Now that that’s been said…

It was a pretty ho hum weekend.

On Saturday, Blake and I planted and hung our cucumbers. The system is really weird, you don’t water the dirt directly, there’s a reservoir at the top with these moisture-sucking strips that go down and rest on the dirt and over time the moisture-sucking strips water the dirt. And then on the side of each bag, there’s a slot for a moisture stick which tells you if the dirt is wet enough. Despite the fact that the dirt is wet enough on all the bags, two of the three aren’t doing so well, as you can see:

I think it has less to do with the moisture of the dirt and more to do with the fact that when I was pulling the vines through the hole at the bottom, blindly, I snapped them. I don’t know if the plant will compensate for that or not but next year we’re planting these things a LOT earlier than we did this year so the plants are still small and easier to stick through the hole. I wanted so long this time partially because I’m lazy and kept forgetting but also because I wanted the roots to be nice and thick so they wouldn’t fall apart when I tried to put the plants through the hole. I don’t think that’s a good strategy though so next year we’ll do it differently.

Also this weekend, I did my fingernails TWICE. On Friday I actually got up like, 3 hours before my alarm so I started work 2 hours early which meant I got done at 4pm instead of 6pm.  As soon as work was finished, I put in Burlesque (shut up) and started working on my nails. I spent HOURS on them. Then I decided to get drunk and play cards with Blake and when I was trying to pick cards up, my nail polish kinda shifted. It didn’t chip because it was still a little mushy, it just kinda slid. That made me very upset because I’d spent so much time on them so Blake helped me remove all the polish and I tried again on Saturday, however by Sunday evening, the polish had chipped already so I decided “fuck this” and I’m just not messing around with fingernail polish anymore or ever again. We just don’t get along, never have, never will. I’ll still do my toes, I don’t seem to have a problem there, but never my fingers again unless there’s MAYBE some special occasion or something.

Sunday was D&D day. Ronny, Alex & Raymond came over and we played while dining on veggies & dip as our snack and pizza for our dinner. It took us like, 4 hours or something to finish one encounter because we’re all n00bs and we still have no idea what we’re doing. Blake’s doing well being our DM, it’s the rest of us who suck because we don’t know our spells and abilities or when to do what etc. We’re still having a good time with it though and believe it or not we ARE getting faster and better the more we play so continue we shall. I also healed for the first time last night, which was interesting. Sucked that I could only do it twice because I’m only level 1, but still, it was something I never had to do before. Right now we all have 435 XP so I figure within maybe 3 more sessions we should be level 2.

After D&D, Raymond went home because he hadn’t slept in over 24 hours, Ronny and Alex played video games with Wes, I removed nail polish and I don’t know what Blake and Madison did (Blake helped me get the polish off my right hand at one point), then we watched the season finale of Game of Thrones. I’ll avoid talking about that in case people haven’t seen it yet but I’d avoid the comments on Live Journal if you haven’t seen it yet because I have a feeling it’ll be discussed. I really want to read the books now, which I think about a million people are also thinking.

My Lush order should be here any day now. They ship UPS so the mail strike we currently have shouldn’t affect the delivery but it WILL affect the delivery of the nail stamps I bought and that Eryn wants me to use on her next weekend for graduation the week after. This is what I ordered from Lush. 10 of them because they’re limited edition. I think I’m doing better with money considering that’s all I bought and I also put almost my whole paycheque on my Visa a few days ago. If I do that one more time, the Visa should be almost paid off just in time for my vacation. Ha!

I’m still having a really hard time with this holiday business. I mean, the fact that it’s costing us a LOT of money, half my paycheque, for me to have this holiday time really bothers me. I don’t have ill will toward my bosses or anything, it’s just that in my family you don’t take holidays. If you can make money, you do it. You don’t do things to lose money. I don’t think my mother, my grandmother or my grandfather have ever had a vacation in their lives because it would have been unpaid time off, which is what I’m doing the first week of July. I’m trying not to think about it but yesterday Alex asked me if I was looking forward to my holidays and I just started crying because no, no I’m not. I’m afraid that while I’m on holiday all I’ll be able to think about is money. But, it’s either take this vacation time or burn out and I can’t afford to burn out so holidays it is.

