Food for Thought

Why is that it that I can go to a store with the intention of getting three specific things and never remember what that third thing was .... but I can go to Algonquin College for the first time since graduation - 11 years ago - and still remember what my student number was??? Just a thought that I had today whilst I walked around the grocery store trying to remember all that I wanted to get.

I am now not only a Carleton student, I actually have a class. After a few phone calls, lots of registration advice from my sister who is a CU student, and applying for some admission overrides to classes of interest, I am now set to take first year English. It was a closed class with no option to apply for an admission override but, thanks to my sister telling me to check courses all the time because people are still playing around with the add/drops on their schedules, something might open up. It was still closed at 10pm but had an opening at midnight so I jumped an it and VOILA! I am *web-registered* and will begin classes in a week and a half. I am anxious to get my syllabi and see what the reading materials are. They are working on their department site so it will hopefully be there by Friday.

Truth be told, I am second guessing myself now. I was excited waiting to register and felt a bit of a lump afterwards. Even though I am going on a part time level, it is still a huge step for me. Especially since the BA isnt my final goal. I was never much of a student to begin with so this could potentially be very interesting. I still maintain my worse case scenario ... I tried and realized it wasnt for me. Whether I stop after a couple of courses or go the distance, education is never, ever a waste of time.

Thanks to everyone for your supportive blog comments. I may be looking for more after a scream or two for help down road. :o)

A quick throw in about todays events ... I went to the drs today regarding my allergies. They are through-the-roof crazy and nothing like they have ever been in the past 3 years since getting them. Over the counter meds haven't really been working so I went to see if there was something stronger and if I could get an Allergist referral. They told me to switch up my meds and mix a few things together so, while she spoke, I thought to myself I would just go to the pharmacy right there. Small building. Once you enter the door, the drs office is to the right and the pharmacy is to the left. As I was leaving, I made a last minute decision to just grab all tha I needed at Independent Grocer and do a one stop shop. I paused to grab my keys just before leaving the main doors, which then had me step aside for a young man in black who was leaving in a quick hurry. I walked out directly behind him only to see pharmacy staff walk quickly into the parking lot moments after me. The person I stepped aside for has just robbed them. Had I not changed my mind, I would have walked into IDA as they were being robbed. I shudder at the thought. In all likelyhood, nothing would have happened but you cant stop those scenarios of people walking in at robberies and being shot from coming into your head. I couldnt help but feel lucky and wonder if some angels were in action because of how abrubptly my mind changed. When I think of all of those news-worthy robbery scenarios, I cant help but feel lucky. Hopefully, I never have a potential moment like that again!

Enjoy the day.

m.

1***1**1*

Do you know what ONES those are??

Those are the three recurring characters in my new

**student number **

I did it!!! In September, just like the rest of the locals, I will be going back to school too. I am officially a university student. After a couple years of off and on debating -and repeatedly being told by 2 teachers & my principal that I am a waste of an Educational Assistant and should go back to school - I went to the Registrar's Office and made it happen. I finally just figured "why not?" The way I see it is that the worse thing that is going to happen is I am going to realize that this university thing is not for me but at least I will have the satisfaction of knowing I tried and still have a job I love. For now, I am proud to say that I am a Special Student with an undeclared major who really doesnt have much to choose from as far as course selection. See what happens when you finalize your decision two weeks after registration begins? I have spend the better part of the past few hours setting up my student account and e-mail as well as perusing the different courses. Unfortunately, thanks to my boondock habitation, webTV isnt an option so it leaves less to chose from. No Rogers for me. (unless someone wants to tape it for me each week? Beuller? Anyone?? teehehe) Discussion courses have 0.00 credits - - why do people take them? (would love some enlightenment there) English is full. French is full. Sociology is full. Outside of discussion courses, that leaves Intro to Psychology. Hmm .. not sure about that one. (Any comments/suggestions/advice from an experienced Psych taker?) Two courses that I would love to take are Intro to Antrhopology and Intro to Human Rights but again .... 55 minute discussion groups with zero credits. So, looks like Psychology it is. My sister told me that you can apply and ask for classes to have exceptions made and more space opened up. I am going to do that for a few courses and hope for the best.

So ... I am going to *fly* out of here and hit the hay after one more quick jaunt through the Carleton website. Hopefully I can find an opening in something that appeals to me a tad more than Psych. Either way ... at least I am going for it.

Nighty-night blog world. Sweetest dreams.

