Give Away Winner

And now the moment you've all been waiting for, the winner of my give away. The lovely and talented JV. Check out her blog Life after Convacation.

500th Post

Well here it is people, my 500th blog post. Although I have a lot to update you about what with the move and the new job and all I'm going to leave this post for you, the reader.

Please help me make my blog better. Let me know in the comments what you want to see, what you like or don't like about my blog. Is there anything that I've said that you'd like more follow up on? Should I open it up to guest blogger? Give me a shout and let me know what you want to see!

And don't forget there is a giveaway going on, so you could be rewarded handsomely for your efforts.

Thanks for stopping by, stay tuned for more!

God that feels good

Alright it's time to step out of sick mode now. Time to get back to real life. That means trying to find joy in all of the things that I used to or at least finding new activities that I enjoy doing.

I started yesterday by sitting down to watch some football. Due to a number of different reasons I haven't had nearly as much time to watch as I used to. Today I decided to check out some political blogs, which I haven't done in ages. It felt really good to reconnect with the that nerdy side of myself.

What are some of the things that you enjoy doing that you just haven't had time for lately?

A minor change

Just a quick note on the new template. I'm not in love with this one but I felt like it was time for a change. So chances are I'll be changing it in not too long. I've found a couple of templates I liked but when I tried to but it into blogger it kicked it out saying that it was ill formatted. Well until I learn XML I'll have to use the ones that do actually work here.

Let me know what you think.

Just a little spring cleaning

I've been running on the same template for a while now and while I still like it, I thought it was time for something a little different. Some day I'm going to have to learn how to build my own template so that I can really personalize my blog but for now this is going to have to do. Hope you enjoy it.

Have a good day!

Yeah, I don't miss that

I have obviously been watching a lot of Olympic coverage, since it's on all the time. And I love it I do but the last couple of days I've been watching figure skating.

For the men's short and free skate I joined the women of Ladies... for a live blog. It was a good time even though I think that Plushenko should have won (and Elvis agrees with me ). I mean how do you not even try to go higher, faster, stronger at the Olympics. Maybe it's just more figure skating is not a sport fodder to think about.

Anyway today the compulsory dance is on tap. I figured skated for 8 years and frankly I hated the days when we did dance. I just thought it was so boring. I have to admit though that watching it at this level is amazing. It's just so pretty to watch. Dance is clearly not the most exciting of figure skating competitions. I mean the first part is everyone doing the same dance, but it does get slightly more exciting after that I promise. I don't expect any spectacular falls in this event though.

So do you have any thoughts on figure skating? Sport? Non-sport? Quad or No Quad?

Bloggers who take themselves too seriously

So as I start my foray into discovering other blogs I've found that some bloggers seem share my opinion that blogging is just for fun. It's a simple way to keep people in the loop even if you can't see or talk to them very often. Others on the other hand think that they will be discovered through thier blogs. I'm not saying that it's not going to happen, because you hear about it from time to time. But the majority of these people are just fooling themselves if they think they'll be making a career out of this.

What do you think? Do you view blogging as a career or a past-time? Or some combination of the two?

Goal of the Week

It's been a long time since I've done a goal of the week but here I am. I also have to admit that I'm setting myself up for failure on this one but I'm going to try it anyway.

This week I want to post a comment on at least one blog per day. I do read a lot of blogs but I don't often comment, but since I've joined 20-something bloggers I feel like in order to get myself out there more I should contribute to other people's blogs as well as my own.

The only thing that's going to hamper this is that I'm heading out to the farm tonight so I'll be internet free for the next couple of days. But after that I'll go whole hog.

Some New Things

In case you haven't noticed the badge on the right side I recently joined 20something bloggers. If you're bored and looking for something to do I recommend clicking on it and checking out some of the other blogs out there. You never know what you might find.

more blogcation

Well I made it back from Regina in one piece. A very tired piece but still together. As for my health well that's not going so well right now. I was pretty good through our whole trip but since I've been back it's been pretty crappy.