I plan on doing a lot of painting on my holidays. Painting and the beach. (Send vibes of a heat wave up here, please!) And I have to see my shrink to discuss the fact that I’m basically not okay right now, not at all. Possibly adjust my meds. Ask about “weight loss agents”, which were briefly discussed at metabolic clinic. I also plan to use the treadmill a lot when I’m on holidays and read. I give up on my shoes, they just keep giving me a really painful blister on my heel, so I’m going to use it in bare feet. Some studies say that’s better for you and some studies say it’s bad for you, so I’ve decided I don’t care and that’s just how I’m going to do it. I would lose weight if I could eat eggs for breakfast every day but I just don’t have the time to cook them with this job, let alone eat them, and even when I make diet kwish (diet cheese, broccoli and or onions, ham – you need the cheese or the egg dries out) and don’t have lunch I still don’t lose weight. They have to be 3 eggs over easy with 2 pieces of toast for it to work its magic and I just don’t have time for that. And you may think that’s ridiculous that it has to be that precise, but that’s what worked and variations do not work for whatever reason so it is what it is.

Admittedly my diet has been a little stupid for the last few weeks because I’m on the “Fuck It Diet”, which was invented by Margaret Cho. I see it. I eat it. Fuck it. But even when I was doing metabolic clinic and my diet was perfect and I was keeping a food journal and everything, I only lost 2-5 lbs that I gained the next week, that I’d lose the week after etc etc etc. In other words, I didn’t lose anything. I did the treadmill daily, 30-40 minutes, for 3 weeks and didn’t lose one single pound.  Didn’t gain any either. I was rollerskating, albeit not as long, but still, nothing. I do yoga once a week. I’m not inactive. Something just isn’t right with my body so I’m going to ask my shrink for “weight loss agents”, which I don’t even know what they are but I’m assuming maybe thyroid medication or something. I think my thyroid’s fine though, so I dunno. All I know is that my metabolism is still fucked from the risperidone and I want answers.

This week Charlie suggested I buy a bikini for my holidays and I just cried. 3 years ago I was wearing bikinis. Now I’m Shamu. I’m 45 lbs heavier than I should be and that’s a problem.

Anyway, enough of that, it upsets me.

My yellow begonia is basically dead and I don’t know why. The plant itself is alive and seemingly healthy but it doesn’t have any flowers. The orange one had about half the flowers it did when I bought it and again, I don’t know why. The yellow one was in partial shade, which the little stick they came with said is fine, while the orange one was in full sun so now I’ve hung the yellow one in full sun and put the orange one in the railing beneath it rather than hanging either of them on the hook on the other side of the house. You can’t really see what’s hung there anyway so whatever, I just wish I knew what was wrong with them. I’ve been dead-heading the dead flowers like you’re supposed to so I dunno.

My ears have taken to the earrings fully and completely and the holes aren’t weeping at all anymore. So yay! I’m even contemplating getting them pierced again. And then maybe again. And again. Do you think it would be better to do that one at a time or should I get all the holes I want pierced at once. I figure one at a time is probably better because if it gets infected I can treat it and it’ll probably be fine but if I do them all at once, if one gets infected, the rest probably will too and that would be a hard infection to get rid of. So one at a time is probably best, right? I don’t even know where you get ears pierced anymore. When I had mine done originally when I was like, 6, it was done at a jewelry store. In fact, the first one hurt so bad that I wouldn’t let them do the second one until some time later when the kids at school made fun of me for only having one earring. And then they both got infected too often so I took them out and left them out. That’s why I was so surprised the holes hadn’t grown over and I could get these new earrings in smooth as silk, I didn’t have to push through grown over skin or anything, they just slid right in .

I’m babbling, this is probably a really boring post. To be perfectly honest, I just have a lot in my head right now and it needs to come OUT.

