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!

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 :)

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 :)

Drift ice!

Ahh .. the further we get into spring, the more it seems like the world might actually warm up! Today was only slightly bitterly cold. So thumbs up for that. Why is it bitter cold? Because I live in a house surrounded by water 3 sides. The water is currently filled with the miraculous thing known as drift ice! I will include a photo perhaps ..depending on my energy level in the next 2hrs (which, yes, is how long it will take me to photoshop all my photos to include them here& publish them!). I'm hoping I'm energetic enough to at least try, because otherwise I am giving up on having energy!

So, today consisted of NOT writing foodborne ..so now I must tackle it on Wednesday morning instead. Ughh to this stupid midterm. Oh well. Hopefully tonight will have something fun occur, like curling up with the boyfriend to watch Heavy& Intervention perhaps?! My all time favorite way to spend a Monday evening!

For now, I'll content myself with watching Dr. Phil (brat-proofing your child ..my future child is going to be so perfect!) and drinking water. I might even indulge in a chocolate chip cookie! So much for the health train, although after Dr. Phil I am actually going to go do Insanity. It's just the fit test, which is nice but still killer. Hoping restarting exercise will restart my energy levels ..can't survive this drained much longer! Keep your fingers crossed, eh? Until then I'm just going to lay uselessly on the couch and think about exercise. That's close to actually doing it, right?

Okay so now it's 5.20PM. Cookies have been enjoyed, photos have NOT been taken and exercise has been done! Call me almost completely productive ..so close. If I could just get some energy to take photos, life would be so much better! Although currently I'm here in pj pants, an LA Lakers shirt and a big bottle of water that is almost empty! None of this is conducive to going for a photo. So many photos need uploading, photoshopping and posting. Blargh ..this project 365 thing is way harder than I imagined! It's also funny how I'm just leaving this unpublished and randomly updating it with how unproductive I've been. Okay, next section will include photos& also be the last!

Alright, now! Photos for today+ 2 days ago:
Starting with Saturday's photo, which is a photo of gum from work. It looks, oddly, like a photo I took a long time ago when I first got my camera. This is unique for 2 reasons:
1. I have, clearly, not improved at all ahahah
2. I rock at being productive at work!

Most excellent ..now onto yesterday. Yesterday was a photo of the flower my boyfriend got me for Valentine's Day. No, it isn't still alive .. yes, I should probably throw it away. I had, up to this point, yet to take a photo of it though. I figured I'd snap one while it was withering away slowly on top of our water cooler!

Now, onto my photo for today! My intention was to go outside and get a photo that represents spring. That, however, did not occur. Instead, I opted to just take a photo in the bathroom. Luckily for you, it's not of anyone peeing! It's of Benefit makeup ..but it's sort of pretty! I think so, at least :)

Okay, now I'm done for the day. This was perhaps the longest, most procrastinating blog post in all of history! Hope it was worth the time it took me to write it ..enjoy ladies& gentlemen :) Oh, by the way ..I'm leaving you with a post from someecards that I feel is relevant to my life at this moment:

*Taken from here

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 :)

Sunny Tuesdays!

Today was beautiful. It was sunny, it was considerably warmer than yesterday and I cleaned my entire car, inside& out! It is SO nice to have it sparkling when I drive it .. no more shame in owning in the dirty car LOL. Thanks, boyfriend for helping me and letting me use your car cleaning supplies :) You rock!

Before cleaning out my car, I embraced the day by wrapping my foot and hitting up the treadmill. It was excellent ..I pounded out 5 miles on hills with the sun from outside shining on my back. Almost made me think it was actually spring-like out! Oh, sunshine. You lift the cloak of anger and bitterness from me. Also, it stayed bright out until about 7.30! Hello, spring ahead. I love you almost as much as sunshine. Afterward, I had an Orange Julius and proceeded on my mission to clean the poor Civic. Then Margaret convinced me to play basketball ..which was interesting. On the bright side, I was the fastest person up the court! Thank you, many miles logged.

My post the other day (yesterday? I'm not really sure) mentioned that practically all magazines say there are 2 ways to have good hair; straighten it or artificially curl it. I don't really care, my curls rock& my boyfriend loves them. Or at least, he tells me he does and that's all that matters. The only thing that bothers me is that it makes it impossible to find cute ways to style curly hair. Seriously ..my hair is constantly the EXACT SAME. This bothers me from time to time.

