all their stuff. It's quite a crammed little place to be. They also have a big dog, a rabbit and a hampster living in this tiny apartment with them and I think it will be good for them to have some more space. Especially for Winston their golden retriever. Now he'll actually have a yard to run in. It may be a little yard but much more then what he is used to.
congratulations!!!

The Greatest Show on Earth!!

2006-06-11T20:04:00.000-04:00

So blogger has been hindering my posting abilities lately, so hopefully this goes through. The worst part is, is that I'm not sure if it's my computer (which I purchased in 1999 so by computer standards is ancient) or if it's the site itself. I did find a possible lead to a new computer for a great price but that's another post cus I have some things I would like to talk about from a week ago. I'll just have to post every day in order to catch up.

So last week, Andrew and I went on one of our first "real" dates where we actually do something instead of just hanging out around the house. A few months ago he bought tickets to the Garden Brothers Circus that comes to Kitchener every year to raise money for the Police Retirees. When they say it's the greatest show on earth, they really aren't kidding. There were A LOT of little children their but it was kind cute watching them play on all the rides, the slide, the elephants, playing with the big snakes, before, after and during the intermission of the show. One of my favorite acts was probably this little poddle who had some amazing training!! The clown was on center stage pretending to have a picnic and this little dog comes running in behind him and "steals" all the food from his picnic. Of course the clown's back is to the food and the children face the clown are trying to tell him about the dog. But everytime he turns around, the dog hides in the picnic basket on the other side of the stage...It was adorable!! The music was even time to his running and hiding and there was no one in site that the dog was taking commands from. Very impressive I must say!
I truly did enjoy the entire show. The acrobats, traipse artists, even the contortionist were quite cool, not as exciting as other but still very cool. The only thing I was disappointed with was the horses. There we're such beautiful animals but really didn't get used to there full potential. Not that they really had the space. But boy did the elephants do some cool things as well!!!

Beach bunny fun

2006-06-01T22:20:00.000-04:00

So I'm playing beach volleyball this summer. I ended up on a team with a girl I used to work with and a bunch of here friends. These are some of the 20 year olds I was referring to in my previous post. It's a pretty good team, we have a heck of a lot of fun!! Although not enough drinking afterward in my opinion. I even was checking out the league website and realized we get free food at some of the bars in Guelph after our games, but we never seem to partake... I was going to push the issue tonight but I had some errons to run. Next time! So anyway our team is very fun. We don't do very well. We have played for 5 weeks now, with 4 games each week and have now managed to win 4 games... It's very exciting to us. Out of the 5 weeks, I've made it to 3 and, up until tonight, all the games I went, it was raining during the game and the last one we even had a puddle in the middle of our court. Quite messy!! Day was one hell of a nice evening though. Sun was shining, maybe a little in our eyes but that's what you get for forgetting your sunglasses...Shoot! We had some fun joking around with the other teams we played against, and each other, but still, not enough drinking afterward!

Small things amuse small minds

2006-05-30T18:47:00.000-04:00

So for the past week or so I've been so excited because I got asked for ID twice in two days. When your 26 that feels pretty damn good. I find that I have the ability to confuse people about my age. Some think I'm closer to 30, which after they say this I almost throttle them, where as most think I'm in my early 20's. Usually I end up being closer to the guessers age, in their eyes, which works to my benefit because I can fit in well with all different age groups. Which means I still feel comfortable hanging out with 20 year olds, mind you not to often! This also allows me to believe I never have to grow up!!

The bastard ate all my crackers.

2006-05-23T20:44:00.000-04:00

So the long weekend has now come and gone. It's always nice to have an extra day off and being in the retail industry, it's not very often you get 2 days in a row off since you work evenings and weekends. So I was super excited when I got 3 days in a row off with out even asking. Typically I spend the May 24 weekend outside, having camp fires and drinking with friends but this one was extra cold in comparison to other years. This year was also weird because I spent the whole weekend hanging out with one person and that was this guy that I have just started seeing. We did go into the weekend with good intentions, hang out Friday night, do some shopping Saturday, meet up with some friends for dinner in the evening. I expected to kinda part ways on Sunday and do more of our own thing as I had other people to hang out with including some birthdays to celebrate. I was shocked to find that we ended up spending, literally, the entire weekend together and not really hanging out with anyone else. The dinner plans bailed on Saturday and the plans with my friends for Sunday ended up shifting to Monday which was the only time we were really with other people but they gave me their "approval" of him, so it's was good in the end.
We are both people who enjoy and are used to having our own space so we were both really shocked that we also didn't kill each other. But since we didn't make it a hetic weekend with all kinds of things to do and people to see, I think that really helped and really helped us to get to know each other better which was very cool!
Needless to say it was a very relaxing and enjoyable weekend. We ended up watching a British television show that he has downloaded called "Coupling" and I am now hooked on as well as watching Mission Impossible 3 which isn't as exciting at the previous 2 in my opinion and listening to the Chris Rock HBO special, damn that guy is funny!! We even managed to do a little shopping and eat some good food, including tacos that he made...Very cool. Unfortunately, when I went to make my lunch for work, I realized the little weasel at all my crackers. All in all thought, a very good weekend.

