Aurora Borealis

Dario and I made pizza last night and were complete pigs. No jokes at all. We ate the entire first pizza, and two pieces of the second pizza hah! Disgusting. I will claim this, I only had 4 pieces. I would have only had 3 pieces, but the 4th was of the second pizza and I had to try the second pizza in order to make sure it tasted okay!

I saved one piece and packed the rest for Dario to take in his lunch today.


There were lots of toppings. Probably too many. I had ham, prosciutto, bacon, and chicken for the meats... then green pepper, onions, mushrooms and olives for the rest. It was so damn tasty.


I made the dough and prepped all the toppings, while Dario released the Italian in him and threw the dough in the air like he was cool or something. Pfft... I tried to explain to him that JUST because he's Italian does not mean he can throw pizza dough... He proved me wrong.


So I screwed him over when he was trying to watch the pizza cook by turning the light off. Italian men don't know how to work stoves you see so it took him about 2 minutes to find the light switch. It was kind of sad but I refused to give in and show him where it was, it was more entertaining to see him push every button there was.


It was a good night. We relaxed and watched some tv and sort of discussed wedding budget and then called it a night. Well, he did anyhow. I ended up staying up till 3 in the morning with back pain and watching National Lampoons Van Wilder. That show disgusts me every single time, of course when I turned it on it was at the dog jerking off part and just yugh. That is probably the only show that has ever made me physically gag while watching.

Today I was extremely unproductive. Since I caved last night and took a cyclobenzaprine and naproxen, I was really groggy all day from the left over effects. It is incredible how much a little tiny house pill can mess you up. It works wonders on my back though which is always nice when I can't deal with it anymore.

I did manage to cut the rest of the writing part of the invitations into their proper size. Since I'm not quite tired I'll start the green tonight and maybe get it finished by tomorrow.

I ordered the outter envelopes today, since stupid me was not thinking about needing an inner envelope. I was going to skip that step to save a few bucks, but then realized that since we are being strict about who can and cannot bring guests we HAVE to have some sort of thing to address the people being invited so we don't get overloaded with people. The good thing I suppose about the way we are doing it is I'm not having the reply cards mailed back. I am going to ask people to call or e-mail me with their RSVP. It's a little new aged I know, and yeah reply cards would be nice as a keepsake, but it's just not worth the postage. The reason I say it's a good thing to do it this way is at least I have direct communication with the people so if people get carried away and keep RSVPing for 2 guests when the invitation was extended to only 1 person then I can tell them "I am sorry we do not have room in the hall etc etc."

Hopefully there won't be too many problems with that since our numbers need to be pretty strict. The smaller the better really.

I finally had my taxes done today as well. I owe the government 158.88 this year. Lame-ooo. 100 bucks to get my taxes done and another 160 on top of that. AAAWESOME. I love the government <3 ... not. In other good news I wrote my friend Jon an e-mail. I haven't seen him in 6 weeks and it sucks. The last time I was able to go see him was the night before his birthday. After that he had some complications with his white cell count and got an infection, and then he was back in for chemo again shortly after and visitors were restricted through that entire time. Just before he was released from the hospital I wrote Ellie to see if he'd be alright with me coming for a visit, but they had some out of town guests that would be there for a few days. Then Jon was released from the hospital until his next round of chemo and I didn't know how to get ahold of him. I kept trying to send messages through his family but it just didn't seem like he was getting them since I hadn't heard from anyone. I had wrote about once a week to find out how he was doing or how I could get ahold of him, but no replies. Finally last night I decided to just e-mail him. I knew that he would be starting his third round of chemo anytime, and it turns out he had just started the day I e-mailed him. It surprised me that he wrote back, I had no idea he was able to get on the internet especially while at the hospital. Things are going a lot better, he is still hating chemo obviously but it's day 2 of 5 so in a couple more days he'll be back out again. He has a new roommate at the hospital, apparently the guy gets to smoke medicinal pot so he's keeping things interesting for Jon. Once Jon is done this round he wants to get together for a beer or a few so if he's allowed to do so we'll get together to do exactly that. I'm amazed to see how well things are going with him. It was a very difficult time when the news was first out but it seems his prognosis is looking better and better each day. Things are shrinking up and the brain tumors are gone which is great news. He is definitely one hell of a fighter and I am so proud of him. Ever since this all began it's started to put things into more perspective for me. I won't lie that it terrifies me to know that this can happen to people at such a young age, because it never hits home until it happens to someone you know. You always hear about it, read about it, see it on tv, but you never think it can happen to you or anyone you know. It makes me realize that any problems I may have in my own life aren't much at all in comparison. That is not to say they aren't important, it's just to say that sometimes there are more important things out there. I may not be in the greatest situation right now, but things could be a lot worse than they are... so... I will count my blessings and remind myself to remember the bigger picture.



I miss the Northern lights. I would love to go to Alaska one day to see them in their fullest.

Major Photo Spam

The weekend has been a really great and busy weekend. Miss Krista took a last minute trip to the west coast to visit and so we all got together every day that she was here.

Friday night there wasn't a lot going on. Dario was at a course all day and was going out for dinner with his cousins, so I had made plans to tag along with Danielle, Chad, and Krista. I found out later that Dario was going to be back in time to join us so we all headed down to Granville street to check out the Juno Street Party and have a drink or two. There were a million good smells on the street, hotdogs galore and for the entire evening I couldn't stop thinking about hotdogs. Finally after ignoring my stomach and walking past a ton of places we stopped at Sip for our first drink.



After we were done our stupid 10 dollar drinks there we headed over to the Loose Moose Pub and Patz and Yi Hong met up with us there, and later on Ryan did as well. I haven't been there yet and sadly even though I have lived here for almost 2 years, I was a newby to these places just like Krista. I've always wanted to go to this pub just for the pure sake of it's name so we hit it up for a few more drinks and some wicked good chicken fingers. I couldn't get food out of my head so I HAD to eat something. I could have eaten three plates of chicken fingers to myself if I wanted to but it still wouldn't have taken away the thought of an amazing street side hotdog mmmm.



The night was really great and we all made it home around 1:30 in the morning. Late but not SO late that you sleep the entire next day away. Although I won't lie, I probably easily could have.