We didn’t go up North for Father’s Day this year because we weren’t invited, which I found…interesting. I was glad because I didn’t want to go up there but at the same time, I can’t help but wonder why we weren’t invited in the first place. I don’t think I’ve done anything to offend anyone or anything like that so I dunno. Last year my mom got pissed at me for going up there so I’m kinda glad I didn’t have to deal with her in regards to this this year. Why did she get  pissed off? I dunno, she gets pissed off at me for no reason all the time, especially when it comes to Mother’s and Father’s Days. No matter what I do, she’s gonna get pissed off at me both of those days so I’ve stopped wondering why. My absentee prick of a brother can get away with sending an e-mail and be the next coming of Christ but I’m expected (I think) to jump through hoops for love and approval. I don’t get it and I no longer care. Both of my parents from now on are just gonna have to be happy with me writing on their Facebook walls because Mother’s and Father’s Days are now about Blake and I and no one else. I’m not going to sit there feeling like shit on a day that’s supposed to be about ME because I’m the mother. Phil doesn’t even call his father on Father’s Day so it’s unfair and hypocritical to expect me to call him, especially when I’m mentally ill and only use the phone to talk to Blake or for emergencies. And I’m still annoyed with his little lecture about me not calling him “dad” but calling him Phil instead because that’s his name. He’s never been my dad so let’s not go down that road. Let’s not forget that half of his friends and acquaintances don’t even know I exist. And my mother…well if she wants to spend her Mother’s Day being pissed off and catering to her own mother’s whims and dealing with sister aggro, so be it, but leave me out of it. Nothing I do is good enough so I’m just not going to do anything anymore.

And that’s all I have to say about that except that they’re both probably reading this so it should be considered “notice”. If they’re not then I guess we’ll deal with it next year.

Strangely, my mother-in-law was the most gracious of our parents this year and for that I am thankful.

Madison is such a weird kid. Do you know what she’s reading right now? BELOVED by Toni Morrison. Or maybe she’s done now. Either way, I thought it was an odd choice for a 13-year-old and she totally chose it for herself and put it on her birthday wishlist, it’s not like it was suggested reading or anything.  She’s also been reading Stephen King, but I don’t find that weird at all. I started reading Stephen King (It) in grade 1 so I actually think she’s a little late on that one.

She’s kind of flush with books at the moment, but as soon as she’s not, I want her to read The Handmaid’s Tale (which I’m re-reading right now), Middlesex, Water For Elephants, The Virgin Suicides and so many other books that I have sitting on my shelf just waiting to be read. I want to blow her mind with literature. Maybe then she’ll realize that what I’m working on, Cammity Jane, is absolute crap. It bothers me how good she thinks that is because I know it’s not and that’s not me putting myself down, that’s just a fact. It’s fluff, it’s not literature by any stretch of the imagination. I think the primary audience for it is young adults, so it’s good that she likes it as much as she does because she’s my target I think, but I feel like it should be beneath her. She should be smarter than that.

Bleh.

Okay I think I’ve ranted and raved and wasted enough of your time. I think I’m out of things to discuss. Please go to my site and take a look at the two images I posted. Here’s the first one, here’s the second one. Thanks.

PS. I am 15 days smoke-free.

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

My friend Phaedie loses one of her friends at least once a week. That’s because she works for a high-capacity cat sanctuary in Richmond, British Columbia, run by the Richmond Animal Protection Society, and unfortunately feline leukemia and feline AIDS is a part of the job, especially when dealing with such close quarters.

To keep cats out of shelters, people need to spay and neuter their pets and that’s what RAPS is aiming to do with Pepsi Canada’s Refresh Project contest. Their aim, with the $25,000 to be won, is to help low-income families spay, neuter and vaccinate their pets in order to help curb the already problematic business of sick, unwanted pets.

So how can you help? It’s easy. Click here and vote. You can sign in using Facebook connect so it really does only take 2 clicks and you’d be making a world of difference for animals and their people. Plus you’d be making Phaedie and I incredibly happy.

We need to try and get them to #1 or #2 as only the top 2 spots receive funding. Currently they’re in 3rd place, so we need to make a solid push to get then into 2nd! I know people don’t have money to give to every charity that comes their way, but if you’d normally be clicking on Farmville crops anyway, please use your mouse-fingers for this as well and help make a difference in the world. Thanks.

