Blue Birds

Think back on your childhood for a moment.

If you are a girl, you most likely saw a lot of princess movies. And in these princess movies the common girl always had a group of friendly talking animal friends. These friendly talking animal friends would usually help her out of a scrape and often help her get ready for a big banquet or ball. (Think Cinderella where the rats and birds dress her up.)

This Friday, unfortunately for me and my childhood (and adult) dreams, Prince William will marry Kate Middleton.

A common girl.
Being turned into a princess.
No doubt she will have a hoard of stylists there to help her.
And according to my knowledge of common-girls-turning-into-princesses, that means that her assistants will be little blue birds.

Just saying.

And they better televise that part of the wedding too!

Top Five

You know, it's been one of those weeks. A good week, but a long week. Meetings every. single. night. 12 hours of volunteer work with St. John's Ambulance, family visiting from Ontario, my sister here from Pano(rama), Easter dinner, music lessons, heritage fair. Busy busy busy. A good busy, but busy.

Here are the highlights of my busy week.
1. Visiting with Aunt Chris and Uncle Steve who told me a hilarious (and true) story about how their mullet and long boarding loving son got beat up by a butch (and I quote "corn-fed country") girl.

2. Being none-too subtle for the last three weeks at staff meetings about my preference for old-school CRC-inspired hymns during the Easter Sunday service, specifically "Up From the Grave He Arose." I was pleasantly surprised, no, I was overjoyed, when it was the second song this morning. I may or may not have jiggled a little jig and almost cheered outloud. . .

3. Winning at a new card game

4. Finding my host sister from 10 years ago in Poland on Facebook.

5. Getting a free I-Pod from the coolest chick I know who once visited every 7-11 in town with me to partake/ abuse free slurpee day (July 11, every year, mark it on your calendar)

And that's my top five. Love you all.

On Behalf of all Females

Tonight I want to complain about something that girls do not complain enough about. We hold it in, we pretend that it doesn't hurt, we may even deny that it happens. But tonight I want to speak up, nay, shout out, on behalf of the majority of women out there.

Dagnabit. Plucking your eyebrows hurts.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but does anybody want my eyebrows to look like this?


I thought not. Why then is it not ok for my eyebrows to be au natural? Like this:


I'm not going to lie. Sometimes my eyebrows do look similar to that. If I don't have time (ahem the energy) to put make-up on in the morning, what makes you think that I have the time (ahem desire) to painfully pluck a bunch of miniature hairs out of my face so that my eyes can look like this:

Then there is always the danger that you take too much away and end up like this:


My encouragement today: If you see someone with nice eyebrows - compliment them on it. It was a painful process getting them that way. And my second encouragement is this: if God wanted caterpillars on our face, He wouldn't have created them to live on the ground. Think about it.

Awesome

Quite some time ago I had a party. I often have parties, and often (99% of the time), these parties have themes and people have come to expect that. I think my best themed party was when I handed out four different party invitations - all for the same night, all with a different theme. (Under the water, Beach, Masqurade and Disco). It was a mish-mash of awesome random costumes and confusion.

Earlier this year I threw a party and to everyone's shock and disappointment I did not have a theme. So I told them the them was 'awesome.' As in the party would be awesome, they were awesome, I'm awesome, life is awesome. And to gain entry into my awesome party they had to bring or share one thing that they thought was awesome. It was great. I was introduced to some things that actually were awesome, and got to share with my friends some things that I think are awesome like the book Dancing with Cats, a glow-in the dark dancing scene from Body Rock, and I think that was also the day I made strawberry-kiwi jam, but didn't plan very well - I had a severe lackage of jars and I vaguely recall making everyone eat bread and jam, because my parties are cool like that.

Anyways, I want to share with you my top ten list of awesome things for the month of April.
1. Febreeze Winter Evening & Warmth
2. Adidas Sport Fever Body Wash
3. Mary-Kay Oil Free Make-Up Remover
4. Aveeno Moistruizer
5. Sharpies
6. Ebay, Etsy, Craigslist, Kijiji, Garage Sales, Auctions
7. Sharp, new pencils
8. Digestive Cookies
9. My Jobs
10. Wearing Nailpolish again.

What do you think I should put on my next list of awesomeness?

New Job Opportunities.

Due to my new addiction to "Storage Wars" and "Auction Hunters" I am currently thinking that I'd like to give up teaching and either become an auctioneer, or an auction hunter.

Just think about it, you get to travel all over the country to skeezy parts of every city and dig through other people's junk until you find a treasure. Like a $1200 pair of jeans, or an antique gun worth $3000. It's amazing. Yesterday's episode solidified my desire. The guy bought a totally junk-filled, useless unit and in the back corner found a suitcase. A suitcase full of $17 000 worth of Tiffany jewlery! SEVEN. TEEN. THOUSAND. DOLLARS.

This reminds me of the time at my Young Adults Group at the church when Dave asked us to share with the people at our table what item in our home has the most value. Is it sad that it is my sisters medical textbook? I'm a grown woman and I own nothing of value... yet.... except for two ridiculously overpriced pieces of paper hanging on my wall. And even then, I won't officially own them until the end of June (woot woot!)

