Canada Day Weekend

Ahh .. glorious weekend! Lots of sunshine and heat. Hello, summer. How I've missed you in my life. You two things combined makes me a happy, happy girl :) Can't wait to enjoy this summer!

Look ..I took my own leaf photo!

Not quite as beautiful as the one I posted Friday aha

On Friday (Canada day), Garret& I headed to Baddeck on the motorcycle to enjoy the biggest firework display in eastern Nova Scotia. It was gorgeous and an awesome night. Stopped in at the Yellow Cello which I definitely recommend if you're ever in the area! Such good food. Because we were on the bike, I have no photos of the event. From now on I'm going to take Garret's advice& throw my camera in the backpack we have for it. I was sad I had to miss the chance to photograph the fireworks. Oh well .. I always say I'm going to bring my camera everywhere and then I don't. Someday I'll learn my lesson. Then Saturday I got called into Cogans ...which I'll write about later. Hilarious. I also worked Sunday morning. So then it was the afternoon. What an awesome day. We spent it eating out with Mom& Matt and then hitting up the drive in!

My delicious pre-drive in ice cream!

It was dinosaur bones .. so delicious in my belly ;D

So we got some treats& enjoyed Super 8 and Green Lantern. I slept through Green Lantern and the third movie was Bridesmaids which I desperately want to see. Sadly, I was too exhausted to sit through it. We drove home instead& halfway home a cop pulled us over saying Garret was swerving. Then we pointed out it was a Jeep and I think the cop felt like a tool because all he said was that he couldn't smell alcohol off us and to have a nice night. So odd.

Here is our ice cream together.

Much more pleasant than that jerk police officer!

PS my ice cream is much larger. Obviously the store clerk likes me more.

So that is my weekend. How did you spend your weekend? I'm assuming most of my readers are from Canada or the United States (based on stats) so I'm also assuming that most of you spent it enjoying some type of festivities .. fill me in ;D

Goodbye corner store!

You've been good to me. You gave me a consistent schedule .. a good pay .. generally easy days ..but I am SO FREAKING HAPPY to be done with you! It was a good night. It included watching a lot of Big Bang Theory, chatting one last time with all my favorite customers& generally having a quiet evening. It was a perfect store night and I am grateful I got to leave on a positive note!

So, I have nothing to complain about really. Tomorrow, I'm getting a haircut. I haven't actually had my hair styled since Erin left me (a sad, sad day) and normally I would be both nervous& excited, however I am mostly just excited this time. Mom has test driven this girl and she gave her an amazing cut, so I'm figuring she'll do the same for me! After that, I'm getting Garret for a tea, because I haven't seen him since Saturday evening and I kind of miss him. I am SO excited to finally have my hair styled again and stop wearing it up. Miss the curls!

So now, I am eating some raspberries& watching Heavy ..life is really good! If only the weather would hurry and warm up even the teeniest bit, we would be cruising. Until then ..I'll continue to wear winter clothes& pretend it's warmer than it is.

PS my blog tonight is so entirely boring. I'm tired and going to be spending a little bit redoing the layout colors ..so mostly this is just some rambling before I post my photo of the day! The winter colors on here are really dragging me down and it's time to update to include some happy spring colors :)

Oh, and also to remind you that you need to ENTER MY CONTEST! There are only FOUR days left to enter yourself. I suck and still have yet to get a photo up, but seriously people! ENTER. It's hilarious and I want lots of entries ..don't forget you don't need to comment. You can blog / tweet / facebook it as well. These things require far less work than commenting (because apparently some people are having issues with this) and it still gets you an entry! Just have to let me know in some way, shape or form. I would suggest contacting me via MSN / e-mail. Either way, just let me know and I'll add you to my list of entries.. you KNOW you want to!

Alright, so now that I have talked up my contest, onto the photo of the day! It sort of sucks because, as stated earlier, I'm tired& planning on updating the layout tonight. It's a ..um, for some reason the name is escaping me. It has spikes and they hurt. I stabbed myself in the finger while attempting to get this shot. That made me realize someone should really be giving me danger pay! My next realization was that no one at all gave me any sort of income for any of this and made me re-evaluate my sanity. Oh well .. life is short, may as well appear clinically insane.

Well, there you have it. I keep wanting to call it a pine cone, but I am aware that that is incorrect! If you know, drop me a line in the comments :(
Along with the proper name ..my blog has been updated (hopefully, quite obviously. I'm not sure how it couldn't be incredibly obvious). You should let me know how you feel about it :)

Sunday adventures ..

