Technological Advancement

I've decided that it's time for me to venture back into the world of cellular phone ownership. I haven't had a cell phone in about 6 years. Not since my dad lost my phone somewhere in the pasture while fixing fences.

The main argument against having a cell phone all these years was a combination of a) you needed a landline to get highspeed internet and b)I'm usually somewhere where I have a phone, you can call me at home or at work and if I'm not in either of those two places then I probably don't need to be talking to someone anyway.

But things have obviously changed. Now we have cable internet which doesn't require a landline at all. I've been off work for a while now (I can't believe it's been this long) and I've suddenly found myself without a phone when I really wished I had one. I've also been driving back and forth to the farm lately (almost every weekend) and you never know when you might need to make an emergency call from the side of the highway. The other big recent life change has been developing a relationship with someone who lives a fair distance away. We spend a lot of time IMing each other and well we could text more easily if I had a cell.

So now the problem is to choose a service provider. I know people who are on MTS and people who are on Rogers and not really a whole lot of complaints for either company. So it's a matter of figuring out what works best for what I intend to do, which is a lot of texting and a little bit of websurfing. Which then brings up the question of Smartphone or Voice Only? I'm still torn here as I don't really get enough e-mail to make it worth it, BUT I would like to have web capability that isn't going to cost me an arm and a leg. Someone recommended waiting for the new iPhone to hit Canada and I was going to take her advice, but what do I need a $700 phone for?

So anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I'm going with Rogers or MTS because come this fall they'll have the best province wide coverage. Which I'll need if I'm out at the farm a lot. Is there anything else I need to consider when looking at what to do here? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Poor, Poor Independant Ice Cream Sellers

I don't know if this is a whole new franchising option or what but the Tim Horton's by our place hooked up with Cold Stone Creamery. Sadly it is right beside one ice cream place and just a block from another.

As much as I like our independant ice cream stores (the one is so punny it hurts, because I'm always laughing you see) I have to say after trying out the Cold Stone ice cream these places are screwed.

Another Fair Complete

There are probably 3 big events in my hometown that bring in a large amount of people from outside of town, the winter carnival, the bull sale, and the Agricultural Fair.

I have strong ties to each of these events. The carnival was the big finale to our figure skating season. The bull sales was more of an opportunity to socialize with people I had either met on the show road or in school when I was at University. And the fair was really THE must see event in our town. For me it meant 4-H achievement and showing cows for mom and dad.

I don't do much showing anymore, it's kind of a combination of I have my own life now and I don't get out to the farm enough. But I realized this weekend that I kind of missed it.

We took 7 head to the show this year. Which means we had a lot of work to do. Lucky for me dad did most of the prep work while I was in the city during the week but I've been home every weekend for a month to help out.

All in all this year was a pretty forgettable show as far as our results go. I don't begrudge the judge for his placements but I am disappointed that maybe our animals weren't quite ready for the show.

But anyway that's another Fair in the books. I don't know if I'll do it again next year but we'll see what happens.

And now to wait for October

In case you missed it the Stanley Cup Finals are over. Congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks. The Chicago win is important to me for only one reason, the Cup is coming to town! I probably won't go to see the public viewing but it's nice to know that I could if I wanted to. I also won a little wager I had going with a friend so now I'm just hoping that he pays up. I'm sure he will though. Oh and also Jonathan Toews won the Conn Smythe. Good times.


No more hockey until October, what's a girl to do? My own plan is to check out sexy soccer players during the World Cup.

It's the finals

I've been so distracted this year that I've barely watched any of the French Open, which is my favorite major. It's so bad that I didn't even realize until I got up this morning that the Men's final was today.

I shouldn't really comment here because well frankly I haven't watched much of this year's tourney but Nadal is in tough against Robin Soderling, who you may remember knocked off Rafa last year at the French.

But anyway Vamos Rafa! That is all.

Feasting With My Parents

For the last couple of weekends, and the next couple of weekends I've been out at the farm helping my parents prepare for the local fair. There is a lot of work to do but at least I know that they're going to keep me well fed.

On Friday night we had fried chicken which is one of my favorite meals. Saturday was spaghetti and Ribs, Sunday we had Lasagna and Steaks. Yup even if it was a terrible weekend the food would have saved it.

For the record it wasn't a terrible weekend but the weather sucked and it's awfully wet outside.

Quick Hits

Sorry I know it's been a long time since my last post. There's just been a lot going on, and nothing at the same time. Well nothing worth writing about anyway.

Volleyball has ended. It was good time, I had fun. We did a wind-up at Boston Pizza on Wednesday after we were done playing. So that's the end of that. We might play again in the fall. And I might play even if my brother doesn't, but it was a lot of fun playing together.

Things are going well at the Museum and I'm hoping to increase my hours in the next couple of weeks just to see how it goes.

It's pouring rain here right now and I love it. I love the rain and I love thunderstorms, easily my favorite part of summer.

That's about it for now. Enjoy your day.

I just got PWN'D

So remember that awesome board game I was telling you about ? Well my younger brother just kicked my ass! So badly that we didn't even finish.

His starting line was a 63 power ranking, you get a extra goal to start with for every power point over 52 so he had a automatic starting 11 goals. I had zero goals to start, so there was no way I could win a match. Even if I scored the maximum 3 goals per period I still would have lost by 2 goals.

Here's what his starting line up card looked like:

The 10s mean the power ranking, the card under the top middle card is the Hart Trophy for MVP. And the yellow chip is a long term contract chip meaning that I wouldn't be able to steal that player in Free Agency. Not that I had any money to do it anyway.

Oh well better luck next time I guess.

The New Website Love of My Life

A few months ago someone recommended that I join Goodreads.com. I wasn't really convinced because usually when my friends recommend books to me I end up disappointed because I don't like them as much as they did. But after dealing with the creepy Amazon recommendation I've been struggling to find a new source for book reviews to recommend some books that I might not pick up otherwise.

I love that once you rate a book it gives you recommendations of books in similar categories. Like the "best books of 2007" or "best science fiction", however I have noticed that a) when you chose a category there seems to be a lot of books by the same author, so if you've tried some of their stuff and you don't like it well then the list is kind of a waste for you, and b)Many of the books end up in best and worst lists, take Twilight for example it appears in both "best books ever" and "worst books of all time".

I guess you just have to take the time to read the reviews to figure out if you think you'll like it.
Edit: Just took a look at the "Worst Books of all Time List", and while I'm not suprised there were A LOT of books by conservative authors. But being a conservative I've kind of gotten used to this sort of crap.

Did I miss the memo?

Was there some sort of new law passed that speed limits were reduced by 10km/hr for the long weekend. I swear, everyone on the highway was going 90 today. I passed 3 semis on my way home and I almost never pass a semi because it's their job to get things to where they need to go as quickly as they legally can.

Also anyone who is collecting CPP should have their driver's license taken away. The drive out to my parents' was excruciating today.

I need a break

It seems lately that every time I need to make a decision I end up making the wrong one. Especially when it involves other people. I just don't know how to play well with others I guess. I'm trying to make the right choices for me or at least what I think are the right choices, but in the process I'm hurting those around me.

If you are reading this and you feel like I have wronged you in the past 2 weeks, I'm so sorry. I just need some time away from things to straighten out my head a little bit. I'm going out to the farm this weekend to get some good country air and hopefully get a better handle on things.

