Autumn in August

No, seriously. The rain has stopped (momentarily) and the temperature is perfect autumn weather. I would love if the weather was this way always ..even on the tenth of August! It has become obvious that we aren't going to get any summer weather so I'm basically just hoping now that we get some glorious autumn weather and the rain stops for a few days! The sky is still pretty overcast but me& the pup are going for a walk in a little bit if the rain does hold off.

The greenery is so confused from this weather that the leaves are already starting to change colors to a more autumn look. This is highly depressing seeing as leaves don't usually change colors until end of September/ start of October. Our horrible weather has even managed to make the trees want to sleep until it's all over with. Now that's saying something!

One perk to this colder weather? I didn't have to give up tea for the summer! I usually can't drink something hot when it's hot out& so I stop drinking tea from June- September. This year I can blissfully drink til my heart's content :D For a change today though, I think instead I'll make myself a delicious hot chocolate with whipped cream& chocolate sauce with some cinnamon sprinkled on top. To people who live where it's hot ..you're probably feeling disgusted by the thought of that. Anyone out there living in my climate?! If you are I know you are thinking how fabulous that sounds! Allow me to provide you with a visual of my drink.

So delicious!

Ever make fancy drinks for yourself?

So, what else is new aside from the weather& delicious hot drinks? Well.. the other day I hung out with the Haflingers again. Still have no photos but I promise once I can catch them& brush them down so they look beautiful I will get some for you guys. Instead I took photos of a pregnant cat. We lovingly call her Preggo ..so I'm not sure what her name will be once she has her babies! She is obviously a house cat, not a barn cat& loves the attention we give her. I can't wait until she has her babies for the photo ops!

Isn't she pretty?

Hope her babies are good lookin' too!

So we are spending lots of time with her so that we will be able to go near her babies without getting cat scratch fever ..or just scratched in general! Especially when you consider that I don't really like cats. Aside from Duffy. Preggo isn't as pretty as Duff but she's very sweet so I'll give her a pass for 'Cats I can tolerate'. Any suggestions for new names for her post-pregnancy?!

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!

Contest Winners!

If you didn't enter, you couldn't win! There were 24 entries .. RANDOM.ORG is responsible for the results, so blame them for it! Thank you guys for playing along and helping me have fun with this ..I hope you will try again in my next contest ;)

Results
Well, congratulations to little Miss Tiffy!! Congratulations ..you are a winner :)

You will be receiving a text from me shortly letting you know just how lucky you are! All your hard work paid off and you get the amazing prizes from my very first official Blog Contest! How much fun is that?! Now you get to collect your items, show them off in a photo and lastly (and best) do a BLOG INTERVIEW with me! So much fun. We'll do it at a coffeehouse and be truly indie. Don't forget to wear your beanie!

Banquet
Today I have a banquet for my program. I totally forgot about it and now I'm in a rush trying to get ready, seeing as I spent my morning lazing in Garret's bed watching Sell This House. It was exciting ..then we got tea. Neither of us won. So now I'm sitting in pj pants with my hair air drying, my nails air drying and praying that I am ready in time to go to Margy's for some pre-celebration celebrations! Our banquet theme is tropical or something and I'm so not feeling it. It's FREEZING out. Bonus?! I'M NOT AT WORK RIGHT NOW!

Insidious
New horror movie that opened last night. I dragged Garret to come see it with me. It was incredibly cheesy but had some moments that truly made me jump. I'm pretty sure a true horror fan will never be overly scared, however if you are like my boyfriend then you might be scarred for life. In the end, it's one of those movies that you should really just wait until it comes out on DVD. I did, as always, really enjoy the popcorn that accompanied the movie! Yum yum.

Photos
I have been SO SLACK. I owe you guys three days worth of photos. I'm sorry ..I don't have them. They are on my camera, waiting for me to upload them& do something with them. I promise tomorrow I will provide a long post of banquet events, photos and whatever else. I hope you can forgive me!

Alright, so that's that. Sorry for the short sucky update, but I have much to do before I'm ready to hang out with my beautiful friends. Currently it involves praying that my hair turns out okay because if not, I don't know what I'll do. I also still have to fix the ass of my dress before I can wear it (long story), so I guess I'll go accomplish that. Bye bye :)

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 :)

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!

One day .. two photos!

Okay, so as promised I will have two photos for you folks today. It is just going to start out with one (sorry, need to take day 14 photo still!). So today was Thursday and I was supposed to have a test in air quality tomorrow. Now? I don't. So life is good. .. I am officially done with school until after the break. Oh, how I adore you break. So many plans, but will refrain from talking about them until after they happen!

