Soundtrack for a Non-existent Scene

Give this a listen and I'll share why:

Katatonia - Unfurl

At city centre 9 pm
Just like you wrote
And I try to think about
Snow coming in
Just like before
I will be on stand-by

It's time to choose sides now
That's what you said
When we talked on the phone
So white our eyes
You are still
Are you paralyzed

Releasing the vapour
Into the lung
Letting the wings unfurl
And for a moment I feel young
I call on the bird
Unfurl

It's time to choose sides now
That's what you said
When we talked on the phone
So white our eyes
You are still
Are you paralyzed

Sometimes I hear songs that I know would fit a scene in a movie so perfectly, and I secretly wish I could create that scene. I envision the non-existent scene with music playing in the background. This song to me is perfect for a passionate yet dark love scene.

Passionate yet dark. The singers voice has the perfect tone to it to set the mood for the scene I play out in my head.

Listen to the song while you read the rest.

This is what I picture when I listen to this song:

There is a man. He's dark, tall, mysterious. He's married a woman, but it's not the woman he should have married. Instead he meets a woman who he falls madly in love with, the one he should have married and has instant regret about his entire marriage. He struggles and is consistently fighting himself, trying not to go near her but he can't resist. He acts on his love for her... he meets with her. His wife is at home laying on the couch reading a book.

He knocks on his true loves door and she lets him in. It's pouring rain outside. He's soaking wet and can't resist any longer. He grabs her and kisses her passionately while he steps inside. He kicks the door closed behind him.

**The scene quickly flashes to a bright dream like scene of his wife sitting at home with her book on a white couch.**

He picks her up and she wraps her legs around him, he makes his way to her bedroom and they drop to the bed, all the while still kissing her. She peels his wet t-shirt off and strokes his chest with her hand. She keeps her legs wrapped around him and he stands up and leans her against the wall -- knocking over everything in their path.

**It flashes back to his wife, turning the page of her book.**

He kisses his true love even harder, with more passion than he's ever given his wife. The scene keeps getting more intense and they begin to strip each others clothes off. She finally takes control, while still kissing him she moves him to the bed. They're naked now and she gets on top of him. She grabs hold of the headboard. The sex is slow but there's an intensity and fire inside of them that neither can resist.

**Flash back -- His wife turns another page, but suddenly stops what she's reading. She looks up as if she has sensed what her husband is doing. She takes a sip of water and silently reassures herself. She looks at her left hand and touches her rings, then goes back to her reading and turns yet another page.**

The other woman has arched her back, holding onto the headboard. They're sweaty and breathing heavily. Her hip bones dig into his palms as he holds her waist. She bites her lip and they slowly come to a stop. The breathing is still heavy but is starting to slow.

As they finish and she drops to his side he kisses her again. He lays there motionless with her, skin on skin. His hand wrapped around hers, his lips near her neck. He's whispering to her, as he whispers his lips brush the skin on her neck. He feels no regret for his actions.

In between words he kisses the back of her neck. He's touching her everywhere, in a way he would never touch his wife. The woman is smiling, as if she's finally got what she wanted. She doesn't care that she's now part of a broken marriage. She doesn't know who his wife is, and she doesn't care.

** It flashes back to his wife. She looks up to see the time. She stares blankly at the white faced clock, and as she reads the time a tear rolls down her cheek. -- She knows, and she has known all along. -- **

**The song slowly comes to an end while it flashes back and forth between the man and his wife. She sobs with her head in her hands knowing it's over, and him -- he is content.**




Yes it's a passionate love scene, but the sadness of the song fits perfectly with the sadness of what he's doing to his wife, the sadness of how he is ruining his marriage with every move he makes.

I love that music can be used to connect you with the raw emotions that would be felt in that scene should it ever be a real life situation. I love giving moments a soundtrack, whether those moments are real or not, whether they're the saddest things ever or the happiest. I think every memorable moment, good or bad, should have a song to be played along side of it.

Bring on The Swine

Today has been an uber lame day. I've done nothing but eat and make a few cards.

I made two Mother's Day cards. I'm trying not to forget that it's coming up cause it's one of those holiday's that sneaks up on me, then the day before it's like, "Oh Hai, it's Mother's Day and you need at least a card and possibly some stinky flowers." ... not just one set but two.

I will mail the cards on Monday or Tuesday so they get to the good old Fort in time.

I took a muscle relaxant and it's finally making me drowsy.

I am trying to find a place to do dinner on Friday. The original place I wanted to go doesn't take reservations, and my back up place also doesn't. So it looks like it's going to be a bit of a wait -- oh well I guess.

Hmm honeymoon trip to Mexico? Do you think it'd be cheaper right now?

Loser 2 tha max

Dario and I like to sit down and do the crossword together. Yes we're gay like that but it's more productive than watching tv and we always enjoy it.

I jokingly pretended to draw on his arm. It resulted in him grabbing my arm and writing 'Loser 2 tha max' ...

He never saw it coming when I started to write 'Dario is a...'

Tsk Tsk Tsk.

I win again. :)


My dad and stepmom are going to be in town on Friday. I'm frustrated right now because plans are completely up in the air. They are only in town for one night. They get here in the late morning (close to noon actually) and then we're either going to drop off their stuff and go have lunch, or just have lunch and go straight to Cheryl's doctors appointment and then go to the hotel to drop their shit off.

Cheryl's appointment is out in Richmond, which is an area I really don't know well at all. I have a billion directions written down but I don't know the address of Cheryl's doctors office all I'm being told is it's 'right across from the hospital' ... That really isn't much help since the hospital takes up a decent sized area.

My parents and Dario's parents are supposed to meet. We are planning on going out for dinner somewhere. The problem is that I can't make definitive plans since it all depends on how Cheryl feels. If she's in a lot of pain they might not want to have dinner, or if her appointment is upsetting she may just want to have the time alone for the night. So again, we have to wait and see how she feels. The problem with that is her appointment is at 3 in the afternoon so it's a bit of an inconvenient time to work around.

By the time she gets out of the doctors it's probably going to be close to 4. Basically I need to know how she feels as soon as she gets out of that office so I can at least phone Dario's mom and tell her if dinner is a go or not. That way if we do have to cancel dinner then Dario's parents won't be sitting around waiting for a for sure answer... It's also so that they don't skip out on dinner just to find out that dinner is canceled.

I hate unorganized plans but unfortunately this is a situation where we really can't organize it that well.

I decided what I would do is pick a place to have dinner, make reservations for the 6 of us for 7pm, and if Cheryl decides after her appointment she can't or doesn't want to go then I can just phone and cancel them. At least that way if we DO go then we're not waiting for an hour just to get a table.

Hopefully things will go a little smoother than I am expecting. I am extremely excited that they will be here even if it is only one day... but I really hope that everything will work out as 'sort of' planned.

New Roomie

I have a new roommate lined up for July 1st and she is awesome.

Everything went really well. We went to the mountain shadow for a drink and ended up chatting for 2 and a half hours. It is ridiculous how much we have in common and how much we had to talk about! I'm really excited about everything and I think it's going to work out really well.

She's really cool, laid back, we are a lot alike in personality so it works out perfectly. I can't wait until she moves in, it is going to be a blast. She is just one of those people you randomly meet and just click with!

Weekend Adventures Without Pictures

All I can say about today is "It's about fuckin time."

I feel like garbage in my uterus, so I'm hating on life today. I am being productive somehow and cleaning. I have yet to take any anti inflammatories today so I suppose things could be worse. I'm sure if I popped a few advil I'd be feeling a lot better but my stomach probs hates me right now for all the crap I've taken the last few days. I figure I'll try to keep off them if I can today.

