My One Wish

Can I have a day where I can say whatever I want to people without altering their perception of me?

Concerned for my Mental Well-being...

I'm not sure what's wrong with me. Maybe I'm overly stressed or have too much on my mind or something, but for the first time in my life, I'm not dreading winter.

I'm actually (dare I say it?) looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to cross country skiing, taking some snowboard trips, continuing our new holiday traditions (I may be excited, but I'm still not going to say the name of the holiday that starts with the letter "C" before November). I'm looking forward to going to Smithers for Thanksgiving in 17 sleeps, and for the NKOTB concert with Vassy in 63 sleeps, and for going to visit my family again in the new year, and for Mare coming to visit me in the new year as well. There's lots coming and for the first time it doesn't feel like a big bleak winter is looming.

As someone who adores summer and hot hot weather, I pose this question: WTF changed?

Well, something must have changed because this morning, for the first time since I started driving, when I went out to my car and scraped the frost off of the windows I wasn't uttering a steady stream of four letter words under my breath.

I guess I shouldn't give it too much thought just in case thinking about it makes me revert to my previous hatred of winter...might as well enjoy it, it's inevitable afterall.

NOOOOO!!!! Not yet!!!!

I was running a teensy bit late this morning heading out the door for work at 4:30...ok, 4:40 is more like it. I got into my car, locked the door (a habit I picked up in PG and haven't been able to break...I always lock my door when driving in the dark), and turned on the windshield wipers to get rid of the condensation on the window. But they swiped past and didn't move any water. Because it wasn't water. It was ice.

Ice.

NOT what I had hoped for this morning. So I grabbed my scraper and destroyed the offending ice. Unfortunately I accidentally locked my door when I got out of the car. So I had to run inside, grab Brad's keys, and come back to unlock my door. Thus making me very late. Just adding insult to injury.

I hate goodbyes...

My dear friend Vassy has accepted a job with Global Saskatoon and will be starting there in one week (Congrats Vash!), and so, clearly, everyone who knows and loves her in the city came out on Saturday night for an evening (and early morning) of misbehaving. We started at the Brew Pub and ended up at the Shack.

Me and Vash
~ Vassy, Jon and Me at the Shack
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The Kindness of Strangers

I know you're not supposed to talk to strangers, but I think there are circumstances...

Vassy asked if I could come to Saskatoon with her on Sunday to help her apartment hunt (and tell her which areas to absolutely avoid at all costs). So we spent the day running around the S'toon until around 6 when we decided it was time to head home. About 15 minutes south of Rosetown, her car started shuddering horribly so we pulled over to the shoulder immediately and sure enough, the back drivers side tire had completely shredded. Seeing as I am a woman of the world, I went to the trunk of her car and found the donut, jack, and tire-iron. I was getting ready to be a big tough girl (rawr!) when a very nice family pulled over in their van. The father and young teenage son came over to help us. Feeling like I had already prove my toughness, I handed the tire-iron and jack over and the pair went to work. They removed the lug nuts (with what was likely more muscle power than I possessed) and went to work removing the wheel. Regardless of what they tried though, it would NOT come off. The poor guy couldn't get it to budge at all. He tried everything from pulling, to kicking, to trying to use the tire iron as a lever before we called Roadside Assistance for help. Only after he knew they were on their way did he and his family leave.

So Vassy and I bunkered down on the car and waited for Roadside to get there. A few people pulled over and we told them what was going on and they went on their way. A little while later a man in a pickup truck with a trailer of tools pulled over. It was getting dark, so I told Vassy that we should just stay in the car and roll down the window a little to talk to him. We explained the situation and he asked if we would mind if he gave it a try. We told him to go right ahead, so he pulled, kicked, and tried the tire iron too. Having no luck with these methods, he went a step further and brought the biggest prybar I'd ever seen from his trailer. Sure enough, the tire popped off and we cheered! He then put the donut on, and told us he would follow us the whole way back to Swift, going 80k (max speed on a donut). We made it back to Swift just about 2 hours later, safe and sound, and very very grateful to the wonderful man who decided to stop and help us.