Today was a day that was filled with many adventures! I will break them down into little stories for you guys ..I may even save a few work stories for later dates, seeing as I know you'll all be going through Cogan's story withdrawals!

Dreams& Wake Up Calls
So, this morning I was all snuggled up in my bed. I was warm and comfy and having the strangest dream. Myself and my husband, Jon Cryer (you know, the guy from Two& A Half Men who ISN'T Charlie Sheen) were in a cooking class with a world famous chef. I had married Mr. Cryer in a secret ceremony while still dating Garret (who was calling me while we were in the class) and this was his attempt to domesticate me. The chef asked a question to which, for reasons I do not know, I knew the answer! GO ME! Except the reward for getting the question right was that the chef left the class in my hands. Literally. He walked out. So, I started everyone on their meals. We were making mashed potatoes in kitchen sink water and using link fence pieces to mash it. All incredibly bizarre, correct? It gets stranger.

So, I'm walking around the room and becoming increasingly more panicked because I have absolutely no idea what the hell I'm doing. All of sudden, Meghan and her dad were there. Being the life saver that she is, she had her laptop with her and I was suddenly able to find a recipe to guide me. I used my favorite recipe place, Skinny Taste, and suddenly I was good to go. I asked Meg to make a special recipe, which I thought of all on my own, called Orange Julius Carrot Soup.
It was MASSIVE amounts of carrots and one large Orange Julius pineapple / orange smoothie. I can well imagine it would have tasted disgusting, except that as her dad was putting it on the stove top, my father came downstairs and woke me up. I blame the fact that I was actively in REM sleep as to why I can remember that dream in such vivid detail!!

*Side note, check out Skinny Taste. Incredibly awesome and, from the few I've tried, fairly simple, delicious and nutritious!

Why, you ask, was my dad waking me up? Oh, it was 8.45AM and I had to be at work in 5 minutes. It takes longer than 5 minutes to drive there. Oops. So I scrambled out of my warm sheets and out of my comfy PJs, brushed my teeth (barely) and managed to make it to the store by 8.59AM. It was opened for business at 9.02AM. Don't say I'm not efficient. Last morning shift ever and I almost missed it ...leave it to me! Oh well, Dad got me tea& a chocolate chip muffin so really .. it was still a pretty awesome start to my day :) We also had our first ice creams of the year at Lick-A-Treat (less scandalously named sibling of the Lick-A-Chick)! I got a chocolate twist in a dish with sprinkles and really wished I had my camera because it was just SO pretty! I love my dad always, but especially when he's taking me for an ice cream!

Truck Adventures
So, then when we got home I got a mysterious text from Karli that read 'Hey whats up? Want to join me on a random drive somewhere?'. Direct quote. Being the adventurous soul that I am, I agreed no further questions asked! We were headed on a cold, long trip to Lobster Galley where Tyler and his friends had broken down on their way back home from the Cabot Trail :( Long story short .. Karli had her alpaca mittens but BONUS! She also had seal skin mittens! My hands have officially worn more types of skin& fur than any other body part. Tyler, being the sweet fella that he is, treated Karli& myself to Pizza Delight. It was delicious, thanks again Tyler! Seems like a short adventure when I type it out on my blog, but in reality it was 4hours and the end result? The truck wasn't fixed, it was still cold, the boys had to get the truck towed and Tyler was out a lot of money! So, it was not a very productive day for him but it ended on 2 positive notes:
1. The boys are getting massive amounts of pizza (with kitty cat faces on them!)
2. They got to ride in the truck which was on the tow truck (I don't know how this can be anything less than awesome)!

So, this post is becoming quite long! My day that was supposed to be ho-hum turned into something much better and more funny! So now, I am supposed to leave you with a photo of the day. Although I DID give you a photo of the day yesterday AND an entire set of puppy dog shots. I play by the rules though, and the rules state that I still owe you guys a photo for this day! So, I am going back to the lightbox. In the lightbox, you will see something very pretty. However, the photo is not yet taken ..so I will be back later this evening with the second edition of my post& a photo! So, until then, enjoy my artist selection for today.

My artist is named Keith Mullins and is Garret's brother! He is talented, owns a farm in Halifax and is generally a great guy with some really cute kids :) I tried to find a better video of him, but all I have is a video from his CD release party. I was there ..it was awesome. Hope you enjoy this video .. this song is awesome!