The contest voting is until June 30th, it’s a daily vote and I’ll be posting every few days to remind you to vote in case you forget.

I took that pic while I waited for Blake and the kids to get dinner at Mr. Sub last night. I was sitting in the car, bored, with my phone.

Prior to Mr. Sub, we went to Wal*Mart where I got 2 new Hello Kitty t-shirts for Madison to steal, 4 new nail polish colours (Wet ‘n’ Wild, $1.57!), basecoat (I just got Revlon because it was the only one that said “basecoat” specifically), dirt for my hanging planters so I can get my cucumbers planted this weekend, hooks for the planters, uh, peanut butter and some other generic stuff.

While we were at the Wal*Mart garden centre, a little wild bunny hopped across and started nibbling on some plants right in front of us! It was so cute! I want one. :o(

So that was last night’s excitement. We are an exciting bunch.

I’m hoping today the clouds dissipate so we can go to the beach when Blake gets home from work. I hope, I hope, I hope.

It is I, Sunny Crittenden, textibitionist extraordinaire and I’m here to…probably bore you to tears.

Honestly, nothing’s really been happening. Life’s just kinda gone by without any real events or anything.

Raymond has decided to join us for D&D and since we’ve only had 2 encounters so far, we’re just going to pull a Buffy and pretend he’s Dawn and just have him appear and give him the XP that we all have.  And and and…

So we did that on Sunday, then we watched Game of Thrones. I haven’t read those books but I cannot conceive of how they’re going to resolve everything in one hour next Sunday. Is it a 2 hour finale?

I have cramps like fucking crazy and they will not go away no matter how many drugs I throw at them. I just ran out of Tylenol 3 a few days ago and can’t get any more for another 30 days because that’s how my doctor prescribes it.

This morning I had a shower. Shocking, I know. But when I got out of the shower, the nail polish on my fingers was peeling off! And now, since the nail polish was green, my fingernails are yellow! I look like I’ve been smoking 6 packs a day with all of my fingers or something and no amount of nail polish remover is getting it off. I’m told, via Twitter, that I should have used a basecoat but since I already spent *murmers* on nail polish this month, I don’t want to go out and buy any of that but I’m told topcoat will probably do the trick.

HOWEVER, I think tonight we should really go to Wal*Mart to buy dirt and hooks so I can get my cucumbers planted and I bet they sell basecoat there, just not OPI basecoat, unfortunately. Blake won’t like that I want to go to Wal*Mart but it’s something that needs to be done or my cucumber plants are going to die. They look as though they’re getting ready to flower as it is and right now they’re just in beer cups. We need the hooks to hang the planters because we’re growing them upside down. And we need to do it like, 2 weeks ago.

So I’ve been using Lush’s Big shampoo and Veganese conditioner and I’ve noticed that in using these two products, one of which is 50% sea salt, it makes my hair kinda curly. My VERY straight, won’t hold a curl to save its life, hair. Wavy. Little loose ringlets. Here, let me show you (please ignore my fat, ugly face):

Isn’t that weird? When I brush it out, it goes straight again, but with the slightest bit of humidity it curls right back up. I’m thinking it’s gotta be the sea salt in the Big shampoo doing this and I realize it’s a small thing on the surface but I’ve had stick straight hair my whole life, the idea of volume and BODY has been absolutely unheard of. Many times in my childhood I had perms, only to have them fall out a few weeks later, if that.

Anyway, it’s a bloody miracle.

Y’know what I love? Cakepops. Just throwin’ that out there.

Know what I don’t love? The fact that I haven’t sold a painting in like, over 8 months. That sucks. What sucks even more, which pertains to this, is that I have absolutely no desire to paint right now. I’m all out of inspiration. I am sick to death of fairies. And mermaids. And angels. And I’m tired of making pretty girls in pretty dresses JUST to make pretty girls in pretty dresses. I *should* be painting Asian girls as mermaids and fairies and angels and pretty girls in dresses now that I know how to draw them but I just don’t want to. I’m burnt out. I should also be making more ACEOs with girls of colour on them since all the ACEOs I have up in my Etsy shop are all white girls, but I just don’t have it in me right now.