Not Quite a Convert...

Those who know me, know for the better part of my life (roughly the first 25.5 years) I have had a heavy hate-on for ABBA. I lived by the motto "Better Dead than Disco". Ok, maybe I didn't live by it, but suffice it to say, I was not a fan. When we got out little budgie Peet, I was horrified to hear her start chirping and singing whenever ABBA would come on the radio (no accounting for taste).
So it will probably come as a surprise to those who know me to find out that I went to see Mamma Mia! last night.
Allow me to explain: I'm a sucker for musicals. I love any movie that I can sing along to the next morning in the shower. Perhaps even more powerful than my love of singing in the shower is the fact that deep down in my soul I truly wish I could spontaneously burst into song and have a troupe of highly talented dancers back me up in a perfectly choreographed routine during the most mundane points in my day.
So I went to the theatre (on cheap night, mind you) and soaked up the song and dance. It was definitely laugh out loud, but perhaps for the wrong reasons. At times I found myself deeply embarrassed for the characters, but at the same time loving that they were bordering on psychotic in their jubilation at basically everything that happened. Each time Meryl Streep sang, her voice reminded me strikingly of Susan Sarandon in the Rocky Horror Picture Show (a nice change from the average female singing voice). Poor Pierce Brosnan cannot sing to save his life. He tried, and I'll give him credit, but whoooo...it was a struggle. Occasionally he looked as though he was yawning through the lyrics. Colin Firth did a decent job on the vocals, but I was surprised to hear how high his singing voice was. I have a big soft spot for him though, and frankly he could have croaked out the tunes and I would still have felt as endeared towards him as ever. The storyline was fun, but I have to say, I was mortified by the way Donna (the mother) behaved. She reminded me of some of the ridiculous melodrama I could only pull off as a pubescent teen with a huge crush on my older brother's friends...and even that cost me some dignity.
I guess the bottom line is that it was catchy, fun, and I left humming some of the songs (and hating myself just a little for caving to the draw of ABBA). If you're looking for a chick flick...well, why not? But please, don't force your boyfriends to see this. They may never forgive you.

It was not a good day.

I received some very sad news on Saturday afternoon. My Grandpa passed away during the night on Friday. Mum has gone to Vancouver to be with her sisters and her Mum.
I've wanted to write something and have been thinking about what I would say for the past several days, but somehow I still can't put it to words. I guess the best thing to say is that we all miss him terribly. I have so many great memories of his wonderful silliness, and cheeky sense of humour. Of visits to Parksville and Vancouver Island, of Christmas Eve get-togethers watching for Santa through their New West apartment window, his amusement at me saying he was like RoboGrandpa with his titanium ankle, and of course, being totally grossed out and bewildered at his offer of smoked oysters ("You like smoked oysters, Jess?").
I had hoped that when I sat down to write this the words would just come, but I still seem to be coming up short.

Battling my Low Motivation

I haven't been updating a lot lately for a few reasons:

1. I'm exhausted...I've had the start of a cold coming on for over a week now, and it never progresses or disappears. It just sits there

2. I have a new puppy. This gives two sub-reasons for not posting:

a. I'm afraid this blog will turn into "cute things Oliver does" if I'm not careful, and

b. He's adding to the exhaustion. Turns out our little furry friend has a decent case of separation anxiety and as soon as we leave the house he goes and poos in either the kitchen, the livingroom, or the spare bedroom. Then he goes into the recycle bin and tears into the cardboard, destroying it all over the house, and then he attacks the kleenex box, destroying that too. I'm beginning to cringe when I think about what kind of surprise I might come home to each day. I've done lots of research online though, and everything says it takes a long time to break that anxiety...not terribly encouraging, but I guess that's all there is to it. It's tiring though.