Enjoy the long weekend!

Amazon recommends...

Holy crap, you rate one shape shifter romance novel and Amazon thinks you're some sort of sexual deviant.

A while ago I bought some DVDs from Amazon.ca, since then I've been getting frequent e-mails about whatever they happen to have on sale this week. Sometimes I go back and check out what they recommended to me and I'll rate things if I've seen them or read them so that perhaps my recommendations are a little more accurate to what I actually like.

So a couple of months ago this book by Shelley Laurenston came up on the recommendations list. It was a romance novel, and you know every once in a while it doesn't hurt to do a little frivolous reading just to pass the time. So I read it, I liked it, I rated it.

Well today I go to check out my recommendations and a book comes up so I read the synopsis. And holy crap, they must think I'm some sort of freak over there because this books was just... I don't even know how to describe it. Essentially 3 brothers live in a hunting cabin, one of them finds this chick in the woods and brings her home. They then proceed (all 4 of them) to partake in romantic endeavors with each other. Now granted I haven't actually read the book, but holy shit. They're brothers for Christs sake! I don't know if I'm more disturbed that people have actually read this book and given it positive reviews or that someone actually wrote this.

What kind of world do we live in? And please Amazon just recommend nice normal books. Pretty please. Thanks.

Living the Dream

I'm about to start a new feature here at my blog. It consists of telling you every time I beat people at Big League Manager. But before I get into it, let me explain what it is.

Essentially it's a board game in which you run a hockey team. You pick an NHL team to represent you. Some people like to stick with one team, I like to mix it up a little usually choosing small market teams or teams that blow in real life.

Then you distribute the cash, you start with 2.6 million dollars in the bank with which to run your team for the year. Then you "draft "your players which essential means picking them off the pile of cards, you start with 2 first round draft picks. Then you proceed to choose 8 other players from the goalie, defenseman and forward piles until you have 10 total player cards. You choose 6 players as your starting 6: 1 goalie, 2 defensemen, and 3 forwards. The remaining 4 players make up your starting bench. Once you're done this the fun starts. You roll the dice and you land on squares which explain what you need to do next. It's kind of like monopoly in this way. Some of the squares require you to pay money to the league in exchange for the privilege of drafting a new player or signing a player to a long term contract. Some of the squares pay you money for random events like new ownership. Some squares require you to pick up a League Notebook cards, which are a lot like the chance or community chest cards in Monopoly. The best square though is the "play the match" square. Because the whole point of the game is to win the most matches and therefore win the game. You roll a dice with the numbers 1-3 on it for each period to determine how many goals your team scored in that period. The point is of course to score more points than your opponent. There are a lot of other intricacies to this game but I want to keep this description fairly brief. Win the most matches, win the game. If you want to know more about the game go here . If you're looking to try it out come visit. I'll take you on.

Today I picked up the Stanley cup expansion pack in which the top 2 players from the regular season play off to see who takes the prize. I took my Atlanta Thrashers to the promised land tonight, beating out the Edmonton Oilers and the New York Islanders who were managed by my brothers. That's right I'm awesome.

Today was Castle day

I didn't plan it, but pretty much all I did today was catch up on back episodes of Castle. If you guys haven't seen this show, well it's freaking brilliant. Yeah it's one of those murder investigation/cop shows. But it's much more of a Dramody than an actual drama.

The whole Beckett/Castle dynamic is so funny. Just finished watching the Dominatrix episode (Season 2, Episode 16 I believe) and all I can say is, hilarious.
Castle: What aren't you telling me?
Beckett: So much. So So much.
AAAAHAHAHAHA!

Seriously check it out.

Weirdness

I'm sorry about the lack of blogging I've been otherwise occupied as of late. Well that's not exactly true I've been around the internets I've just been trying to sort some stuff out. As you know I'm extremely cerebral so I spend a lot of time trying to sort things out in my head before I get to the point of discussing them with anyone.

But lately I've been really bored and kind of lonely, not in a sexual sense but just in a lack of attention kind of way so I've found myself trying something I hadn't done in a really long time. I turned to the chatrooms of the internet. First of all with all this new social media to people still use chatrooms? Apparently yes, although also apparently for more sexual endeavors than for meeting new people. But I have managed to find a few new people to fill my time.

But let me tell you a story about one of the people I met. I've managed to find myself an internet stalker. Now this is probably mostly my fault but I guess I just didn't expect things to get out of hand so quickly. Things started off innocently enough, just getting all the typical details, age, location, occupation, level of education stuff like that. He seemed like an alright guy and since I don't photograph well I didn't have any current pictures to share so when he asked if he could see me I decided to turn on my webcam. Again totally innocent nothing more than a head shot and he told me he thought I was beautiful, and who doesn't love hearing how attractive they are? But towards the end of that first conversation I should have realized things were a little off when he told me he'd miss me. I, of course replied that he couldn't miss me because he had just met me.

Over the next 2 weeks we briefly chatted almost every day, again very general hey how are you, what did you do today kind of stuff. But then one day he asked me if I was looking for a boyfriend and I said I wasn't actively looking. Then I asked him the same question and he told me he had a girlfriend, to which I was confused because well as of two weeks before he had said he was single. So I inquired further, which made me even more confused. So I decided to drop the subject and move onto something else. So as a joke I asked him if he ever talked about me to his friends and he said yes. So then the follow up was of course what do you say about me. His answer was that he said he had a girlfriend, he was talking about me!

And that freaked me out. I had known this guy for like 3 weeks maybe and he was telling people I was his girlfriend. So at this point I really didn't know if I should just block him so that he wouldn't be able to talk to me anymore or stick it out and see if things returned to somewhat normal. I haven't really talked to him since but he's left me some messages to tell me he misses talking to me. So maybe things could return to normal. I haven't blocked him yet but I'm not above doing it either if things continue to be creepy.

For now I'm managed to not give away too much personal information and he is half a continent away so I think I'm fairly safe, but you just never kn0w what kind of creeps you're going to meet.

I always forget how boring it is here

I came out to the farm for the weekend, because today is Mother's Day and I hadn't been home for a while. But now I'm about ready to go back to the city. It's not like I would be doing anything more at home than I can do here but it just seems a lot more boring.

Now that my parents are hooked up for wireless I can get internet on my laptop but it's slow internet so it probably going to take a whole night to download anything. I'm not really feeling like watching a movie and it's only like half an hour now until the hockey game starts. The Canucks really need to win this one.

Really I just don't feel like doing much of anything. I tried to take a nap this afternoon but that wasn't happening so I ended up catching up on episodes of the Vampire Diaries and Castle. But now I'm out of episodes and like I said the download speeds here suck ass.

One more thing before I leave, I really must watch my expression around my mom. She's very perceptive and as much as I love here there are just some things that I'm not ready to tell her yet or maybe ever.

I'm sick of the CBC

I'm about to say something that most conservatives have been saying for years. I'm sick of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and their obvious bias. For the most part when I don't like something I just avoid it hoping that if others do the same it won't survive. You know the whole voting with your dollars thing. This works for private broadcasters. People don't watch, companies don't buy advertising, broadcaster either changes programing or goes broke. Not so much with our national public broadcaster.