All I seem to want to do any more is sleep and read books and work and that’s it. That’s all I’ve got.

But I feel like I should be squeezing every drop of productivity out of myself and it makes me very upset that I’m not doing that, that I’m not over-achieving. That I don’t have something “on the go”. I *ALWAYS* have something “on the go”, just not right now and that bothers me immensely. I feel like I’m in a rut and I don’t know how to get out of it.

I see my shrink during my vacation and I’m afraid her only advice is going to be to quit my job, which simply isn’t an option, but what else can she tell me? This is not a chemical thing, she can’t adjust my meds and make this better.

Usually I approach a painting thinking “this is going to be the best thing I’ve ever painted!” and generally I do tend to top myself most of the time, I think. But now I just don’t have the fire in my belly, I don’t have the ideas I usually have. I wonder if this *isn’t* because of my last increase in my meds and maybe she needs to up the Wellbutrin. I dunno. I’m just not happy with myself ion any way, shape or form lately and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t feel myself.

Blah. Whining. I’ll stop.

In other news, it’s been 11 days since my last cigarette and I have (almost) no desire to smoke ever again. A few days ago I kinda wanted to, but now I think I’m okay. I’m still going to be avoiding any and all smokers like the plague for the next few months but I think I’m okay doing my own thing right now. I’m lucky that none of my friends smoke. Really the only person I know who smokes anymore is my mom. They’re a dying breed, fortunately. (Well, depending on how you want to look at it…I don’t really want my mom to die but she’s killing herself of her own free will and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Emphysema, here she comes. At the VERY least. I told you I was in the preachy phase of quitting smoking!)

Right now I’m re-reading The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and I totally forgot how freaky her version of the future is in this book. I haven’t seen the movie, but I want to.

Anyway, I think I’m going to go find something else to do. I can’t think of anything else to write or bitch about and nothing much is really happening in my life these days (that I can write about anyway). Have your pets spayed and neutered and have a lovely day.

Speaking of spaying and neutering…

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

My friend Phaedie loses one of her friends at least once a week. That’s because she works for a high-capacity cat sanctuary in Richmond, British Columbia, run by the Richmond Animal Protection Society, and unfortunately feline leukemia and feline AIDS is a part of the job, especially when dealing with such close quarters.

To keep cats out of shelters, people need to spay and neuter their pets and that’s what RAPS is aiming to do with Pepsi Canada’s Refresh Project contest. Their aim, with the $25,000 to be won, is to help low-income families spay, neuter and vaccinate their pets in order to help curb the already problematic business of sick, unwanted pets.

So how can you help? It’s easy. Click here and vote. You can sign in using Facebook connect so it really does only take 2 clicks and you’d be making a world of difference for animals and their people. Plus you’d be making Phaedie and I incredibly happy.

We need to try and get them to #1 or #2 as only the top 2 spots receive funding. Currently they’re in 3rd place, so we need to make a solid push to get then into 2nd! I know people don’t have money to give to every charity that comes their way, but if you’d normally be clicking on Farmville crops anyway, please use your mouse-fingers for this as well and help make a difference in the world. Thanks.

The contest voting is until June 30th, it’s a daily vote and I’ll be posting every few days to remind you to vote in case you forget.

I almost killed myself trying to take that picture. I was balancing my fat ass on the railing of the porch.

Anyway, I love hand-knit (crocheted?) socks and these ones are super soft and I love them.

Did you know that nail polish only lasts a few days before it chips? I didn’t know that and I was dismayed to find that mine chipped today, only 4 days after I applied it. And I think that sucks. My toenails never chip and I only redo them when my nails have grown long enough that the nail polish is kind of growing out and looks bad.

Anyway, totally a first world problem but a pisser nonetheless.