So today I went to foodborne lab and did some testing. Turns out I had a weirdly grown bacteria. It was interesting sort of. Then the lab ended an hour and a half early, so I went and got Garret for a tea and a drive. Then, it was time to go back to school for air quality lab. Which was semi-long, but ended well due to rescheduling of the test :D

After lab, I headed to the gym with Marg for the first time in a few days. It was excellent. Ran a few miles, did some bosu ball and then we headed to the mall where we got Orange Julius and shopped for shoes! I almost bought a new pair of Nike Frees, but I didn't like the guy who was serving us. He was being a jerk and asking me if I knew how to run in the Frees. Even though I had already told him I had a pair currently. That is just stupid. Stupid people frustrate me so much .. please, use your brain before speaking. Especially when it involves interacting with me.

Now I'm home. I am planning on TWO blog updates today. Here's why:
1. I have two photos to post
2. I have another blog post to post

I can't post both photos and posts at the same time because:
1. Photo wasn't taken yet
2. Next blog post will be a review of Insanity Day 1 (yup. I bought it. Oops).

Edit:
Okay, so now I have completed Insanity Fit Test. This was day 1. This was my first realization that the program I have purchased was perhaps a good decision for my overall fitness and a bad one for my sanity. I should have figured that out considering the name of it is Insanity. Here is a breakdown of my first attempt:

The Fit Test is 30 minutes long and you are supposed to do it every 15 days, so a total of 4 times. The warmup is nuts and powers through jogging, jumping jacks, Heisman's, 1-2-3s, butt kicks and high knees. I was winded by the end of it, that is how crazy it is.
After the warm up, we did a quick stretch and moved into the 8 moves of max reps for a full minute. I recorded my results and hopefully there will be improvements! The eight moves are:
1. Switch Kicks
2. Power Jacks
3. Power Knees
4. Power Jumps
5. Globe Jumps
6. Suicide Jumps
7. Push Up Jacks
8. Low Plank Obliques

It seems deceptively easy when solely being written down or explained. It is not. Since it was only thirty minutes, I didn't bother slapping on my heart rate monitor. Oops. I easily hit 85%. I promise to keep better track tomorrow when I tackle Day 2 - Cardio Circuit Plyometrics :( Wish me luck!

So, for now I leave you with my good looking boyfriend as my photo of the day #13:

I need work on portraits of people and I find it awkward to take them. So starting with the boyfriend is a good idea, will move on to others as my skills in this area improve! Hopefully, rather quickly :) And now, photo #14 which was taken this morning after my foodborne lab. So yes, I am too tired to even TRY to take another photo. I basically can't wait to have this post finished and watch X-Weighted!! It also keeps with the theme of having Garret related photos in this post ahaha it isn't him .. it's his one true love: the custom motorcycle he is building!

I actually hate titles so much I forgot to give this post one!

Soo today is a Monday. If I were a celebrity and someone else was writing this blog about me, I bet the post would be immensely more entertaining than the one you're about to read. If I were a celebrity, I would have attended the SAG awards last night, perhaps won something or worn something truly righteous. Instead, I didn't do any of that so thumbs up for sticking with me .. especially to my one follower;)
Monday Monday Monday .. today I had a great day. I went to my classes and they were thrilling. Foodborne was once again the highlight of the day, with a fantastic discussion on explosive diarrhea. So thanks for that, Bernie. Along with the explosive diarrhea, although completely unrelated I assure you, was a photo of 2 people from the society serving food and being bad examples of it and then the next slide? A photo of me ..doing yoga. What up, warrior 1 pose? So delightful to see yourself looking foolish up on the screen ahha Bernie is just lucky that I have a sense of humor!

Next was the gym. Where I ran 5k and then worked on my next project: bosu ball. It is my mission to bring this thing to popularity and when I get a big following / book deal, it will be awesome to see that happen. Hahaha so this is what I did this afternoon:
1. 10 lunges per side
2. Hop up, squat twice, hop down. 10 times.
3. Running on the bosu ball (hard to explain, but amazing for increasing speed for runs.) 2x25
4. Hop on, hop off to the other side, turn and repeat. 15 times
5. Situps on the ball, 15 times.

Was so much fun .. I'm going to make a list tonight and make sure to bring it tomorrow. I'm pretty sure the 2 girls also in the room with me thought I was completely mental, but I can't even be bothered caring. I LOVE these things and I am in way better shape than them anyway ;)

Next on the agenda was a visit to the barns, where I chatted with Patricia and Valerie and a girl named Emily. It was nice to see some familiar faces (both horse and people) but crazy how much changeover that place has seen! I stayed for about 90 minutes and then all feeling in my limbs, and especially toes, had left me so it was time to pack up and go home. Once I got home, I had a delicious chicken breast and some rice ..followed by a healthy bag of popcorn. Also to be eaten this fine evening: yogurt, strawberries, a large cup of tea to warm me up and perhaps some crackers and peanut butter? I like to eat ..sue me.

Also, I will spend the better part of the evening reading over my notes for anatomy& physiology while wishing for the snowstorm to actually arrive on Wednesday. Which will create yet another storm day and I will rejoice. For now, it's -20 out and that is very cold. Meaning the rejoicing is minimal and mostly centered around the fact that I am not at work right now and am instead curled up in my bed in pajamas! Now, if only that cup of tea would magically appear in my hand ..hmm