I'm alright with supporting Canadian programming. That aspect of the CBC doesn't bother me. What bothers me is the obvious political stance of the programming. Particularly This Hour has 22 minutes which hasn't been funny in quite sometime anyway. But again I normally avoid it. The problem right now is that CBC is currently carrying parts of the Stanley Cup playoffs so when I forget to change the channel to another before I shut off my TV I'm subjected to a regular attack on my political beliefs. Now I know that the writers of the show are just presenting their own beliefs but why are MY tax dollars going to support them?

Too Funny

You know how I tend to get a little obsessive over things right? Well this whole Sidney Crosby thing is going a little too far. No I haven't been watching every interview that's ever been done. That would take far too much time, though it's not like I have much else to do. But I did do a little Youtube-ing. And I found this:




Now until I saw this I had never heard this song, but it is rather appropriate, no? Also the Max Talbot dancing thing cracks me up everytime! He's hilarious.

Stepping back into the real world

Part of my illness (and probably most illnesses for that matter) is the desire to withdraw from life. I've done a fair bit of this over the past year. Sure I've been going to all my treatments and I still go to Tim Horton's regularly so I'm not a total shut in, but I have kind of made a point of not making plans with people.

This has had two different consequences, the first is that I don't really know what's going on with all of the people who had been a part of my life until I got sick. It also showed who would actually miss me if I was no longer a part of their lives. Those people who haven't even bothered to send an e-mail or facebook message in the last year.

But this post is supposed to be about my efforts to reconnect with some of those people before I really attempt to get my whole life back in order. I've chosen to start with the people who I feel will be most supportive of my efforts. At the same time I don't want people that I'm not quite ready to see to feel that I'm ignoring them or something. That's not the point. It's simply that some people are aware of what I'm going through because I've been able to tell them at least a little bit about what's going on.

Yes it's a small step. But it's a step.

"Honey, what's Sidney Crosby doing in our shower?" and other hilarity

You know you have too much time on your hands when you spend half a day checking out Youtube videos. The quality on this is pretty low but I thought some of these were pretty funny.

Nothing to Report

I know it's been several days since I posted anything but I just haven't had anything to say really. Here's a quick rundown of my weekend.

My older brother came over to do his taxes on Friday, which of course was the last day to file. I had the tax software for the whole family so everyone came here to do it. Everyone else just did it before the deadline.

Then he and I proceeded to play Big League Manager which he bought me for Christmas but I hadn't played yet. Essentially you run an NHL team so you draft player and make trades and sign free agents and of course play matches. It's actually a lot of fun.

On Saturday night my parents came in and took the whole family (me, my brothers and my brother's girlfriend) out to Tony Roma's for supper. It was super good. I haven't been to Tony Roma's in a while and who doesn't like ribs? Then Mom and Dad came over to our place so that Dad could replace the battery in my car. Technically I could have done this myself or paid someone to do this but I just never got it done. I think maybe my parents are lonely and want me to come home more often which requires a working vehicle. I also sent my cat home with them for a while. It's kind of a long story but I'm thinking about giving him up for adoption.

Sunday was a pretty slack day, I watched 2 hockey games and well that was about it. And so there you have my weekend update. Exciting stuff, eh?

5 hours down

I've now spent 5 hours volunteering at the Museum and hope to spend many more. It's great!

The first day I spent 3 hours doing transcription which you would think would be totally boring but really it's not. I'm transcribing interviews that were done with people who were influential in the development of one of the exhibits. So it's really interesting to hear the process of the development of the exhibits rather than just the history behind the actual artifacts.

The other thing that I'll be doing is working on what they call "animation carts" where I get to explain artifacts to people. This could be really cool or really boring depending on how many people you get and how interested they are. Today we did training and there were a lot of kids running around the Museum so maybe not my ideal audience but we'll see how it goes. First official gallery shift starts next week.

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!

I miss the old Facebook

It's hard to believe that I've been on Facebook for over 4 years. I've seen it go through numerous makeovers and "enhancements". But I have to say that I'm longing for the old days, where Facebook was just between you and other college kids.

Granted under that definition I would no longer qualify to have a profile and I get that as people who had profiles graduated the site was going to have to be expanded so that those people could continue to enjoy the site. But opening it up to everyone and apparently everything has just made it kind of a joke.

First of all having prospective employers scan the site to check up on your hijinx. The thing that gets me about it though is that you can't always control what other people do or say or write on your wall. I've personally asked all my friends not to tag me in pictures. Not because I do anything that I'm embarrassed about but just because well I'm a person and yes I do like to have the occasional drink. But no future employer needs to see this. Especially since it may seem that I drink a lot more than I do if the only time I'm tagged in photos is when I've been drinking. It's none of their business and I certainly don't go around posting these pictures myself but I also don't think that I should have to worry about what my acquaintances decide to post. Yes, you can untag yourself from photos, but who wants to spend all their time fixing other people's mistakes? Now I'm pretty good about being appropriate. If you google my name you get about 3 entries about me. None of which are embarrassing or inappropriate. But I don't trust Facebook to be the same.

And then there is the issue of who to friend. I personally try not to friend anyone that I don't know in the flesh. I think I've got about 4 people who I don't actually physically know. Most of these are people who share my surname and because I'm all about history and knowing where you came from I didn't think it could hurt to add them for genealogical reasons. Who knows they might be a not so distant relative. But then you have my real relatives, you know the ones you only see on Christmas and special family occasions like weddings. Under old Facebook rules this would not even be a discussion since my cousins chose the pregnant and married route (and sometimes just the pregnant part). But they are technically family and I would feel bad if I had rejected their friend request. But really the more they post random status messages and choose to "like" different groups or phrases the more I want to just tear into them for being utterly ridiculous. And yet I hold my tongue for the aforementioned potential employer problem.

Which brings me to the next thing on my list of reasons Facebook is no longer the social networking site that I had grown to love. The stupid groups. Doesn't it just seem like there is a group for absolutely everything? I mean, really "I bet this steak can get more friends than PETA"? Really?!? This needs a group? Sure I've gone ahead and marked some things as "like". Starbucks for example, Moss from "The IT Crowd" (which if you work in an office and haven't watched I highly recommend), but I mean these are things that people are going to learn about me pretty quickly in regular conversation.

Okay I think that's enough of this for now. All I'm saying is that I miss old Facebook and there is a pretty good chance that I'll be disappearing from the Facebook scene in the very near future.

What are your thoughts on Facebook? Greatest invention ever or the potential downfall of civilization?

More Mauer

While extremely bored last night I started looking at the feature articles on Yahoo, where I came across this . Now I'm not usually a fan of Yahoo blogs but it was Joe Mauer and so totally worth the time. Although I'm finding that the more I learn about Mr. Mauer the more there is to dislike. Hip Hop? Chevys? Ummm... no. So from now on I'm going to skip the interviews and just focus on his excellent play and smokin' good looks. And this commercial which I find totally hilarious:

About the NFL Draft

The NFL Draft was last week. It started on Thursday night and then came back for subsequent rounds until Sunday. I didn't really watch it as I was busy watching playoff hockey but I was interested in where my now former college football boyfriend would end up. There was some intrigue about where Tim Tebow would get drafted and which team would take a chance on him.
Most folks figured somewhere in the second round. He went in the first round 26th overall to the Denver Broncos.