I have a girl coming over tonight to check the place out. She's bringin' her moms yo. Yeah so her mom is coming with her, they'll both take a look at the place and then she's dropping her mom off and we're going to the pub for a drink. The point of that is to get to know eachother a little bit and see if we get along enough to be roommates. Considering we haven't met before I thought the pub would be a good place to go to have a drink and take the edge off so it's less nerve racking for both of us. It's almost like a blind date, except there's no expectations of sex so I suppose it's nothing like a blind date.

Either way, I am hoping she likes the place and that we get along. It would be awesome to get that thing out of the way. She will have to meet the landlords upstairs at another time since I haven't arranged to have her meet them tonight. I figured I'd see how things went with us and if things are a go there, then I'll get her to meet the landlords and do the signing of papers and paying of damage deposits.

She's the same age as me. Oddly enough I decided to look her up on facebook to see if she had a public profile. There are a ton of people with her name, but the one that came up to fit her description was interesting. Her profile was set to private so I couldn't creep on her (probs a good thing) but I noticed we have one friend in common... it just so happens that Michela (Dario's godparents' daughter) and her are friends. Small world.

It's now 2 in the afternoon, I have 5 hours to kill. I've finished dishes, started on laundry, swept and washed the floors, and tidied up the livingroom. All that is left to do is vacuum. My list of things to do is very minor since I cleaned up the place a few days ago.

The weekend was fun. Friday night was a relaxing night. Saturday I ended up doing a bit of shopping. I bought a couple shirts and a pair of jeans. The jeans were only 15 bucks which was amazing, not that they were expensive to begin with. I usually find sales or find cheaper clothes because I can't afford to buy nice things right now. So I felt good about a pair of 15 dollar jeans haha. No guilt at all for buying those suckers.

Saturday night was Andrea's birthday so we headed down to Yaletown for dinner. Danielle and I always seem to order the exact same things wherever we go so we chowed down on some mussels and garlic cheese toast, mmmm. Dinner was good, there was a table full of people and then a smaller group of that table carried the party to a pub near by. It was a different pub than I am used to. At first it seemed like a hoighty toighty kinda pub, but when I actually sat down and started looking around the crowd was pretty laid back. We stayed for a drink and since Danielle, Chad, Dario and I had to wake up pretty early we took off around 12:15.

By the time I got home it was 1 in the morning. I'm always the last of the four of us to get home. I was still wide awake and pretty wound up so I did my usual internet thing. By the time I even got remotely tired enough to possibly sleep it was 3am. I put on a movie and ended up hearing the entire thing play through putting it around 5am. In total I had the worst sleep I've had in awhile and only got about 2 hours max. We all got up early to head to church then had brunch afterwards. *Thanks Chad and Danielle.* We went to the theatre to watch "Earth" which was great. There are a lot of planet earth clips in it. I've been watching planet earth a lot lately since it's been on TV. I usually catch about half the show and want to see the rest, so I watch what I missed on DVD since we own the boxset. Why I don't just watch the dvd's I don't know but whatever.

The movie was really cute though. There's one damn clip that for some reason really gets me going everytime I see it. It's the part where the wolf takes down the baby cariboo. Something about it is so damn sad. It makes me cry everytime which is so odd since I see things get killed and kill things on a yearly basis.

Afterwards we all went back to our homes to nap. It was a much needed thing. I tried to avoid it so I wouldn't be up all night but sleep took over and I passed out for a good hour or so. I was lazy for the rest of the night and relaxed by myself on the couch. It was spectacular.

Now I'm going to go phone this DJ guy to schedule an appointment so we can book him for the wedding. The price was already good but then he informed me that they also give 100 dollar discounts on any package when they are used at Roma Hall. I guess his own wedding reception was held there so he cuts anyone who has a reception there a deal. Sounds good to me!

I have my list of bridal shops to check out. I've started looking at rental pieces and so far we're pretty much in check with everything. Now I'll keep looking into transportation and then the major things will be taken care of.

I am amazed at how organized I am with everything so far. The spare time has it's advantages I suppose.

The History of the Dreaded Headband

Headbands.

Not the classic "headband," but the hippie kind of headbands that I think are the most unflattering, disgusting, hideous "trend" to resurface of the last year and a half-ish. Possibly longer than that I am sure.

Hair, just like fashion, comes in waves of specific generations/times. These past few years have been based solely on the 1920's. The flapper Era.

The flapper era is probably my favourite thing to see resurface in terms of hair. This was the time when women started a complete feminist movement and gained their independence. And yes that's right -- this all started with a haircut.

During the Suffrage Movement it became very popular for these feminists to cut their hair short and basically run wild. Women had already been fighting just to be educated and they wanted more. Equal rights were fought for and while yes women are the primary caretakers of both the family and home, it was important that should a woman want to work she was able to make that choice.

When we think back to this movement the hair fashion industry literally exploded. It wasn't until this time that women finally had choices and options. Versatility and the ability to choose what kind of hair you wanted to have was a major part of history. Not only for womens history but also for fashion history.

The classic bob has been a HUGE success in terms of hair fashion. It's everywhere and it is one of the most flattering cuts for any face. Because of all the different styles of bobs any face can wear some form of the cut. Typically a bob is chin length, but has evolved to be anything from ear/jaw length to shoulder length. It can be asymmetrical, graduated, blunt, layered, pretty much anything.

The term Flapper is mainly used to describe a particular group of feminists. Basically they were the 'floozies' of the time. They wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, were all for pre-marrital sex and abortions, they loved to smoke, and were particularly drawn to jazz music. They were complete rebels to society and were making one hell of an impact.

When these women had events or parties to go they would transform their bobs into the most beautiful and classic style -- the fingerwave.


But with that fingerwaved hair these women would usually wear a headband. A headband that went around their forehead and had some sort of shiny sequins and feathers on one side.

If we mimic this style today with a more modern approach, this is what you would typically see:


It is still so beautiful. Kristen Dunst wears the look so well it's incredible.

The problem with this is now people have combined the flapper styled headband, with the hippie styled headband, and we've come up with this:





Why is it that ANYONE thinks that THIS looks good?!

I hate seeing people wearing this style of headband because it is ruining one of the most classy generations in history. They have taken something so beautiful, and turned it into shit.

We also had the modern turn with the behind the ears headband. Any of these ones in the collage below are fine. They can be anything from cute to classy. They can accentuate a quick 'n' easy ponytail or add a little bit of flair to a nice updo. Between them and the brooch, they have become the perfect hair accessories.


If you want to get a little more fashionista with it, throw in a little feathered headband. Maybe the new peacock feather trend. That's cute. Any of these classic styled headbands are fine. This is also a sort of modern twist on the flapper headband. Again, still beautiful, still high fashion, but less butchered.



But what the FUCK is THIS?!



First off... Let's single out JUST Mary Kate... because she's by far the worst on the entire page of shittiness. I think the only person on that page that's rockin her headband is Twiggy. The rest suck.

Here she is in full length.


I can't even begin to explain how wrong this entire look is. Not only is she wearing a 2 inch thick velvet headband across her forehead, but her dress sucks.

I'm not a fashion role model by any means, but I will bet 50 bucks that this outfit/headband was knocked on in at least one magazine.

Hair trends obviously evolve with the times. We change them ever so slightly to give them that modern edge. However everything we do now revolves around things that have already been done. The fundamentals are there so now it's just polishing the look. Unfortunately there are still disgusting mistakes made that hopefully will never come back -- mainly being the dreaded 1920's and 1960's crossbreed version of the headband.

I wish I could just sleep when I get like this.

I want the next few days to be over with.

