Sunshine in the Cape

Yes, I awoke this morning to a glorious sight - the sun was streaming in the windows and it appeared like maybe the island is not going to be stuck in winter for the rest of the days! Oh, how wonderful that is. On my agenda for today? Several things. I'm heading to CBU for a lab .. then I'm heading to my aunts' to hangout with her dog while she goes for groceries .. I plan on doing puppy dog photo shoot #2 during this time ..the rest remains to be seen, however. I would like to include some tea, perhaps an ice cream (solely for the photo aspect, I forgot my camera last night) and then I'm not sure what else. It will definitely include an LA game though ..already set the reminder on my TV :)

Contest
Don't forget, ladies and gentlemen! There are a mere TWO DAYS LEFT. Today& tomorrow. Get your last minute entries in. The prizes are shown in the post directly below this one, and can I just say? They are basically way better than any other blog contest prizes out there ;) PLUS ..the part you can't see in the photo? An interview with me!! Does it get any more fabulous? I managed to include all kinds of things about ME (aka, what my blog is about) while also keeping you entertained in the process. I'm a marketing genius! It will be a roaring good time ..and the prize will be drawn for on Saturday :) Hurry, hurry, hurry to get entered and win some goodies!

Los Angeles Lakers
Lakers games are one of my favorite activities to enjoy. I sit on my couch with popcorn and pray that the Lakers win, while doing my best voodoo imaginable to help them in their journey. The reason I have not been blogging about my love for them thus far is because soon it will be the playoffs. I was waiting for the playoffs to begin to start mentioning them. So, this is really just a warning that you're eventually going to know WAY too much about how the Lakers are faring in their trip to the Finals. I hope someone picks up on this blog and offers me a trip to the Finals ...my god, what I would do to be in the Staples Centre while there was a Finals game occurring. It would be better than spring on the island.

Boots
Boots is the name of my aunt's dog. I'll include some details about him when I update later tonight with my doggy photos but I just had to mention how completely adorable he is and include a photo, so you could all be properly prepared for the photos to come! He looks CRAZY like their old dog, Angel. I actually thought it was her when I saw his photo. He is smaller and he is so, so sweet.

I bet you are all SUPER excited to see the photos that come from this adventure now, eh?! How adorable is this little pup?

Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia
I bet there are several things you're wondering about this topic.
1. Why it's here
2. Why I know what it is
3. Is it relevant to anything?
4. What does it mean?

Well, yes, it is relevant. Relevant because today is CDH (the abbreviation for that name) Awareness Day. Thank you, Mary, for bringing this to my attention. I was going about this Thursday blissfully unaware that it was any different from the thousands of other Thursday's I've lived through.

CDH is a birth defect as common and spina bifida and cystic fibrosis but many people have never heard of it.

-Some business that wanted to encourage us to hear of the birth defect

I found out about it via Mary. Then we decided on a new avenue for my blog (and no, it's not continuing updates about what is the cause of the day.. that would be obnoxious& annoying) but it's still a secret. It made it to my website because it I figured I should promote awareness of these things every once in awhile. Here's my good deed for the ...century? I hope you all benefit from being aware. I know I sure didn't.

Photo of the Day
I'll leave you with my photo of the day from yesterday for this first post. In my second post this evening, I will include my one from today (it will be separate from the puppy's photos). Yesterdays shot was taken in a rush because I was busy watching the firemen putting out the fire in our backyard. Ahh.. the joys of grass.

It's the calendar. It's March. It's cute. And now I have to head off to class. I will return later this evening with photos of Boots :) Keep your fingers crossed that they turn out even half as good as those of Zac. Also, make the most of today. It's beautiful out!

3,041+

YES! Thank you absolutely everyone who viewed my blog. I have gotten 240 page views today .. exceeded my 3,000 goal by 41 (last time I checked) and there's still lots of time until the day is over! You guys rock :)

So I heard that a great way to increase traffic to your website is to start something called a Blog Contest. This is where you offer a prize for people to win if they decide to enter the contest. I think I'll hold my very first blog contest right now, because you all have been so great to get me to my goal for the day!

So, my tasks for the day have just gone from lazing around to setting up a blog contest! Who knew .. this is a big moment. Let me start with an outline:

What is the prize?!
It is magnificent. You will LOVE it. I will update this shortly with a photo of your prize ..if you should be so lucky to win! Until then, you will wait on the edge of your seat for the big announcement.