Now after the whole Jay Cutler trade incident I really can't support the Broncos and so this is the end of the line for me and Timmy T (unless he gets traded, oh please oh please oh please). But immediately after I found out he was going to Denver I decided to take one more trip through google images to get him out of my system.



Here's what I found:

And this may be the last time you hear from me about Tim Tebow.

Add me to the list...

of Sidney Crosby fangirls. I've tried to resist, I really have. But I can't deny that he's a hell of a hockey player. And I realized while watching a Tim Horton's commercial just how kissable his lips are. Normally I watch that commercial and say "oh that Crosby/Tim's commercial is on, but the last time I saw it I could stop staring at his lips thinking about of soft and lovely they looked. He's got sort of a natural pout. And ya'll know how I love a pouter (see my obsession with Jay Cutler). Sure he's a little on the young side. And I'm sure his girlfriend is absolutely stunning but none of that matters. It's not like I plan to marry him (again I'm reserving that for Jay Cutler).

Does this post make me sound as pathetic as I think it does? Yeah, alright I'll just have to learn to deal with it. So what are your thoughts on Sidney Crosby?

In search of a success story

All through my illness doctors and other medical professionals have been telling me about how recovery is possible and how many people go on to live long, healthy and successful lives afterwards. I need to find these people and figure out how they do it.

I had this fear when I went on sick leave that it was going to ruin my career. Don't worry the doctor's said they can't fire you for being sick. This is true but they can make it awfully difficult to come back, or to find another job. It really makes me think that it's about time to take that leap and move in a completely different direction, since the path that I'm on doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

I just need to find some uplifting stories of people who have been able to get their lives back on track. Just to prove that it can be done.

Team Edward vs. Team Jacob

There is a debate within fans of the Twilight saga over which guy Bella should be with, Edward or Jacob. I've read the books and I have to say that I was leaning towards Team Jacob. Now that I've watched the first half of New Moon I'm going to say that I'm firmly planted on the Jacob side.

So readers what do you thing? Are you an Edward or a Jacob?

I need a verdict

All right folks here's a question I've been struggling with for some a while. Cristiano Ronaldo is a an amazing soccer player, I don't think anyone argues this point. But I can't decide if he's hot or if he's just a giant douche. My opinion seems to change depending on the picture.

The man does have an amazing body and isn't shy about letting the world know it.And he sure is pretty. See the following example:

But I find hat when he's not half naked he's either

1. carrying a man bag (well he is European but still)
   
2. wearing too much hair gel
   
3. or making hideous fashion choices
   

You can find prime examples of these by doing a quick google image search but here's a couple to start:

So please vote in my poll and help me take a stance on C-Ron.

Now if only my pizza delivery guy looked like this

I found this picture of Marc-Andre Fleury (MAF or Mr.Smiley to me) the other day and couldn't help thinking that I wouldn't mind if that showed up to my door everytime I got too lazy to cook.

Spring Fever

Anyone remember that time that Peyton Manning hosted SNL? No, just me. Okay then. Anyway there was this skit where the comediennes (one of them is Amy Pohler the other one I don't know because I don't generally watch SNL because it's crap) were flirting with Joey the zookeeper (PeyPey in a zookeeper outfit) and attributing it to Spring Fever. Anyway it's Peyton Manning so you know I loved it. Totally getting off track here but I think I'm experiencing a little of my own Spring Fever. I'm having dreams about someone that I really wish I wasn't (not the first time I've had naughty dreams about this person. Does that mean something?) and like every guy I pass on the street seems to be attractive. What the hell is wrong with me?

In other news I'll be volunteering at the Museum for the summer, which I'm super excited about. And I think I just blew out both of my knees playing volleyball last night. But on the plus side my hitting is getting better.

Because the Joe Mauer tag doesn't get enough use

Baseball season is upon us once again, I know that technically it started a couple of weeks ago but, I freaking hate baseball. I know I mention it every time I talk about baseball but I really think that it can't be said enough.

Anyway you'll also know by now if you've been following my blog for any amount of time that my baseball boyfriend is Joe Mauer of the Minnesota Twins. It's been a while since I've bothered to mention his hotness so I thought since I had nothing else to talk about that perhaps it was time to bring him up again. Just in case you're trying to find some reason to watch baseball this year. So here he is just doing his job and also in eye-black. YUM!

I may never buy another book again

I love to read. But I never understood why my brother would read e-books that he downloaded from the internet. Until today.

See a couple of weeks ago he bought an e-book reader. It cost a lot of money and he doesn't really read much anyway but today he let me borrow it and I've got to say it's growing on me. I have 3 book shelves full of books in my apartment and everytime I move I have to haul these books around with me. But the process would be so much more simplified if all I had to do was pack up a couple of flashdrives or an external hard drive.

So I may have to go out and buy myself one of these e-book readers. Is there any new technology out there that you want to try? The i-pad for example.

What I want this week

I have been known to be impulsive from time to time. I've also been known to become obsessed with things that I want but don't yet have. The sad this is that it's not that I can't afford these things but just that I know that I don't need them, so I try not to buy them until they are all I can think about.

Take my new purse for example. I went to visit it in the store on a Friday. Then spent the whole weekend stalking it via the Guess website until I couldn't take it anymore and broke down and bought it.

This week's new obsession is these earrings. I found them yesterday while I was digging around the NCAA store. It's not the greatest picture in that you can barely make out the Musketeer in the middle of them, but that's what it is. It's the mascot of the Xavier Musketeers. I have absolutely no connection to Xavier University, hell I don't even know anyone from the state of Ohio but I love these earrings. The closest I come to a connection with Xavier is picking them to go one round too far in the NCAA tournament every year and cheering for them simply because thier mascot is D'Artagnan. This makes so much more sense once you know that my favorite book is The Three Musketeers. There was a similar pair for Purdue, which would make so much more sense given that I still harbour a dream of going there for grad school but they didn't have the Musketeer awesomeness. They aren't terribly expensive either it's just a matter of convincing myself that it's okay to spend $12 on shipping for a pair of earrings that only coss $16.

We Start Volleyball Today

I've been trying to come up with something to post about that didn't involve Jon Scheyer, Gordon Hayward or Kyle Singler gobbling like a turkey (don't ask). But ever since that crazy game on Monday night I haven't really thought about much else.

Until today. My brother and I signed up to play rec co-ed volleyball for the next 8 weeks. I'm really excited. My brother is really good, he even played in college. I on the other hand haven't played volleyball (or sports in general) since I was in high school. So I'm terribly out of shape but hopefully I don't totally suck.

I'll keep you posted.

Butler is just too adorable

I was going to try not to post until after the national championship game but I felt that I needed to tell you what was going on in my head.

First of all I find myself cheering for Duke mostly because it's Scheyer's senior year and I'd like to see him win a national championship. Most of the Bulldogs are still in their early years so they at least have a chance to make it back to the final, regardless of how unlikely that is considering how tough the tournament is.

But Butler is just too cute. Everything from the bulldog logo to the actual bulldog is just adorable. For a school of just over 4,500 just getting to this point is amazing. Then there is Gordon Hayward, he really doesn't photograph well so finding the right picture to capture his cuteness is not so easy but this one is not bad (right). He's only 20 and super humble. Also he's apparently a computer engineering major (thank you wikipedia). And then there is the Butler coach Brad Stevens. He's only 33 and pretty cute in his own right.