It's been a few months since I've had a full blown cycle and I'm actually extremely scared of what this one is going to be like. I haven't had a regular one in about 3 months now cause of the last pill I was on, so this will be the first one in awhile and I'm terrified of what's going to happen. I am so scared of feeling the pains in their fullest that I could cry at any given moment. I have already been popping anti-inflammatories for the past couple of days to keep things at bay for awhile and it hasn't even started yet. I can already feel it intensifying and I can't even begin to explain how upset and let down I am yet again.

No one should be so scared of their monthly period that they cry everytime they start to get it.

Everytime I'm given something new to try I really do hope that it's going to work. I give it a chance regardless of the past let downs and build up my hopes and try to stay positive. I tell myself that maybe, just maybe, this time will be different. When it isn't different it breaks my soul and I'm reminded of how badly I just want to be done with this crap.

I can't stop thinking about the surgery. I have this really big fear right now that they won't find anything and that maybe I'm just being a big wimp. I kind of feel like I'm going crazy and am even starting to doubt myself because the doctors have been telling me I'm fine for so long. I'm terrified they'll tell me that nothing is wrong and that there's nothing they can do to help me. I often have to remind myself that yes I am feeling pain and no it is not normal. I have to remind myself that I know my body and I know that something is not right.

I don't know what will be worse -- actually having something wrong or finding nothing wrong at all and not knowing what's causing this. At this point I think I'd be more upset to find nothing wrong than to find something wrong, but at the same time I'm going to be crushed if I have something wrong that interferes with being able to have kids.

I've had my share of stresses but this is by far the biggest one I've ever had. Whatever it ends up being, whether it's something or nothing, I can deal with it so long as it doesn't inhibit my ability to have children. That will truly crush me. I'm all for adoption, but I just want one of my own, one that I can look at and see a part of me and a part of my husband in.

I can only hope that whatever the outcome of this ends up being it won't ruin the one dream I've always had.

It Must Be Good If You're Droppin' J Bombs

Dario and I are watching tv... we randomly switched to the comedy network and found 'The Good Morning World Show.'

I haven't laughed this hard at something ever. We were doing the silent laugh complete with tears it was so funny.

I HAVE to find the videos.

I want to eat everything.

I think my body is trying to fight something off, either that or it's just bad PMS. I don't know which I'd prefer... I would have to say neither. Even when I am feeling nauseous I always manage to keep eating. Last night I puked, and up until nearly dinner time today I still felt quite sick to my stomach. I was keeping a fever at bay it felt like since I was starting to do that 'too hot... fuck too cold' thing... I had a sandwich and some chicken nuggets then finally sucked it up and went over to Dario's place to help clean out his old truck, I really stood and did nothing... I cleaned a door and 5 of the 6 windows. I forgot the back window hah. Worst cleaner ever.

I literally did nothing all day but lay in bed till noon or so watching movies and sleeping on and off, and then I laid on the couch till about 4 watching tv. I was getting ancy and I hate feeling useless but I knew if I pushed myself to do too much it would end up biting me in the ass.

Oh, so here's an interesting yet disgusting story. I went to brush my teeth this afternoon (yes I know, disgusting that I waited that long but like I said... in bed till noon) and I ran my toothbrush under hot water like I always do. My next step is to put my toothpaste on. Today I just so happened to notice just before I went to put toothpaste on, that there was blue toothpaste stuck in the bristles. Interesting since my toothpaste is white.

Krystals boyfriend keeps a toothbrush and toothpaste here, his toothbrush is the same colour as mine, but still very different. He must not have been paying attention because he ended up using MY toothbrush to brush his teeth this morning. EEEWWW.

So I chucked it. Luckily I still have my electric toothbrush that I never use. I busted that out and then picked up a new toothbrush later. I was due anyways, but still disgusting. It's more so gross for him since that toothbrush is quite old and has been in my dirty mouth twice a day for the last year. I don't feel bad.

I decided tonight at 11 that I was going to bake cookies. I have been craving sweet chocolatey goodness for the past couple of days and am fully allowing myself to indulge. I got out the butter, put it in a bowl, added the suger and the vanilla. I didn't mix it I just put it aside for a sec. I got the flour, baking soda, and salt and put it in a bowl. Put it to the side. Then I went into the fridge to grab eggs.

No eggs.

Awesome, so now I have two bowls of ingredients and no eggs. I have contemplated driving to save on foods to pick some up but have decided against the idea using some better judgement. I'll put the butter and stuff in the fridge I guess and get some eggs tomorrow morning. We always have eggs, and just had 2 and a half dozen eggs in the fridge a week ago. I don't know how I didn't notice before hand that there were no eggs.

Tomorrow I have no plans. I'm going to clean the house and take a few pictures of things. There is a girl that's interested and she's local which makes it a little nicer so I have to take some pictures of the place to send her. She could come and see the place but it's less of a waste of time to send her pictures incase she's not interested.

I had a salad at 9. And I'm starving. What the hell is up with me today?? All I want right now, is cookie dough.

I like Cake. Do you like Cake?

Hm. They're all cute.

Bitter Betty Strikes Again

It's nearly 3 in the morning and I'm wide awake. I had a not so good day/evening. I've been pmsing like a mad woman so it's been keeping me to the indoors. I managed to go to Dario's for a little bit but I started getting cramps and then randomly insta-puked so I decided it was time to go home. I haven't done that in awhile. Normally my cramps are bad, but the puking business if it happens usually happens when I'm ON the menses. Yeah, I'm still taking my stupid birth control pills right now. Gay. Needless to say month 1 of Yaz = bust.

When I got home I sat down for about half an hour and then went to bed and threw a movie on. It must have been a few minutes before 9 when I fell asleep because my body did the usual 'oh lets just have a nap' bullshit and woke up at 2. Let me tell you there is NOTHING on tv at 2 in the morning. Channel 12's been lame as balls lately so not even a good movie is on. I'm still feeling really sick to my stomach right now and am a hurtin' unit for sure but I'm on my max dose of pain medications right now. Awesome.

I went over my car insurance. I was ever so kindly reminded by ICBC that I need to renew my insurance come the middle of May. Woot I only have a 20% surcharge this year. I get to pay 26 dollars less every month! yaaaaaay. It's not much but when you're paying almost 400 bucks to those sons of bitches every month any 'discount' is nice.

I can't believe my insurance is so high. It's ridiculous really. I could spend hours badmouthing the useless piece of shit that caused it to be that way. I don't deny that I screwed up and that the accident will no matter what be seen as my fault... but he could have been less of an asshole about it. I rear ended the guy at 20-30km/h ... You don't do a lot of damage at those speeds. He claimed 'whiplash' and got a settlemet from ICBC. So instead of paying what would have cost 600-700 bucks to fix I now will pay between 5-6 grand in insurance premiums.

PS for that asshole I'd really like to dedicate a personal straight from the heart FUCK YOU!

The whole situation is stupid and makes me angry everytime I think about it. I really wanted to hurt that guy when I found out he filed an injury claim. He got a lawyer immediately so that goes to show you guilt right there. Anyone who gets a lawyer for 600 dollars worth of damage is obviously trying to pull a stunt.

Not very long after I found out he was screwing me over I was rear ended. A guy accidently hit the gas instead of the brake... He hit me going at a higher speed than what I hit stupid guy at and I think the bill came out to 750 bucks to fix my bumper. Because I'm not an ASSHOLE I didn't file for any injury claims. I did open a claim through ICBC incase he decided to fuck off and never pay me, but I gave him the opportunity to pay for the damage done to my car and leave it at that. He did so very nicely and that was the end of it.

