Wild beasts

- Newest post is up on Rounder! You guys should leave Sarah some comment love on her newest post and encourage her to keep writing her Monday posts :) I appreciate having horsey Mondays ..so to keep with the theme here is a horsey Monday from me!
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Spent about 2 hours yesterday sprinting around a horse field. I was chasing 4 cute but wild Haflingers. The man who owns them swears one of them is broke& that he rides her all the time. He tells me I can ride her& all the others if I want. I will ..if I can ever catch them! So at the end of hour one yesterday, I had successfully herded them and become the leader of the pack. I could rub them all over.

Why couldn't I catch them then, you ask? The minute they saw the halter or lead in my hands they took off faster than bats out of hell (where did that expression come from?). So because I am incredibly stubborn, I refused to give up until Crystal made me leave. So little ponies you may have won the battle but I'll win the war. For 2 reasons; I'm in better shape& have way more need to win than you guys.

So after chasing around wild beasts, we headed to our barn. Where we rode Dewey's owners new horse. He is such a sweet, sweet boy!

Colleen, Odins' owner& myself :)

Good thing Crystal always has her cell to capture these moments

He is such a calm horse. First time ever being ridden double and he did was turn his head to look at me! Can't ask for a better first time reaction than that .. I can't wait until I can purchase a very nicely put together Fjord& train him to be my little dressage pony. I love ponies. Odin is especially cute so I hope she keeps him seeing as he is the perfect horse for her.

So after that, the boyfriend& I headed to some fireworks. They were gorgeous but I didn't get any photos because I had a major headache& was very tired. Chasing wild beasts around is very hard work! We also ate ice cream. YUM! Thanks, boyfriend. So now I'm off to enjoy this rainy day at the barn ..tomorrow starts my new feature around here on HalfPastWonderful. If you like my blog on facebook you'll get a hint as to what it is! Isn't that exciting?!

For now, I leave you with a photo of a tree. I don't know why but I really like this shot. It was taken with the $2,000 lens, which I didn't play with this weekend. Hoping to get to use it again sooner rather than later! Keep your fingers crossed and enjoy your Monday!

Ahh ..sunshine& heat.

It was a glorious one day of summer we've had.

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

On the agenda..

Lots& lots to talk about. What a busy day I had yesterday. I will break them down into their own little segments. There will not, however, be as many photos as my posts have had lately. Sorry about that!

Harlem Globetrotters
Yes. These awesome folks are coming to Centre 200. I am so freaking excited. I am purchasing tickets for the boyfriend& myself later today. I don't even care if he isn't excited. I'm taking my camera& getting some sweet shots. I loved them the last time I saw them and he has NEVER seen them before! This is a travesty that we have to correct immediately. My excitement over this is almost making me forget about just how very sucky our weather is. Almost. So, needless to say I'm so excited for this!

Karli
I played photographer again yesterday& snapped some shots of Karli being a graduate! She even brought roses. Laughing& good times were had by all. We had NO idea how to put on the grad gown ...I'm really hoping we figured it out in the end though! She was a trooper and we got some neat shots. We even managed shots at the beach, where it was super windy, bight and cold. I think she liked them, she made of them her facebook profile photo, which I always find a good sign! Thank you Photoshop, for making it look like I know what I'm doing with my camera :) And thank you Karli, fpr the roses. Mom& I plan on keeping them along as live as possible. Approximately 3 - 5 days :)

Ice cream
Mmm .. my favorite treat. Although I have been eating it so much lately, it's less of a treat& more of a dietary staple. Oops. I promise to cut back. It's just all of a sudden, Lick-A-Treat& Tasty Treat are open for business. And I'm one happy customer. I don't care that the prices are high, that I need to wear mittens to hold my ice cream or that I eat while the seat warmers are on. I'M EATING ICE CREAM. And I don't care WHAT the weather man says. It was delicious. We even got tea& coffee afterward to warm us back up. So good.. minus the part where I had to pee. so. bad. Then we watched American Idol& my boyfriend got frustrated with how much I talk during it. So I made him leave. Hahaha I'm kidding ..sort of. I really did make him leave before the Lakers game. They lost again. What a disappointing 3 games for them. Hopefully they pull it together& win the whole year.

Photo of the Day
I don't have it yet. Check back later / tomorrow. I promise to have it then .. maybe. I would also love to promise that it will be great, but it probably will be just average. Hey, at least I'm consistent. Consistency is the key to being awesome. Right? Oh well, I did one up on the photo of the day. Keep reading and you'll be laughing ..hopefully!

