Nov 30, 2009

Grace in Small Things #39

Walking the dogs with my husband at midnight, in the perfect snowman building snow, and seeing their happy faces, and laughing at their fur filled with mini snowballs.

Lovely end to a not so lovely day.

Nov 28, 2009

I miss you, Mr. Oizo!

Whatchadoin?

Nov 27, 2009

Grace in Small Things #38

1. I get to have an evening away from my telephone, work, the dogs, and house-cleaning. Smyrish and I are spending the night at the Moose Jaw Spa.

2. We will drink wine and eat cheese in our Jacuzzi room.

3. I packed some sexy things for us to play with while we are there. ;)

4. The dogs will be well taken care of. Their babysitter ( whom I am most grateful for today) has an evening of Italian food and Godfather movies planned.

Nov 22, 2009

It's a Girl!

Yet again, I have the feeling that I have let down my mother, and my many mothers-in-law, in choosing to adopt a new fur baby, instead of giving birth to a human one.



However, she's darn cute, and fits right in to our little family. I figure, we now have a boy and a girl, so we're good for awhile. Or at least until our "practicing" to have real human babies pans out.



Her name is Maggie. She's 2 years old, can jump five feet in the air, and loves to hump the shit out of Patches, especially his face. He doesn't seem to mind.

Nov 19, 2009

Grace in Small Things #37

1. Friends that don't try to rain on your parade. These friends actually are excited to hear news about your life and your future, instead of saying they are and then trying to derail your plans with their negativity.

2. Those lovely folks on Etsy that sell supplies I just can't seem to find here in this town.

3. New pens.

4. My new storage cupboard. (Thanks, husband!)

5. That lovely little werewolf from the Twilight movies....why do you have to be so young? You are making me feel like a dirty old cougar. But, you are pretty cute, so it's not my fault.

6. We're going to Cuba on January 19th! Woot!

Etsy News


I am just pleased as punch with my new Etsy banners, avatars and business cards (that I need to get printed!) and wanted to show them off.

Thanks to Cutesy Pixels for the design and the work that went into them!




I am working hard at getting my stuff organized, and getting new, better photos taken, so the shop can be properly up and running as soon as possible.

Cheers!

Dream Exhaustion

I had a dreamed filled night last night. One of those nights where you feel as if you've been constantly dreaming...hopping from place to place, not really knowing when one dream ends and the other begins. When I have these nights, I wake up exhausted, as if I hadn't slept at all.

My night started out with a recurring dream I have been having, about Frank, the ghost at my workplace. Every few nights he pops in to my head, introduces himself ( I think you already know me, I am Frank ____, from work.") He will then introduce me to his wife, who's name I never remember by the time I wake up, and then inform me that the reason he hangs around the group home, is because his farm used to be on that land. I usually wake up at this point and try to remember what he said his last name was. Last night, I did not however, and all of a sudden, I was at Santa Monica Pier.

I'm guessing that Smyrish and I were living around there, because there were a ton of people who had come down to visit. My brother Filmstar and my friend Lynn were looking to buy some roller coasters, and bring them back to Small Town...they figured they had a money making scheme on their hands. Apparently, roller coasters are big money in rural Saskatchewan!

Lynn had brought her husband with her, so he could haul all these roller coasters back for her and Filmstar. He wasn't interested in the business part of it, so I took him out on the town. We were joined by V-man and Wench at what seemed to be a rough looking small town bar. After a few drinks, the husband started putting the moves on me, (which he would never do in real life). I screamed for V-man, but he was nowhere to be seen. After quite an argument and struggle, I grabbed a screwdriver, stabbed him in the shoulder, and ran to my car. He seemed unfazed, just yelling after me that we should be together, and he would get me, no matter what he had to do.