Hey... what goes around comes around right? In my mind the guy that decided to be a douchebag will have his come uppings.

See? I could spend hours.

These next few days are going to be really bad. I can feel it coming on so I'm preparing myself for a lot of bed and movies. I didn't go out and participate in Earth Day today, so if I am feeling okay tomorrow night Dario and I are going to pick up some garbage. It may not be on Earth Day but regardless of what day it is the effort is still good for the environment. I wouldn't mind doing things like that regularly. It really pisses me off when I see garbage in nice places, people ruin all things nice.

Holy Negative Nancy or what??

Hopefully by Saturday I'll be feeling okay, although it's really hard to say at this point. I have RSVP'd yes for Andrea's birthday dinner. So long as I'm not a raging bitch face that day I'll be there.

I would really like for once to make it through a few months without having to cancel some sort of plans. I never feel like my reason is justified so when there are events that I've rsvp'd to and I'm not feeling good, I suck it up and try to go anyways. I either leave the event early because I'm in too much pain, or I get home and curl up and die a little. It takes a lot out of me. It's pathetic when you have to plan your life around your cycle.

2 more months of this seems like a life time. I am honestly contemplating having a hysterectomy as soon as I'm done having kids. If this is something I have to 'deal with' for the rest of my life, I'm takin that son of a bitch out the second I'm done with it. I suppose though that even though my uterus hates me I still have an attachment to the thing; afterall it is a part of my body and to take it out is similar to a man cutting off his balls -- only internal. Seems a little extreme but one day might be necessary. On days like today it is a very inviting idea.

I think I'll go spend some time back in my bed with another movie and fall back asleep.

Yugh

Some days I hate my bangs. Some days I love them. Today I love them, today I want to keep them for awhile. Tomorrow I will probably be annoyed with them again. I am wearing my hair wavy today and with the bangs it looks very stylish but it's messy as hell.

I don't feel like blogging anymore. I started and now I just don't want to finish it. Tomorrow maybe.

Eh, my shoes, there's goo all over them!

I haven't blogged in like, two days. Pushing a new record for this month since I've been updating every day.

Not much has happened the last couple of days so really I don't have anything interesting to say.

Facebook's homepage is screwed up right now, I'm assuming it's due to a mass canucks update overload! I'm not a major hockey fan but tonights game was pretty intense. It's pretty exciting to see them sweep the first round. Now it'll be a wait until they start playing again!

The weather has been beautiful, I spent some time outside today. I also went shopping yesterday and again today... both days turned out to be browsing days. I have been looking for a very specific type of shoe that is no where to be found. Perhaps one day I will stumble across a pair. Today I hit up Brentwood then Winners. I was also on a mission to find a pair of black yoga pants. That also turned out to be a total bust. While I was there though I did find a REALLY cute pair of shoes that I would love to buy but really don't NEED to buy. They're a strappy yellow sling back sandle with a wedge cork heel. They were amazing I tell you and if I wasn't so damn poor I would totally buy them. They were so cheerful and summery!

Krystal had a great concept of getting new clothes. She's going back to calgary this weekend... she has a pair of jeans that are getting holes in them. She's going to wear them so her mom says "ohhh hunny do you need new jeans?" hahahaha. I think the idea is genius really. I might try it on my mom, but I think she's too smart to fall for it. Boourns :(

I did manage to find a lot of cute shoes that I could wear for the wedding. I won't lie, I'm leaning towards a coral shoe. I'm not sure if it would be tacky or cute, but depending on the dress it could be very cute. So we'll see.

I have found a perfect wedding hair picture. It's pretty much exactly what I have been picturing in my head except the one side I don't like. I like the left side of her head, the side with the brooch. I would do both sides to match that but it is cute! Her hair isn't long either which is a good thing. The dress is really pretty too. I like strapless dresses but I don't know how I feel about one for me. I'm still liking the V-neck styled A-line dresses.



I went to the cop shop today to figure out how to transfer the gun registration from my dad to me. Now that I have most of that information I'll get the last few things I need from my dad and call them up... or have him do it, whichever happens first. One less thing to worry about!

I would really LOVE a blizzard right now, or a mcflurry. Either would satisfy me, but I will fight the temptation to go get one. Mostly because I don't need it.

Tomorrow I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. We'll see what tomorrow has in store when I wake up and see either a sunny clear blue sky or shitty grey rain clouds.

It is Earth Day tomorrow so maybe I will partake in doing something Green. Dario and I were walking around Deer Lake last night and noticed a lot of garbage, I could always go pick up some of that.

I've missed the biggest loser. So now I'm going to go miserably watch TV for a bit and try to get to bed at a decent time. W00t.

What in the SHIT?!

Okay I just have to say a HUGE:

"WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!"

I know this girl. We grew up together, she lived just down the street from me so we always hung out as kids yadda yadda.

She moved to PG in her last few years of highschool or whatever but we still kept in touch.

My friend Marco and her are also friends, so whenever I was in PG the three of us would usually hang out.

She moved to Edmonton awhile back, like 6 months ago or whatever. Not that long ago.

She posts picture updates all the time blah blah blah, status updates and everything else.

I'm on facebook scrolling down through the huge long list of updates, and there is an update from her.

"Welcomes Khoen blah blah blah into the world such and such weight"



Wait a second. You were pregnant??!!!?!?!?!

I thought maybe it was a relatives baby or something but oh no, I go to her page and there's like a billion comments from people congratulating her, and one was from her Edmonton roommate. Apparently she came back to BC or whatever.

I HAD NO CLUE SHE WAS PREGNANT!!!

There were no status updates about her pregnancy, no belly pictures, none of that. That's fine some women aren't into that. But like, literally if you go on her wall and stuff people only just started talking about it in the last two weeks!

HOW DO YOU GET AWAY WITH THAT AT ALL THESE DAYS?!?!

I am so fucking shocked it's unbelievable. Like how in the hell in her picture updates did her belly not show?! She is a STICK! She is SOOO skinny! She is very very tall, about 5-10/5-11 ... and like 120-125lbs max. She models so obvs she's tiny.

How does someone THAT small hide any sort of baby bump?!?!

I'm so blown away I can't even believe it. It's 2 in the morning, I have church at 9... and I'm sitting here in complete shock that she just had a baby.

I mean what the fuck?!

I really don't know what else to say other than WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!

I don't know if she moved maybe to hide the fact she was pregnant or what happened but seriously, I'm amazed right now. I'm completely blown away that hardly anyone knew, especially for so long, and even more so because the northern region is like gossip central!!

Wow. So weird. I just can't even handle the shock. I know it's been a little while since I've talked to her but it has NOT been more than a 9 month pregnancy!

Seriously blown away. I'm sure I've expressed that over and over, but one more time for the win.

Amazing.

Bitches and Indians

There are certain things that I hate about facebook.

Status' aren't such a bad thing, sometimes they can be amusing. But I hate... I repeat... HATE when people write depressing or demeaning crap on there status updates.

For instance some 15 year old Indian kid added me about two weeks ago. I accepted because I couldn't quite tell which indian it was from his pictures. They were small pictures and he resembled another indian whos face was familiar. And no I don't know the names of all the indians in fort.

Anyways... he added me, and the first thing I see on my homepage is "So-and-So: I wish I would fucking die right now. I hate my life, stupid bitch. Why'd you have to do this to me? You're such a whore! I hate you. I want to fucking die. If it wasn't for my family I would kill myself."

Are you fucking kidding me?

EVERYTHING about that update is the exact definition of what I HATE about facebook status'. The immature name calling of your ex girlfriend, publicly announcing that you hate her and she's a whore... it's just fucking ridiculous.