PS -Don't forget to enter my blog contest! It's super easy ..just click here and leave a comment! Prizes are awesome ...relatively speaking (consider your other option: not winning ANY prizes) ;)

Saturday& I am..

...curled up in my bed with my dog and a litre of water! It has been a long, long day. It started with a 7:00AM wake time .. some breakfast .. dressing in LOTS of layers .. running 5 miles with Meggy and her momma (which I did in 46. Yeah. I should work on that..) and then enjoying a post-run snack. Thankfully, Meg has laid out details of the run (and included some photos) already. So for your viewing pleasure, I present you Meg's blog :) Enjoy the read! Also, please note: I forgot my iPod and that was sad. Thanks, girly, for taking the initiative and posting that so I don't have to! Did I mention I am exhausted?

So, after running the race I headed home to curl up and sleep ...oh, no wait. I didn't. I worked 7hrs at the store. I spent it with The Social Network (must watch. I've seen it 2 times), rice and some $0.05 candies :D Yum. I also ensured that all my photos were ready to rock and roll for posting tonight. They are. You are excited, I can tell!

I have no horror stories from work tonight really. It was the same old, same old. I'm so sick of feeling like the Farmer's Almanac (aka, only talking about the weather) or the problem solver (really don't care about your life issues). I spent my evening thinking about less painful ways to spend it. Here is my list:
1. Sawing off my own arm and beating myself with it
2. Dental surgery with no modern medicines
3. Corset piercings
4. Having to spend 7hrs in a headstand
5. Walking in a 10ft circle for 7hrs

Yeah. My job is that AWESOME. I have to remember to download a documentary for tomorrow morning before I crash tonight. I can no longer deal with reading crappy magazines (do. not. care. about the following: teen mom, Charlie Sheen*, Brad Pitt, newest ways to wear blush, how to lose weight, why I'm not a celebrity or celebrities and all that comes with them in general). So, now .. to find an appropriately entertaining documentary / film of some type. I should get on that. I even have the popcorn ready for an afternoon movie!

So, the last thing I have to say about my evening? PEOPLE: YOU DO. NOT. NEED. to voice EVERY SINGLE thought that comes through your head. Not all of them (in fact, I'd venture as far as to say very few) are gems and worthy of verbalizing. Dear lord. I worry for humanity almost daily. When you're thinking your thoughts, please ask yourself: would anyone else in my immediate surroundings find this even REMOTELY interesting or appropriate? No? Okay, I should let it go unsaid.
Again, wonderful words of wisdom from Yvonne. Also, sometimes I wish I had started this blog anonymously so that I could talk about things that happen in my life with people who may some day discover this blog and hate me if they read what I wrote. Hahaha so instead, I will continue to discuss those things only with those who are in my close confidences.

Okay, so now. Photos of the day. Oh my, there are SO many. So, I'm going to upload some .. include some captions .. pretend I'm caught up .. and then tomorrow when I get home from work and after I've napped, I will count my photos up and figure out what day I am on / take some extras if I've fallen behind (very likely) and get myself and my readers caught up on my ever evolving photography. LOL. Not. I'm fairly certain it is not evolving OR improving. Oh well, never hurts to try. Now, onto photos:

At work ..this is our work schedule. Isn't that thrilling? I really like it for some reason, perhaps because the clover is just so cute and the fact that I like St. Patty's in general :)

This is, hands down, my most favorite photo I've taken so far. I LOVE it. Feel free to steal it and make it the background for everything you use. It really is that awesome. 5 green frogs, amazingly edited by yours truly ;) Not that amazingly, but hey .. it works. They are so cute!!

This could have gone either way: sucky or neat. I like to think it's sort of neat. Can anyone guess what it is? I love the old school retro feel to it, I don't even know if it's giving off that vibe to anyone else. You all may think it's stupid ahah

Look what's back. Our friends, the voodoo dolls :D The other evening Garret and I got TWO of the black dolls :D Amazing ..I still can't find 2 though. I think it's incredibly BAD luck to lose those things. Hopefully will find them and get a huge photo of our slowly but steadily growing doll family!

Acorn. I like this for some reason, I'm not sure why. Maybe because I took it and I want to see the good in allll my photos? Except the Sharpie photo. Man that photo sucked. LOL.

Can you guess what this is? It's a photo, but more specifically?!