Mostly because for 21 years of my life, I have NOT embraced the curl. Actually, I fought the curl with clothes irons, hair irons, serums, gels, creams.. hell I would have shot a unicorn if I thought it would give me what genetics didn't -- straight hair. It was painstaking work of straightening and praying to sweet baby Jesus there was no humidity, rain, clouds, anything that would destroy my highly time consuming straight hair.
And then, when disaster struck and it rained within 2000 miles of where I was standing and the curls started to creep up, first on my forehead and slowly all over, I would cry on the inside and wonder why they just couldn't cooperate. Yeah, I thought this until I was 21. Yeah, I know curls aren't really self-aware. No, it doesn't mean I didn't still hate them for it.

So then one day, I put down the creams, gels, irons and administered CPR to the unicorn. I sat down with trusty google and typed 'how to get gorgeous curls' and instead found a whole new lifestyle. I did a lot of reading .. a lot of practicing .. I learned all there was to learn about all the kinks and waves and curls and types 1 - 4B. Yeah, there are a LOT of different kinds of curl. Why oh why can some magazine not just show us girls who don't want to straighten our hair (or artificially curl it ..what's the point? It's already curly)?!
So my new mission = get curly hairstyles. Grow my curly hair out (shocker.) and try to help others make embracing their own hair easier on them!

On that note, I think I've done enough typing for the day. Now, my photo. Yes. I have it. Just call me awesome. I also even know what day I'm on. I spent this afternoon updating my Project 365. I am on day 41 as of today. I cannot believe I've kept it. Oh, and also that I still have over 300 days left. Really makes the year seem impossibly long!

Stay classy boys& girls :)
And let me know what you prefer ... curly or straight?!

A secret about a secret.

That's what they say photographs are. Who knew? Maybe that's why photography intrigues me so much, especially portraits. I think portraits of people are stunning, especially when done in black& white. I LOVE color, don't get me wrong, but something about a black& white photo just seems to show so much more. On that note, tonight I tired to get a rocking photo of Matthew (aka, my brother) but he refused. Oh, typical brother behavior. I swear to the good heavens above that starting tomorrow, right in school I'm busting out the camera. And I'm saying 'LET ME TAKE YOUR PHOTO ______'. Okay, probably not. I am going to try though.

So, I didn't get a photo of the brother for the photo of the day. Instead I got a clock. I'll add it to the bottom of the post as per usual. Why are my photos at the bottom you ask? To encourage you to at least scroll, if not read, through everything I felt like telling you about today!

My run yesterday went better than expected, as I didn't end up in an ambulance or dead from exhaustion LOL! Today, however, I realized I pulled a tendon or something in the top of my foot. It doesn't really matter, since I had no intentions of exercise today at all. Instead, I had a cupcake& rested at work. I read magazines (I managed to stay awake about 4 minutes after posting) and tried to tolerate the people who come into my store. In all fairness, I actually like quite a bit of the regulars who come through! If I'm in an especially good mood, I can even manage to find the humor in the ones I don't like. Lately, there have been no good moods to find it.
So then I came home, changed the look of my blog, went for a coffee with the boyfriend (he came and picked me up AND purchased my tea. Score for me!), did some school and am now considering just curling up in bed to watch the new show, Breakout Kings. It's not on until much later though.

I had something worthwhile to post here, and like typical me, I have completely forgotten what it was. Perhaps something about the weather? How great it was to not have crazy high winds, snow storms and freezing cold temperatures awaiting my walk outdoors this morning. Words cannot express the joy I receive in thinking spring may actually make it to Cape Breton. I am cautiously optimistic. I will gladly take overcast days with rain, until at least May. Just please, no. more. snow!!! I am SO ready to get back outside and run. Treadmills make me such a sad runner ..how boring. I feel like a hamster in a wheel. Only a hamster isn't smart enough to know better.

Yeah. So, I have nothing super exciting to really tell you folks about today. I do, however, have a photo being posted on time. Which is an accomplishment all in it's own! Just call me Ms. Productivity! Here is my mom's clock:

Ain't she a beauty?! Also, drop a line in the comments and let me know if you prefer this blog layout to the old one and also let's encourage Garret to use it to design the paint scheme for his new motorcycle :D

Have a great Sunday evening, ladies& gents :)