Squirt
So. My dog is the funniest / sweetest dog in the whole wide world. When we were leaving the beach, I yelled for him to come join us. We see him galloping towards us with something in his mouth. Uncertain, I take out my camera and snap a few shots. Brilliant. It's a Pepsi cup and he is SO proud of it. You could see the excitement on his face. I wish I had of had a video recorder. I did the next best thing. I put them in iMovie for the Mac and added a song and a comic book feel. Then I uploaded it to youtube. Between that and this blog, I've never been more certain in my life of my future. Here is what I'm envisioning:
1. Ellen invites myself& my dog on her show. We rock it.
2. Pepsi makes Squirt their new spokesperson. He rocks it.
3. I get a book deal from that& the blog. I rock it.

Yeah. So, for your viewing pleasure .. here is the first view of Pepsi's new commercial. I hope you love it as much as I do. Squirt is such a celebrity.

Sunday&

I'm not at work :) Life is great. I will proceed to give a recap of my life& also at some point I will include some photos of the day. I promise. My internet is on the fritz, more so than usual even+ there is an LA game on. So this update may take hours! Now, onto the topics!
*Edit: It did take hours. Our internet is working again though and I've since gone for tea with Margy, watched the Lakers lose (wah wahhh) and have updated the colors. Let me know how you feel about these!

Banquet
It was fun .. the food was decent. I got a funny certificate. Best Wheels& Curls. It made me laugh. We got dressed up ..took some cute photos ..then I edited them so they are even cuter. Allow me to add some to spruce up my post!

Good friends& good times!

The boyfriend :)

Post-banquet
Garret& I skipped out on partying and instead had a feast of junkfood. It started with an Orange Julius. It went downhill from there. We got a movie + chips + pop at Blockbuster. I didn't have any pop and had very few chips because I only eat chips with flavor on them& these didn't have many. We also got some treats from the Bulkbarn. Oops. Guess that it is time to return to my schedule of working out& eating healthy. Either way, it was all delicious except that we rented The Fighter. I have no idea if the movie was any good because the dvd was broken. Perfecto. Instead we watched Jurassic Park (I think)& I promptly fell asleep!

Photo of the Day
So, welcome to the point where I include lots of photos here. There are 3 days+ today that I owe you. Alrighty. Let me start by saying I may or may not have the photo for today. I do, however, have photos from the previous days.

So 2 of my photos are ice cream themed. Even though it's freezing cold out there, I still find myself wanting ice cream& eating it. YUM. First up, the Lick-A-Teat! I will have to get a Lick-A-Chick one at some point!

So, now ..my next one is from an ice cream place. It's the cute little cone that sits on top of it! With a little help from photoshop! Can't decide if I like it or not, but I'm posting it anyway. Spent way too much time on photoshop today between banquet photos& 365 photos! Can you guess where it's from?

And lastly, is my sweet little ladybug wallet :) She's just as cute as can be! I love her. She is also day 59 of my 365!! Who ever thought I'd make it this far?! I know I certainly thought both my blog AND my project would be long ended by now. So, thanks for visiting to keep me wanting to keep writing this thing! I hope I'm at least mildly entertaining you!

Prizes!

So, as the title states, I have prizes! Well, I've had prizes for quite awhile now .. it's more like I finally bothered getting them together and taking their photo. It's really hard to get them to all look at the camera at the same time, but I managed to do just that! I'm such a natural photographer.
As a side note, today is the THIRD LAST DAY to enter! Click here to enter! Also, don't forget there are FOUR WAYS (tweeting, commenting, blogging& facebooking!) ..you just have to make sure you let me know so that I can add you to my list of entries, ladies and gents. Enter enter enter ..it's super easy! In honor to encourage people to enter, I'm going to now post my photo of the prizes. They are pretty awesome.

So, how awesome is that?! Seeing the prizes actually in my blog really makes it seem awesome, eh? I hope this encourages even more people to go and enter my contest :) C'est fantastique! Oh, and yes, 4 is purposely obscured because that part is the SURPRISE part!

So, aside from that .. I haven't been up to much. My parents bought a new Civic yesterday. It's bright red and pretty nice. They took me out to supper at the Black Spoon. It was sooo good ..I love that place and would encourage anyone heading near North Sydney to check it out!