Other than that, not a lot is new. That's why I haven't been updating in such a long time. Not much to say. I go home after work, take Ollie outside, come in, have some lunch, lay down for a nap, take Ollie out again, do the dishes and maybe some laundry, debate on supper for a long time, watch some Sex and the City, go to bed. That's my day. I figure it will pick up once I don't feel like I have a cold anymore. Then there will be some updates.

Cat in Dog's Clothing?

I began to wonder if I had accidentally brought home a cat, simply dressed as a dog. Yesterday afternoon I was stretched out on the couch when Oliver hopped up, climbed on top of the back cushions and curled up in the corner, perched precariously on the back of the couch. He then promptly fell asleep. Had there been a big pool of sunlight on the couch I would have been more suspicious. Perhaps I'm mistaken and he's actually a mountain goat, cleverly disguised as a puppy?

At the Carwash

I went to the carwash today. When I was little, going through the automatic car wash was always a thrill (the different coloured foam was somehow more magical as a child). Today I took the CKSW Cruiser through the car wash.
As I pulled forward and the initial hard spray of water doused the undercarriage and sprayed along the windshield, I had to squint to see through the shower to the sign that says "Drive Forward". Luckily it's green, so I could at least go by colour if not words. Then the whole washing process began.
To the right of the vehicle was a big light-up board that displayed the various stages of the wash. The funny thing about it was that as the soap was covering the windshield, followed by the torrent of pressure washer water, followed by the "spot free rinse" and the multi-coloured foam whose purpose i'm not really sure of, I realized there was absolutely no way I could possibly read the light-up board. I had no idea whether the Laserwash was done and we were on to the clear protector coat, or whether it was time for the spot-free rinse. Why do they bother displaying the stages if no one can see through their windows to read it? Sure I could turn on the windshield wipers, but there's a big sign that says not to! Maybe it's just there to prevent patrons from getting bored by ensuring they have something challenging to do while waiting.

Oliver Comes Home

What a weekend! Brad and I went out to Caronport on Sunday to see a westiepoo I had found on an on-line classified ad. He was 6 months old and had been returned to the breeder from his first family because they found he was a bit much for them. This would normally sound a warning for me, except the reason they found him to be a bit much was because they already had SIX children under the age of nine. Clearly they were feeling a little...um...ambitious...when they adopted the little guy. Either that or they were right out of their minds. Anyway, we went out to see him and (surprise, surprise) I fell madly in love with his waggy tail and loving eyes. So we went into Moose Jaw to grab some supplies and came back to take our little guy home.

He was a little antsy for the first 20 minutes of the drive, but after that he laid down on my lap and fell asleep for the rest of the way.

On the drive home we decided his name was definitely Oliver (not Rambo as the previous 6-child-family had called him).

The first night we put him in his kennel in the bedroom and he cried a couple of times and let two little whimpers out, but then fell right asleep without another peep. He was less content to be put in his kennel yesterday when we went out to do some errands, but we were strong and ignored the yips and whining. And apparently absense does make the heart grow fonder because when I came home he was about as happy as could be to see me. Funny little guy.

Ben and Brenda came by to meet him and brought a bag full of goodies for the "newest member of the family". He was so well behaved, sniffing them, giving a few kisses, and then laying down to watch what was going on around him.

Last night Brad and I watched a movie and he fell asleep at our feel, and then on the couch, and finally in his dog bed, so I thought it would be a piece of cake to put him in his kennel and go to bed. Wrong. He cried, he whined, he yipped, and paced, he scratched. Finally we determined that perhaps he had to pee, so I took him out where he did his business and then came in pleased as punch with himself. Then he made a huge stink about going back into the kennel, pulling back, going to Brad, looking at both of us like we had suddenly betrayed him, like we were sending him into the abyss. Finally we got him to go back in and sit with the door open, looking at us with those heartbreaking eyes. He came out after a few minutes and we sent him back in with a treat this time. I closed the door and covered the kennel with a towel so he wouldn't be able to see out (the breeder had done that too so he should have been used to it). Then he made a big song and dance about the tragedy that is his little life. But Brad and I laid stoicly in the dark, in total silence for fear that making a noise would only encourage his whining and barking. Just when we were sure the neighbours would call the police on us for a noise disturbance (though I think that's a bit of the pot calling the kettle black) he settled down with a big sigh and a thump and was silent. I reached out and squeezed Brad's hand in silent victory.