And then, I was at work. I sat and had an interesting conversation with one resident (who is non-verbal, by the way), and she told me she had heard about the incident with Lynn's husband, and that she knew he was like that all along, she just hadn't said anything. We proceeded to drink a bottle of wine together, talked about things that have happened between us the past few years, and then she told me she had to go back to being autistic. All of a sudden, she was non-verbal again, and acting like she does on any given day, and I was livid. I wanted her to be "normal", just for a little while longer.

My alarm went off, but I turned it off . I didn't feel like getting up early this morning, so I went back to sleep.

I was in the old record store in Small Town, looking through the cassette tapes. I saw a pile of Nirvana CD's in a bin, and decided that I needed "In Utero", and proceeded to buy 5 copies of it.*

Then.....

Smyrish and I were camping. We had the VW, and a child with us. Neither of us knew the child, but we let him hang out with us anyways. We fed him, and took him fishing, and introduced him to all of our friends that were camping down the road from us. Beckstar said that we had to keep him. It was a rule that if a child appeared out of nowhere when you were in nature, you had to keep them, as they were destined to be yours anyways. I argued with her about how ridiculous that was, and went looking for his parents. After what seemed like hours of walking in the dark campground, talking with the child, I realized he truly had just appeared. Maybe Beckstar was right, and I did have to keep him.

And then, I felt someone lay on the bed, and smelled grapefruit, and pulled myself from my deep sleep to see Smyrish laying in bed eating and talking to the dog. I briefly thought about trying to go back to sleep to find out what happened with the mystery kid, but figured I'd just start a new dream entirely, so I got up, made coffee, and wrote this post.



* I realized after I wrote this, that I actually don't own any Nirvana on CD. I have everything on tape. I can't even listen to In Utero now! Boo-urns!

Nov 18, 2009

Abigail Interviews the Princess of the Universe

When Neil announced that he was doing The Great Interview Experiment again, I jumped right on that bandwagon. Last time was so much fun, and I found some great new blogs to read over my morning coffee and in the middle of the night after I had too much to drink. It also brought me some new readers, which I must admit was a nice boost to the blog ego. Oh, and I think I would probably do almost anything Neil asked of me, because he's just one cool cat. ( Neil, I said almost anything.)

I had the pleasure of interviewing someone who was not only a Canadian prairie dweller like myself, but after reading her blog for hours, I realized that I also had a lot in common with her. So much so, that this interview almost ended up being full of serious questions about losing a parent, weight, shit jobs, and so on. I decided it was best to keep the creepy stalker-ish questions to myself and not scare someone I don't know, so I kept the interview light and fluffy. ( just like her baking). I am positive that once I catch up on her archives, I'll have her answers to the more serious things I was wondering about anyways.

And now, without further adieu...


In your most recent post, you admitted to being an 80's hair band
junkie.Will you be catching Guns 'n' Roses while they are tour this winter?

Are they coming to Winnipeg? Hmmm...I doubt it though, I saw them in high school and that may have been enough for me!


As a coffee and cigarette addict myself, as well as a person who loves her beer, I have to ask....why did you give those things up?

Well, I never did smoke, so that was a non-issue. Beer - I keep trying sips of it, and it's always given me an "eeeewww" reaction. As for coffee? Well, I was always told that I was "too young" to drink it, then no one ever told me the magic day that I was old enough. I guess I just never really started. I do love the smell though :)

Tell us about your "experimental" baking.

I like seeing a photo somewhere and seeing if I can re-create it. I saw a chocolate covered cherry cheesecake photo once, and just pulled bits from various recipes that had all the elements and...voila! It was sort of a success. Kinda...

Winnipeg sometimes gets a bad rap...what with the cold winters, killer mosquitoes, floods, crime and so on. What do you love most about Winnipeg?

Hmmm, it's small, so I can generally find everything. I get lost REALLY easily. And yeah, I'm serious. That is my favourite thing :)

When you were a child, did you have an imaginary friend?

Not really. I think I had far more faith in the tangible. I never really "bought" Santa Claus or the tooth fairy etc either.

If you could travel to anywhere in the world, where would it be, and why?