So mostly I've just been cheering for Hayward when he has the ball and cheer for Duke the rest of the time. We'll see how it ends up. Right now it's a really tight game.

Everything's coming up Milhouse

If you didn't get it that was a Simpson's reference. There aren't many times when I can say that things went exactly the way I wanted. Especially when it comes to sports. Mostly because I have no control over them. But today turned out pretty much perfectly. Sorry I'm talking about the final four here.

Frankly I didn't really care whether Michigan State or Butler won the first game. I probably could have been equally happy regardless of the result. But I am glad that Butler won. I've already decided that Gordon Hayward is going to be my college basketball boyfriend next year once Jon Scheyer has graduated. Provided he doesn't go to the NBA next year. I might cry.

As for the Duke/West Virginia game I was totally pulling for Duke in that game. I think I've made it pretty clear that I love Jon Scheyer but it never hurts to keep mentioning it. The rest of the team is growing on me too. But besides being the home of my basketball boyfriend I kind of share the rest of the world's hatred of Duke, just on principle.

So now I'm not quite sure who to cheer for. I fully expect Duke to win the National Championship and I'd love to see Scheyer win the title in is senior season. But Butler has the sort of Cinderella story going on. I might just have to see what happens and be happy either way. Or I just go with the Bulldogs. But I'm not going to cry if Duke wins. Go Bulldogs!

We've gone wireless

Well actually we've been wireless in our apartment since we moved there. But the big news is that my mom and dad are wireless now. The internet is still impossibly slow but now I'm able to sit in the living room and type this without disturbing my mom's game of freecell.

I'm so excited. This can only mean that I'll be able to blog more while I'm on the road.

The funniest thing I've seen so far today

What's a girl who isn't working and doesn't have anything to do all day going to do to waste time? Apparently read the CBSsports one blogging moment blog. Not everything on there is hilarious but some of it is good. And sometimes they find social media (youtube, twitter, facebook) source material that is worth sharing.

Like this gem from the Duke basketball team:

Granted it's terrible but it's got some things going for it. For one the production value, it's well done even if the acting is terrible. And two, it features Jon Scheyer who should probably not take up acting as a career but makes me love him more every time I see him. Third, the sweaty johnson! And Kyle Singler being attacked by lemurs. This is great stuff.

I'm going to miss the tournament when it's all over and my basketball boyfriends retire from college hoops.

I am about to propose the most ridiculous thing ever

I don't remember if you guys have heard my rant about strollers on public transit. The essence of the rant is that I don't think people should be allowed strollers on the bus. But I deal with the fact that some people just need to use public transit. I try to do this mostly by assuming that these people actually own a car but it's in the shop or something so they had to take the bus this one time. But today takes the cake, there was not one or two strollers on my bus home today but 4. Four freaking strollers, which means 10 people were unable to sit to accommodate this contraptions.

I've had the stroller argument probably a half dozen times and my basic argument is that if you can't afford a car then you can't afford a baby. To which someone once pointed out that probably 90 percent of pregnancies are unplanned (hopefully this is a gross over estimation because if only 10 percent of children are actually born to parents who intended to have a child then there are some even more serious issues in this world. But here's the thing about unplanned pregnancy, there are options. Now I don't generally agree with the big option, but the fact is that abortion is legal in this country and maybe more people should be using this option. Or you know stepping up their birth control.

Now to my really crazy idea. Remembering that I say this somewhat if not completely tongue in cheek, there should be an economic cutoff for parent hood. If your household income falls below a certain level you should be forced to at least give up for child for adoption. It's for the child's own benefit you just can't provide everything that a child needs. Sorry a kid can't be raised on love it actually costs money. Clearly there should be other considerations for who should be allowed to be a parent, just because you're loaded isn't going to make you a good parent.

I'm kind of getting off topic here and clearly this idea is in the controversial pile. If my blog were more popular I'm sure I'd get all sorts of comments about how elitist this post is. Let me state for the record that I don't come from money, we were amazingly middle-class. I had student loans just like everyone else (still paying them off as a matter of fact). I think I've said it enough times but just in case it comes back to bite me as some point I feel that I need to point out again that this post is just something to think about and does not even receive my own full support. I'm just putting it out there. I also realize that such a policy could and should (probably) never actually be put in place in Canada. It probably violates a number of human rights laws, but I'm not a lawyer so I don't have to worry about that stuff.

Wikipedia is the greatest invention ever

In a world in which we are constantly stimulated visually, audibly and even olfactorilly (after much discussion of what we should call nasal stimulation this is what we came up with), sometimes I get bored. It's at these times that I turn to Wikipedia to learn random stuff.

Here's the great thing about Wikipedia, you can start with one topic and end up somewhere completely different. I don't usually go with the random article button. Usually I have something that I want to start off with and just follow links from within the article to other articles.

Sometimes the connections that are made from where you started to where you end up are truly amazing and sometimes even a little bit horrifying. You can get off topic pretty quickly but you might be surprised at what you might learn.

So is this something that you do? Or am I just some kind of weirdo? Wait don't answer that last part.

Your NCAA basketball update

Just in case you were wondering why you haven't gotten any bracket updates this year it's because both my hotness bracket and my actual bracket were horribly busted after the first weekend.

Last night's Duke-Purdue game pit my two current college basketball boyfriends and seniors, Jon Scheyer and Chris Kramer against each other. Why do I have two college basketball boyfreinds? Mostly because I couldn't decide between the two. Duke won and so that's the end of Chris Kramer's college career. Poor Chris Kramer, but if he's in need of some comfort I'm available.

As for the teams that are left. I'd like to see Duke win if only so that I can continue to see Jon Scheyer. Butler because thier mascot is a bulldog and come on they are adorable, also because Gordon Hayward is the leading candidate to become next year's basketball boyfriend he's also adorable. Michigan State because I just prefer that they win than Tennesee. And I could really care less who wins between Kentucky and West Virginia although the Mountaineers have provided some entertainment this week with thier twitter videos which I found while incredibly bored yesterday.

Wonderful Randomness

I had the most wonderful surprise today. I was standing in line at the cafeteria listening to the conversation of two med students when I hear someone call my name. I turned around to find one of my friends from residence who I hadn't seen in months.

So we had lunch together. It was really nice being able to catch up with someone that I hadn't seen in a while. I should really do it more often.

Everyone else leads such interesting lives

Hey sorry I know it's been a while, I just haven't had anything to say. My life has been pretty boring lately.

Last week started with me finishing off my hotness bracket, just in time for games to start on Thursday. Which lead to a weekend of me watching college basketball. I'm super excited that both Duke and Purdue made it to the Sweet 16 and will be facing off against each other on Friday night.

On another front I've been trying to decide the extent of my feelings for office crush. This crush has been going on for far too long and it hasn't really followed the pattern of previous crushes. Usually once I tell a friend about a crush it quickly dissipates and becomes a non-issue. This one has managed to stick around for much longer than I would have ever thought possible. So what's with the sudden need to define my feelings? Well it has to do with moving forward. Something someone said to me in the other day about how nothing good happens unless we take chances. Whether I'm willing to take that chance or not is yet to be seen.

It's College Basketball Time

It's that wonderful time of year again. The time where I spend 4 days a week on my couch watching every possible college basketball game I can get my eyes on.