Saturday night Danielle sent me a text saying that the boys were going to be going to the Cambie with Krista and that she wanted to know if I'd be up for our original girls night plan. I was game since I wasn't too up to going to the Cambie that night either so I headed over dressed like a bum to join Danielle, Tania and Miss Alicia! I was excited since I hadn't seen Tania since Pats birthday but also haven't seen Alicia in even longer. Mainly because SOOOOOMEBODY has the lifestyle of a celebrity. No pressure Alicia. ;) No actually she's been really busy with school coming to an end so it was nice to have a relaxing evening with candy, chips and wine. Seriously Danielle has the best chips, they're some sort of honey mustard chips but man SO GOOD. I don't know where she finds them thankfully cause otherwise I'd be 20lbs heavier than I am now.

Danielle sported the claw for the evening like the trooper she is. The poor girl can't do anything with her thumb but I won't lie that it makes me laugh when she does the italian "what the fuck" thing with her claw hand.



We had random girly talk and somewhere in the course of the evening we went through a ton of crap food and Danielle read us something out of a horoscope book on how she relates to each sign. Apparently I'm a fussy friend but that she does something to counteract it or something like that. IIIIII donno, it was funny though.

Favourite picture of the night right here:

I took quite a few pictures of the girls night evening but am choosing not to post them as we all look pretty gross in them. Not going to lie haha. Some of them are just plain bad. I look like a 12 year old girl, especially with the bangs.

While we were gabbing away about random crap, Krista was at the Cambie enjoying the pleasant sights of our favourite place.


Sunday morning rolled around and Krista, Danielle, Chad, Dario, and I headed down to Stanley Park for a nice walk and some picture taking. I took about 7 pictures, basically all the same as the first black and white picture, and then I gave up. I have a hate on for my camera lately and just couldn't get into taking pictures with it. I gotta try to find some love for it. Right now the view finder is really blurry for some reason (no it's not a focusing problem it's something wrong with the actual viewfinder) and so I have to use the lcd screen to take pictures... however when it's sunny you can't see shit so that definitely didn't help for Sunday's situation. It was beautiful outside!


All the rest of the pictures are stolen from Danielle, Dario, and Krista.



I love these next few sets because it seemed like Danielle had shots of the people taking the pictures, and then the next picture is the picture the other person took. If that is at all not confusing. You'll see what I mean.

Faith + 1 bitches. If you don't get it, you suck.

After we spent some time at Stanley Park we headed to Whitespot for lunch. I was incredibly hungry along with everyone else. I believe it took about 2.5 seconds to make up our minds on what we wanted. I couldn't even focus on anything I was so damn hungry. Normally it takes me forever to decide what I want but this time I pretty much already knew before we even got there. It was the most amazing BC chicken burger ever.

When lunch was over Dario and I decided to head back home while the rest went to meet up with Raymi and Fil, but also to take Krista down Robson. I wanted to go but at the same time was feeling a little gross from such a major lack of sleep. For some weird reason I woke up at 20 after 7 but didn't get to sleep till 2 and just ugh it was gross. So Dario and I said goodbye to Krista and went on our way. It ended up being a good decision because on the ride home I thought I was going to puke, one from being so full of food, and two from needing sleep. I got home and laid on the couch and did nothing for about 3 hours. I needed to let that huge burger digest.

When all that was done I started working on some wedding invitation crap and that led to yesterdays blog. So now I'm slightly caught up.

Today I made pizza for dinner, and I actually took pictures of it. I would post them in this blog, but there's already a zillion pictures and I'm going to save them so I have something else to show in another post. I will say that for my first time making pizza dough it actually turned out very well.

Pictures of that to come! I'm not the greatest at this linking to pictures business so I'm just linking people and everyone has their pictures to check out from there!

Thanks for visiting Krista! It was such a great weekend!

Moose Balls

It's late Sunday night and I'm stressing myself out with wedding budgets, invitations, tuition costs, and glorious other expenses. I don't really know why I do this to myself, but someone has to keep track of the costs of the wedding and what we will spend on what, and I hate that it's me cause money stresses me out more than anything else. Especially right now. I can't look at costs without getting pissed off or stressed out, unfortunately it's a huge part of life and everyone's gotta do it.

The reason I have to keep track is obviously because I'm doing majority of the planning. We all know that women plan weddings, men nod heads or shake heads, or say 'that's too fucking expensive, if you think I'm paying for that you're crazy' ... that is very close to Dario's role right now. I always ask his opinion on everything to see if he likes it, but when it comes to details, I think of the ideas, and he nods or shakes. He trusts that I am finding the best deals I can and cutting corners wherever I can which is nice so I kind of do my thing and then run it by him afterwards. There are things he is in charge of that are more manly, and he gets to be a part of the big things that should be decided by both of us of course, like photographers, dj's, transportation, yadda yadda.... but lets face the fact that he couldn't give two shits what kind of flowers we have or what colours everyone wears etc. He would be more interested in wearing a steak as a bouteniere than a flower, so those decisions are left to me.

Since those decisions are left to me, so is the budgeting. He will have the job of approving the final price after looking at a few options, and I have the job of looking through a million options and narrowing it down to the cheapest/best ones. Not so much fun really. I wish I could make a game out of it. Example - DJ 8 hour package = 2 reddish orange monopoly monies.

Or say it's a poorly played game of monopoly and you keep getting that damn "go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars" card. Everytime you get that card and have to pay bail is for every damn deposit you put down for things.

Too bad monopoly novelty wears off after the first half hour of playing. 4 hours into it you usually want to shoot yourself cause you're sucking so bad and some asshole keeps taking all your money... Pretty much like planning a wedding. Some assholes keep takin' your money.

The actual planning part is fun, I just hate the money part. I really do. Everyone says weddings are stressful and not to let yourself get too worked up about things, but lets face reality here... it's not the booking things or picking meals or cakes or flowers or whatever that's stressful, it's what booking those things costs. Each individual thing might not be so bad, it just adds up extreeeeemely quickly.

LAME.

The biggest thing that's sneaking up right now is school of course. That starts in November so I have about 6 months to save and well, given the situation I'm in it's making it very difficult. I could go for winning the lottery right about now, but my McConnell luck runs dry every time so I'd only end up spending more than I'd ever win.

Dario wants me to make pizza tomorrow. I've never attempted to make pizza from scratch so it should prove interesting. I'm going to give it a shot and hope it turns out. I never make pizza ever, I just order it. It's way easier and probably costs the same. It just tastes so much better when it's home made mmmm.

I did a very shitty job of taking pictures this weekend but everyone else has like a million so I'll just steal a few here and there. I even brought my camera with me this weekend I just can't seem to get the feeling of WANTING to take pictures, it's the weirdest thing.