Last night
Garret and I went to the movies to see Lincoln Lawyer. I kept thinking I had heard of it before, only to realize I've already read the book.. which sort of worked in my favor. Because I ended up sleeping for quite some time in the theatre. The beginning and end of the movie were both excellent though, I would suggest you (at the very least) see those parts ;) We also went to Orange Julius and the arcade in the mall and spent all my money on trying to win tickets. There is a stupid game there where you have to jump 'rope' ..which is really a row of lights. I found a video on youtube:



So ..I kept trying to play this game but the most I can manage to jump? TWO. What the hell, I'm so good at jumping rope in real life. And I'm so good at arcade games. Although, after last night I'm thinking Garret could go pro with his skills. He won WAY more tickets than me :( In the end, we combined our tickets and got some pretty sweet treats. Fundip& rainbow ribbons. YUM.

News
Also, just got some crazy news. It is incredibly expensive to insure me. So you should all be glad that I am not a primary driver on your insurance policies. You should also all try your best to never, ever, ever get any type of ticket from the police (I would encourage offering money, sex, anything you have on you). Try even harder not to put a pregnant woman into labor by ramming into the side of her brand new minivan that she has only owned for 2 hours. Both of these things will come back to bite you in your ass for five years. That is a LONG time. I am shocked that I am considered a high risk driver, especially considering in the 8.5yrs that I have been a driver those are my only two 'convictions'.
Also, I had no idea I was a convict. It would be exciting in a bad ass kind of way if it wasn't so frigging expensive. Next time I feel like I wasn't in the wrong during an accident, I'm going to fight tooth& nail.

Photo of the Day
So, I owe you guys two photos. I currently only have 1 of them, from yesterday. I am going out for ice cream with Bhreagh later this evening and wanting to take a photo of that for my photo today so you're just going to have to wait! My photo from yesterday is Garret :) Just a quick snapshot outside his garage! A little overexposed, but whatever. I still like it.

Along with photos of Mr. Garret, I also will include some of us on the new bike he is building! I love these ..so much fun :)

New hair
So, lastly I'll include a photo of my new hair. I really love it. It's sooo much lighter and it DESPERATELY needed a pick-me-up! In the photo that I have of it, it is a mess. So let's all pretend that behead is still an awesome look and most people want to have it. That's the story I'm believing. The lighting also made my eyebrows look funny, however overall, I like this photo. So, here are the new curls :)

Enjoy your day and remember if you're going to be bad, don't get caught!

Today I..

Fill in the blank people! How did you spend your day?! I spent it going to two labs. The first one involved an exam I bombed and the second one involved standing outside for 40 minutes while freezing to a slow, slow death. I was home by 3.20PM. I am STILL cold and it's well over 3 hours later. I am snuggled up with a cup of tea, university platform diving and lots of layers! I wish Cape Breton would catch up with the seasons and turn itself into spring .. my shopping trip last night was a bust. I can't shop for spring things when I'm this cold!

So, what is on my plate for the remainder of the evening you ask? Well, I figured I'd take full advantage of my completely being alone and enjoy an evening for myself. This will include the following:
1. Long, hot bath
2. Beautiful blue drink
3. Painting my toes a spring color (I'll incorporate this season somehow. Even if I can't wear it's clothes!)
4. Uploading, editing& posting my photos on here
5. Curling up with a good book& popcorn
6. Bed early (here's hoping)

So for now, I'm deciding how to start my evening of being 100% unproductive. I'm torn between continuing to sit here for a little while longer or starting to run the bath. It really depends on how my motivation goes after finishing this post.

Until I decide, I'll let you in on my favorite part of last night: ice cream from the Tasty Treat. Garret and I split a Blizzard with Oreo crumbs! It was definitely a little chilly (it may or may not have been snowing) but it was still sort of fun to sit in the Jeep& split a delicious summertime treat. If it can't be spring, we may as well have fun pretending it is! While wearing our Ugg boots, winter coats, scarves& mittens, just in case we have to go outside ;)

Oh, also while we were doing our little air quality field trip, I was reminded of something very important. We all must be tolerant. I had this thought while trying very hard not to strangle certain people on our field trip. My first thought was 'You are so very, very bizzare'. Which was immediately followed by my second thought 'Try not to judge. Be tolerant'. My second thought failed. I tried .. and then I tried thinking of things that could increase my tolerance.