Ah, coke boxes. So many. Such a fun photo effect. I am going to retry this but with a different perspective and lens. Okay, that's all I've got for photos for you now. Hope they were sufficient because they are all you're getting until tomorrow :) Have a lovely Saturday evening folks!
PS Happy early birthday (it's tomorrow) to Meg's boyfriend. Her cupcakes for the occasion are so cute!


*I actually did care about the Sheen vs. Hodder editorial though. It definitely brought me a great chuckle!

Wednesday!

It's a Wednesday .. I'm not in classes. Life is good! If you're wondering where last night's blog post was, I didn't have an internet connection :( I sometimes hate our wireless. Oh well. My day wasn't super exciting, I did Insanity& went to work. At work, lots of things happened that made me an angry worker, but by selectively forgetting I have maintained both my sanity and free from jail. Mostly, one thing get spoken to me SO much that I wonder, do these people really think they're clever?!
1. "Oh, I didn't think anyone was working."
Yes, because we frequently leave the store wide open with absolutely not a soul in it. We turn off the cameras and do a count before we leave and after. This is a check to see how honest people are. Was anything stolen? Was enough cash left for the amount stolen? ..does this seem like reality? No. It's not. Of COURSE someone is here to take your cash and keep you honest. God.

So, now that I have vented about how much I adore my job and my internet connection, I will discuss yesterdays workout. Yesterday I repeated Plyometrics, it was still super exciting and I am consistently getting to do more and more of the program. It was awesome. I feel great after finishing a day, like I can still keep going. That is PERFECT when you consider that most days after a workout, I'm heading to the gym to rock the bosu ball and also run a few miles. Today, I'm headed to the gym with Marg but .. it's a day off from Insanity! I LOVE rest days :)

So, Meg and myself are going to run an 8k in Louisbourg on March 5th. It's called the Slush Run and I'm so excited to do it and keep moving away from 5k into my real preferred distance of a full marathon. I think having that date looming over me, I will manage to pound out a few 10k runs on the treadmill. I reallllly hate running on the treadmill and did manage to run outside for as long as possible. Now, though, the sidewalks are covered in ice and snow, so outdoor running is impossible. It makes me sad and also makes me anxious for spring to come. With spring, comes fresh new sidewalks and outdoor activities. Also, in the spring, I will be breaking out my bicycle and encouraging my boyfriend to come for long rides :D He loves his bike ALMOST as much as I love mine, so it won't be difficult. Speaking of the boyfriend, I am super proud of him starting P90X. You go, Garret! I will be kicking your ass in the spring on the bike though.

So, now the only thing left to discuss is my THREE DAYS worth of photos. I have 2 of them taken (obviously) and today's is still to be determined. So, I apologize in advance for another photo of my dog and here they are:

For 3 days ago, which is photo 18 (I think ..keeping track of these things via day is so hard!), I couldn't decide between just the dinosaur or Garret and the dinosaur. I opted to include Garret. I love this photo because it includes a bunch of my favorite things:
1. Snowy weather
2. Late night drives
3. My boyfriend
4. A dinosaur
5. Adventures due to late night drives
6. Anti-smoking campaign!

So, that's one day done. Now, onto the next. The next photo is one of my dog. Sorry, but let's be real. He is the sweetest little dog you've ever seen. Today, my camera is coming to the gym with me / random other places so hopefully we'll be back to getting some more variety! Like I've mentioned before, I really need more work on portraits so I need to get over my weird thing about asking people to be photographed. I'm not even talking strangers, I'm talking friends and family. So, if anyone is reading this and is interested in a photo of yourself .. please, drop a line. I need help ahaha

And now, today has been productive. I have blogged, eaten a healthy breakfast, reminded myself I need to go buy some yogurt and fruits and made plans to go to the gym with Margy :) I hope you have a fabulous hump day!

Oh, and before you leave my blog .. I will encourage you to check out this lady (Jenn Grant) and her fabulous new song (Getcha Good)!

Today was a 2.

On a scale of 1 - 10. Do you know why it even ranks THAT high? Garret surprise visited me and then got me a tea. Out of my entire 7 hour shift, those were the sole two even slightly positive things that happened at all.

First, we're banned from reading magazines now at work because they weren't going back on the shelf. Doesn't really bother me, seeing as I usually either read a book or watched movies while I was at work. It will bother me on the days I don't have books or movies though, and want to enjoy the latest strategies for looking hot or knowing how to be hip. Oh well. So tonight, aside from trying incredibly hard not to scream or break things, I watched two documentaries. They were both very well-done and amazing.
The first was called Exit Through the Gift Shop and it was about street art and the people who do it. It was such an interesting topic and a very cool story about Banksy and Thierry and their relationship.
The second one was The Cove, I know. Everyone has either heard of it or seen it. I had heard but not seen it .. so I watched it. Amazingly sad. I encourage you to sit down and watch either one, or both preferably. Especially if you love documentaries even half as much as I do! Also, if you have any recommendations, I love all documentaries. Regardless of how strange the topic! Only requirement? That they be at least decently well produced.