Anyways, tomorrow or the next day I will blog about Krista's visit!! Which I'll preface by saying she is awesome and it was so nice to meet her! Enjoy your trip home and hopefully we'll see you again soon! <3

And now for bed.

For some odd reason I woke up around 20 after 7 and was wide awake. My room was very bright with the sun beating in. Church is being skipped today by choice of Dario, I merely tag along to whatever decision he makes when it comes to that. However he tried to call while I was getting ready and I didn't hear my phone, so I didn't get the memo until after I'd already touched up my face.

Today we're going to Stanley Park with Krista, Danielle and Chad. Not sure who else is joining us just yet but it should be good times! I haven't been there since last summer.

I feel gross from lack of sleep, I'm sure eating something would help. I should go have breakfast now.

One Day At A Time

I wish I knew of a place to go where I could take my rifle out and just blast the shit out of something. Set up some bottles or something. It would be the best stress reliever right now.

I'm stressed to the max. I need to find a roommate in the next two months or I'm royally fucked and will have no place to live. I'll have to pack all my shit outta here if no one moves in, all at the same time I have surgery. Awesome. I'd better not forget to add that my stepmom and sister are supposed to be staying with me from June 28th to probs July 1st or 2nd... and as of current, I won't have a place for them to stay, unless they would like to sleep in my car because right now that's about the point things are at.

Oh and I need to find a job otherwise I will also be screwed in that department.

Add it to the pile. My entire life right now is completely unstable. That is what terrifies me most out of all of this, there is no structure or stability in anything that's happening right now.

Visits from the sister :)

Today's good news? My sister and stepmom will be coming to Vancouver at the end of June! :) I am very excited for that. My parents got Hannah tickets to go see the Jonas Brothers concert so they're gonna come down for a few days to visit with me then go to the island to see Cheryl's parents. YAAAAY <3 So excited!

New Hair, New Person

Where to even begin??

First off, I will say that I made a good choice by getting a haircut yesterday because at least that gives me something to be happy about for the time being. It probably sounds weird that haircuts/dye jobs can make me that happy, but to me there's no better picker-upper than a good haircut. There is also nothing that ruins your day more than a bad haircut. So really it works either way, but I had something done that I love and makes me feel good about myself. Haircut for the win! Some girls like to eat themselves happy, some girls like to shop, I like to get my hair chopped off.

I always feel the need to mark the beginning of new things by getting a haircut or changing my hair colour. When spring comes I usually do both.

This times haircut was for many reasons. One was because the ends of my hair were totally fried, two was because it was getting too thick and bulky to do anything with, but most importantly my third reason was to do something that drastically changed my appearance.

That leads to my next section. I knew that today I would have my doctors appointment. I have this weird thing where it's like "new hair new person" ... I do think it's true that when you feel good about yourself it changes your perspective on a lot of things and just overall makes you a more confident person.

I needed that confidence and picker-upper so that I could try to figure out how I'm going to get through these next few months with a better attitude/outlook on things.

My doctors appointment did not go as well as I would have hoped. I had a different doctor this time. I got the girl who I was originally referred to. She is a good doctor, but she's a little older. She's been doing this for a long time and my personal opinion on older doctors is that they've heard it all so they don't take the time to listen. This turned out to be the exact case today.

She came in and told me all of my blood tests were fine so there are no signs of bleeding disorders. I figured that would be the case since I've told them that while the pill helps with bleeding problems, it doesn't help with the pain problems.

I didn't know where to start, but she did. So she asked how my latest birth control pill was working out for me. I told her that it was not doing a good job of the "3 months without the nasty P. word." I told her it did help with a couple of things, I'm still getting pain throughout the month and during those "times" but that some of the painful spots weren't effecting me as much.

She told me to completely go off this pill for 5 days, and to start a new one that she was prescribing me. This frustrated me beyond belief because honestly, I am so fucking sick of birth control methods it's not even funny. I am now going to be trying "Yaz" ... you have probably seen the commercials on TV. It's got a bunch of girls dancing around because they're having happy periods. Yes the commercial that makes me want to shoot myself everytime I see it. THAT commercial.

Instead of the usual 21 hormone pills and 7 sugar pills, this ones different. It has 24 hormone pills and 4 sugar pills. It is a low estrogen pill and high progestin. She wants me to try this for 3 months and I will go back to having the nasty P. every month. Then she told me if it doesn't work that we would consider the depo shot but that she doesn't like to give women that cause it usually makes you gain about 15lbs in a year. The other side effect of it that is proven is you lose bone density, making you more prone to osteoperosis in your older years. AAAAWESOME.

She started to talk about holding off on a laparoscopy because again it's a procedure you don't want to have to go through if you don't have to. I won't lie that I almost started to cry.

By this point I still hadn't been able to say anything or ask any questions because she wasn't giving me the opportunity to do so. She got up and left the room for a minute to go get me a sample pack of the new pill. She had a student with her for the appointment and she had stayed in the room with me. She must have noticed that I was looking a little upset because she goes "I know it's hard isn't it?" and all I could say was "I'm just frustrated."

When the doctor came back she went off some more to explain the new pill and finally I had to interupt. I asked her if this didn't work how long it would be before I would be able to finally get an answer. I think it took her a bit by surprise but she went on to answer the question. She told me three months of this, and if it didn't work then she would consider booking me for a laparoscopy about 3 months later. That means it would add another 6 months to this crap and I just cannot financially afford to keep dealing with this. I need an answer so I know what sort of direction I need to take with my job.

I started to explain the situation to her and that I was not working at this time. I told her that I can't even make it a full week to work because the pain gets so bad that I need to rest every few days. I explained a few of the things I do at work and the feelings it causes, and the frustration and stress it causes me, Dario, and my bosses. I also explained that I have ONE spot in particular that is always the first to hurt and is usually the most painful spot. Right where my right ovary is, I get intense sharp shooting pains quite often, but in particular directly related with my cycle.

Finally she sat down to listen a bit more and said that often a back injury can cause pelvic pain but when I mentioned the pain on the right ovary it could mean that I have a lesion there that is cronically being pulled/torn and bleeding. Finally she said now she was thinking that a laparoscopy was definitely necessary so that they can determine if it's in fact endometriosis or a back injury. That way if she goes in and finds nothing we know that it may be something caused by my back.

I went on to tell her that I had started to see a chiropractor because while I do have back problems I wanted to make sure that the two don't have anything to do with eachother. I don't disagree that back injuries can cause pelvic pain, however some of the pain I am feeling is strictly in relation to endometriosis and not to a back injury. The back problems could intensify the pain I am feeling, but that endometriosis could still be the main issue at hand. Also I've been feeling this pain a long time before I injured my back.