Rules& Regulations
So, in order to win my magnificent prize, you have to do at least ONE of the following:
1. Comment on this post
2. Tweet this post
3. Facebook this post
4. Link this post to your own blog

Now if you happen to really, really, really want to win this prize, you can do all four of the above mentioned things to have a grand total of FOUR entries into the draw! Don't say I'm not awesome.

The contest will run for SEVEN days (1 week). It will start the minute I post this blog and will continue until April 1st. I know, that's April Fool's Day, but I promise a winner WILL be selected and really will get a prize in my first official blog contest! No jokes being played on you!
If you are selected as the winner, I require one thing; contact me ASAP with your contact info. Imagine if someone wins this who isn't my mother, Garret or one of my girlfriends!

PS Mom, Garret, girls - if you win, I don't need your contact info ;)

Winning
How very Charlie Sheen of me, no? Except I actually mean winning the contest, not twitter.
How will I select who wins? It will be 100% arbitrary. I'll use a random number generator to select a number. Everyone who enters will be given one .. and then bam! If you're lucky enough for that generator to pick your number, you're going to be the very first official blog contest winner for HalfPastWonderful :D

Now, if you DO win .. there are 2 things I'd love to do. The first is a Blog Interview with you, because hell, if I'm going to succumb to all things cliche about blogs I may as do the interview thing. BUT more importantly .. I would LOVE a photo of your prize proudly displayed in your home.

*Please note, neither of these things are required. They would simply be the icing on the cake.


Alrighty, so now we've got that whole contest thing taken care of. Best of luck to everyone who enters. Which you may as well do if you're reading this ..I mean, you're already here. All you have to do is comment (which, by the way, you don't have to register for ANYTHING). Approximately 23 seconds of your life, from start to finish!

So, I enlisted my friend Kelly to help me decide on a prize. Her suggestion was good but involved me being there personally, which started us talking about my international visitors (hi, guys! You all rock) and lead to this gem:

Kelly says (2:53 PM):
fascinating..
And one from the arctic
I should probably count as Russia hahahahahhahahahaa

Oh, Kelly! You make Sarah Palin proud :)
Alright, I hope people play along with me and enter into my First Official HalfPastWonderful Blog Contest! It will be fun if you help me make it be :D

PS check back for updates, including my photo of the day& a hint at the prize!

Thank you, Tim Hortons!

Apparently, Timmy reads my blog! Today, I went to my last Occ. Hygiene lab (WOOHOO!) and then when I got home, Garret was here! So we hit up Wendys ..he is a BAD influence on me. I blame him for all my poor nutritional decisions. That is easier than owning up to it LOL! The point is, after that we went to Tim Hortons, where a magical transformation occured.

I WON A FREE COFFEE(Tea, in my situation)! Garret lost. Ner-ner-ner-ner-ner-ner .. sucks to be you, boyfriend ;)

How awesome is that?! I am considering framing this photo! Thanks, Timmy .. for both reading my blog& taking prompt action to correct the situation. I feel vindicated! Victory is mineeeeeee :)

Okay.. so aside from that, today is semi-nice out. It's sunny, there's minimal wind, there is still ice in the water though& it's still freezing. So, it's nice that I am not missing a beautiful day today by studying. Life, you could be good. Especially if you make my Friday warm and delightful, since I only have 1 class. I would like it to be warm enough for me to practice driving my motorcycle ..so please, keep your fingers crossed! Today would have been an ideal outdoor photography day, however it is still a little chilly& I am still lazy. So, instead I went to my trusty lightbox and got an indoor photo. What can I say, I'm so not a fan of being cold AT ALL.

So, overall, my day has been pretty non-exciting. I almost got hit by a red Civic in the CBU parking lot, which was fairly exhilarating. I would prefer to not have my car be in an accident, thanks a lot boy in the Civic. Then, I had to park incredibly far away from the school. That lead to walking for to get to my lab .. I ran into Barry& Marg .. I ended up being 5 minutes late for lab. Good start to the last lab ahahah after arriving, it was smooth sailing!

And now I'm home, I've eaten lunch and won a free tea .. Dr. Phil is teaching me how dysfunctional people can be (which is nice. Especially on days you're feeling particularly dysfunction yourself!) and also teaching me how excited I should be that I didn't have a baby as a teen& that I have parents who don't date 18yr olds. Thanks, Mom& Dad! You guys rock :) After my daily life lesson with the good doctor, I will be heading towards opening that file folder named 'Foodborne Test 2' and studying my evening away. I hope that it's not as painful as I am imagining it will be ..argh. Oh well, after all the sleep I got last night, I should be well rested enough for a full night of focusing& learning.