So now that I have the only positive things to come from work (and really, the documentaries would have been better watched at home. No customer interruption.), time to move on to the myriad of things that have left me bitter and typing like my mother. Which means that I am using two fingers, instead of all of them. This handicap is due to a work-related injury, explained below.

So the first thing. Customers. Here is a piece of advice:
BE NICE. Seriously. People who work in the service world spend their days having the same stupid conversations over and over (weather .. traffic .. the boat ..etc), pretending you are clever (you are NOT the first person to tell me to give you a winning ticket or anything else you pat yourself on the back for thinking of. I can promise 98% of everyone has also thought of it.) and pretending we care about anything you have to say (I don't care about your life at all. Seriously. I don't.).
So when a customer is particularly rude, it is growing increasingly harder not to scream at them for the supremely ignorant behavior. I will not go through the list of rude customers I had this evening, because there were more rude than nice. I will, however, show you the prime example of rude behavior in any place with a lottery booth.

Customer comes in, buys $10 worth of tickets. Leaves. I see them sitting in their car in front of the store doors, with their lights on shining in and what are they doing? Scratching their tickets. Customer proceeds to come in SIX TIMES and buy more tickets with the winnings. I was clearly trying to close and they kept saying 'This is my last time. Sorry!'. Don't lie. It's my job to serve you, but saying it's your last time and then repeatedly coming back in just pisses me off. Also, the customer wasn't scratching the barcode we need to scan it and you know what they kept saying? 'I'm sorry. I'll scratch that next time for you!' ...no you won't. Save your breath and just don't speak. Then I can save my energy from pretending to listen and care and focus more on not reaming you out on your behavior.

Next thing that happens at work that sucks? The mop destroyed my finger. Hence, my work-related injury. How does one hurt their finger on a mop, you ask? Allow me to explain:
1. You get really angry at stupid lottery addict.
2. They walk all over your floor.
3. They don't scratch the barcode. AGAIN.
4. You finally finishing mopping floors and dump water.
5. Putting the rinsy-mop-dewatery thing back on, it slips.
6. Your fingers get stuck in between it and promptly get crunched.
7. Along with breaking the skin, your nails also get bent back.
8. Your reflex is to rip your hand out.
9. Scream a few curse words, almost break the bathroom door by kicking it and then be incredibly glad your shift from hell is almost over.

So now I'm home and watching repeats of Criminal Minds. It is soothing. My girlfriend Meghan went to meditation yoga on Friday and I am thinking that if I continue to work my job, I may need to start joining her. Perhaps if I start meditating, I can focus my energy on my zen place instead of murder when certain customers come in! It could save me from incarceration (ps, mostly I'm kidding. I'm too scared of the consequences to hurt someone!)!

Okay, so now I have a mildly amusing story for anyone who watches The Big Bang Theory. You all know Raj right? Well if you don't, click his name and it will take you to a youtube link of him. Here's his story: He doesn't talk to women. Unless he's drunk.

Why is Raj important you ask? Well, aside from how obviously important all of the Big Bang is (insanely funny, folks. Watch it!), there is a man who I'm fairly sure they based Raj off of who comes in my store. Only he is less awkwardly adorable and more just awkward. He has never spoken to me .. when I speak to him, his eyes get big and he doesn't respond. He doesn't really look at me and only nods his head if I ask him a question that needs clarifying. Example: would you like a bag? *nods*. I always think of Raj when I see this guy and then I have to try not laugh until he leaves. Oh, and he smells like body odor. I'm pretty sure Raj doesn't. Embrace personal hygiene boys and girls!

Okay so now. My photo of the day. This is my Doll with Issues. She's the big sister and my brother got me her for Christmas. I adore her. She has curly red hair and always wears a scowl. If it wasn't for her awesome sense of style (rompers are SO in), I'd swear they based her off me! So, here she is:

She comes with a little tag that says: She's a big sister. She hugs her little brother real, real, real hard. Sometimes she holds his little hand so firmly his knuckles pop. What can she say? Sometimes love hurts.