She finally advised that changing careers at this point should be something I start considering because regardless of whether or not it's to do with my yute or my back it would be beneficial for either possible problem.

We agreed that I would try this new pill, and continue to go to the chiropractor, but that we would book surgery now so that I can get in faster. I am scheduled for surgery June 22nd, and should this birth control and a change in career and a chircopractor solve the issues at hand then I can cancel the surgery. She sent me on my way to the receptionist to book the surgery and fill out some paper work, then I was given a pamphlet to read and I was on my way.

I guess it's a hard pill to swallow. I don't know where to start at this point. I feel that I should try to find a job now and once I actually have one, I will tell my bosses. That way I can stay on EI until I am working again.

I'm still equally frustrated because I felt rushed and some of the things I've wanted to ask I never got to because I wasn't given that chance to think before I started to get upset. Once I get upset my mind starts to wander and I forget all the simple things I wanted to say/ask. I even forgot to ask for a doctors note. The last appointment I had I felt a lot better when I left, this appointment, not so much. I'm just irritated by the impression she gave off but also by the position it leaves me in. Last time I felt like I was getting somewhere, and this time I feel more like I'm back taking a lot of steps backwards. Back to another birth control and onto a chiropractor that will end up costing quite a bit of money if I have to keep going for the next few months, just basically back to medications and treatments that aren't covered under a medical plan. I can't claim birth control, and I can only claim 2 chiropractor visits, the rest comes directly out of my pocket.

Add to that having to find a new job and quitting the old one and blah blah blah, and it just feels like anytime I take one step forward I take three steps back. I suppose I should be happy that at least I have the surgery booked so if this shit doesn't work this time I can finally get it done.

3 months of birth control at a time, 6 times. That's 18 months of waiting right there just for the trial period, add on another 6 months since two of those pills I stayed on for 6 months each, and another for 2 years. So 4 years of trying different birth controls. Then I add in the two year break I took from birth controls and trying things like mefenamic acid and other pain killers/anti inflammatories. This is the 6th fucking year of this.

BUT... I have a new haircut, I will be eventually starting a new job, and heading down a new path, so... therefor new haircut DOES equal new person.

This yaz crap better make me dance like those bitches on the commercials.

She's gone and done it

So... I have bangs. I have not had bangs since like, grade 2. I absolutely LOVE my new hair. I am so excited about it. I think it looks fabulous.

The appointment was an hour and 15 minutes long but the girl I had did such an amazing job! She took her time and made sure that everything was even and perfect. It is all so smooth and healthy feeling now!

I am so in love with it it's ridiculous!!

The girl I went to is named Christina, she works at Axis Salon on West Georgia and Thurlow. TOTALLY recommend her if you need to go to someone. I first went to her when I moved here then she quit and went to Australia for a year and now she's back YAYYY <3 ... She's one of the best in the salon so def. look her up if you go!!

I'm a little annoyed. The Biggest Loser should be on and there's something about celebrities losing weight. NO ONE CARES. boourns on them.

On second hand I've decided to cut my hair.

Everyone is cutting their damn hair and as soon as people around me start doing it I can't even remotely control the itch to follow suit. It's already something I ALWAYS want to do but force myself not to do often otherwise I'd be bald right about now.

It's been 3 months since my last hair cut. It's about time I do something new. So tomorrow at 12:15 I am doing something that I have not done. I may look retarded, I may not. I guess I will never know until I do it.

So... Tomorrow I'm getting some sort of pizzazz put back into my stupid hair. Lets hope I go through with it and get a little ballsy. I have just over a year to grow it all out too so that's perfect.

Dun Dun Dun. I'm damn excited!

Oh... and for the win... I probably won't look as ridiculous as Dario does with his current hair fuck up. <3 Looooove youuuuu :) haha

More Crap

I have been counting down the days until I go and see the specialist again. Thursday morning couldn't get here fast enough. I have a billion questions to ask and just as many things to say.

I need to express to the doctor how important it is that I get in quicker than this. Not only can I just not handle doing much more of this waiting game bullshit but I also can't afford to keep living like this. If I have to wait until May that would mean from November 1st until sometime in May I will have been off work for a total of nearly 6 months out of a possible 7. Perhaps if I express this situation and the stress it causes me to the doctor on Thursday she can figure out a way to get me in sooner. I need a plan and school is fast approaching. I need to get back on my feet and be normal again so that I can start saving for school.

Lately I have just shut everything in my brain off. I'm trying not to think about money or not working, or the stress that the two combined cause both Dario and myself, however it's creeping back in again as I sit and wait to hear back from the EI office. It can take up to 28 days to open a claim and I cannot afford to wait that long. They need a doctors note from me which I can get for them on Thursday, however I have no idea who to send it to since I don't have a claim number or anything yet.

There has been a lot happening with my family lately. As I've mentioned a bit before but not in great detail, my stepmom has been having an extreme amount of pain in her hands and in her feet that leave her unable to even do normal household things. It has gotten so bad she can't lift a bag of groceries, she can't go for walks, she can't do more than two loads of laundry on any given day, she can't even lift a pot of water onto or off of the stove. She has been struggling with trying to find answers for the last 7 or 8 months now, and the pain has gone on for even longer than that. It has gotten worse and worse though. She was sent for an MRI and the doctors told her she had a point of inflammation in her back but that it wouldn't cause any of these symptoms. She's been tested over and over for arthritis, rheumatory arthritis, everything under the sun and still nothing. She's finally just started seeing a neurologist but still nothing.

She went to see a chiropractor about the results the MRI had with her spine. He gave her the best answer of them all so far which is sad. He told her she had a deeper curve in her spine but also that there was a major point of compression that could actually cause all of this pain. She talked to her doctor and they finally agreed to do another xray, this time of her whole spine. She had one done before but they just did a portion of her upper back I believe.

On Friday she had an appointment to see the doctor about the xray results. What it came back with is pretty unbelievable. She has a completely inflamed spine and it is spreading to her joints. It is an arthritic disease that is genetic/hereditary. Over time if the inflammation goes untreated it fuses your spine together so that you lose a great portion of your mobility. It is more common in men, but when found in women it usually affects other joints in the body more than it affects the spine. The back is in the same condition as a mans would be, but women for some reason will more often feel it in their hands, feet, neck, kidneys, eyes, all sorts of weird places.