ETA: I just perused the Philosphy dept to see what was available and found something I would be interested in (Contemporary Moral, Social and Religious Issues) but it is one of those 55 minute, 0.00 credit courses. I am thinking this means that there is more course to come and that a credit will be awarded only after the final semester?) I will most definitely have to make a phone call in the morning...

Interlocking? What Interlocking?

Guess who doesn't have a beautiful new interlocking walkway and step. Me??? How did you guess?? *rolling eyes* Looks like it is next weekend that this will be getting done. If it not done before the one year anniversay (September 20th) I will be having some sort of gathering when it is done with will be complete with a ribbon cutting ceremony. Yeash!

Allergy season is upon me/us and oy, no fun. This is my 3rd or 4th year with them and I tell ya - those people who suffer from spring to fall ... I can't even imagine. I am a week into my symptoms and I am already ready to cut off my nose and claw my eyeballs out. I have kleenex in every corner of the house and am going though it like crazy. I am also trying to figure out the allery pill formula. Right now I am taking the Shoppers Drug Mart brand (one a day kind) and they work when I first take them. By the end of the 24 hours, its awful. I am thinking about going to the AM/PM kind where I take them twice a day instead of just the once. Maybe there is a brand that works really, really well. Time for me to start experimenting. Any suggestions??

I had a great weekend. It was full of friends - old and new. On Friday, unfortunately, I woke up plagued with an awful headache so I had to cancel on my Autie Ems friends. Thankfully, that is something that can be easily rescheduled. On Saturday (after buying my new matress set - yay!) I headed over to Sandy's where she, Marlene and Tracy had a good headstart on enjoying the sun and the pool. Drinks on hand (ok - my daquaries were virgins), I joined the ladies for a swim, supper and then the hot tub. Karen arrived shortly after I did and Tanya arrived later that night. It was definitely a great evening.

On Sunday, I headed off to the Americas again. (yes, again!) and met up with a couple of Bad Girls. Jen (Sigmagirl) and Bonnie (Bonnie B) are two of the sweetest ladies. So warm and welcoming, we chatted for a little over 2 hours before leaving Ponderosa. They also had a friend with them and she too was very nice. The conversation flowed, ranging from scrapbooking to education. It made the 2.5 hour trek home worth while (it only took me 45 minutes to get there. Gotta love this new Border set up. Curse the issues between the Natives and Customs.

Off to continue another busy week. There were just too many movies to chose from last week and some pretty good ones released this week that we are headed to another movie marathon tomorrow. Time Traveller's Wife, Julie & Julie and The Perfect Getaway are the ones we are seeing with the potential for a 4th one. My family is in from Hamilton for the week so I will be spending lots of time with them too.

Enjoy your day, bloggers. Weather Network says it is going to go up to 39 degrees today. An awful day to be without air conditioning in my car. Oh goodie! ;o)

Richard Simmons on Whose Line Is It Anyway?

On occassion, when I can't sleep, I will peruse blogs that I haven't been to in a long time. I did this last night/this morning and found this. I used to watch the BBC version of Who's like is it Anyways but faded out when Drew Carey became the host of an Americanized version of the show. Looks like I missed a good one. Enjoy.

Richard Simmons on Whose Line Is It Anyway - watch more funny videos

Busted in the First Degree

So ... my Hubs comes home from work yesterday (Wednesday), greets me, then looks at me from across the kitchen. *uh oh* He looks like he has something to say and doesn't know how to say it. *UH oh* Then he opens with "so I have something to tell you and I don't know if I should be telling you this but I feel guilty about it and need to tell you ... but I am not sure if I am doing the right thing by actually telling you." **UH OH** He confesses .... "I was bored last night and thought I would read your blog and see what you were up to. I know about the quilt." ---> insert look of total devastation here <--- He says he felt horrible that he read it but felt even worse for keeping it from me. He knows he probably should have not told me and left me in the dark ---> continue with look of devastation and add big tears of disappointment here <--- but he just couldn't not tell me but it was eating at him all day. Then it made it all worth while. To see the quiet excitement and complete appreciation that I would do this was enough. I mean, of course I would have rather surprised him for our anniversary but to see how sweet his face was as he consoled me (remember those tears? I felt like such a dolt. I mean ... he read it on my blog. He reads my blog? WHO KNEW???????) He continued to tell me how much it touched him that I would remember the times when he talked about spending time at his grandfather's when he was a child and waking up in the cold farmhouse on a winter morning underneath one of his grandma's quilts ... and to actually make him a quilt (as opposed to buy) so he would have one. It was like he was humbled by what I was doing. It was a sweet and perfect moment given the situation. If you know my rough and tough man, to see him humbled doesn't happen often ... or to anyone. It was a very endearing moment where I looked back at the 10 years of marriage we are getting ready to celebrate and thought "my god, I love this man" (i think that often but moments like this just make it so much better) Of course, he fully expects it to be done by the 27th but at least now I don't have to sneak around and sew in the wee hours of the night. I simply have to tell him not to come in the room.