It's a means of getting attention. It's the emo kid who slits their wrists and hides behind black hair and clothes. That's what that is to me. And as for the suicidal thing, go get a fucking hug you whiney baby. If you are trying to cry out for help facebook is unlikely to be your best bet.

All that says to me is, "I wonder who would care if I died? I know, I'll say I'm suicidal and put it on my facebook status and see how many people comment."

I'm sorry but I just don't feel that those things are necessary to put as your facebook status update. I don't have sympathy for them. I don't feel I have to justify that reason at all. I just simply do not have sympathy for those people.

When I see updates like "better watch your back bitch or I'm gonna fuckin knock you out" ... or... "You're such a whore you stupid bitch, fuckin go kill yourself" ... etc etc ... all I can think is that they are truly the most pathetic people ever. It is SO childish and unnecessary!

All I have to say to them is:

Quit your bitching and go clean your vagina.

One day I won't have to deal with this

Imagine you wake up. You're doing the dishes. You notice you have a lot of yellow plates but you haven't seen much of the blue plates. You look in the cupboard and you notice you have one in there, and only one in the dish rack. There are no dishes anywhere else in the house. There's no blue plates in the fridge, no blue plates left in the living room, no blue plates in the bedrooms. Hmm, definitely no blue plates in the bathroom.

Where oh where could my other blue plates be?

Oh that's right. They get taken out of the house without me fucking knowing.

Don't get me wrong, we have a lot of dishes... at least 20 large plates. More than enough for two people. But we only use 8 of those 20 plates and keep the rest in the top of the cupboard. It's not like I don't have other plates I could use, it's just the concept of it all.

Again, probably seems ridiculous, but 98% of the dishes in this house, are mine. Bought with my own money or given to me as gifts over the years. Do I enjoy when they go missing? Not really. How about paper plates? We have some of them if you're going to take baking to school or food to school or to a friends house or WHATEVER.

I don't care what the scenario is. I'm not actually a major nazi when it comes to my shit, I don't mind people borrowing my things, so long as I know first. Tell me where my stuff will be so I know, and can make sure it is returned.

I have no idea when my plates will come back. No idea where they are or if they were broken or what. If they were dropped and broken, no big deal, shit happens. But tell me so I know.

Go ahead and take them to school or to a friends or whatever. Just leave a note saying 'Hey Mar, I'm taking a few plates to school.'

Cool. I'm fine with that. But not knowing and then finding out just irritates the shit out of me.

I'm lenient with everything. Need to borrow something of mine to make your dinner? Go right ahead I don't have a problem. If you've asked I will most certainly say yes unless I specifically need that item that day and it's the only one in the house.

Need to use my hair straightener, hair products, or want to use some of my makeup? Fly atter, I don't mind. Want to borrow a pair of my shoes? Go ahead, as long as I'm not wearing that pair that night you can go right ahead. In fact most of those things I don't care if they're used even without being asked first. They're minimal items basically.

But with most stuff if it is being taken out of the house, just ask me if I'm here, or leave me a note or send me a text if I am not. Is that so much to ask? Really? Is it?

In the end, it's a couple plates not the end of the world. But it's my shit and I appreciate the courtesy of at the very least, letting me know that you're going to use them elsewhere.

Sigh.

Mountain Shadow Shittiness

Last night was hockey night at the Mountain Shadow. Worst service ever. I will never go back there for any sporting event ever again. The food was the shits, the service was terrible. Just all together a bad night. They were definitely under staffed and ill-prepared.


Pat gave us gifts from Vegas. He gave me an apron because I am marrying Dario and will need it apparently. We'll see as I may just be the one who wears the pants... but yeah sadly, the apron too.



Today was a really good day. I went to Dario's place this afternoon and washed my car inside and out. I missed a couple spots since I hate hand washing cars. I would much rather be at a car wash with a pressure washer and a scrub brush. It would probably help with cleaning the roof also. The inside of my car is now vaccummed and armour-alled but man do the seats and carpets need to be washed. There's been a lot of spills and it's pretty gross. But none the less the car is actually free of dirt and crap.

I invited my friend Mark over for dinner. I had planned to feed three people but Dario ended up skipping out so I replaced him with Krystal. There was still an entire half a loaf of garlic bread left over. I won't lie, I could probably eat it by the time morning comes.

While I was washing my car I got a phonecall from my dad. My stepmom finally has an appointment booked with a specialist for May 1st. My dad told me it was a Friday so I said "oh okay well Dario will be working but maybe I'll take a drive up to Kamloops for the day and meet you guys there!" ... Turns out the doctor she is actually seeing is in Richmond so now they will be coming down here for a night! I'm extremely excited since I haven't seen either of them since Christmas, but also because my parents and Dario's parents will finally meet. It's almost impossible to plan a meeting when my parents live 10 hours away and never come down here. They'll get here around lunchtime on the 1st, and will be leaving first thing in the morning the next day. My little brother and sister will be at home by themselves and my dad has to go back to work so they can't stay too long. We're going to plan to go out and have a nice dinner though so that will be awesome! I can hardly wait!

I heard back from a girl who was thinking about moving in with me. It won't be happening now since one of her friends also wants to move down here so they're going to find a place together. Surprisingly I'm not bummed or worried about the situation. I will just repost my craigslist ad and keep looking. I'm a little shocked that it's not freaking me out or overwhelming me with stress, but I kind of figured she would jam out anyways so I didn't put too much hope into it to begin with.

Tomorrow will be a busy day. It's gym day and possible plans with Rachel and the kids. I'm going to make a salad or something for hockey night at the Ciavarro's (minus Danielle) and marinate a couple steaks to bring as well assuming Chad still wants to do that. So basically the day is filled with stuff.

I haven't spent nearly as much time at home lately and have slowly been finding more things to do. It's helping me keep my sanity. I haven't done much for wedding stuff either but I'm still way far ahead of the game so it's not a big deal. I have started putting together a list of bridal shops though so I suppose that counts for something. When I know more of what sort of situation I will be in come the middle of May then I will go ahead and make some appointments at a few shops. Until then not much to do for wedding crap.

Once July hits Dario's family will have met most of my family -excluding my two brothers and stepdad - but at least they'll have met the majors.

Now it's time for bed.

Dearest Mama

34 more days until my mama gets here!

It's odd because I when I was little I always called her "mom" and then when I hit 16ish I started calling her "mama" ... isn't that a little bit backwards?? I donno. Mama suits her better!

Lazy Bum

I am supposed to clean out my car this morning at Dario's place, but I still don't know how I feel about doing that just yet. I really should, cause it needs it. But maybe I'll wait until the weekend and Dario and I clean his truck and my car at the same time. It just seems easier for some reason.

I had a job interview last night. Oddly enough I applied for a nanny position. I figured what the hell, the pay is usually alright, I love kids, and it's not much different than being at home all day, except I'll be at someone elses home with two kids.

She had two daughters, one was 4 and one was 7, they were both adorable. It was about 8 when I got there so I talked to the mom a bit and then she wanted to see how her kids took to me so I went upstairs and read them each a bedtime story. Both of them seemed to really like me and so did the mom.

Overall it went really well, it's just a matter of whether or not our schedules will work. I was honest and told her I would be getting married in May so I would need time off for that of course, and I also told her I would be having surgery and would need a couple days of rest for that. Her biggest concern is that she is looking for someone long term so that it lasts at least until her 4 year old is in school full time, which I completely understand since it's difficult for kids to go through a billion babysitters/nanny's. They get attached to people and it's hard on them.

She has a few more interviews yet so I won't hear from her until probably next week sometime, but either way if it works out great, if not, no big deal.