The prognosis isn't a great one. She has been off work for months now and has actually been cut off her disability benefits because until now they couldn't prove anything was wrong with her. It's sad that all it took was an X-ray. Finally they can lose that stress of her not being paid but her treatment for it is going to be a bit of a rough step. The closest place they can get her into the fastest is Kamloops. Which means my dad will have to take time off from work and they will have to drive to Kamloops, spend money on hotels, food etc, while neither of them are being paid. They are trying to convince the doctor to get them into Vancouver so that at least they have a place to stay here with me. Cheryl has to go for some CT scans and a bunch more blood work etc, and they will know more about it then. What sucks is it's not cureable. She'll have this for the rest of her life and she's only 43 years old. It doesn't appear that even with treatments it will get rid of the pain completely.

So it doesn't look good for her right now. I know that she is relieved to FINALLY have an answer as to what the hell is going on but she is also very devastated. They say that when it affects the joints more than the spine it often makes it very difficult to diagnose, which she's been experiencing for sure. It's just, agh. I don't even know what to say about it all really.

I am hoping the doctors can push to get her into Vancouver as fast as they can get her into Kamloops. If I can help them out in a way that would make them less stressed it would be very nice, but it would also be nice to have them here so that I can actually see them and visit with them. Aside from my mom and her sister, no one in my family has been down here to visit me. My dad's side just simply can't afford the trips, especially given this situation. My dad has told them that if they can get them into Vancouver it would be best for everyone and would make things a lot less expensive. So here's to hoping something can go right for them out of this shitty situation.

I don't know what it is with things lately but it just seems like 2009 is a year of disease or something. It doesn't seem like anyone is having an easy year so far and that everyone is experiencing some sort of hardship or many hardships for that matter. People are getting sick that are just way too young to be getting sick, people are struggling with their jobs, it's just a bad beginning to a bad year. I hope when this is all over with it'll be the last of the crap for a little while. It would be nice to have a break from shit.

I don't know what my plans are for today. I have to put my laundry away but aside from that, I don't know what to work on.

My little brother loved the shirts I got him for his birthday which makes me very happy. He told me that he might be going to Mexico with his friend Juan this summer, so I told him if he'd like to come down to Vancouver and stay with me for awhile I would really like that. So if he's free/able to he might drive back with Dario and I in July and then stay for a week or two. I think it'd be pretty cool to have him here. But it would be cool to have anyone in my family come and stay with me for a bit, I miss them a lot.

2 more days. 10:15am Thursday. I'm hoping I can get somewhere with this all!

*Edit* I spoke too soon. I finally received my claim information from Service Canada. Thankfully.

Two Thumbs Down On A Hugely Overrated Season Finale

I feel the need to express my discontent with the season finale of Jon and Kate plus 8.

First. I expected a full hour episode, not two half hour episodes one after the other.

Second. They sat there and had all these previews of Kate screaming at Jon and going "it all leads to this..." and Kate saying "we're in a really tough place right now..." etc etc blah blah blah. Well... COMPLETE FALSE ADVERTISEMENT!!

The whole 2 episodes were just regular episodes, no grand finale at all. Their kids were cute they painted pictures blah blah blah and then when it got to what was supposed to be the juicy part they talked for about 3-4 minutes and then that was it. End of season.

Are you fucking kidding me??

I don't mind wasting an hour of my day for some good old fashioned dirt. There's been rumours of them getting a divorce and what not so combined with the previews you would expect they would discuss those rumours to clarify the situation and what's going on. I would also like to specify that when I have become sadly hooked on this show because I have spent so much damn time at home these last 6 months then I fully expect good gossip!

What is it you say that is going on? Well... Kate loves her life because she gets paid thousands of dollars to sit around with her kids all day, take them out to do cool shit that us normal pheasants can't afford to do, gets free tummy tucks, and is currently considered a "Supermom Idol" to many moms in the world. On top of it all everyone knows who she is and is in love with her, she writes books and they become number one sellers instantly. Maybe not the best life for everyone, but come on, what woman wouldn't want that?? I mean they get free trips and shit all the time too, hotels and basketball teams etc invite them to come see them and pay for everything. How awesome would it be if you were invited all over the place. Plus the womans been on Oprah how many times??! Like fuck off, every moms dream right there.

The big hype?? Oh Jon doesn't like that he's in the public's eye all the time. He hates that when he goes out he's not just "Jon" anymore he's "Jon and Kate + 8" ... Ideal life for a guy? Probably not. He'd probably love the fame if he was single, didn't have a naggy wife and 8 children stuck to his thighs at all times. A guy doesn't want to be famous for having a massive family, he wants to be famous for his massive muscles and huge penis. Am I right here??

So what was the big deal about the episode tonight? Oh poor Jon is having a difficult time deciding whether or not he wants to do a season 5, and Kate wants to because she loves the stuff it allows them to do.

I could honestly say I WISH that was my biggest concern in life. "Oh hi Dario... do you want us to be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars this year to sit around and look after the children we wanted so desperately while the world invites us to do all this cool shit at their resorts? No? Oh you don't like that you can't go to the bar and be just Dario? Hmm sucks for you, Bye I'm on my way to go get my tummy tuck."

hmm yep. I wish that was the biggest concern of my life right now.

Serious disappointment in tonights finale. Nothing special about it at all.

I Am A Terrible Decision Maker.

Hmm... I don't know how I feel about this damn invitation. I really like the original idea I had but it just ends up being way too expensive. The reason being is because it has 3 layers of paper and 4 brads per invitation. I haven't even began to think about what to do with the response cards yet.

So the first idea was vellum with the writing on it, attached to a shiny lime green cardstock with a brad in each of the 4 corners... and then to cover the brads I stuck that assembly onto a pink coloured shiny cardstock. It looked really nice but it increases the price quite a bit... aka another 35 bucks for the paper plus the cost of 520 brads... which is damn expensive. I can't find them anywhere for a decent price. So it would probably be another 100 bucks total for the extra materials to do the invitation that way.

So I decided to do just the vellum on the green paper and attach it with ribbon. It doesn't look horrible but I think it would look better on white paper than on vellum unless I go with a darker ribbon since the one I've picked is a little too sheer.

Oh sigh. There's so many options!! And I have no idea what to do.

I like the simplicity of the one with the ribbon. It looks great (I think) that it is so simple and basic. I just don't know what I should do for the ribbon or the colour. I could always change the colour of the ribbon, keep the vellum and just do a white ribbon, or change the paper to white instead of clear and use the same pink ribbon... OH DAMMIT I have to stop thinking! It is going to drive me nuts. It seems like such a stupid detail but for some reason when it comes to scrapbooking anything I always have to have things just right.