2006-05-17T15:14:00.000-04:00

So I've kinda been at a writers block for the last few days and haven't had anything good to write. I've also been busy at work, and tired so sleeping has been taking up a lot of my time. So I decided I would copy something from Christelli and Sandee to make an interesting blog entry. Here it goes

I

I AM stronger on the outside then on the inside
I WANT a new computer, cus mine is way to slow
I WISH I had more self confidence
I HATE closed mindedness
I HEAR silence..It's nice
I WONDER if I will have any regrets when I'm older
I REGRET not being more impulsive
I AM NOT patient enough
I DANCE to the weirdest songs ont he speakers at work.
I SING when ever I'm alone
I CRY when I watch Jack... It gets me every time!!
I AM NOT ALWAYS full of energy
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS messes :)
I WRITE really, only blogs and grocery lists
I CONFUSE myself
I NEED more time!!
I SHOULD be kinder to others, especially my siblings.
I START drawings that I never finish
I FINISH eating everything on my plate, cus that's what my gramma told me to do

so now i need to get my plans strightened out for the long weekend. Yeehaaa!

Hanging out with the toilet bowl

2006-05-10T09:30:00.000-04:00

So I never get sick, and when I do, I fell a little rough for about 3 hours or so and then I'm good to go for the rest of the day. I took advantage of this quite frequently as a kid and would take days off of school when I was just a little queasy. Unfortunately this caught up with me yesterday. I woke up with a bit of a tummy ache at 5 am, a half hour before I actually had to get up for work, I hate it when that happens! So I got up, drank a little water and then slept again until my alarm went off. I got up, had my shower and started thinking about what I should bring for my lunch for work... Which I really didn't want to think about. This should have been my first clue that I should have just stayed home. I am a very good eater, probably too good, and when I can't even think about eating, it's not going to be a good day! So I started driving to work... Debating on weather I would actually go because I was susposed to be helping out at the Etobicoke store, and meeting my ride in Guelph. So that would suck to be sick and stuck in Etobicoke with no car. Well at one point, very close to Guelph, I got the feeling I should really pull over. I'll spare you the details but needless to say I didn't make it to the side of the road. At that point I called my ride, told her I wouldn't be going and turned around to drive back home. By the time I got home, all I wanted to do was sleep, but I had a mess to clean up in my car first. So I spent the rest of a beautiful sunny day sleeping and hanging with my toilet bowl. Luckily I feel much better today but it wasn't looking so good at 10 o'clock at night. Hopefully I'll make it throughout today!!
Wish me Luck

The Joys of Runninng..

2006-05-05T20:46:00.000-04:00

So I've been trying to think about what to write in my second post all week. Don't want to let me friends down and only write one post! As I was running today I was thinking about how much I enjoy this new found activity of mine and thought it would make a pretty good topic.
For most of my life I always wanted to be in shape and able to run miles and be the best at all types of sports. As a kid I was fairly lazy so that managed to keep me away from doing activities, but as I got older I stared to rely on physical activity. For the last 3 years or so I've been fairly consistent at running at least 3 times a week, weather it's in the gym during the winter or outside in the warmer months. All this time I thought that it was just me who found running outside to be incredible difficult. When at the gym I could run for 20 min straight on the treadmill with out much problem but when it came to running out side, I was lucky to be able to run for 4 minutes with 2 minute cheater intervals in between. Eventually by the end of the summer I would get much better, something like 10 minutes running and 2 minutes walking, but of course every spring I would have to start over at my weenie little pace. This year I've been working with a personal trainer so not only has she helped me to improve my physically appearance, body composition and strength, she has also helped me to improve my cardiovascular levels. I can get my heart rate from 170 down to 120 in something like 2 min which is pretty much ridiculous!! So about a week or two ago I started running outside again, since it's finally getting nice and warm out, and I mentioned to her how much I struggle with the switch. I was relieved to find out that she has the same problem and in fact, doesn't like to run outside because she just can't perform as well. That was enough to encourage me to keep trying and I've now been able to increase my run time from 3 to 4 minutes in only one week. I know it sounds wimp but I'm proud so there. I am planning on running in a 5km marathon in June, so I still have quite a ways to go...
Wish me luck!

Bowing to Pressure

2006-05-01T20:40:00.000-04:00

So I've finaly caved to the pressure and joined the bloging Community. My friends have been bloging for quite some time and I enjoy reading there posts so I thought I should just start up my own too. Hopefully I'll be half as interesting as they are.
I'll give you a little background on my. I grew up in small town Ontario, just outside of Stratford. I have 2 younger brothers and a younger sister whom I get along with very well, now that we don't live together. I live in a house in Waterloo, with my friend (who just moved in today) but have been living by myself for the last 2 years so this could be an interesting change. I've recently gone though some interesting life changes (4 jobs In the last year) but fell like I've finally come back to my calling as a junior manager for a big box retail store, where I hope to someday run my own store. I enjoy sports and outdoor activities like rollerblading, definitely my fav thing to do in the Spring and Summer!!
Well I think that's enough of an intro, till next time.