I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty tired today. It was about midnight before I fell asleep and I woke about every hour (all three of them) until my alarms went off. I'm not looking my most shining today either. In my efforts to not wake up Oliver this morning when getting ready for work, I grabbed all of my clothes in the dark, hoping for the best. I think a nap is in order this afternoon. Luckily, he's usually ok with that plan too.

Where did THAT come from?

Yesterday, being the hot hot day that it was, Vassy and I went to TCBY for frozen yogurt and then walked to her house. We were about halfway there when our lovely sunny hot evening turned terrible.

The wind picked up.

And the wind picked up THINGS.

It effortlessly whipped sand, dirt, gravel, leaves, pine cones, and anything that wasn't secured to the ground at the city. We squinted against the wall of dirt that was stinging (and exfoliating) our faces, and tried in vain to keep the hair out of our mouths, and ground our teeth on the sand in our mouths. We ducked into the Library for a pause. For all that it hurt and was awful to get caught in a windstorm, I found it horribly amusing and was worried I'd laugh till I peed if I wasn't careful. We peered out the doors and decided it wasn't going to get any better any time soon, so off we went again, leaning into the wind, covering our faces, and laughing hysterically.

When we made it to Vassy's place, she offered me a ride home. I hopped in the car and made a feeble attempt to straighten my hair, pulling out leaves and bits of dirt as I did.

I just have one question: Where did that come from?!

Camp

It was looking like a lovely hot weekend, so Brad and I decided it was time to head out to Cypress for another weekend of camping.

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aturday we went for a walk around the lake

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Saturday night we hit the Mini Golf course for the second annual Cypress Hills Mini Golf Classic. Brad won again, but this time it was only by 1. I'm biding my time until next year's tournament when I will definitely give him a whoopin!

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Then we went for a drive around the park

Now then...where did summer go?

I'm convinced the rainy weather is a result of everyone declaring summer "over". What kind of ridiculous pesimistic nonsense is that?! Summer is not, in fact, over. It is only the middle of August. That means at least two more weeks, maybe more. Once the rain goes away, that is.

It can't be over anyway; we have a deck that needs to be sat on and enjoyed! Brad has worked really hard to get the side of the house all cleared and levelled. Ben came over and helped build the frame of the deck, and helped to level and secure it and get things started with laying the decking. Then it was all Brad; cutting, measuring, securing. And now we have a lovely deck to sit on and enjoy the summer. That's right, SUMMER. It IS still summer!

I see London, I see France...

...and anyone who cared to look this morning would have seen my underpants for sure. It wasn't until 4 hours into my shift that I noticed the gaping hold in my shorts this morning. And when I say gaping, I mean the Grand Canyon of tears. So I guess it's a testament to the sensitivity of my coworkers for not noticing that I was teetering on the verge of humiliation all morning. I ran home as soon as I noticed. But the rest of the day will be spent in a state of minor paranoia that my derriere is once again on display to the world.

Vacation...