My laundry is ready to put another load in. The washer seems to take foreeeeeeeever. I almost feel like it takes longer than the dryer. It's odd.

Time to get back on my list of shit to do. I am not doing my taxes today. I remembered I have to pay this year, so I'm going to wait until the last possible moment to file them. Hah. No point in paying those bastards any sooner than I have to.

I still have to go for my walk/jog... whatever you want to call it. I will do so once I get a couple more loads of laundry done. Just so long as I'm home by 6ish so that I can get ready to watch Jon and Kate.

Obsessed much? I think so. But The Biggest Loser is on tomorrow night W00T and I'm looking forward to that probably more than Jon and Kate. Yes I'm a loser... I'm hooked on TV shows that really don't matter at all. Sadly I plan my monday and tuesday nights around them. I usually tell Dario that I won't see him on Mondays (cause all the shows I like right now are on on Mondays) and then I tell him I'll see him Tuesday but only if I leave/he leaves by 8pm so I can watch my show, or he has the choice to watch it with me. He chooses not to watch it with me haha, probably for good reason. It's unfair though as I put up with quite a lot of sports watching and he hardly ever puts up with my shitty shows that he hates. I don't know which one of us is smarter??

To Do's are a good thing

The weekend is coming to an end! But it was a good weekend.

Although I haven't been feeling the greatest the last few days I did manage to get out and do some stuff.

On Friday I managed to get out and do a jog. I'm so out of shape it's pathetic, my legs are still a little sore. Tomorrow I am going to go again. I'm going to go regularly so that I can get out of the house for a bit but also so I'm doing something productive and healthy.

I'm working on taking more vitamins. They're a bit of a pain in the ass though. I didn't realize that with the flax seed oil you are supposed to take 3 a day, and with the evening primrose you're supposed to take 4-6 per day. It becomes very inconvenient, so I have to try to work out some sort of schedule.

Along with all that I'm going to try to keep myself busy with things. I started looking at wedding stuff again after not having looked at a single thing for a couple weeks so I will go back to dedicating some time at just finding some fun stuff.

This weekend was a meh weekend. Obviously if I feel like a bag of crap I don't exactly feel like doing much, but it was beautiful outside and I didn't want the weekend to go to complete waste. So Saturday Dario and I went out for a walk and some picture taking and then relaxed at my place for a while.

Today was basically the same thing. I missed church this morning and didn't feel well enough to even get up until about 1ish so around 2 I headed over to the park and threw the football around for a bit and then tried to find my inner child by playing on the swings. I also tried to sit on one of those baby see-saws... you know the ones that are on a spring or whatever... I hate to admit that I am much to large for those.

We spent the afternoon falling asleep on the couch and watching "The Mist." Afternoon well spent in my opinion.

Tomorrow I have a list of stuff to accomplish. Not a major list of tasks but all small manageable things that will make me feel as though I'm doing something with all this spare time. So.. tomorrow I will:

- Get my taxes done
- Do my laundry
- Search for wedding ideas
- Make a wedding invitation to see if I like it
- Return the Ribbon if I find it doesn't work
- Go for a walk/jog
- Make a healthy dinner
- Watch Jon and Kate season finale (serious business here people, they're gonna talk about the divorce rumours!!)

And I think that's it. That should take up an entire day!

That is actually how I planned on doing my invitations and then I stumbled across that picture from The Knot... Obvs that's not an invitation but that is basically what I had in mind. Oddly enough in the EXACT same colours. I think the ribbon I found though is a little more coral pink.

Should be pretty I hope.

I'm off to kill the rest of my evening with some TV. I've eaten enough to take down a horse today and I'm ready to slip into some comfy pj pants.

I want to go to bed, is that sad? It's not even 7pm yet. Sigh.

I haven't done the dishes today, or put yesterdays dishes away. I don't feel like doing it either so I'm not going to.

I hate being cooped up in the house all day long so I decided that even though I feel really crappy today I would go to deer lake for a walk/jog. So I went there and speed walked around the loop part twice, but when I hit the boardwalk I would jog. Mostly because there were so many swarms of bugs I just wanted to get past them all! It was disgusting how many bugs there were, I couldn't believe it!

After that I stopped at the bank, ran across the street to safeway to pick up a few things and then came home.

I picked up some flax seed oil pill things, and some evening primrose oil as well. My mom has been swearing by flax seed oil and has been nagging me to start taking it so I finally gave in. We'll see if it helps my overall health/well being. As for the primrose oil, I've read that women swear by it in terms of helping with cramps. Usually women going through menopause take it to help with hot flashes etc, but I figured I'd give it a shot. My cupboard is starting to look like it belongs in the pharmaceutical section.

I'm being lame for a Friday night, but oh well. I have no plans for this weekend either yet but I think tomorrow I will go on a mission to find some ribbon for the invitations. I don't really know what else to do with the wedding stuff just yet, I might start looking into more DJ's and make a list of ones in our price-range and get booking that.

Early to bed tonight for sure though. Hopefully I won't have any nightmares tonight. :)

Hockey Night @ The Ciavarro's in -3 hours

I am slowly getting things in order for this evening while I switch back and forth to watching "What Not To Wear" recaps and playing sing-along-to-every-damn-song by myself in my room... Odd combination, yep I have no life.

I had a shower, did my makeup... next up will be hair but meh, no hurry there.

Brownies have been made and I found a delicious looking recipe that I want to try. It's "spicy bean salsa" mmmm. I think it will be really tasty. It won't take long to make so I might as well make it.

I have a headache and I'm not feeling overly great today, so I've taken a t3 to get rid of the minor pain annoyances so that I can try to get on with the rest of the day. Should help though.

I'm looking forward to tonight, I'm really excited to see everyone and get out of the house. Being at home drives me stir crazy after awhile and I get all weird trying to find stuff to do.

I had another broken sleep last night which pissed me off. It was about 2 in the morning before I finally got to sleep and then I woke up at 5am to take my birth control and then fell back asleep only to be woken up at 7 when Krystal and her boyfriend were getting ready to leave the house.

After that my body wasn't feeling much of falling back asleep, but I was dead tired and didn't want to get up so I kept trying to fake my body into thinking it could go back to sleep. It won by giving me a headache. Oh well!