The interview had a lot of questions. Some were unexpected, some were not. I was a bit nervous for it mainly because it's completely different than a job interview for a business. You are going into someones home not into their place of business, and the job you are being interviewed is to take care of two kids, which are the most important people to any parent. It's difficult because you can't fake your way through the interview like you might for a regular job. You can't put on a show you just have to be yourself and when you're nervous it feels harder to give off that good impression.

Easter weekend has come and gone. I haven't blogged about it, I don't have much to say about it really. It was a lot of church and a lot of chocolate and other good eats! It was a good weekend though.

Dario and I had our anniversary on the Monday, and thanks to West Vancouver noise bylaws he wasn't allowed to work that day, so we packed a lunch and went to Trout lake to follow the trend. We hadn't been there before and after seeing pictures from Danielle and Tania we decided to check it out. We both loved it since one end is an off leash park so there's TONS of dogs (you know how much Dario and I want a damn dog.) It was a beautiful day so we were there for a couple hours. I made steak for dinner, it was alright... I need a bbq, steak just isn't steak without being bbq'd. It was still decent enough though.

It was a laid back day but it was really nice. We seem to be pretty simple and easy to please people.

Today I had a whole list of shit planned. And now plans have completely changed. Originally I was going to get up at 8 this morning, maybe go to the gym and then wash the car, or vice versa. But last night for some reason Krystal and I sat up and were bullshitting for hours, and when we looked at the clock it was already quarter to 3 in the morning which was unreal. No wonder we were getting so tired. Finally we went to bed, so I was damn tired this morning. I still managed to drag my ass out of bed around 10 but I just don't really feel as motivated as I did yesterday.

After the gym/car wash I was going to spend some time with Rachel and the kids, but since my day is already screwed up we decided to move that to Friday possibly. And now the Mountain Shadow hockey night is starting a little earlier. So I have like, 3 and a half hours before I need to shower and get ready. (It's now 12:30.)

So instead of all of that I am going to go kill 2 hours at the gym. It probably won't work out to be 2 hours, but more so about an hour and a half but either way... it's productive and healthy. My cardio is in the worst shape it's ever been, my chest actually hurts when I do cardio hah. With all those damn heart problems in my family I suppose I should care about the shape my heart is in and the foods I put into my body. It's just so hard to get the motivation to do it!

A Trip Down The Blue Tornado

Have you ever sort of "lost" a piece of your childhood?

Well... I have. It's very odd actually. You know how when you're a kid you always go over to grandma and grandpa's house and grandma makes you lots of pie and good eats, you play games and spend tons of time together? Well, at least most of us have done that at some point in time.

For me, it was an annual trip (sometimes more than that) to good ol' Barriere BC with my aunt, my cousin, and my older brother. My dad, stepmom, younger brother, and little sister had come down there as well, sometimes at the same times, but usually I did the trip with my aunt and cousin. Even if my parents did go down at the same time, I would still go in my aunts car, it was less crowded and much more comfortable.

Each year in the summer we would jump in the car, drive for 8 friggen hours all the way to ho-dunk town Barriere, BC. We would bring this game with us every time. I have no idea what it was actually called, but it was a little box (the same idea as backgammon) and you would roll two dice. You had the numbers 1 through 9 on the top, and the numbers would flip down. You would roll the dice and say you rolled a 2 and a 5... you could either put down the 7, or any combination of numbers that equaled whatever you rolled.

It was the same as this but without the wine and a little less ancient:

We'd play that game for hours, I'd usually pop a gravol or two and pass out for at least a good 4-6 hours of the trip. It was a boring drive, especially when we drove through McBride. Talk about NOTHING to see. Ugh.

Welcome to Barriere.

My grandparents used to live in PG when I was very young, but moved to Barriere at some point. I was still really young. This sign in the picture above is the sign you pass through if you start heading towards Kamloops. You head away from the esso station. My grandma used to live just down the road from that gas station and we would quite often go there for candy and such. It used to have a trianglular peaked roof but clearly this picture is more recent and it's been redone.


Yep... a whole lotta nothin! My grandparents bought another house and moved into it. Their old house used to be by train tracks and I remember being woken up in the mornings by the sound of the trains. They were so damn noisy it's no wonder they moved. The only other thing I really remember about that house is the slate walk way around the side of the house. I used to break chunks of it off and bring it home to keep. I gave a piece to my mom because it was a "sparkly rock" and I think she may even still have it. She kept a lot of the useless shit we gave her, who knows why.

The rest of my memories of Barriere were in Gramma and Grampa's new house. It had a huuuge back yard, and a very big garden that took up the end closest to the fence. My cousin Riane and I destroyed that garden numerous times. We would pick all of the carrots until we got a real good one (aka the biggest one or an oddly shaped one) and would throw all the shitty ones over the fence and into the neighbours yard.

I spent years visitting that house. All the way up until I was about 15/16 years old. They were the best trips. We would spend a couple days where we would drive into Kamloops. It was only about 45 minutes away from Barriere. We would always go to the wildlife park, and then the waterslides were next door. I still say that that waterslide park was the best one in BC.

It was an outdoor waterpark. It had 4 huge long twisty blue tunnel water slides, 2 little kiddy water slides, a couple hot tubs, and two really tall steep water slides that you could race people down. It was a BLAST. I would go back in a heart beat even at my age now.

It would take us about 5 minutes to get to the top of the waterslide, less than a minute to get down, and then we'd do it all over again.

That park is no longer open. I guess it closed down quite a few years ago now and all that's left is a shitty overgrown ugly looking park. It's unfortunate and such a waste. Why they never found a way to reopen them is beyond me. The place was always packed in the summers, but perhaps that business just wasn't enough.




That's them now. Used for people to ride their stupid bikes on. It makes me a little angry, because it was one of my FAVOURITE places as a kid, and to see it so run down is really disappointing. I mean look at those things! How could you NOT have fun on those?!

I almost drowned in that pool. I came out of the slide 1st from the left (the one that is a complete tunnel) and I was with my uncle. He let go as we got to the bottom, I think I was about 6 at this time, and the water was over my head. That end of the pool is only 4 feet deep or so so I must not have been very big. I thought I was going to die and I was terrified of that last slide for so long. It was called the blue tornado.

Some of my best memories are in Barriere and Kamloops. In 2003 as all of you know, the entire area was wiped out by forest fires. My grandparents had to be evacuated and came to PG. My grampa was very sick with cancer at the time and it was really tough on them. When they were finally able to go back to their home there wasn't much left of their town. Their home was spared and they were able to sell it, but I'm sure there was a lot of cleaning to do. I remember talking to gramma on the phone before they were told to leave their homes and she said the ash was coming down on her house.




When you drive through there now this is a lot of what you see. It's a thing of nature, and while it destroys everything in it's path it is something that is inevitable. It's unfortunate but one day all of this will regrow and the population will start to increase.


It at least has the green undergrowth now. Everything burned so fast because of all the beetle kill, but for all the pine trees that hadn't been affected this fire was the best thing for it to regrow. Pine trees do not regenerate without fire. Fire is the only thing hot enough to open the cones for the seeds to come out and replant. So one day these hillsides will again be filled with pine trees, and I'm sure one day they'll again be taken over by beetles.


It's sad though. After they went back it wasn't long before my grandpa passed away. When he died that is when my gramma decided it was time to sell the house and move to Prince George. At least she was closer to the family which she needed at that time. Her and my grampa were married for 52 years when he passed away, I'm sure the loneliness of being a widow is very difficult for her.