On the weekend we went to the drive-in. And I took pictures which you can see here (I’m x-posting this post to Camwhores where I can’t post pics of kids, hence the linkage). We saw Kung Fu Panda 2 which was alright, Wes loved it and Super 8 which I thoroughly enjoyed. Blake didn’t believe me that it was a kid’s movie before we saw it but it is and it is very much a cross between The Goonies, E.T. and Cloverfield. I liked it a lot.

Then on Sunday morning (well more like noon-ish), Blake and I went out for breakfast to this diner at the beach that we both really like that’s all done up like the 50′s & 60′s and it is aptly named “50′s & 60′s Diner”. See, a few years ago there was a franchise of these diners and they were all called “Galaxy Diner” but the franchise went under. Despite the franchise going under a lot of the restaurant owners stayed open, renaming their diners and this is one of those. There’s another one in Barrie called “Flashback Diner” that we go to often too because the one at the beach has funny hours (although they’re on summer hours now so they’re open until 8pm every night now).

I’m on Day 8 of no smoking with almost zero desire to start up again. I kinda wanted “just one” on the weekend but with very little convincing by Blake, I decided against it. I’m kinda in that sanctimonious phase of being a non-smoker but I think for right now that’s a good thing.

I’m also on day 4 of wearing earrings and so far so good. They’ve been a liiiiittle weepy in the mornings but after I put alcohol on them, they’re okay and I have no doubt that in a couple of weeks they’ll be fine. I’m even considering getting them pierced again. Like, 2 new holes. I did it myself when I was in grade 9 with a darning need, some ice and a potato but I never left the earrings in long enough for the holes to stay open because they got infected so they just healed over. This time I’d get it professionally done but I’m not sure where.

Tonight is yoga. That’s all I have to say about that. Well not really. I’m sick of yoga. I hate going. But that’s only half true because this is what happens every Monday, I dread going and then when it’s over I’m glad that I went. So right now I’m all “ugh” but later I’ll be all “ahhhh”. (Or more to the point, “Ommmmm”?)

And that’s all the poop that’s fit to scoop. Nothing really new to report in Sunnyland. My yellow begonia is pretty much dead because it hasn’t been watered because it’s under a shady tree and isn’t getting the rain water the orange one got, but I just soaked it and I think it can come back. I just have to remember to water the damn thing.

So yeah, Happy Monday and all that shit. Back to work I go.

PS. We got our photos developed for A Million Little Pictures and they are all crap. We’re still sending them in but don’t expect anything fabulous outta that one. We won’t be signing up for that one next year because the cameras they send you are way too crappy.  A Million Little Crappy Snapshots is more like it.

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

My friend Phaedie loses one of her friends at least once a week. That’s because she works for a high-capacity cat sanctuary in Richmond, British Columbia, run by the Richmond Animal Protection Society, and unfortunately feline leukemia and feline AIDS is a part of the job, especially when dealing with such close quarters.

To keep cats out of shelters, people need to spay and neuter their pets and that’s what RAPS is aiming to do with Pepsi Canada’s Refresh Project contest. Their aim, with the $25,000 to be won, is to help low-income families spay, neuter and vaccinate their pets in order to help curb the already problematic business of sick, unwanted pets.

So how can you help? It’s easy. Click here and vote. You can sign in using Facebook connect so it really does only take 2 clicks and you’d be making a world of difference for animals and their people. Plus you’d be making Phaedie and I incredibly happy.

We need to try and get them to #1 or #2 as only the top 2 spots receive funding. Currently they’re in 3rd place, so we need to make a solid push to get then into 2nd! I know people don’t have money to give to every charity that comes their way, but if you’d normally be clicking on Farmville crops anyway, please use your mouse-fingers for this as well and help make a difference in the world. Thanks.

The contest voting is until June 30th, it’s a daily vote and I’ll be posting every few days to remind you to vote in case you forget.

This weekend was great. I finished The Witching Hour by Anne Rice and now I’m working on the new Sookie Stackhouse book. After reading so much literature the past few months, the difference between that and Charlaine Harris is glaring. The woman is NOT a good writer, in fact I’m finding her characters and storylines more annoying as she goes along than anything else. “Book Sookie” is annoying as shit and I’d probably punch her in the face if I met her in person. I feel like I’ve said that before.

