If you had the option of getting surgery to relieve chronic pain, but in exchange, you would need to give up something that you love dearly, would you do it?

Update in brief:

Went for a walk out in the woods today, with a plan of catching myself a baby turtle. Not for keeps, since they require so much equipment, but just to play with for a little while before returning him back to the ground. Alas, it was bitter cold out in the woods today, so there were no baby turtles to be found. Instead, we found a wild coyote, which was the first time I'd ever seen one close up.

Seussical is coming along nicely and is going to turn out to be a really awesome show.

Still looking for a companion/hunt partner for the Glebe Garage Sale next Saturday morning. If you're interested, let me know! Andrew is out of town for the weekend and I need someone to help me hunt for fabrics.

I bought an ipod touch on Wednesday. It is my new favorite thing.

I think the universe hates me. I am sick. Again.

The Farmers Markets are all open for the season and this makes me very very happy. The veggies are still pretty scarce, but the highlights from this morning's trip include Maple Cotton Candy, fresh and delicious wedge fries from the Hot Potato Company (which is my new favorite market stall), some St. Laurent Blue Cheese (Andrew's purchase, not mine. Ick) and Whisky Mist tablet fudge. Delish!

Twice this week, I've been carded buying dvds. Exorcism of Emily Rose and Resident Evil. Really, do I look that young?

Tomorrow will include bbqing, croquet (at which I will school Andrew, once again) and general shenanigans with our regular Sunday theatre crowd.

Counting down the days until Toronto, which will include zoo shenanigans with Ms Heather and watching my boyfriend's father become ordained as a minister. Craziness!

Super secret discussions going down lately, involving the possibility of a very large purchase in the next year or so. Secrets!

Once I get over this cold (soon, hopefully), I'm planning to pitch a cake date. It's been ages since we've all gone out for cake and chatted. I need updates on your lives, people!

♥

Dear President Obama,

As a Canadian citizen, I am thrilled that you have chosen our nation for your first presidential trip. I sincerely hope that you enjoyed your time here in the Capital City. I would like to bring one small matter to your attention, though. You may wish to have a chat with your visit co-coordinators and ask them the following questions:

1) Why 4pm? I understand how important it is to return to the White House in time for dinner, but could we not have had dinner here or perhaps waited until mid-morning tomorrow to go home?

2) Why was it necessary to take Colonel By, thereby forcing closures on any route crossing the canal, bisecting the city and stranding hundreds of people out in the cold for over an hour, since they could neither get to Rideau, to their classes at U of O, or home to their apartments?

Sincerely,

A concerned resident


At Bank, I was directed to get off of my bus if I was travelling to a station between Bank St and Hurdman, as the 98 was being detoured down O'Connor and onto the Queensway. After walking to Mac Bridge (and then Confederation park and then the stairs to the Laurier bridge) and being held up for over 45 minutes trying to get to the east side of the Canal, I begin to think it might have been faster to take the bus to Hurdman and walk from there.

Is it wrong that I am secretly loving Joe Rogan's new show, Game Show in My Head?

Recommend a movie to me. I am sick and finding it difficult to fall asleep, so I need things to watch.

Dear Sir/Madam:

You have now been parked in my parking spot for 24 hours. Wtf, man?

Sincerely,

The legal occupant of space 7

Following up on yesterday's conversation about the pink girly games, here they are!

To explain for people who weren't at the party - Toys-R-Us has comissioned a series of exclusive board games. The Pink Collection.

Essentially, the Pink Collection is a series of classic board games - Monopoly, Scrabble, the Game of Life - and variety games - Jenga, Twister, Ouija Boards - that have all been issued in shades of pink, each with a girly twist. To sum it all up, when trying to find a regular classic copy of the Game of Life, my boyfriend and I happened upon the Pink Collection and our only comment was this:

Sadface.

Anyway, I present to you ( The Pink Collection )

I was recently tagged in a meme, wherein I have to reveal 25 things about myself: interesting facts, secrets, things none of you ever knew about me, and so and and so forth. Here are some of those things?

( Things about me... )

Favorite things from 2008 that I hope will continue in 2009:

Bird-feeding / Nature walks. Every Sunday, A and I go out to the Stony Swamp Conservation Area and feed the chickadees. This generally involves me putting seed on my head and squealing with glee when the birds land on my hat and start eating. It's childish but they fill me with so much happiness I want to explode sometimes.

During the summer, we started going on walks on the same trails. The birds aren't so hungry, so it's rare that they can be coaxed down from the trees. However, the boy seems to be magic or something - it doesn't matter what time of day or what the weather is like. He can always find some wildlife when we're out there - the beavers, porcupines, deer, salamanders..doesn't matter. There's always something.

Cheese tasting. One thing that we have in common is that we both enjoy cheese - so every pay week, we go to the International Cheese store in the market and we each pick out a different cheese to try. It's lame but it's something we can share together. Plus, I've found some really good cheese (Red Dragon - seriously, try it).

Maple Oven-roasted bacon. My new favorite breakfast side dish. This with toast, scrambled eggs (which I am becoming slightly more fond of) and hash browns. Yum.