Now she has a little two bedroom condo in PG. It's cluttered with all of her things and even though it's still her, it's just not the same house and it has an entirely different vibe. It feels lonely there, like she doesn't have enough company but I think that mostly has to do with the fact that she's a widow and lives there alone.

I hope that when I have kids I get to do things like this with them. It makes me sad that my parents are so far away so when Dario and I have kids they won't get to see their gramma's and grampa's on a regular basis... but then I think back to the fact that I never got to see my gramma and grampa on a regular basis and I still loved them just the same, still had just as much fun seeing them, and still created tons of great memories.

When Dario and I have kids we can take trips like this to Fort to see all the grandparents up there, take them to the lake to go swimming, go boating with them, camp out at the beach if we want to. We might have pools and waterslides here for them, but we don't have those things that Fort offers right at our fingertips here. I think it will be a lot of the same experience and they'll grow up to remember those trips the same way I remember mine.

You are the Cheese to my Macaroni.

Two years ago today my life changed direction onto a path I never expected.

The beginning was fast. 2 months of getting to know eachother, one day of meeting and we started dating. 3 months later I had put in my notice, quit my job, and started packing boxes. I sold everything I could and only took what I needed. I packed my car to the roof with the stuff I needed, leaving only the two front seats open.

I thought it would be the hardest day of my life. I thought I would have a difficult time saying goodbye but I was so excited that I didn't get very emotional when it happened. I gave my family hugs and was on my way with my cat in the front seat. I left late in the morning, I had to finish getting everything out of my house. My dad helped. I was making the biggest move in my life without knowing exactly how it could end up. I was terrified. It took an hour and a half to get to Prince and I did cry on the way. Once things started to sink in of what I was doing and what I was leaving behind I started running scenario's through my head. I assured myself that even if things didn't work out between us that I would work to stay in Vancouver and find my happiness.

I drove to Prince George and went to drop my cat off at the spca since I couldn't find him a home. The home I had found him he didn't like. He ran away from them and made his way across town back to his home with me. I cried with how horrible I felt having to give up my poor little guy to a place where no one may take him. The spca didn't have room in PG even though I called in advance to make sure they did. They had assured me they could take him but when I got there they wouldn't. They told me I would have to drop him off in Quesnel instead.

I drove to a coffee shop where I picked up my friend Andrea. She was planning on going to Vancouver to visit her friend so she caught a ride with me. My little Ludo sat on her lap and slept until we got to Quesnel. The company was nice to have and kept my mind optimistic.

We made our way to the SPCA and finally dropped my boy off. I cried. I took him in from a shelter promising him a safe home, and I wasn't able to offer him that. But I had to be selfish and think about my possible future, so I left a good sized donation with the SPCA and got back in the car.

Andrea drove until Cache Creek which was nice. I needed time to unravel all of my thoughts and get back to ground zero. We switched seats and I finished the drive through the canyon all the way into Burnaby. As I was nearing Burnaby my moms sister called. I told her I had dropped my cat off at the SPCA in Quesnel but because of a late exit I didn't have time to stop by to say hi. She told me I was silly and went and paid the adoption fee for Ludo and gave him a home at her place with her husband and 5 boys. He loved it since she has a ton of property and he was always outside when he lived with me. It brought an ease to the situation which is exactly what I needed at that time.

Finally I dropped Andrea off at brentwood mall where she met up with her friend. It was after 11 at night at this point. I drove back to my friend Mark's house where I stayed for a couple nights.

I moved into a bedroom in a 3 bedroom home. There was a black girl from England there as well but she was leaving at the end of the month. Krystal moved in a month later to take over her bedroom.

I started spending a lot of time with you. I was a little needy at first, I didn't know anyone yet and you were my only strength and comfort. I was one girl in a city of millions now, where I used to be one girl in a town with only familiar faces.

I honestly don't know what things would have been like had things not worked out between you and I. I won't lie, I might have gone back, even if only for a little while until I gained the strength to face Vancouver again, but I was never faced with that situation.

I found refuge here. It was a long first year. I had been thrown into a place so completely unfamiliar. I had my own place in Fort, now I had two roommates. One of which I hated so I ended up moving again. I had to buy all new stuff since I sold everything when I left Fort. I had 3 accidents in the first 2 months of living here that caused so much stress. That in itself made me want to give up. The traffic was a nightmare to adjust to but finally I started becoming more and more familiar with places and found it easier to drive here.

I had to adjust to the culture shock with your family. I adjusted to the ways of your traditional family, all the while remembering my new-day family back home. I missed them dearly and had many many hard days because of it. I had no one close here outside of you and I was lonely. Very lonely.

Slowly but surely again, the year had passed and so had the holidays. I spent Christmas with your family, another difficult thing for me. Things were so different here, but a good different. I had experienced most of the holiday's and traditions with you and your family over that year. Your family accepted me and I grew to love them. I felt more and more comfortable getting to know them, but I won't lie that it was hard. I am not Italian, I am not Catholic, and I had divorced parents. Common ground was hard to find, but none the less it was found.

Things moved fast at first, but it worked for us. We were falling more and more in love with eachother.

The second year has been a breeze compared to the first. I'm adjusted to life here and have fully accepted Burnaby as my home. We started talking more and more about getting married and our future was looking great. Things have run into a lot of set backs and those set backs were cause and are still cause for a great deal of stress. We worked through it somehow, and we're still chugging along side by side.

In January my every dream came true. Until you I had never thought about marriage, I never wanted it, and was definitely weary of it. Somehow my love for you and my faith in marriages changed. I trust you with my life; my past, my present, my future. You asked me to marry you and I had no hesitations in saying yes. I want this life with you forever.

Regardless of all the things we've run into that have pushed us a few steps back, we've perservered and I still feel as though we are the ones on top. As hard as it can be sometimes to see the good when there's so much going on, I always find that I am blessed to have you in my life. I will be your wife, and you - my husband; that is the greatest gift I could ever ask for.

It's hard to believe that one normal every day conversation (with some extra swearing on my behalf) ended up turning into this.

You are the love of my life.

Happy Anniversary Dario!

Could it be that something GOOD might actually happen to me?!

I don't want to jinx anything... BUT... it seems like things are finally starting to take a turn for the better. Even if the things that are starting to take a turn end up going down the shitter at least I know that things are slowly but surely working themselves out.

The smell of your pelt reminds me of home <3

This morning Dario and I took the canoe out to Deer Lake. I was going to visit Sandra around noon so we headed out at about 8:30 so we had lots of time to just relax and go at our own pace. Well... I should say his pace, since he rows me around.

Today while we were paddling along, we moved rather close to the bank to watch some ducks. As we started to take off I thought I saw some little birds or something so I asked him to go back so we could look. While I was busy looking in that direction, Dario all of a sudden says: "What the hell?! There's a ferret??!!"

I was a little confused as it is quite unlikely that you would see a "ferret" in a natural setting, especially in Burnaby. I turned to look but it was already gone. Then the little bugger came running out again. I had Dario's camera so he paddled as fast as he could to chase along side the "ferret" so that I could try to take a picture of the little guy. I couldn't get any good ones since that sucker was running and we were also moving but I managed to get two that are somewhat okay.



He was SO cute!! I just loved him. As we started following him he dived into the water. Which I will say straight up, is not the characteristic of a ferret or even a weasel. At least not that I knew of...


Just as fast as he jumped into the water he completely dove under the water. He was under for about 5 maybe 10 seconds at best. I had the camera waiting to try to get a picture of him popping back up since I knew he'd have to come up for air sooner or later... but when he did pop back up he took me by complete surprise. The little thing had a frickin fish in his mouth! AMAZING! In no more than 10 seconds MAX this little creature had caught a fish. I won't lie that I was completely impressed. I tried to get a picture of him running off with his catch but it turned out to be a piss poor picture.