So here are a select few photos from my vacation to see Mare:

Mare and Me: at our fave restaurant! Go BP's!!
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Mare took me to Michaels in Kelowna. This is one of many scrapbooking aisles. I couldn't even allow myself to look around. We went straight for the clearance aisle instead where I bought a scrapbook and three sets of stickers. It satiated my need to buy supplies.
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Mare and I in front of Audrey II at Little Shop of Horrors on Friday night. It was incredible! The performers were fantastic, the show was tons of fun, and Mare and I were dancing along in our seats (I had to restrain myself from getting up and singing along)!
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Anna, Mare, Me, and little Hassin at Skaha. Beautiful day, beautiful beach...awesome all around!
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Shan, Mare, Me, and Anna at the Hooded Merganser for Mare's birthday supper. We were lucky enough to have seats on the patio which was right over the water. We later went to the Barking Parrot for some more drinks and dancing.
~Mare took me and Shan up to Pine Hills; the future setting of her wedding reception! The view was absolutely incredible!
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Later on Monday, we went to Okanagan Lake and played in the water
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Me, Mare, and Jer on the beach, soaking up some glorious sun on Monday afternoon before going for supper and then back to the beach to watch the sun go down.
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Thank you so much to Mare and Jer for putting up with me and my stunning klutziness (I don't know what happened to me!) for the week. It was an amazing week and I can't wait to scrapbook it! Hahaha!

Best Vacation Ever!

Here I am back in Swifty. The vacay to Penticton and my dear Mare was amazing! I had such a hard time leaving. Everything from missing our very first turn-off on the road trip from Salmon Arm, to dropping sponges and cards behind furniture, to the hours and hours of shopping, and the Chocolate Martinis and dancing at the Parrot, to chowing on cheesecake and watching movies, to being the only ones singing along to Little Shop of Horrors, to nearly dying on the Salt-and-Pepper-Shakers (really, they're actually quite safe!), to hours on the beach. It was amazing and there will be many many pictures to come. It was so hard to leave yesterday (even though the tears didn't come until later in the Vancouver Airport). I miss you Mare.

EEEEEEEEE!

Finally! I'm leaving for Penticton today for 5 days with Mare! We've been counting down for ages and this morning I will get on a bus (eww) and begin the trek to BC.
Yesterday I was looking over my bus itinerary (for the first time) and noticed a layover in Salmon Arm. From 1am to 6am. WHAT?! So I talked to Mare last night and she said she'd drive up to get me. Which means not only do I not have to sit in a bus station (widely recognized as the creepiest places in the world) for 5 hours trying to sleep, but I get to see Mare sooner (NO more sleeps)!!! AND we get to start our days of fun with a road trip! I'm so excited I could pee!
Can't wait to see you Mare!

A Happy Day!!

Today is a very very special day! It is the day that my dearest best friend Mare was born! She has been such a huge support to me in the short years that we've known each other, and is always there to make everyone she knows feel special. She will go out of her way to supply a hug, or a cup of tea, or flowers and cheesecake to a friend in need (usually me! haha!). I am so happy that she is here and that she makes the world that much brighter with her smile!

So, to Mare, my dearest best friend, Happy Birthday! I'm so happy you were born, and that you are part of my life! And I can't wait to see you in two more sleeps!
Click Here to Listen to the Greetings from the Morning shows in Swift!

The sacrificial blog

Since about grade 8, writing has been my venting session. I've always been able to throw whatever is bothering me onto a piece of paper and feel somewhat more at peace with it. That morphed from fun coloured pens and paper to improved typing skills and keeping an online diary, which then turned into one of millions of blogs on the www. I became a blogger in 2006 and it started out as a place to air my dirty laundry and vent a little and possibly be a little entertaining.

Now I've found that I have a few people reading it and I have to find different topics to jot down. The list of things that are "off limits" has expanded. It now includes things that I'm not prepared to talk about (even eluding to those things draws attention and awkward questions), work issues (of ALL kinds), friend issues (unless I want to run the risk of an untimely confrontation), relationship issues (it's just not nice to let everyone into a relationship, there are some things that must remain between two people alone).

I'm not complaining. I'm flattered that people find my blog interesting. It's a problem that comes about eventually for anyone who publishes to an on-line journal. There is no anonymity. The internet is accessible by everyone. It's a challenge.

As for those top secret scandalous secrets that my brain is swimming in? Well, they have their special place too; written in plain ink in my little red journal that stays tucked away in my underwear drawer.