I want to be done with this stupid birth control business. I can't change the time I take it yet since I would take it at 5am every day when I woke up for work... and unlike a regular pill I don't switch to sugar pills so basically I have to wait until 3 months is up and then I can go off it for a week, then when I go back on it after that week is up I can take it at a better time of day. I don't think I will be going back on this one though as it gives me some serious boob pain!! Like I'm talking some days I wear the most supportive bra I have and then a sports bra over top of that, it's getting on my nerves. I am hoping I will eventually find one that's not stupid. 6th times a charm? Lets hope so!

I don't really have a whole lot to say today. Nothing has been happening but I should remember to bring my camera tonight so I can FINALLY get some pictures of something. I never take pictures anymore. My camera and I are having a temporary separation. One day we'll be in love again.

For now? Off to the store.

So cute!

Is that not the cutest little thing ever? I want one. Too bad that one is 2000 bucks. That one in particular will only grow to be about 3 lbs! She's so CUTE!!

Dario can I get one of those and you can get a german shepherd? Pleeeeeeeeeease???

Oh lovely St. Patricks Day! How I don't care about you at all!

I completely forgot about what day today was until I got in my car and was on my way to see the future M.I.L. I'm not wearing a speck of green but that's alright. I'm not celebrating it this year!

Last year I believe we went out with the usual crew to mountain shadow. I could probably scoop up pictures but I'm not sure if I ever renamed that album or not. Hmm. Perhaps I will do that for something to do tonight.

The year before that however I do know exactly where those pictures are! I celebrated in the lovely Prince George. I saw a couple of eagles eating a deer carcus on my way home the next morning. I pulled over just in time because I was rather hungover and thought I was going to puke.



If I am correct I am pretty sure that was my last "Freeman House Party" ... I ended up at the generator and ran into some friends and some cougars. I managed to lose a really nice jacket that night. I cannot remember for the life of me what I did with it, I looked all over the house the next day and couldn't find it. I also lost my green fuzzy ugly hat thing that I had been wearing. Some girl I met that night pulled it out of her coat and gave it to me, so I sported it for the evening. Now that I've looked through the pictures I don't actually remember a lot of the peoples names I was with that night.



I do however, remember my friend Sam pervin' on some cougar that looked EXACTLY like Jennifer Aniston. I have a picture for proof. See:



Aside from that, I don't remember where I slept that night or how I got back, not because I was absolutely hosed but because it's been 2 years so it's just not a detail that most people would remember.


So basically, that's the only St. Patricks day that I have ever FULL OUT celebrated. Aside from that last year with the crew was the only other one I've celebrated which was in more of a way that I enjoyed! I can't find the damn pictures though, I swore I took some but maybe I never did and perhaps Danielle did instead. EITHER WAY... it was my first taste of green beer.

Today I didn't get up to too much. I mailed my little brother his stuff, mailed Megan her stuff, picked up ingredients to make brownie cheese cakey goodness on Thursday for Hockey Night @ The Ciavarro's ... came home, got a headache, and will probably not do much for the night except watch The Biggest Loser.

Happy St. Patricks Day to anyone who cares.

That's All.

Midnight Monday Post

It's officially Monday morning. 3 minutes past anyhow...

Today was a rather busy day. I didn't get much sleep last night but woke up at 20 to 8 to go to church. After that was over Dario and I went to Chad and Danielle's place so Dario could finish patching/stuccoing the hole in their wall from removing the old air conditioner, while Danielle and I went to Ikea. Oh the things I could buy in Ikea!

After Danielle bought what would be a 2 year supply of candles for the average family and my garlic press, we went back to their place for a bit. Finally it was time to take off so I could go home and have a bite to eat and grab some cash to play tombola and head back to Dario's where we all met up around 2.

As suspected my usual McConnell luck kicked in. My family never wins such gambling games etc, I swear it's a gene we have or something but the game was entertaining and at least it helped me a bit with learning numbers in Italian!

We had a big dinner with amazing garlic toast and cheese toast **yummy** and somewhere in the day I snuck 10 bucks into Danielle's coat pocket since she was refusing to let me pay her back since she paid for my damn garlic press! However when she put her coat on later she did what I figured she would and put her hand in her pocket and found the 10 bucks. She was a little confused for a second but I couldn't help but laugh and I was officially busted. So she threw my 10 dollars at me and refused to let me pay her. I tried to give it to Chad but he refused to take it since he had no idea what it was even for. While he was busy talking to Danielle though I slipped it into his coat pocket without him even noticing, and as soon as I knew they'd officially driven away I texted Danielle to tell her I win haha. Chad was slightly creeped out that he didn't notice me putting it in his pocket considering he was wearing the jacket! I'd like to think I'm rather sneaky. Either way, it worked out as I sort of planned!

I left around 8 or so and came home. I felt really achey today in my legs which was weird, and I was sneezing a lot which was also weird. The other day I had a sore throat and I'm really tired, so my body is clearly trying to fight something from contaminating it. I called my dad at about 8:30 and no one answered so I actually got ready for bed and had just laid down when my dad called me back at 9. It was weird though because in that half hour time frame I started feeling really pukey sick and feverish and even more achey. I talked to him for a couple minutes but told him I wasn't feeling too well and would let him go. He didn't object since he's had some crazy flu cold for 3 weeks now and sounds like complete shit.

As soon as I got off the phone I threw up. I don't know what the deal was but I'm obviously coming down with something. I feel better right now, like not pukey sick anymore but still really achey so I've taken some nyquil in hopes that it'll take care of that and I can crawl back into bed and sleep. I tried to go to sleep after I puked but after 2 hours of trying I felt like I was getting more and more awake instead of more and more sleepy.

Oh well. Now I'm just waiting for this all to kick in and I will hopefully get a good nights sleep. I have plans for tomorrow of what to do with the day. I have to drive out to the shop to pick up my record of employment so that I can file for EI (hopefully anyhow). I have to make a birthday card for my little brother as well as I have to get one more small thing for him and mail him his gift. I also have to mail back the other bridesmaid dress to my friend Megan since her MOH is now pregnant and needed the bigger size. Luckily I hadn't returned it yet.

I have to do my taxes soon. I owe this year so that is lamooo. It's only a little bit but it's all due to EI. Every year I always find a free online tax thing and fill it out to see how much I will get back or how much I owe, but I never file it because I never know if I'm doing it right. Then I usually take it to someone else to do for me so that the filing process goes through. I tried to file one year myself and a few months later I still hadn't seen any money from them and I guess nothing went through yadda yadda. So I've given up!

I figure I'll get up no later than 8:30 so that I can keep a regular sleeping pattern. Eventually I'll peter out and start falling asleep at a regular hour again!