In fact, last night I got SO much sleep I missed 45 minutes of Intervention and ALL of Heavy :( What a disaster. I will be watching them as repeats sometime soon, thankfully! On that note, I'm going to devote my attention to the TV ..so I will leave you with my photo of the day. It's a shoe! A shoe for -scrubbing? Maybe .. it has very soft bristles. It's cute ..wasn't sure which photo to pick, I don't overly love the focus of it after uploading it but, lazy wins once again! I'm not re-taking it ahaha

Hope that you all have a lovely Tuesday afternoon& evening! I also hope that you are not studying for a hateful exam coming up in the near future .. and good luck if you are in the same boat as me!

Friday!

Before I start my post for the day, let me just say: Sorry Japan! Hope you guys survive and figure your shit out. Serious stuff going on over there .. lots of damage and trauma to recover from. 8.9 earthquakes, 27ft tsunamis, devastation everywhere. The footage is wild.

Today is Friday .. I certainly hope that makes you all as happy as it makes me! Today was not super exciting. First I went to my classes, except not Occupational Hygiene because Helen canceled it! Thanks, Helen. So then Marg and I did lunch at the mall, where we met Barry and Brenda. I would tell you what we talked about, but to be honest I'm exhausted and can't recall it. Oh well. After my Orange Julius& Subway (no that's dejavu. I really DID just have it the other day!), we hit up the Bay. I bought noting .. Marg tried on dresses. Then it was back to CBU for a meeting with all the branch presidents of public health from every province. Very interesting to hear what they have to say, along with the places where we're likely to get placements. Hopefully I made a good impression on NS branch manager (thanks, Bernie for your positive words about me ..LOL!) and he really wants to hire me! Either way, it would be incredibly nice to just get a placement. I also spoke to the branch presidents frommm .. Manitoba, Ontario and British Columbia. Then I ate a chocolate timbit and went home.

Aside from that, my foot still hurts like crazy. I now have it wrapped though, so that is a perk! I'm giving it until Monday and if it's still not better, I'm considering removing it from my otherwise fully functional body. Hopefully it will be better before resorting to such extreme measures. For now, I'm listening to Andrew Allen (so good!) and enjoying a St. Patrick's Day green shortbread cookie (so good!). I'm gearing up for a low key Friday .. and a party filled Saturday aka pubcrawl .. and work. Wah wah!

So, now .. the only thing left is a photo of the day& I don't have it for you. Sorry, ladies& gents. Better luck next time (also known as 1 - 2hrs when I come back& update this with my photo).

Okay, photo is taken. I am stupid and forgot to set the focus back to auto. I left it on manual and even had this conscious thought at one point 'Jeeze, my camera doesn't seem like it's auto focusing ..weird'. Yes. I thought that and STILL didn't look to see why that may be. So, with that in mind ..let's all remember that photoshop can only do so much for a photo. I am too tired to try and get a better photo for today. Plus, my foot hurts. Putting on shoes makes it hurt more. My last excuse is that it is cold and, also, now dark. So, what is my photo of the day today you ask?
It's some trees .. a little of the ocean .. some snow& dirt .. etc. This is Cape Breton at that awkward time between winter& spring.

Monday Happiness!

I have completed my task for today. I GOT A PORTRAIT! I am so happy :) Hopefully once you guys see how good this little lady looks, you'll be more willing to stand in front of my lens. There wasn't much to fix for my model today, just color correction and some small details. I'm sure if I was a better photographer, there would be more problems I would be seeing. As it stands, I really like it as is. I hope Kayla does too (ps thanks girly for playing photo of the day subject!). She was a good sport, despite Matthew insisting she leave so that he could play a song. That was about 40 minutes ago and he's STILL playing incredibly loud music. It's so frustrating .. I miss my house when it's quiet. Photo will be in it's usual place at the very bottom :)

Aside from my photography adventure, not much else happened. I went to school .. I came home. It was nice out and I contemplated an outside run. Why didn't I, you ask? The top of my left foot is still REALLY sore. It's the oddest sensation. Along with sore foot tops (what is that part of my body even called?!), the wind has decided to pick up and the weather network tells me Cape Breton can look forward to 70km/hr winds. I am still holding out for spring, although with a little less enthusiasm at the moment. Hopefully soon both my feet and the weather will improve enough to allow me to go outside for a run. My fingers are crossed. Yours should be too! I can hardly remember what flowers and leaves and green grass looks like .. I have to google nice weather to be reminded it really does exist.