It was the complete highlight of our little canoe trip to Deer Lake. Dario and I were both excited about it, it is really neat to see stuff like that especially when you're in the middle of Burnaby.

When we got home we looked up weasels to see if that's what it was because I wasn't exactly convinced that it would be a ferret. While the pictures of the weasels looked similar, and the pictures of the ferrets did as well, they didn't completely match but we agreed it was a weasel and I headed out of the house to run home for a bit.

On my way home I called my dad to ask him about it. Him being a hunter of many years I thought maybe he'd have seen a few in his lifetime. He started looking on the internet and said "Maybe it was a marten?? Are you sure it wasn't an otter?" ... He was equally confused by the fact that this thing could swim and catch fish.

Finally he exclaimed "Maybe it's a mink! Look it up." By this time I was at home on the computer googling images as well, and finally found some pictures like this:



He was most definitely a mink, they have the same tail, fur colour and they frequently prey on fish.

This might seem extremely boring and lame to some but I thought it was pretty cool. I've grown up in the middle of nowhere and spent nearly 20 years of my life in that "nowhere region." In those nearly 20 years I've seen a TON of wild animals -- Lynx', bobcats, wolves, deer, moose, elk, black bears, brown bears, grizzly bears, too many birds/water fowl to even try to name, porcupines, skunks, muskrats, beavers, foxes, coyotes, and wolverines... but surprisingly never a mink, weasel or marten.

Of all the animals that are found in the northern/interior BC regions... I haven't seen some of the more commonly known animals. I found it funny that after 20 years of living in the friggen bush, I see my first mink in the middle of Burnaby.

I should have recognized what it actually was... considering at least 1-2 times a year during elementary school and highschool we would head over to the FSJ Historic Park for lessons on our towns history. During the tour of the park there is one old building you step into that they used to use for fur trading. They have pelts in there like you would not believe. We would have to feel each animal pelt and try to identify what each one was by the size, colour, thickness, and softness or courseness of it's fur. Back at school we would head to carriere class where we would learn about the natives way of life. Both trapping and fur trading were a huge source of their income (aka means of trading furs for foods and supplies) so we would learn about which pelts were the most valuable, as well as the methods for trapping all of these animals.

You would think... YOU WOULD THINK... that somewhere in those however many years I spent walking through that same building, petting the same damn mink/marten/weasel furs that I would know how to identify that stupid thing while we were out there today... BUUUUUUT no.... I will say though that if I had seen this instead...


... and I could have felt it's hard dried out skin with fur... then I probably wouldn't have had a problem.

When I think back it is unbelievably cool at how many animals and other things I have seen in the wild... things that many people have never and possibly will never get a chance to see. I guess what's even cooler is that now that I have left I live in a place that still has little bits and pieces that remind me of being back in Fort St. James.

Perhaps that is why I don't ever miss the town I am from. Everything I could ever want or need is right here. The one thing that will never change? ... When I was asking my dad what it was and I said "I'm just not sure..." he replied with a good old fashioned "You should have shot it! Then you'd know for sure!"

Ahh I love the simplicity and amusement of a rednecks answer.

Where did our sunshine go?

Last night was gnocchi night. It was my first time making it and it turned out alright. The meat sauce was perfect, but the gnocchi was a liiiiittle bit sticky. So I'm assuming maybe not enough flour. Who knows. They were good though. I didn't have a potato ricer so I used the masher so there were a few lumps but meh. Next time maybe.



I always forget to take pictures, even when I tell myself I am going to. I didn't remember to take out the camera until the meat sauce had already been on the stove for an hour or so. And then of course I forgot to take a picture of the gnocchi when it was first ready, so I got Dario to take a picture of it after we'd finished eating.

There was a lot for left overs so I packed a bunch up for Dario's lunch and kept a little bit for me to eat for dinner tonight.

I have been very blah this morning. I had trouble sleeping again and this morning my landlords are putting up trim so all I hear is "tap tap tap tap tap" from their hammer on a tiny nail. I've laid in bed all morning trying to get a little more sleep but it's just not happening. So I have the feeling today is going to be a major do-nothing day until church tonight.

This will be my first "Easter" with Dario's family. Last year we used this long weekend to visit my family. I'm still not entirely sure what to expect yet but I've been told it's like Christmas but with more church.

Last night was a weird night. I was watching "mystery diagnosis" on TLC. For some reason I find that show really interesting because it talks about all these rare diseases that people have and majority of them are life threatening when undiagnosed and they go through months/years of doctor after doctor. Story of my life.

Last night however there was a girl on there that had endometriosis. It was actually hard to watch because the relation of everything I am going through was identical. This girl had been to over 70 doctors before they finally diagnosed her. Each one of them prescribing pain killer after pain killer. She had problems from the first day of her first period, she hemhorraged (filling a supersized pad every hour), she had excrutiating cramps/pelvic pain, pain in her bowels and bladder, pain with sex, nausea and even vertigo. She went through MRI scans and everything and they couldn't find what was wrong with her.

Finally one day she had the worst stabbing pain she'd ever had and rushed to her gynocologist. He did an ultrasound and found that she had a huge mass on her ovary. They did a blood test on her for a certain component that is found when you have cancer. She had an extremely elevated level of it in her blood so they decided to go in for immediate surgery to get the mass out and fully test it to be sure it was in fact cancerous. It's not completely proven but it is shown that women with endometriosis have an elevated level of what they call CA-125 (cancer agent) in their blood, but they can't use it as a for sure diagnosis.

They went in laparoscopically (with a small camera through your belly button/stomach) and found that her ovaries were the size of baseballs, and were covered in endometrial tissue. Her entire pelvis was flooded with this tissue and had covered everything from her uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes, even up to her bowel and bladder. She was close to having rectal endometriosis they said which is extremely painful. Even without her consent they had to do a full hysterectomy because it was so bad. She was only 34 years old.

I watched this show in complete disbelief. Because every single thing she listed (outside of the vertigo) I've felt and could relate with. Just watching made me so frustrated and angry. She was diagnosed with stage 4 endometriosis.

She already had a gut feeling that she would never be able to conceive her own children, so her and her husband had started an adoption process and were just about to go pick up their new daughter when she had the hysterectomy.

At the end of the show, the doctor that treated her does a little speel about what endometriosis is and what it can do to your body. Vertigo isn't a symptom related with endometriosis... but in this woman's case her endometriosis was so severe that it had started to spread to other parts of her body, they felt that some of the tissue may have planted in her inner ear.

The nausea is also not a symptom directly related to the disease, but instead related to the amount of pain your body is in.

Watching it was like re-living everything I've been going through and trying to figure out for the last 6 years now. It hit home so hard that I actually started crying when I was watching it. Most days lately I haven't let myself think about what has been happening or the frustrations of it. I'm trying to just stay focused on the fact that at least a date for surgery has been set and I will soon have an answer as to what is happening inside my body. However last night was a minor meltdown. The reminder of what the disease can do to you is very scary to think about.

I'm thankful that I won't go through 70 different doctors over the course of 20 years. But in the last 6 I have gone through at least 12 that I can think of off the top of my head which is still way too many. Each one doing the same thing as what was done to this poor woman. It made me boil with frustration and anger that I have with all these doctors for dismissing the problem like it's no big deal.

Anyways, this wasn't supposed to turn into a rant and I failed miserably at that.

I put up an ad on craigslist looking for a roommate. I got a response from one girl but she was looking for a place for 2 months. I had to turn her down, there is no point. Ideally I will find someone who will stay until I'm married.