Anyway I think I'm going to take a break from blogging for a while. Just until things settle down a bit.

Going to Agribition

I am so excited about going to Agribition it's really the only thing that has gotten me through the last couple of months. This is the first time in the history of me that my family is taking cattle to show in Regina. It's a big deal and there is lots of work to be done.

The cattle are going tomorrow and I'll be arriving on Wednesday. Then the show is on Thursday and the sale on Friday and then home again. I'm going to attempt to blog this trip on my travel blog. This is my first real trip since I went to Scotland. Well actually that's not true. I just haven't taken my camera along on some of the others.

So wish us luck and follow along if you'd like.

Looking for ideas

Along with a whole lot of other things in my life my inner blogger is broken. I don't know what to talk about. I try to keep my blog mostly positive, but lately I'm seeing only grey. So commenter is there something you'd like me to talk about? Some subject I've never touched on but should? Something that I've mentioned and since forgot about? I'm throwing this over to you because you make the effort to read at least occasionally.

This would only happen to me

So now that I've started a travel blog I wasn't sure if this would fall under my regular everyday blog or that one. But since this is strictly a shopping trip and not a sightseeing adventure it's going here.

Anyway my brother and I had a fairly uneventful trip to Fargo. The first thing we did after we checked into the hotel was check out the pool facilities. This included a fairly decent sized pool, a rather luke-warm hot tub and a sauna.

After my initial disappoint at the hot tub we tried out the sauna. And I managed to blister my back by laying down on the hot bench. Yup, this could only happen to me.

I might just have to switch back

Alright the new background is awfully pretty but I just can't get the date stamp to work correctly. It's making me crazy. I just can't figure out how to change it without completely ruining the integrity of the template. So I might have to change it to something that I can control a little better.

See I can do some basic HTML stuff but I haven't really done a lot of it since high school and this is a lot more complex than anything I've ever done before. So depending on how fed up I get with it you might be seeing even more changes in the near future.

More changes

It's May long weekend and in honor of such I thought it was about time for a little spring cleaning. Also spring is supposed to be about flowers and such so I changed the blog background. I can't believe how much cool free stuff is out there. I borrowed this one from the Blogger Templates site.

I actually really like this one and might have to take a look at it the next time I feel up for a change.

Thing I take for granted

I've never much thought about it before but I really need to thank my mom for all of the things I learned to do as a kid.

There are things that are just so second nature to me now that I don't even think about it. Recently SA posted on her blog about making her first grilled cheese sandwich. Although her second attempt looked pretty good. I don't know when I made my first grilled cheese sandwich but I'm going to guess I was probably about 11. One of the joys of growing up with boys is that you learn to cook.

Another of my friends told me that she didn't learn to do her laundry until she moved away from home for school in her early 20's. Again this is something I've been doing for so long that I don't remember when I started.

Just the other day I was complaining about having to clean the oven when I moved out of my old apartment to a woman in her late 20s who recently purchased a home but didn't know how to clean an oven.

I never really thought of myself as independent. My family is really close and we certainly help each other out a lot, but having to move away from home at 18 to go to school does lead to a certain amount of Independence I suppose. I even did my own taxes this year.

I know my Mom won't read this since she barely uses the Internet but thank you anyway Mom teaching me how to take care of myself and thank you for taking care of me even though I could do it myself.

The Economic Crisis and Me

I read a lot a blogs. Probably more than one person should. I particularly enjoy sports blogs but I also like reading people's personal blogs. Some people's lives are just so much more interesting than the average person. 

One common theme that I've noticed in my reading of late is people's worry about the economic situation. A lot of people are randomly losing their jobs. I always feel horrible for those people. Because no job means no money, no money means no rent, means no place to live and so on. It makes me feel kind of guilty about complaining so much about my job. At least I have one. Okay so it's not the greatest of situations but it exists. 