On that note, I had a great day with Renee today. Thanks to unemployment woes, I got to her house about 30 minutes later than I had wanted to but all was not lost. She took me to a sewing store to buy a guided presser-foot for my maching. Anything to make this quilting process as easy as possible. After we enjoyed lunch at Scores, we headed back to her place where the crafting began. She finished off a sweet ATC album (that I totally want to lift, btw) and I started to put together my squares - - - no thanks to Renee. I brought everything with me. Got it all set up. Went to sew and ... ack ... left my power cord at home. That doesnt make for good sewing, now does it? Renee brought her machine up and I was able to begin my process. Thank you, Renee. I appreciate your saving me. :o) After some crafting, we headed off to Jack Astors to meet Meg for supper. We had girl talk and laughs and a good time. Can't wait to do it again ladies and Meg - an all day crop sounds GREAT!

As for right now, I have been awake for almost an hour (it's 3:42 on Friday morning) after having one of those horrible dreams that wakes you up breathing heavy and in a sweat. I was bothered by it to say the least. As soon as I finish updated, I will curl up with my House of Night book (Untamed, book 4) and hopefully be able to grab a few more hours before I have to get up and head off to Cornwall where I am meeting up with the Auntie Ems ladies - Laura and Emma - for the day. The day may be tiring but at least the company will be good.

OH OH OH .. and I almost forgot. After one year of having a hole in my front yard where the interlock walkway will be going ... ITS BEING DONE ON SATURDAY. I am so excited. The gravel trench is not exactly up to par with the esthetics of home ownership and, if the wonderful hubs mentioned above would have just listened to me, it wouldnt have been there since Sept. 20th, 2008 in the first place. Not sure about the story ... puh-leeze don't get me started! ;o) Just know that it is almost coming to an end and that the ribbon cutting ceremony will be shortly after. So, that's what is up for the weekend. While I am basking by the pool and hot tubbing with friends, he will be sweating his keaster off. Love you, baby! teehee.

Enjoy your weekend, blog world. It's supposed to be a nice one.

m.

Let's Go To The Movies

.... let's go see the staaa-AAA-aaars. (do you know to which song I am referring to?)
I love going to the movies, once a month, with my (work) girls. I love it even more in the summer when we get to go to movie marathons. Tomorrow we will spend 12 glorious hours, at Silvercity Gloucester, watching 4 movies. Ideally, it would have been 5 movies but sometimes their showtimes do not let it work in our favour. Nor do their release dates but really, I am not complaining. Why not? Because we are doing another movie marathing next week too! This week we will see GI Joe, 500 Days of Summer, Funny People and The Ugly Truth. Next week we will see The Orphan, Julie & Julia and The Time Traveller's Wife .... which is an excellent book, by the way. Summer is coming to an end and, even though I would much rather have NOT been able to do this, I am happy that I at least have things to look forward to since things didnt turn out the way they were supposed to. I am getting together with Renee on Thursday, Cornwall on Friday, a pool and spa party of Saturday and now it looks like I am going to meet up with a couple of Bad Girls on Sunday for Breakfast. Turns out they are in Massena for a crop so why not make the trip over to say "hi" in real life.
Ya know, I am feeling better and more like myself. After all these struggles and even though I still have an increased urge to sit and cry for all that I have lost, it does feel good to be me again. In order to 'celebrate' that I think I am going to challenge you to guess the song above. "Let's go to the movies. Let's go see the staaa-AAA-aaars" If you can correctly guess which movie that is from, I will send you a lil some-some in the mail. I will give all 7 of my blog readers until the end of the week to guess. If more than one person guesses, I will randomly draw a name. Good luck to those who wish to take that chance.
Enjoy this crazy heat and whatever your week brings. m.

Finally Inspired

I spent the day hanging out with Laura at Auntie Ems yesterday. It was great to have some girl time with her and not having to worry about time constraints. Usually, when I see the ladies, I am just passing through and not there simply with the purpose of visiting. Unfortunately, Emma was away so I missed her. Next Friday though. I am going back for another date with the gals.

