Happy 143 birthday, buddy!

I love love love love love Canada day.
It's the best holiday. Here are my reasons.

1) It's a holiday with no expectations. No big dinners, no long lists of presents to purchase, no unrealistic expectations, and no commitments. It's just a fun day!

2) It's in the summer, close to the solstice. The day is so long and usually beautiful. I can't remember yucky weather on Canada day. That may be selective memory, but I don't care. In my mind, it is always beautiful July 1.

3) I almost always have fun on July 1 (I can think of one notable exception, but I'm who cares). Last summer I ate lots of cake and watched the fireworks with my dad and sister at the Ledge grounds. 2008 at a show with Blake. 2007 was my favourite Canada day of all time. I spent it on the Edmonton Queen River Boat. MBP played. We watched the fireworks from the river. It was beautiful.

4) THE HIGHLEVEL BRIDGE TURNS INTO A WATERFALL!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?



5) Free pancakes and cake everywhere you turn.

6) Canadian flags everywhere. We are nowhere near as flag crazy patriotic as our southern neighbours, so when Canadians bust out their flags, you better believe it's for a good reason.

7) Swearing in of new Canadian citizens at the ledge!

8) The strong sense of national pride.

9) This is a day where I remember how special our multiculturalism is. It's neat to see such diversity of our people. All partying down cause we love our sweet nation!! Oh yeah!

10) And my absolute most favourite part of this special day...


FIREWORKS!!!

TYS TOY

At my apartment building there is a white pick up that parks to the right of the back doors. It has the license plate "TYS TOY". I've always ripped on the plate and the lame truck. Recently I was going to work and noticed that all 4 of Ty's toy had flat tires. Someone had slashed them. I don't know if Ty was on vacation or if he didn't have the money or if he just didn't give a fuck, but his truck sat on it's rims and the bottom of it rusted away for about two weeks. One day a couple of weeks ago I walked by the car and he had replaced all the tires. The following day the tires on the drivers side were slashed again. I laughed. Last Friday I was headed off to work at around 9 and Ty had jacked up the drivers side and removed the two flats. I came home to pick something up at 11:30 and the passengers side tires were slashed. SOME SLASHED THEM IN BROAD DAYLIGHT ON A BUSY STREET IN A BUSY BUILDING!!! Ty left his car jacked up on the left side, but didn't replace any tires. Last weekend someone smashed his window with a brick.
Today Ty has a new car. I wonder how long it will take for this one to get destroyed. I know I shouldn't blame the victim, but I've come to the assumption that Ty is probably an abusive asshole and totally deserves this shit storm of vandalism.
It keeps me pretty darn entertained as well.

On a sad and rainy day this makes me feel a bit better.

I had another very good weekend.



On Friday I left work early because I had banked several hours of flex time during the week and I promised myself I'd use my flex time. I went home and had a delicious nap on the couch. I woke up around 5 and Blake drove me to my regular friday dinner with the social workers. Mandie wasn't feeling well, so it was just three of us, but it was a great time. Courtney and myself think similarly and Kristy thinks differently. It makes for interesting and heated discussions at time. Especially since Kritsy and I seem to never see eye to eye on the meaning of a word. Courtney quite often acts as a translator between us, as she can interpret what Kristy is saying. So we ate chinese food. Complained about work. Bragged about work. Talked about modern love and fluidity of gender. Then we played a hilarious game called "type-cast" that I picked up at vv earlier in the day (when I went home early, I stopped there and picked up sunglasses and board games). And each drank several glasses of wine.

On Saturday morning I was quite the grumpy bear and I sulked off to Transcend to read a book and eat waffles. Mandie and Joel came to join me and Farren joined a bit later too. I typically only see Mandie on Fridays with Kristy and Courtney, but she is a lot like me and she is a good shopper with similar shopping tastes, I've wanted to hang out with her more, so this was a nice day. Once the 4 of us finished with our tasty lattes, Joel left and we went shopping.

It was a good time. Mandie and Farren have a lot in common (they are both awesome ladies!) I bought chocolates from the Handmade Mafia show for my mom and two vintage dresses (that the store left the GIANT security tags on, so I can't wear them until I go back. Super annoying).

I got home late afternoon and brought flowers from Zocalo to apologize to B for being such a grumpy bear. He forgave me.

The rest of saturday I did nothing and it was great! ...I probably should have tackled my laundry mountain. Oh wait, I painted two small painting for my mothers and wrote heartfelt messages on the backs of them. I am incredibly lucky to have a loving, supportive and fun mom and mother-in-law.