Anyway, I’m still looking forward to True Blood returning to HBO at the end of June whether the books suck or not. You can’t even really compare the books to the show at this point, they’re just so different.

For the record, I started writing this post at around 11am. It’s now 3:20pm and I’m finally getting back to it. That’s how busy work has been.

On Saturday night we went to the drive-in and saw Bridesmaids again, as well as The Hangover Part 2 which was absolutely stupid. Bridesmaids was as awesome as the first time we saw it, but The Hangover 2 was just unfunny as fuck which is not surprising since I hated the first one. So why did we watch it? Boredom and the fact that the drive-in played the two movies together.

I took a picture of Blake before the movies started, here it is:

He is texting.

Yesterday was day 1 of no smoking because I broke down Friday night due to stress and bought some. Oddly, Monday was pretty mellow. I just did my work and the day went by without really any cravings at all. I’d say today is about the same but maybe there’s a liiiittle but of crave.

For dinner, I was dying for poutine so we went to the chip truck down the road called “The Saucy Pig” where I got a burger and a large poutine, which I didn’t finish because it wasn’t very good and I never do:

The poutine wasn’t very good because the gravy kinda sucked and the fries were overdone. I was disappoint, particularly since I paid $9.50 for it.

Today I went out in the garden so I could show you my ugly irises. I wish someone reading this lived close enough and wanted the damn things because I think they’re ugly as sin and I hate them but I can’t bring myself to dig them up and just let them die.

See? Ugly.

Daisies.

Funny story about these little blue things.

I had a lot of these plants as of 2 or 3 weeks ago, whenever the End of the World was supposed to be. Since we would be planting seeds in the front garden that weekend, I wanted the kids to weed the garden and for Blake to weedwhack it. Madison said that these blue things, that didn’t even have buds on them, were flowers, and I just assumed she was saying that because there were a lot of them and she didn’t want to weed them, so I said okay, don’t weed them, even though I thought they were weeds. Then Blake didn’t want to weedwhack for some reason and asked if he could mow what was coming up, which I said yes to and he mowed down all of the weeds except for about 10 of these blue flowers that had not even buds on them. And lo & behold, the damn things are flowers. Oops! I guess we know for next year.

My window boxes are doing well!

The window boxes need watering but the sun was right over top of them and I didn’t want to scorch them by watering them with the sun glaring down on them. I figure I’ll wait until sunset and while I do that, I’ll get Madison to water the veggie garden, which we planted last weekend.

Last night my friend Manda posted this video on Facebook about how to give yourself a houndstooth maniucure:

Both Madison and I were enthralled, to the point where I couldn’t sleep last night because I couldn’t stop thinking about it so I got up and ordered the stamping kit and 3 templates: houndstooth, plaid, leopard and a diamond pattern.

I never paint my fingernails because I can’t stand the feeling of them painted, they feel heavy and weird and unnatural, but my toenails are almost always painted and the templates see big enough for big toes. Madison paints her fingernails and was getting upset yesterday that her “nail art” wasn’t going so well, which was the real impetus for me buying this stuff. I’ll keep them when they come and I’ll be in charge of them (so they don’t get lost or ruined in her room) but she’ll be allowed to use them whenever she wants. I’ll even help her if I’m not busy.

I had so much more to write about this morning when I started typing this post. :o/ I guess I’ll just stop this here then. Happy Tuesday?

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

My friend Phaedie loses one of her friends at least once a week. That’s because she works for a high-capacity cat sanctuary in Richmond, British Columbia, run by the Richmond Animal Protection Society, and unfortunately feline leukemia and feline AIDS is a part of the job, especially when dealing with such close quarters.

To keep cats out of shelters, people need to spay and neuter their pets and that’s what RAPS is aiming to do with Pepsi Canada’s Refresh Project contest. Their aim, with the $25,000 to be won, is to help low-income families spay, neuter and vaccinate their pets in order to help curb the already problematic business of sick, unwanted pets.

So how can you help? It’s easy. Click here and vote. You can sign in using Facebook connect so it really does only take 2 clicks and you’d be making a world of difference for animals and their people. Plus you’d be making Phaedie and I incredibly happy.