I'd like to go back to England, I don't feel like I had time to really do it justice. It has so much history, I can't imagine ever being bored living there...

What's yummier? Bannock or poutine?

Poutine. Hands down. Not that I eat that anymore. :P

From reading your blog, I learned that you are very interested in your family's history. Are there any resources that you use to learn more about your genealogy?

My grandmothers on both sides lived in small communities that put together "Our First 100 Years" books - those gave me a lot of hints on where to start. Then I started ordering from Vital Stats - often something like a death cert will include parents names and place of birth etc, so you can work backwards from there...

As of right now, what are the three things in life that are making you the happiest?

Losing weight, working on my Master's application (weird!) and the beautiful man I'm on 2 committees with at work :P


If you want to learn more about The Princess of the Universe, check out her awesome blog at
http://winnipegprincess.blogspot.com

Nov 17, 2009

The Never-Ending Weight Issue

This morning I checked my email, and found a message from www.dailyburn.com , telling me that I should enter my weight loss progress. The message went on to say that although I track my meals and workouts, tracking my weight loss as well will be a huge motivator for me, reminding me what a great job I am doing.

Well Daily Burn, I am not tracking my weight loss, because other than the five pounds I lost a couple months ago, I have not lost anything else. So there.

It is quite disheartening.

I started tracking my food intake and exercise regularly quite awhile ago. I have learned that I exercise no less than three times per week, and no more than six. I only eat pasta (whole grain) every 2 weeks, sometimes less. My rice intake has gone down quite a bit as well. When I was still eating meat daily, my protein intake was where it should be (120g-205g per day), but now I am not getting enough. (usually between 100g-120g per day). My carb intake is just right for my age, height and weight loss goal, usually coming in at 156 g per day. My daily caloric intake as a whole since I stopped eating meat has been extremely low ( 1400-1900 per day, some days as low as 900), but my fat intake is up...most likely due to salad dressings, and eating more eggs than usual to get that protein in. I am now paying closer attention to those "hidden" fats, to see what I can cut out, or what is good and should be in my diet.

Usually one day a week I do indulge. I drink beer or wine, eat food that isn't healthy (pizza, salty things), and usually the day after that is the day that I do not exercise at all. So yes, I admit, I am not as healthy as I should be. Those things shouldn't be a part of my life at all. But seriously, you would think that all the exercise and eating rabbit food would pay off in some way.

What am I supposed to do???

Nov 8, 2009

Grace in Small Things #36

1. A hangover free weekend.

2. Super strong coffee and visiting with my fabulous cousin Neener.

3. Being able to wear sweatpants and a bandanna to work this morning.

4. Sunday evening adult only swim @ the pool!

5. Febreeze. The greatest invention in my lifetime. To me, anyways.

Nov 3, 2009

Grace in Small Things #35

After a shit-tastic day at work, constant stomach pains that seem to have no cause, and coming home to dog poop on the floor, I had a hard time thinking of something good about my life, even though there are many good things in my life.

Then all of a sudden, I had a flashback of watching The Palinode sing and dance to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" last Saturday night at the House of Pain, and all was right with the world again. That boy sure does know his Wham!.

Grace in Small Things #34

1. Having a table to sit at out in the courtyard.

2. The sun is shining, and there isn't a foot of snow on the ground.

3. Although they were fun, I am happy that birthday week and Halloween are over.

4. Allrecipes.com, VegWeb.com and fatfreevegan.com . They have been a huge help in giving me ideas as of what to cook, now that we're trying to be vegetarian and all.

Nov 2, 2009

Grace in Small Things #33

1. Daydreaming all day long.

2. Twilight books ( yes, you heard me right, I am actually reading them all and enjoying them)

3. Puppy kisses.

4. Laughing at puppy farts.

5. My super sturdy new bookshelf.

6. Green tea.

7. Friends that will go watch dick tricks with you. ;)

8. Sales at Old Navy.

9. A small wage increase, is still an increase.

10. Travel books.