Sunday was mothers days craziness. I went to transcend for another waffle (developing waffle compulsion forming here) and B tried a latte and liked it! From there we went to my parents. My dad made mothers day brunch. He puts cornflakes on french toast and it is delicious!! In the evening we went to Japanese Village with B's mom. It was also delicious. Mothers day was busy and nice and still I made it home in time to watch Ugly Americans

Ugly Americans is my favourite tv show at the moment. I feel a kinship with Mark Lily (the alive human in the picture). He is a social worker for the Department of Integration. Similar to me, he is idealistic, but also tired. His clients are a mix of monsters, ghouls, imaginary creatures and immigrants. His department had major cut backs and he works with an incompetent wizard. The animation is fantastic! It's imaginative and busy (there's always so many things to look at in every scene).

Okay, back to my weekend. It was great!

Also, last night I did two hours of aquasize at Millwoods Rec. The instructor there is fantastic. He is straight from the 70s, complete with classic rock sing-a-longs. The Big Roast and I pretend we are on a vacation while we are there and it makes for a pretty relaxing night at the pool.

Tonight, birthday Padmanadi for Mary!

lovin' life.

Quolls

Look at this animal I didn't know about before today.




They are carnivorous, marsupials. And I think they're pretty darn cute.

Laziest weekend in weeks

For the first time since I moved out of my parents house, 6 years and 5 rentals later, my apartment feels like a home.

On Thursday my dad and I drove out to Spruce Grove to pick up the amazing couch I found via kijiji. It probably weighed 300 lbs and nearly killed me and my poor dad moving it into the house. My dad has lifted weights for as long as I can remember and his shoulders are as wide as a house. I can't even do a push up. I wasn't much help and my dad commented several times on my lack of upper body strength, which I found hilarious! We eventually got it into the apartment and then I realized that I now had 3 couches in a 1 bedroom apartment. I spent most of Friday stressing out about my abundance of couches. I didn't think anyone would want a ratty, popsicle stained, ikea couch, so I looked into (and by that I mean, blake made phone calls) having it taken away by the junker people. They said it would cost $260 which is more than half of what I paid for my new couch. So I posted a kijiji ad and by the next day I had 5 offers! So I guess some hillbillies came and took it away. Thanks Hillbillies!
I think that it's starting to feel like a home because we are using it as a home. I am entertaining more, putting up art work, and since yesterday we've also been growing a garden.

Blake planted all sorts of veggies out on our balcony and we are also working on an herb garden. I'm pretty excited for fresh tomatoes, mint, potatoes, and strawberrys. I'm most excited to be surrounded by green things. I also picked up a couple of succulents and an air plant. I tied a peice of red string around the air plant and hung it by the window.

Life is pretty much the same as always. I am feeling pretty restless these days. I'd like some sort of drastic change in my life, but I don't know what that change would be and if it would be for the better or just for the different.
Tonight Blake is making me supper and then I'm going to aquasize. Following aquasize I am going to make some poly creatures for my little cactus garden.

This is the couch. The back in on a track so you can adjust the couch in a million different ways. And by a million, I really mean 4.

Chair vs. Blake. Chair wins!

This guy makes me laugh.
He was putting together our new computer chair and put it together around his leg.

lambimal clip cloppin'

I watch this video about three times a week lately.

Spring Cure: Week 1

I've finally committed to the apartment therapy spring cure and even bought the book.

It's week one and I've started on the assignments. One of the assignments was to vacuum and mop the entire space. I borrowed my parents Dyson yesterday and began attacking the dust bunnies. First off, what a difference using a quality vacuum made. The air in my apartment actually felt noticably cleaner after I'd vacuumed about 3/4 of my space. Maxwell (author of the 8-step home cure) suggests taking note of what you have to move when you vacuum. I didn't do too bad, but vacuuming around my living room was the biggest hassel, so I think I'll have to come up with a solution for storage rather than storing boxes and tv remotes under the couch.

I did the quiz in the health of my apartment and got a 10 which is Healthy. I scored the highest on the section for heart. I do have many things in my place that reflect what I like and what I think it beautiful. I was feeling down on my space, but once I identified that my apartments heart is strong, I felt a lot better.

I scored the lowest on Breath. I have way too much stuff. My place isn't easy to clean and I don't always feel comfortable in it. I'll need to work on controlling my consumption.

To do:
I still need to mop my place (I was so tired after the extreme vacuuming).
I need to part with an item (Yesterday on the give away spot in my building I picked up a beautiful vase. I wonder if someone else in my building is doing the cure).
I need to create my style tray.

Here's a photo I find inspiring.

Last night I woke up and to my horror my pillow had come to life.

But then it purred and it was just Mooch.