Although for some reason I'm not quite as excited this year. Yeah I filled out a couple of brackets and yes I did do my "hotness bracket" again this year but for some reason it just doesn't feel the same. Both my hotness bracket and my real bracket predict a Kansas victory.

And who is this year's hottest player? Purdue's Chris Kramer. You may remember him as the guy who looks like Keith. There are actually a lot of look a-likes this year. I pronounce "he looks like..." several times as I made my way through the teams.



Anyway I'll be sure to keep you updated as to how my bracket is doing. Are you doing anything to celebrate the NCAA Tournament?

I'd rather not know

I've discovered something about myself recently. This story is going to sound totally pathetic and it kind of is but at the same time totally revealing about some things in my life.

On Thursday night I was supposed to meet someone for dinner. I don't want to exactly call her a friend. We used to be friendly but then we both got busy and sort of fell apart. This was supposed to be our second meeting since the Facebook reconnect. I hadn't been feeling well all week and came close to cancelling a few times but didn't. Anyway I showed up to the Olive Garden where we were supposed to meet and an hour and two drinks and two bowls of soup later she still hadn't.

So what's one to make of this situation? My first thought was "well she must have got stuck in traffic". That lasted for about 15 minutes. After half an hour I figured I must have gotten the day wrong, but I was almost certain I hadn't because I double checked before I left. After an hour I figured she must have had some kind of emergency and there would be a call or an e-mail waiting for me when I got home. It's 4 days later and still no call or e-mail. So I sent her a Facebook message and tried really hard not to sound too pissed off.

Here's the thing though, at this point I'd rather not know what happened. At least if I don't know there is a chance that it was an emergency and she didn't just forget about me. I'll feel pretty bad if it was that she just didn't remember that we had plans and went ahead and did her own thing.

I also realized that there are other things that I don't want to know. For example ,I still harbor my office crush. Even though I haven't been at work for nearly a year and therefore haven't seen him I have attached certain events to him. So when I think about those things I think of him. Anyway I've decided that I'd rather not know if he likes me, than find out that he doesn't. Or if I would get accepted to my choice of graduate schools, right now I have the hope that I would, if I apply and don't get in I'd be upset.

Is there anything you'd rather not know for certain?

To Prague or not to Prague

First of all let me say that this is my 400th post. I can't believe that I've had enough to say to write 400 posts. Okay moving on.

Ever since I went to Scotland last summer I've caught a bit of the travel bug. There aren't a lot of places that I'd really like to go. I'm not a fan of tropical or hot places so I'm not really big on the idea of South America or Australia. But one place that I have wanted to go is Prague. I don't know why exactly Prague. I'm not Czech, I don't speak Czech and while I love history there are a billion other places in Europe with the kind of history I crave. Anyway that's where I want to go.

But the tour plus the flight is $8000, which I don't have (yet). Anyone wanna come? Is there one place in the world that you want to go more than anywhere else?

ain't it pretty?

Handbags for all

I've needed a new purse for a while now. I broke the last one by shoving 3 pairs of shoes in it and then attempting to close the zipper. Oops. I went back to using an old one that I don't really like and isn't' exactly wintery. So I've been on the look out for a new one.

Here's the thing though, I'm sick of buying cheap purses only to have them break on me. Granted the last one was totally my fault but still. So I'm looking at Guess purses, I found one that I really like but I just can't wrap my head around spending that kind of money. So right now I'm in a holding pattern. I want it but I'm going to wait it out and see if it's just an impulse thing or if I still want it in a week.

Is there anything that you want but haven't bought yet because it's too expensive?

They're here, They're here

My DVDs came today. I'm totally surprised by how quickly they arrived. Now the hard part will be forcing myself to do anything but watch them.

There was a little hitch with having the Gilmore Girls shipped via UPS. See I wasn't home to receive them so the UPS guy left them with our neighbour. I was NOT pleased. But our neighbours seemed really nice in the end and I've got my videos now so it's on to the watching. After we finish watched the last episode of the last season of Supernatural, the 8th season of Smallville, The entire series of the British Office, and the 4th Season of Psych.

Boy, that's a lot of TV to watch. Do you watch any of these shows? What series would you most like to own?

Online Shopping is the Devil

Today I decided that I was going to do something nice for myself, so I decided that I would go shopping. But by 11:30 I had decided that I also didn't really want to leave the house. I certainly didn't want to go to the mall just to find out that what I really wanted wasn't in stock. So I looked at BestBuy.ca to find out if they had what I wanted in stock at either of the stores in the city, they did not. So I turned to online shopping.

20 minutes and $300 later I had ordered the complete series box set of Gilmore Girls from Amazon and all 4 "series" of Canada A People's History from the CBC store. These are sure to bring me hours of entertainment once the Olympics are over. Now I just hope that they get to me alright.

Was That an Ice Dance Gold Medal?

Why yes, yes it was. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won Canada's first ever gold medal in ice dance. Sadly I missed their free dance. I fell asleep during the warm up for the final flight. Actually for that matter I missed their compulsory dance too. But I saw their original dance and they were amazing. So let's hear it for another gold medal for Canada. I would say this is a top three Olympic moment for me so far. The other two would be Alex Bilodeau's gold medal to kick start the Games and Canada's 5-3 loss to the USA in men's hockey (not because I'm happy about it but because it's a big deal). Did you see them dance or did you miss it too? What has been your highlight of the Olympics so far?

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?

Why Am I Not at The Olympics Right Now?

Obviously the Olympics have been going on for the last couple of days and I'm absolutely riveted. I love every event. Well except maybe the cross country skiing, it's just so boring, but biathlon is awesome.

The Olympics are in Vancouver and I'm not there. It's kind of like when I was in Scotland during
Wimbledon but didn't get there.

What about you, are there any sports you're following at the Olympics? Or is it all just a waste of time in your eyes?

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?

Moguls Skiers are Flipping Crazy

I just finished watching Alexandre Bilodeau win the first Olympic gold medal for Canada at the Olympics. Last night I watched Jennifer Heil win the silver medal in the women's event.

I can't even imagine doing what they do. Ski-ing down a crazy bumpy course AND taking to the air and doing flips all in less than 30 seconds.

Before the event CTV did some profiles of Alex and his relationship with his older brother who has cerebral palsy. Oh and now he's crying during his interview with CTV. That's it people I think I've found my moguls "boyfriend".

The picture by the way is from CTVolympics.ca. So what about you guys are you watching the Olympics? What's your favorite event?

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.

More Car Problems

I don't even know why I have a car it seems to be nothing but problems. First the battery thing , Then a flat. And now another flat. All within the first month of 2010. Boy am I glad I have CAA. But they only allow 4 free calls per year and well this would be my third.

Hopefully my brother can change my tire for me. I'd attempt to do it myself but it's not something I've ever done before. Maybe I should just stick to the bus from now on.

Edit: So I did call CAA and then went to the tire place. Where they did the repair for FREE! He said it was a customer appreciation thing since I dropped $300 on two new tires there the week before last. Either that or he was flirting with me.

Why It's Okay that the Saints won the Superbowl

I think enough mourning time has gone by that I can write this post without starting to tear up uncontrollably. As a Colts fan I really did go against the grain and cheer against the Saints. I had to.

But anyway I think this picture from the New York Daily Times explains exactly why I'm okay with the Saints victory.