So, just a heads up, if you cant find me at my regular jobs next fall, look for me at an auction. I'll be the one talking really fast.

I'm still LOLing

I actually don't have anything super interesting to say today. But I'm figuring if I want people to keep reading my blog I should keep posting things on a regular basis. And so today, a funny story that I didn't witness, but I wish I did.

This one time, someone I know was clipping her toenails in the living room and putting the clipped nails into a pop can.

Then later, this other person I know came into the room, said "oh! My pop! I forgot about that!" and took a swig of pop before person 1 could stop her.

And then she pulled a massive big-toe-toenail out of her mouth.

I dare you to tell me that you didn't laugh out loud at that.

I saved a life today

So today, around 3pm, I saved a life.

And you know what I got for it?

A sticker.

It was very rewarding.

Let me tell you my thoughts on donating blood.

a. You should do it.
b. 1 hour of your life can save up to four lives.
c. It's in you to give.
d. If you are healthy and don't play with monkey pee, you can donate.
e. It's very rewarding. Like today I got a sticker, and the first time you donate you get a special sticker and after 10, 15, 20, 25 etc times donating you get a tacky pin!
f. You always get free juice and cookies. So I mean, combine that with the stickers, the 30 minute nap while they suck your blood out and it's pretty much like going back to kindergarten. (Not that they suck your blood out in kindergarten - well maybe in the public school they do, but not at my Christian school - reason 87 to enroll your child(ren) in quality Christian Education)

It's really great. In the past ten years I've probably donated between 20 and 25 times, which means that I have possibly saved 100 lives!!! That pretty much makes me a hero. If any of you have ties with the Governor General, you should throw my name out there for some sort of award or something.

I know I've been really positive about donating blood and I feel like I need to be honest about a few things. Sometimes you have to wait a really long time to get through all the stations and line-ups. And sometimes the questions they ask are awkward, repetitive and strange (i.e. handling monkey pee. First of all, ew, who does that? And secondly, whaaaaat?) And truth be told it does hurt, but just a little bit. It's totally worth it.

Today after answering the awkward questions and finally making it to my elevated chaise lawn chair, I sat down with a sigh ready for my blood to be taken. About half the time I attempt to donate I get turned down (stupid pet monkey!), because my iron is too low or there's a stamp in my passport that automatically contaminates my blood. So I was pretty pleased that I made it today. Especially since usually the few days before donating I bulk up on steak and green beans but I only had one days notice this time.

I think I knew there was going to be a problem when the nurse was not only making faces while she put in the needle, but took forever and was sucking air in between her teeth and making grunting and groaning noises.

My blood would not. come. out. I told my nurse that in college we used to race to see whose blood would fill the bag and she gave me the "uh huhhhh and that's why it's taking us 40 minuts to get a unit of blood? Sure you did." Then she'd give a sweet smile to the lady across from me who lost a unit of blood in six minutes. SIX!

So my nurse tried wiggling the needle around and would ask gently, "is that ok? That doesn't hurt does it?"
To which I would reply, "nope, it's fine."
But I would really be thinking, "What do you think? There is a needle in. my. arm. Of course it hurts you nitwit."
Then she'd push it up a bit more and rotate my arm, sweetly asking, "you're fine right? Doesn't hurt eh?"
And I'd say, "naw, it's all right."
But would be thinking, "Uh... woman? What do you think you are doing? drawing me a bubble bath? Giving me a massage? Feeding me fresh marshmallows? There is a large, sharp, foreign item penetrating my vein. Of course that hurts!"

And the funny thing is, is that my blood was so attached to me (because let's face it, why wouldn't you be?), that my nurse actually gave up on me and took the needle out before the bag was full. She said it was 'full enough.' I don't know about you, but if I ever need a unit of blood, I want a full unit of blood. Not an almost full unit of blood. Whatever. I guess I saved a baby today.

Bacon Sundae

Bacon makes a classic ice cream sundae even more awesome. We start with maple flavoured syrup and a scoop of rich, creamy vanilla ice cream and then a generous sprinkle of our diced hickory-smoked bacon And another sweet layer of syrup and vanilla ice cream topped with even more bacon and a drizzle of syrup.

Ok. Seriously. I am as Canadian as the next girl. But a Bacon Sunday? Come on! And I didn't see this crazy menu-item on any old menu at a random greasy spoon in the wilds of British Columbia, I saw it at Denny's. DENNY's. The breakfast place.

I don't know, maybe it is a good idea. Ice Cream, gooooood. Syrup, gooooood. Bacon, gooooooood. Bacon sundae, goooooooooooooooooooooood. Maybe it's the sweet-salty that people crave. Maybe Canadians pork producers are trying to expand into the desert market. Or maybe Canadians just straight-up, plain and simple, love bacon. On everything.

Canadians also love gravy on everything. Can we expect a gravy sundae next?

Ew.

If you try the Bacon Sunday will you please give me a reveiw of it. I'd love to hear what you thought about it.