This is only a partial list. 2008 was not my favorite year, for a number of reasons, but I have high hopes for 2009. 2009 will bring about some pretty awesome things - during this year, I will celebrate two anniversaries with the man I love as well as celebrating living on my own for an entire year.

I'll admit, there will be compromises to be made - A and I are planning on moving in together when my lease is up in June. We each have vastly different criteria - I require a place with character. He requires somewhere with indoor parking so that his baby doesn't get cold in winter. Character and indoor parking generally don't go together as one might hope.

In any case, I have a good feeling about the year to come and expect that it will be filled with things that make me happy.

In general, life is awesome and it seems to me that life should continue to be awesome this year.

1 hour and 45 minutes. In -19 degrees.

I am still cold. I am still angry. Over and above those, I am exhausted.

Update:

The roof of my apartment building = still apparently leaking into my apartment. Dear John, you have one more chance to make this right.

Edit: I appreciate your measure of dumping a load of tar onto the roof above my apartment. However, I doubt that will fix it.

Well, folks. I think we're getting to that point where we can't deny it anymore.

That's right. It's okay. You can say it.

Winter is here.

I know, it might not look it sometimes. But I think it's safe to say that summer and autumn have long since passed us by. There's frost on the ground, ice on the roads, and snow consistently falling from the sky.

This first part of winter always makes me think about Christmas, because I begin to realize that it's not so far off. Christmas is now only 35 days away and it's exactly one month until Andrew and I board a plane to Halifax to spend a week with my family.

I made the decision that this year, I was going to craft. In part, because moving out and being a grown-up has turned out far more expensive than I expected it to be. But also, I find I have a lot more pride in the gifts that I give if I have had a hand in their creation. Plus, I begin to discover, I have a huge crush on the brilliant ideas published by the team at Martha Stewart Living.

Everyone on my gift list this year is getting something hand-made - from photographs to baked goods, winter accessories to home deco. Of course, what this means is that my apartment is currently craft central. I have 29 days of crafting left if I expect everything to be finished and packed up in time to head to Halifax.

What this also means is that I've essentially become a hermit over the past several weeks, working on a few large projects. Between running the wardrobe room for Anne and Gilbert, prepping for auditions for a couple other shows and my various crafting projects, life has been pretty hectic over here. I'm starting to realize it's been weeks since I've been out and been social and looking at my calender for the month ahead, I'm trying to figure out how to fit in a social life on top of everything else.

In summary, just over a month until life can somewhat return to normal. Hope to see you all at least once in there.

Ps. When you guys have your christmas plans worked out, let me know what's up. I'm in the market for a cat-sitter from Dec 20-28th.

♥ Miss you guys!

LEGGINGS. DO NOT. EQUAL PANTS.






Also, I think the 80's came back when I wasn't looking.

Outside my apartment right now, there is polka music being played. Very loudly.

Wtf.

This has been a pretty good week for me. Despite dropping about 15 pounds of mail onto my left index finger on Monday, I've been rocking my professional life pretty hard.

+On Friday last week, I applied for a job that I meet all the criteria for (an AS-02 with NRCan).
+On Monday, I applied for another job (a PM-02 with Environment).
+Today, I applied for yet another (a PM-02 with the CTA) and am currently crafting a cover letter for an application I'll send in tomorrow (an AS-02 with the Office of Infrastructure).

All-in-all, my chances look pretty good for all of these.

+Today, I also got an email inviting me to write an exam (which I've already written for another selection process and, might I add, rocked) for a CR-05.

+Rumor has it that our current term contracts are all being extended until the end of the fiscal year.

Looks like 2008 may just go out pretty well. This certainly bodes well for 2009.




-...Except for the part where a squirrel is totally trying to break into my apartment through my kitchen window right now. Seriously, I've chased him away four times over the past three hours. It's kind of frightening.

I generally dislike online relationship articles, the ones that offer advice on how to handle certain relationship issues, because they generally give the sense that all relationships are the same and that something which works for one couple should conceivably work for all couples.

However, this article was emailed to me today and I found myself pleasantly surprised. The article is entitled '8 Bad Break Up Reasons' and it actually espouses things that I myself have actually said to people before, which I think is kind of cool.

In any case, it's a pretty good article that puts everything in perspective, from busy schedules to fights and attractions to other people.

--------------------------------------------

This made my day today:

I got off the 98 at Laurier Station, coming home from work. Walking up Laurier, I cross King Edward and come across a young guy, about my age, carrying a bunch of textbooks and climbing onto a unicycle. Dude then unicycled his way home from class down Laurier.

Awesome.

Dear National Arts Centre:

When making cold calls to try and get NAC patrons to purchase subscriptions for the upcoming English Theatre season, it is a bad idea to let your salespeople ramble on and on and on without pausing, detailing each and every show in the upcoming season along with interesting little comments about each show, before actually making their pitch.

By show four, I was ready to hang up. I will certainly be ignoring your call back tomorrow.

Is anyone else astounded by this?

They made it into a broadway musical. wtf.

Hello, Kidneys.

Why are you trying to revolt? I have sent some friendly anti-biotics your way. Try and play nice.

Sincerely,

Erynn