On this crappy weather day, I am planning to go back into Sydney to hang out with the boyfriend. Not entirely sure what we're going to do yet, perhaps a movie? All I know is currently I'm curled up on my upstairs couch watching X-Weighted and thinking how I lack the energy to get up and get showered! Hopefully next commercial break I'll get myself a delicious cup of tea and the caffeine will encourage my body to stop being so tired.
It may also have something to do with the fact that I haven't just stopped and let myself get sick. I've been fighting off a cold for a LONG time now and I think it's slowly winning. I'm sneezing and my nose is running (sadly, not literally. That would be a good photo!). Thank goodness I only have an A&P test this Wednesday and the rest of the time will be for me to relax and try to get better.

There's a road run on March 20th (no idea if I already wrote about this) and so I need to get Matthew to work my shift at the store. Hopefully he is agreeable to this .. I will find out shortly when I ask him, I suppose. It's a 5k& I have just about 2wks to work on this so I'd LOVE to really get my time down low and just pound out the miles. Here's hoping!
The other alternative is that I don't get to run it because I'm in prison awaiting my murder trial for killing my brother. WHY CAN YOU NOT PLAY THE MUSIC LOWER? I am getting noise-induced deafness just being in the same house as you. I have a headache, truly. I need a vacation from this child already.

Oh, also, I am by no means a good cook. I can, however, cook the things I enjoy quite well. Here is a completely made-by-me recipe:

1 half chicken breast
Light zesty seasoning
Chili powder
Toss it all together on the stove to cook. While that's cooking (med-high), onto the next part:

Part skim cheese (just as delicious as the regular kind, trust me)
Light mayo (or honey mustard ..I just can't give up my mayo<3) Whole grain tortilla Put mayo on tortilla .. then the cheese. Hopefully your chicken is almost ready by now& when it is, throw IT on the tortilla wrap and wrap it all up. Simple, quick, delicious! Now, my photo:

Ahhh .. portrait #2 completed! Now, who will be my next one?!
PS hope your Monday is about as excellent as a Monday can be :) Mine has improved drastically because my brother has left the house!

Monday ..

Today is Monday! It's almost Tuesday though, and actually might be by the time I get this post written up and published.
This morning I went to class .. and it was awesome. We talked about welding and sandblasting. And then I went to the gym where I ran 6k and did a few things on the bosu ball. After that, I drove home and had some delicious supper, followed by driving back into Sydney to attend ashtanga (AKA power) yoga at Ascendo, the new gym by the movie theatres. It was originally going to be my very first awesome bikram yoga experience but you know what happened? They had to cancel it being hot :( So instead it was just very P90Xesque. It was a good workout nonetheless and the actual facility is gorgeoussssss .. I would recommend you check it out, even if you have no desire to ever exercise. It is massive.

OH AND! I stopped in to visit my boyfriend with a tea quickly after leaving CBU and guess what?! He had my light box stuff already to rock. Since leaving yoga, he has sent me two photos to show me what it looks like in it's finished state. Here they are. First up we have the actual box .. just a big box with lights and a white background ..makes me incredibly happy:


And the second photo is a shot of how it works closeup. It was taken by Garret and it is, of course, a photo of a garage tool. A tape measure to be exact!


So that is what Garret feels like he would take photos of if he was trying this experiment. Really, I should have just used that one because it may actually be better than the ones I took this evening. Time got away from me and I ended up being in a rush trying to find something to photograph and get uploaded in time. So it was between two options and the nutcracker won! So, without further ado, here is the worst installment thus far of my 365. Welcome to day 4.. only 361 left to go.



Hope you all enjoyed ..sorry for the incredibly blah update. I am exhausted. Oh one last funny story to leave you with:
My car has it's little gas light on. Which means I have to leave early for lab tomorrow because I couldn't get gas tonight because I had yoga pants and Uggs on. Then tomorrow I will probably forget to leave early enough to get gas, which will lead to me praying that my car makes it to the university before running out. Oh, the joys of this whole evening. Goodnight folks ..sleep has rarely looked more appealing!!