I started my quilt yesterday and managed to get alot of the cutting done. I laid out a few squares and second guessed myself but Laura assured me that, once it was together, it would come together and I would be happy. As I prepared to start, I became very overwhelmed with the project I was undertaking. Thankfully Laura, who has a bit of experience in quilting, got me started and helped me feel more at ease with what I was doing. My goal is to start sewing while Kevin is in bed. Hopefully I will have a bunch of it done before Friday when I will work on larger pieces while I am at the store. I have until the 27th to get this done ... wish me luck!

On a creative note, I am actually feeling inspired. Not necessarily towards scrapbooking but just projects in general. Because of the events of this summer, I have lost an entire months worth of summer projects and now I am hoping to catch up. I have sketched out ideas and taken measurements for the living furniture I want to make. Hopefully I can get that accomplished tomorrow when the Hubs goes to his workshop. I even you-tubed some wood finishing ideas so, hopefully, the finished project looks like what I am seeing in my head. I am very excited to do this and get things done in the house. As soon as I finish my blog update, I am going to tackle the spare room and start emptying it out. I need to get it patched, painted and new floors in. Once again, thanks to you-tube, I found a great distressed door project. Only, I am not going to use it as a door. I am going to unhinge it, flip it around and hang it on the wall as a headboard. Another projecgt I cant to more forward than this. I have to say, it feels great feeling more like my old self again. I am not a hundred percent there but I am closer than I have been in many, many weeks.

Until I blog again, I continue my journey to healing, creating and being inspired. I have a date with Renee coming up as well as a movie marathon set with my work girls on Tuesday (4 movies in one day. 12 hours of theatre fun). Friday finds me in Cornwall again with a Saturday girl get-together, spending time with some truly fabulous women. Lots to look forward to ...

Enjoy your weekend, bloggers.

taking a *SLICE* out of life

Hopefully this new little treat will give me some motivation and inspiration to create, create, create. I had always been intrigued by this little gadget but wasnt willing to pay the money ... until today. And the only reason I was willing to pay the money was because I got a fabulous deal. Last Friday, en route to the States, Tanya and I made an impromtu stop at a store called Scrap City, which is located on the Akwesasne Reservation, just off the Cornwall bridge to the USA. I was looking for Glimmer Mist and had no luck. After a quick look around, the lady told us that, starting today, they would be having a Customer Appreciation sale in order to try and get back some of the business they lost when the bridge was closed. 30% off all merchandise. No need to twist my arm so .. I went back today and, for $189.00 (they don't charge tax on the reservation), I got everything you see below plus 5 pieces of Cosmo Cricket.

They didnt have the cartridge that I really wanted but I think I may slip back tomorrow (I am going to hang out with Laura at Auntie Ems so I am just a hop, skip and a jump away) and grab another cartridge. While I won't be making it a habit to stop there and shop (its over the bridge and past the toll booth. Plus with the altered customs situation, returning to Canada isn't fun), I think I may need to take advange of the 30% off and no tax and grab one more. Of the choices I had, it was the one that was up there with the Fa La La.

Yes, I am going to go and get it and, maybe tomorrow, I will make something with my Slice. I have been wanting to do this project for a long time but never found the right punches for it. Now I dont need to - yay. (think butterflies and Ali Edwards. It's not an original, but it is so pretty) Hmmm. I feel inspired!

Enjoy your day.

m.

Hello

It has been so long since I have updated. Not even sure why I am doing so now but hey, why not? Many months have passed and there has been no creativity in any way, shape or form. Lost my mojo as I tried to work through some trying times and come to terms with the realities of life. Had some fabulously exciting news a few months ago only to be left disappointed and heartbroken, yet again. At least some hope has been restored although not fully. I have started visiting blogs again, although not nearly as frequently as I used to. Comments here and there but nothing consistent. I will try to fix that. To those of you whom I have neglected as I fell off the face of the earth, I am truly sorry. Thank you for letting me know that you understood and that you were there if and when I needed you. It was the silent support that I needed and, if I didnt have such a supportive husband and family, I would have been banging down your doorsteps. Please, never under estimate my appreciation.

August finds me trying to get back into the the things I had to give up and also gave up without realizing - crafting, creating, sewing, painting, photo taking and celebrating each day as I live it. Most of all, I am looking forward to receiving the go ahead to work out again. Oh how I miss it. August also finds me very busy with my 10th wedding anniversary, my step fathers 60th bday, a wedding and a gathering of friends to attend. Not to mention a ton of painting and house reno`s that I wanted to do earlier but couldn`t.

So, here is to a new month, a fresh start and the hope to have a creative and productive month. Here is to more blog updates so my few readers actually have something to read and the hope of the future that I dream of.