Since the few things I have planned won't take long to do and I'm not sure how things are going to work out with EI I will be spending some time sending out resumes through craigslist. I've officially decided that it is time for me to quit my job and find something easier. I don't think there is any point fighting it anymore, my body can't keep up with this job and as much as I feel like I'm going to let my bosses down by quitting I just have to remind myself that I'm only making it worse for myself at this point. I let them down just as much by not showing up regularly as I do by quitting so they can at least hire someone else more reliable. It will be a difficult thing I know, and it's scary as hell but I know that this is just something I am going to have to do. It will make mine and Dario's lives a lot less stressful knowing that I at least have a job that I can go to every day. I'm unsure of what I will end up doing, I'm looking for a receptionist position but it will end up being something introductory since I don't have the experience, but hopefully I can find something closer to home. At least then my gas costs will go down so even if I make less than I do at the shop I'll still be pretty much even. I just want to get things back to a more normal routine. I know that missing work is the main stress so if I can eliminate that it will make everything a whole lot easier to deal with so I don't have anymore melt downs like I did on Friday. Friday was just a bad day all together.

I went birthday shopping for Josh on Saturday but really wasn't feeling up to the mall that day. I did stop into that "Change" bra place though and managed to find 2 nice new bras. I walked in there and she told me that they had every size from 28A to 42H or some crazy shit like that, it was insane. It was nice though that it wasn't a struggle to find my size. She did a proper fitting and came back with about 10 different bras to try on within minutes. I've never had that happen! Believe me when I say that it is so hard to even find a 32 inch ANYTHING let alone when you combine it with one of the larger cup sizes. I do recommend going there if you're a bustier girl and have trouble finding stuff that fits you properly! Their stuff was really cute and it's no more expensive than la senza and appears to be better quality too.

I suppose that's all I've got for now. The simpsons are on tv so I figure I'll lay down and hopefully by the end of the episode I will be ready for sleepy time!

I am hoping for some good luck in making some pretty big changes.

My hair is the longest it's been in years

I are having trouble sleeping because I feel really poopy. Which is really lame. My house is also freezing. I once stood on a chair to check the heat vent to see if any heat actually came out of it or not... it does not. My room is the coldest room in this entire house.

Tonight we had dinner with the guy Dario's mom was stalking on facebook. He turned out to be a very young (24) distant relative who is just finishing becoming a doctor in genetics. His sister is a physiotherapist, and his brother has just started studying engineering. Smart family much?? haha. Dinner went well though and wasn't awkward. It was really interesting seeing the connections that Teresa is finding between all the Perizzolo's she's managed to hunt down. She has a book full of old documents and family tree stuff and it was actually pretty neat. He tried to claim that his english was very poor and that he was embarrassed to speak it when he would get here, but according to Dario he spoke better english than I do. Not surprising, I have a really weird thing where I always combine two sentences or words together by accident and it makes one really retarded sounding sentence or word.

It all made me a little curious about the history of my family, so I e-mailed my gramma to ask her what her siblings and parents names were, as well as her grandparents and anything else she may know about... I also asked her about my grampa's side of the family since I don't know anything about his side either. I know that my gramma's parents came to Canada from Norway (or Norwegia as I once accidently called it) when my gramma was quite young. I didn't even know that until this past year. It's all really interesting though, my grampa's decent was scottish and my gramma's is norwegian so I am curious to learn about it. I will ask my mom the same things but something tells me that she won't know too much about her family's history either. No one in her family really keeps in touch.

I just got this e-mail from a friend in Victoria:

Hey there miss lady
I'm coming to van temporarily on April 7 and the 15. Flights to and from peeg. I can't remember the flight times but if they're needed I can get them.

Also dude if your busy don't worry it will always give me another excuse to come to van
Love love love

PS jaelas toothbrush sounds like a shitty vibrator

haha I love that she felt the necessity to tell me about her roommates toothbrush. So random but quite funny.

I don't have a lot to say. I definitely don't have any pictures. I haven't used my camera in quite a long time now and I still haven't blogged about Patz birthday at the cambie.

I feel I'm a little past due but I will say that it was one of the funnest Cambie night I've experienced since living here. There were a couple of old guys being weird creepers at the end of the tables... Danielle got hit on while sitting RIGHT next to Chad and when she pointed out that she hadn't noticed this creepy guy because her husband was sitting right next to her, the guy got all nervous and mumbled some apologies and then left. I had some guy come up to me and tell me I had beautiful hair-do which is a REALLY odd compliment for a guy to say to a girl. Needless to say I didn't even turn to see the guys face when he was talking to me so I don't even have a clue what he looked like. And after all that another guy attempted to strike up a conversation with me, which would have been fine if he had stayed on the other side of the table... but he managed to nudge his way in beside me and let's just say I thought Dario was going to kill him. It was really funny. I pointed out that I was engaged and the guy tried to apologize to Dario and tried to shake his hand, so Dario ended up squeezing the guys hand really tightly to make a point haha. Dario didn't care that this guy was trying to pick me up or that we were having a conversation, but he was watching us so that if I gave him any sort of indication that I was getting creeped out then Dario would "politely" punch him in the face basically.

All in all, hilarious night. Pat was wasted, I'm sure now that he's past 25 years of age that he had a nasty hang over the next morning. Not to mention he got his drink on pretty good. We had dinner at the Ciavarro's before hand... a bring your own meat barbeque and Danielle made delicious potato wedges and green beens and my new fave salad with pine nuts and I think blue cheese and stuff. It was damn tasty.

Yes I do realize that my telling of the story is completely out of sequence but for some reason when I recap things I never put them in order.

I didn't bring my camera as I was out all day and then plans changed. I was going to go home after dinner to change and then pick up Ellie, but then Ellie decided not to come since no one wanted her to skytrain it out to surrey at that time of the morning and she didn't want to crash at my place, and then we left right after dinner... so I was totally overdressed for the cambie as per ushe. and camera-less. It's okay though because Danielle and Pat got some great pictures.

Tomorrow I feel the urge to make bannock. It's indian bread and it's fattening, greasy, and so good. There is a technique involved in the process, which I'm sure will come back to me when I start doing it. It's been many years since I've made bannock but I could definitely go for some. I wish I had some homemade jam to go with it though. My carriere teacher in elementary school used to make her own rhubarb jam and then we'd have hot straight out the oil bannock and slather it with rhubarby goodness, and man... heart-attack just waiting to happen but SO good. I should make some for everyone one day, you italians make your crostoli, us whitey's from a native town make bannock.

That's all.