It hit me like a lightning bolt. I don't know how I've lived all these years and never consciously thought of it. Tolerance is most achievable when there is nobody around to tolerate! Wow. I'm brilliant ..practically the next Dalai Lama. It was an incredibly profound moment in my life. The only sad part was that I had such a moment while standing in an ambient air quality station while freezing cold and wearing alpaca mittens. Actually, the mittens were probably the highlight of that moment.
When I write my book, I'm going to make this moment more wonderful. It's going to involve me actually starting to live out my lack of tolerance by starting to strangle said persons but having the epiphany at exactly the critical moment! I can see it all now .. or maybe, I should just get a movie deal from my blog. Then I could pick someone totally awesome to play me. Except I'm not really good with celebrities, so that would be hard.

Okay, I'm done. The moral of the story is tolerance is easy. When there is no one around that you have to tolerate. So surround yourself with people that you don't want to strangle as often as you can. Oh, and I just learned another lesson:
Always dress like you're about to have a brilliant thought. Then you won't have to lie about it later when you're penning your personal book! I am sure glad Karli lent me those mittens ..I'll just focus on them.

So now I'm off to lock my doors (I don't want anyone to kill me while I'm relaxing) and enjoy a relaxing bath. I might even light candles to go with my beautiful blue drink. I will be back later to post my photos for today and yesterday!

Until then, enjoy your Thursday evening and I hope it is incredibly relaxing and warm :) I also hope it's filled with things you love, because everyone can use a pick-me-up from time to time!
Oh, I almost forgot to post a favorite song. This will most definitely help put you in a better mood ..unless you're going through a really depressing breakup or divorce. In which case, I'd probably skip it and go for something a little less filled with love. Like Nine Inch Nails. If you aren't heartbroken though, here is Brett Dennen -Love You the Most :)

Sunday Afternoons

I had a glorious, glorious sleep last night. It started almost immediately after I submitted my post and lasted almost 12 hours. I guess the reason I have been feeling so crappy& chronically tired lately is because I was actually tired. What a novel concept! Who would have thought ..so for now, I'm feeling much better and wishing that I had of just been able to get such a long sleep about a week ago. If I hadn't been so tired, I would have run a 5k in Sydney today. As it stands, I'm going to get back on the fitness train tomorrow, for real this time! I'm going to restart Insanity and keep going for the full 60 days. I am promising this time.. no more slacking.

Okay, so aside from my good sleep& lack of exercise, today is gorgeous! The weatherman tells me it's cold out, but all I can think is:

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SPRING :)

Or fall, if you live in the southern hemisphere!
The sun is shining, there are no clouds and it seems warmer than it is! What more can you ask for?! Oh yeah, that is stays this way! I want warmer weather and to enjoy some ice cream. I also want to get my motorcycle license.

Why, you ask? Yesterday Garret made the trek to Ingonish to pick up a motorcycle so that I can learn to drive! I'm so excited. Last night was my first official lesson. I sat on it, started it, shifted it out of neutral and into first (maybe?) .. let out the clutch and .. WENT FORWARD! Wooohoo .. I survived my first attempt at driving at motorcycle 4 inches! I also learned how to gas it while it was in neutral. I survived that as well (already doing much better than anticipated)! It was so exciting ..I can't wait to get a new leather coat and pants with studs on them. Also, to try to drive it outside of the garage. You guys just wait until you see me flying around downtown on my bike! I made Garret take a photo& send it to me so you guys could see just how awesome I am:

*Had to blur the background ..so many other bikes, couldn't tell what one I was on!

Isn't that awesome?! I love it. I don't even care that it's super dorky and Garret tells me it isn't very cool! Now, I need some suggestions for my awesome bike.
1. Name?!
2. Color?!
3. Decals?!
4. How awesome (1 - 10) is all this?!

I'll give you a hint for 4 .. the answer is 10 (incredibly awesome!). I'm so much a rebel that my mom even tweeted this:

Thanks Mom!! Definitely made me laugh out loud when I saw that ..too cute :) So, now .. what else is on the agenda for this day? Soon, I have to head to work where I will study for my foodborne test. If I get enough done there, I will write it tomorrow. If not, I'll write it Wednesday. Easy enough game plan ..as long as I don't get sidetracked by Buffy or Easy A! I am hoping for a quiet night -then again, I'm always hoping for a quiet night.

I also have to make myself some lunch in a few minutes and am busy wondering why I ate all the cake earlier. Baking is dangerous for my waistline. No more cookies or cakes for me! I am also promising to start eating healthier again. Such a slacker these last few weeks. Oops.