It's Drew Brees and a baby. His baby but still. I've said it before and I'll say it again I love Drew Brees. And what's cuter than a baby?

Pre-Olympic Reminder

The Olympics start on Friday. I'm not quite ramped up for them yet but I expect I'll get there soon. But I thought I should mention that my "curling boyfriend"* Marc Kennedy will be competing in his first Olympics as part of Team Canada. Oh also it was his birthday last week. Did anyone else notice that he lists country as his favorite type of music. This is anotherone of those the more you know the more you like them situations.

I borrowed this picture from someone else. Hey I don't put this stuff on the interwebs I just find it and use it. Hey at least I'm giving credit. Don't judge me.

So Go Canada!

*Not my actual boyfriend. I have a "boyfriend" for nearly every sport I won't get into it right now but ask me about it if you want to know more. Also for the record I'm not a stalker, I have my own life to attend to thank you very much.

What I'm Reading Now

Sometimes there's nothing better than sitting down with a hot cup of coffee and a good book. Sometimes I'll substitute hot chocolate or red wine for coffee if I feel like it. But there is a good chance that I'm in the middle of a book at any moment in time.

So I thought I'd share with you what I'm reading now. Don't worry this isn't going to be a book review type thing, though there are several wonderful book review blogs and when I come across some good ones again I'll add some linkage.

And now on to the main attraction of this post, what I'm reading now:
I just started Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie. It's not fiction about the end of the Romanov dynasty. I'm totally into history so I'm looking forward to reading more of it. I'm only on page 27 right now.

What about you dear reader, what type of books get you going? If you were on a deserted island what is the one book you would want to take with you?

Sports Karma

I don't know if you've noticed but I sort of like sports, just a little. Today I'm a little worried. It's Superbowl Sunday, which is huge. But it's also the finals of the Scotties Tournament of Hearts, the Canadian Women's curling championship.

I'm watching the final and it's a really close game between Canada and PEI. How is PEI playing against the country its in you ask? Well because the previous year's champion comes back the next year wearing the maple leaf. This year Canada is represented by the Jennifer Jones (pictured left) team out of my home province of Manitoba. So I'm cheering for them. And it seems to be working. It's the 10th end (the last end barring an extra) and Canada is up by one point without hammer. If you don't understand curling basically hammer is the last rock which is really important.

But am I using all my sports karma on this game? Will there be enough left for the Colts to win the Superbowl tonight? Am I possibly insane? Wait don't answer that last question.

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.

To Write a Thesis or not to Write

So in all of my thoughts about grad school and where I should go I some how blocked out the thought that I'm going to have to write a thesis.

This hit me hard as I was looking at different school and the profs at those schools. It's not that I had totally forgot about it but just that I hadn't really given a lot of thought to it, what with the writing entrance exams and figuring out application deadlines and having to get references.

So how does one psych themselves up to write a thesis? Well my method is to go through papers that I wrote for my undergrad. And not to toot my own horn but, I wrote some pretty kick ass papers, some of which I totally forgot about.

I still don't know what I would do my thesis on but it had better be something that I love because it's going to be with me for 2 years.

How has no one noticed this?

The Superbowl is just days away and I haven't said a damn thing about it. And nobody noticed. Or maybe someone did notice and was hoping that I just forgot.

There isn't much for me to say about the Superbowl that hasn't already been said. But I have to say this is going to be a tough one for me. I think we all know how I feel about Peyton Manning (love him) and the Colts are my favorite team, but I also love Drew Brees (pictured right). So I guess I just have to cheer for whichever offense is on the field at the time.

The Colts should win this one. And that's all I'm going to say about the Superbowl.

Where does the time go?

Here it is February and I barely noticed. There has been a lot going on with me and not a lot all at the same time.

On the treatment for my illness side I was hospitalized for about 3 weeks and now I'm just waiting for my outpatient treatments to start. I'm also trying to normalize my life. Things just kind of got out of control, particularly while I was in hospital because I couldn't do anything at home.

I'm trying to reconnect with some people that I haven't seen in what seems like ages, but it's more like the fall. It just seems like everyone is busy this time of year, what with school starting again and job opportunities to apply for.

As for what I'm up to, this week is really a take it easy and watch curling week. Oh and keeping up with Superbowl week.

My love-hate relationship with CAA

I have CAA, not because I'm a bad driver but because I have bad luck. Some days CAA is great. Like last Friday when my battery was dead.

The driver told me that the battery was frozen because the car had sat dead too long. First of all I knew my battery was pretty much dead and I hadn't driven in a while, but who knew batteries could freeze. Anyway the guy took it out, took it to the shop charged it up and it was working fine so he re-installed it on Monday in near blizzard conditions.

Today CAA wasn't so great. I had a really flat tire. I mean really flat. Again because had left it sit too long. I knew I had a slow leak and had just been filling it up with air from my air tank but because I hadn't driven in a while it went right flat. My theory was that I would just drive to the service station up the road and pump it up but when I got there, there was no hose on the air compressor.

This is where CAA comes in. I am probably the only person in the world without a cell phone but luckily the service station had a pay phone from which I could call CAA. So I did but because I didn't have a phone they couldn't give me a five minute warning call so they gave me an hour and a half window. So I sat and sat and sat some more. Finally half an hour after my window I called to see what was up. And wouldn't you know that once I called and was waiting on hold the truck came to change my tire.

Today has been a good day

I haven't had a lot of good days recently so it's good to document the ones I have so that I can refer back to it later.

It started this morning. My brother and I watched some Smallville and this British show called "the IT crowd" it's pretty funny. After that we played a game of hockey on the Playstation. Oh and then I watched some curling. I'm totally crushing on Marc Kennedy. Then I hunkered down with my bag of chips and watched the Colts beat the Jets to head for the Superbowl. Now I'm watching the NFC title game. Go Saints! Or Geaux Saints if you want to play up the frenchness.

Yup good day.

the scary thing about the internet

Even though there are all sorts of wonderful things about the internet I find it scary how much of it is accessible to everyone. I'm never really sure what could be used against me in the future. I mean things like Facebook which was developed with the intention of connecting people can be used by future and sometimes even current employers to determine an employees character outside of work.

What I'm thinking of now is actually about my illness. I've been struggling with it for a long time and being able to talk about it openly might help someone in the future who is dealing with the same thing. But I'm too afraid to talk about it here on my blog because someone might find it and it might prevent me from living the life that I may want to lead in the future.

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.

It appears that I have gone missing

Hey there,

Listen I'm just going through a prolonged period of illness right now. Things seemed to be getting better and then they got worse. So what does this have to do with you? Well mostly I just wanted to let you know what was up since I disappeared rather suddenly. It's hard to get to a computer when you're not feeling well, even though I have two of them. So I really do apologize if anyone actually kept checking to see if I'd written something new.

So thank you for supporting my blogging addiction. I promise I'll get back to it as soon as I can.

Lots of Love,

Janalee

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.

That's it next year I'm getting Sunday Ticket

So it's football season again. Actually we're almost half way through the season. Up until now I've been able to find a game to watch on Sunday. Considering that there are 4 teams (Indy, New York Giants, New Orleans and Chicago) that I will watch if I can find their game. However this week they aren't showing any of those games in my area except the Giants game which is the Sunday night feature.