I just can't help but wonder why I go to work sometimes. And the answer is so that I can pay my bills so that I have a place to live. Unfortunately my thoughts turn slightly morbid after that and it really puts a damper on my whole perspective on life. 

It's interview time

Alright so I'm running out of things to write about so when I saw that SA had done this interview thing and was looking for people who wanted to continue the tradition I jumped at the chance. Here's how it works if you're interested:

1. leave me a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I’ll email you five questions, of my determination not yours!
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

Before we start the Q & A I'd like to say that these questions are incredible and incredibly difficult.

1. When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? How different is it (if it is) to what you now are/want to be?

Well my kindergarten yearbook says that I wanted to be a farmer when I grew up. My parents have a farm and I grew up thinking there is nothing greater you can do with your life than provide food for the world. However like everything that is good for the soul it pays next to nothing. So by the time I had graduated from high school I was looking more at a career in the agriculture industry as opposed to primary production. At my current job I do talk to farmers every day, so I guess it's not so far off. I also own some cattle, but I don't make any sort of decisions about them. I leave that to my Dad.

2. If you got to live in any city in the world where you live? Why?

I always thought I wanted to live in Paris. Back in my high school days I loved french class and languages in general. I now live what is considered the french quarter of Winnipeg but don't speak a lick of French. I'd still like to visit Paris and Prague and London but I'm not really a city girl at all.

3. What food have you never eaten that you've always wanted to try?

Another difficult question. I've eaten a lot of weird foods, bears ear, chicken feet, muskrat, beaver tail. But I've never had escargot. The idea of eating snails is not particularly appealing but still something I think I should probably try at some point.

4. You get 10 minutes alone with any one person in the world (currently living). Who is it and what happens during this 10 minutes?

This one is probably the most interesting and toughest question of the lot. This could easily turn smutty rather quickly but I'd like to think that there are other, better things I could do with this question. So I think I'd like to talk to Stephen Harper for 10 minutes, conduct some sort of quick interview. I don't think anyone should be too surprised by this, I'm generally a Conservative supporter but some of the stuff they've done in the past year is kind of questionable. So trying to figure out that political strategy in some of the moves they've made would be very interesting and since it's said that he doesn't allow his cabinet to make any decisions one can only assume that he had some sort of reason to do the things he did.

5. What's one thing you want to do before you die?

I've actually thought about this question a lot during my lifetime and I really don't have an answer to this question. For example, if I was diagnosed with cancer and given a 3 month prognosis today there is nothing that I would say I need to do in the next three months in order to make my life complete. Quit my job and I'd spend the time with my family. I probably should admit to office crush that I have a crush on him but you don't do that to someone when you know you're dying.

And there you go, that's my interview.

Maybe it's time to shut down

I've been trying to come up with something to write about all day. Which I suppose one could call writer's block except that I don't consider myself a writer given that mostly I just talk about things I do or like.

But it kind of got me thinking about the blogs I read. They all seem to be written by actual writers or at least people with some journalism training. The closest I come to that is the class I took in grade 11. Which was total crap and taught me nothing. But anyway, I also noticed that even though I've posted every day this month (so far) there has not been a single comment. I also tried that break thing for December and while there was a single slight protest everyone made it through unscathed.

So I'm thinking perhaps it's time to pack it in and get out of the blogging business. There are a lot of great blogs out there but this isn't one of them.

I'm half way through

I'm now 15 days into the whole posting everyday for a month thing. So very close to half way there. I am an idiot though for picking a month in which there are 31 instead of just 30 days. That means I've got to post one more day. Than had I pick another month and 3 more days than if I had gone with next month. But I'll get through it I'm sure.

I may not be able to sleep for the next 2 weeks though. Jay Cutler with mouth eyes is just all sorts of wrong. I actually thought the first one they did with Philip Rivers was kind of funny but this is just disturbing.