The only thing left to include in my post for this afternoon is TWO photos of the day, but I have to be honest; I'm not going to include them yet. I need to upload& photoshop them still. Too much work for me right now so on that note, keep waiting. I will add them later this evening when I get in from work.

Oh, before I leave this post go. I have one more thing to talk about:
Roll Up the Rim to: lose, in my case. I have yet to win a single thing on this stupid game. To make matters worse, Garret is constantly winning!! I think he has won 15+ times so far and I'm pretty sure I was there for every. single. one. So not fair .. Tim Hortons, why can't you pour my tea into a winning cup?! Just one .. I just want a free stinkin' tea. Please, can you make this happen before Roll up the Rim is over? Would really appreciate it!

So,for now, I am off to hang out with my puppy and make myself some lunch! I hope you all take advantage of this gorgeous day (or not so gorgeous, if that's your luck!)! At the very least, happy change of seasons boys& girls :)

Busy days ..

So my grandmother passed away on Tuesday, almost immediately after I submitted my post on that day. Sad days and busy days filled with pity hugs and looks. So thankful the being on display part of that is over. My two baby cousins were so sad it would break anybody's heart.

Phemia passing away led to quite the adventure for Garret and I on Tuesday evening though. Matthew left STU and got the bus to Truro, where Garret and I picked him up. Now, if it were any two other people in the world besides myself and my boyfriend .. this trip would have been smooth sailing. Due to it being us, however, we encountered a massive amount of snow and ice. It started in Baddeck and progressively got worse as we traveled. We went between 50 - 60 the whole way .. it was us in the Civic and transfer trucks. The roads were a mess .. we left at 7.30PM and arrived at the Truro bus stop at 12AM. After that, we turned around and drove home. We arrived home at 6.20AM. So yes, that would be 10 hours and 50 minutes to get to Truro and back. It was, needless to say, painful. It was also, however, a recurring trend in how Garret and I travel. Allow me a quick review of trips in storms:

1. Truro to get Matthew: Snow storm.
2. Halifax for Alicia& Nick's wedding: Rain and wind storm.
3. Halifax for shopping: Rain / sleet / snow storm.
4. Halifax to catch plane for Cuba: Massive snow storm.
5. Halifax with Rob to pick Garret up: Rain and wind storm.

And really, that is just what can think of off the top of my head. We have probably only traveled 3 - 4 times where the weather wasn't absolutely terrible. It would be funny if it wasn't so not funny. It is like God sees us get in vehicle to travel more than 40 minutes and BAM. Storm .. just in case we were planning on enjoying our drive. Thanks, God.

We did survive the drive, and everyone slept peacefully and for a long time. Except me. I slept for 1.5 hours. Since Wednesday morning I have added 5 more hours of sleep to that. Fabulousss.

So then on Wednesday we did a whole lot of nothing .. and then Thursday, A.K.A yesterday, we went to the wake for 2 hours and I could not go back from 7 - 9. Instead, we went out to Don Cherry's where I had a delicious chicken quesadilla and Cherry chips. Yum.

Easily the highlight of yesterday? Baby Grady and baby Finn, Garret's nephews. They are so sweet and so I spent all evening giving kisses to Finn and pretending to steal Grady's toes (a much more humane version of what was done to the children in my family ahahah). We ate some ice cream .. watched some X-Weighted and Last 10 Pounds and then Garret and the kids went to bed, so I went home ahahah.

Now, it's Friday. Tonight I am planning on doing nothing . if I could sleep, that would be wonderful. As it stands, I will probably lay awake and watch Big Bang Theory until early hours in the morning. Then, I will text Margaret and we will go to the gym and break a sweat. After that, I may or may not shower before heading into my favorite place in the entire world: COGANS! YAY. If I smell, perhaps fewer customers will try to engage in prolonged conversations with me. This is a theory definitely worth testing out.

The thing I am looking most forward to in the coming days is, quite obviously, my very first ever attempt at hot yoga (Bikram) on Monday! I was alright at yoga in my P90X days, however .. it has been months since I've even really bothered to stretch so this will be an adventure. Thank goodness for Meghan, who will probably kick my ass but at least we will be able to laugh about the whole thing. I'm just praying I don't pass out or do something else equally awkward.

Long life update #1: Complete.


Quick update to this update: I have officially started Project 365. Welcome to your first installment of photo I've taken+ written words. I present: A flower. Hopefully my creativity will increase or else you folks are getting a lot of flowers and puppies over the next 364 days!