My brother has NFL Sunday Ticket which allows you to watch any game you want, which is pretty sweet. But I didn't want to spend the money to get it. Maybe next season I'll re-think that.

Sometimes you just get bored

As you probably know by now I watch a lot of TV. When I'm not watching TV I'm probably watching something that I downloaded so that I can catch up on past episodes. As you can imagine from time to time I get stumped about what to watch next. It's time like these I turn to my friends.

A friend suggested that I check out Castle. I was a little skeptical at first since I'm not big on cop shows, but I have to admit that I really like it. So what about you? Have you watched it? Do you like it? What else would you recommend for the next time I run out of ideas?

Week 2 is in the bag

It was pointed out to me recently that it's been a while since I posted and well it has. I just haven't had anything exciting to say. I really do try to leave a lot of my personal drama out of my blog simply because I don't want to bring people down.

So my only new is that I got through my second week of return to work. Tuesday was a little wavery but I powered through. Hopefully I can get back to full time soon.

Wine-ing, Dining and nearly getting electrocuted

I've been driving for nearly 10 years, more than that if you count illegally hitting up the back roads back home, so you'd think that I would know well enough not to leave my lights on. Well then you would think wrong.

I went out for dinner with an old friend that I hadn't seen in more than 2 years. We went to the Olive Garden which is my all time favorite restaurant. I don't much like driving in the city to begin with and we went to the one that's on the opposite side of the city so I had to meet her there. I was a little nervous but it turned out that it wasn't a problem.

We had a nice dinner and tasted some wine. I couldn't finish my meal though since I filled up on soup, breadsticks and appetizers, so I've got left overs for tomorrow.

Then after our meal we walked outside to the over-flow parking where incidentally we had both parked when I realized I had left my lights on. So I sort of panicked. Well on the inside anyway outwardly I was pretty calm. But I have no clue about cars so I didn't know what to do. So I asked my friend and she thought we could probably boost it.

In my nearly 10 years of driving I've had my car boosted probably half a dozen times but I've never done it myself. I have a general idea of what to do but I'm certainly not confident enough to do it myself. Did I mention it was dark because that's probably an important part of the story. So anyway we connected the cables red first to her car and then mine. Then we tried the black cables in the same order. And let's just say the sparks flew. Luckily no one was hurt.

Anyway we were just about to give up when I decided to try my car one more time and by some fluke of nature it started and I was on my way.

Our Technological Age

You know that game you play where you pick 3 things that you couldn't live without on a desert island? Well I had a random thought while I was getting ready to go out for dinner with an old friend, I think all of the things I couldn't live with out require electricity.

Seriously how did we ever live without internet? Or cell phones (I actually do live without a cell phone but only because everyone else has one so if I need to reach them I can)? Or a flat iron?

So what can't you live without? Do tell.

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.

Maybe it's never the right time

I've been thinking a lot about fate lately. It's my way of getting through a lot of the tough things in life. I don't believe in God per say but I have to believe that something is guiding us to certain things.

Take the relapse of my illness. It doesn't just happen. It showed me that I needed to make changes in the way I'm living my life. It was really crappy timing what with my promotion and everything but it is what it is. Maybe it will lead to something wonderful. But then again maybe not.As I said previously there was a job opening that I was interested in, but this just isn't a good time for me.

I have a friend who talks about going back to school but just hasn't found the right time to take that leap.Maybe the challenge is not so much finding the opportunities that we want as overcoming the problem of bad timing.

Soothing Words

Has anyone seen the movie Sidney White? No well it's a kind of modernized version of Snow White. It stars Amanda Bynes where instead of 7 Dwarfs (dwarves?) there are 7 Dorks (which I would be reminded actually means whale penis) and the mirror is a Hot or Not page. It's kind of amusing in a fluffy trying to kill time kind of way.

Why am I giving you a movie review instead of doing a blog post, you ask? Well see the Witch in the movie (Rachel Witchburn) has soothing words like Gucchi and Prada. And after today I had to come up with a few of my own soothing words.

Jay Cutler's Pouty face:

Shoe Shopping:

Starbucks Coffee... or anything really. And meeting friends for coffee or lunch. Now mind you this is not in anyway a comprehensive list. It's just a few random items to keep me going until the next time.

That didn't go as well as planned

Today was a big day for me. It was the first day that I was back at work after an extended leave of absence. It was really weird walking in there after all of this time. Everyone seemed happy to see me and when people asked about my health I gave them the stock answer "getting better".

Which got me thinking why do people even ask "how are you?" the expected answer is either good or fine. Anything else and you become something of a Debbie Downer.

Anyway I didn't realize how much I missed everyone until I saw them again. I guess if nothing else I can enjoy the social atmosphere at work.

Watching Baseball

I can't believe I watched baseball last night. I hate baseball. To be completely honest I was also watching the Colts game so it was kind of a flip back and forth kind of deal. So what was I doing watching baseball then?

Well see it started because I was out at the farm for the weekend and my dad was watching the game. So I sat down to watch with him until the football game started. That's when I realized it was the Twins vs. the Yankees. Now because I don't like baseball and therefore don't follow it the only player I knew besides Jeter and A-Rod was Joe Mauer of the Twins.

So Lisa if you're still following this one's for you. I've been trying to get you a Joe Mauer bobblehead for the last year but the 2009 versions are terrible so here's a picture instead.

Just another reason to get on with my GRE studying

You know you've been away from the real world too long when you don't even realize that one of your favorite (but then again I have lots of favorites) players switched teams in the off season.


Martin Havlat signed with the Minnesota Wild in the off season. So I guess that means I'd better get studying so that I can move to Minneapolis.

Actually I'm going to Minneapolis next weekend. Well if we aren't shopped out by the time it's time to go there.

I guess it wasn't meant to be

I tried really hard in the middle of the night last night to order a Jay Cutler Chicago bobblehead for my desk at work. But since I'm in Canada I wasn't able to complete the purchase. So I called in today to order. Turns out shipping on the item is as much as the actual item. So I decided to skip it. My desk will just have to continue to be bobblehead-less.

In the Christmas spirit... in October

I know it's still over 2 months away and it's not even Halloween but I can't stop thinking about Christmas. I love Christmas. The lights, the smell of spruce trees, the turkey, wrapping presents. I love it all. I especially love shopping for gifts for everyone else. Well that and it's the only time that my whole family gets together anymore.

I am commencing Christmas shopping next week and hope to be done by the end of October. Now I don't expect anyone else to have started their Christmas shopping yet, but have you started thinking about what you want to receive? Or who you might shop for this year that wasn't on you list last year?

You might say it's too early, I say bring it on.

My 2009-10 Fantasy Team

There is only one word to describe this year's team and that word is suck. They suck, which I guess means that I suck since my team has yet to win a single match up AND I've got the fewest points in the league.

I do however have a much more clever title for this year's version. Last year I called my team "So Bad" as in "this is going to end so bad". This year I named my team "Off Constantly" which means that whenever someone is talking about when they beat me they end up saying "I beat off constantly". I can't take credit for this brilliance though. I have to give it all to my younger brother since he thought of it first.

I don't even have any bench QBs to be excited with this year. Last year I sort of fell in love with Jay Cutler (even more so now but that's a story for another time).

Instead I get this:



and the incredibly old Kurt Warner.

Have I mentioned that my team sucks?