We need to try and get them to #1 or #2 as only the top 2 spots receive funding. Currently they’re in 3rd place, so we need to make a solid push to get then into 2nd! I know people don’t have money to give to every charity that comes their way, but if you’d normally be clicking on Farmville crops anyway, please use your mouse-fingers for this as well and help make a difference in the world. Thanks.

The contest voting is until June 30th, it’s a daily vote and I’ll be posting every few days to remind you to vote in case you forget.

On Friday we also ran a million errands in Barrie and went out for lunch, which was tiring but fun.

Then on Saturday I read and read and read since I couldn’t paint with the brace on and I finished Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Night by Elie Weisel and I started The Witching Hour by Anne Rice, which I’ve read before, a long time ago, but I’ve forgotten most of it so I plan on reading the whole series. While we were running errands Blake also bought me the new Sookie Stackhouse book so that’s on my list of things to read too.

Saturday night we had a Keep Off the Lawn/End of the World party with Ronny & Alex where a good, drunken time was had by all. I was dead tired though and the alcohol only amplified my sleepiness so I wussed out and went to bed at like, 12:30am while they all stayed up and partied until 5am. Then in the morning when Blake woke up, he made us all a big, greasy breakfast, Ronny & Alex bought us all slushes and Ronny, Alex, Wes and Madison and I planted the seeds for the front garden. I forgot to take pics of that happening but that’s probably for the best because aside from Wes & I, everyone was pretty toe up.

A couple of days prior to the party, Madison helped me plant my sunflowers and morning glories. The morning glories I got are called Grandpa Ott and they’re a deep purple. I’m not totally sure they’re going to grow where I put them, but I remain hopeful. They’re in the flower bed below the front part of the porch and I’m hoping they’ll climb up the porch’s spindles. I also planted some sunflowers there too so hopefully they’ll climb up those as well.

While we were outside I took pictures of my Lady Slippers and Bleeding Hearts because the latter is blooming like crazy. First the Lady Slippers:

Now the Bleeding Hearts:

Not bad for questionable plants I bought at Wal*Mart!

The front yard will be all cosmos and bachelor’s buttons as per usual, but this year I planted way more white cosmos than pink ones and a lot more of the stranger varieties than the normal ones. I should have taken pictures of all the seeds but I forgot. Roughly we planted about 4.5lbs of seed in the front. We had bowls full of them.

On Sunday Blake and I went to see Bridesmaids, which was “shit your pants” funny. I don’t want to give anything away but there’s a scene with Maya Rudolph in the street that had me laughing so hard I was crying, I’m laughing now just thinking about it. When we got home from that movie, we decided to watch Catfish, which is a documentary about meeting someone from the internet and it was very very interesting, I highly recommend it.

Yesterday I worked and then read for the rest of the night because I had my brace on and couldn’t paint. Oprah’s final 3 shows started yesterday so I’m hoping to get caught up on them this evening while I paint. I have to finish my 3 multicultural fairies painting this week or I’m going to lose my mind. Trying to keep that thing safe and dog hair free has been a majorly stressful thing because it’s just so big. I told Blake how I couldn’t sell that painting because of its size and the fact that even shipping it to the US would be like, $80 and where would we even find a box that big? and he said anything is possible and that if I sold it, he’d find a way to ship it. The other problem is that I’d have to ask at least $450-$500 for it and I don’t think anyone would pay that so I probably won’t even list it on Etsy. Whatever. It can just hang in my house I guess.

Anyway, that’s life in Sunnyland right now. Today is cold and rainy so I hope the weather is nicer wherever you are. Happy Tuesday!

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

My friend Phaedie loses one of her friends at least once a week. That’s because she works for a high-capacity cat sanctuary in Richmond, British Columbia, run by the Richmond Animal Protection Society, and unfortunately feline leukemia and feline AIDS is a part of the job, especially when dealing with such close quarters.

To keep cats out of shelters, people need to spay and neuter their pets and that’s what RAPS is aiming to do with Pepsi Canada’s Refresh Project contest. Their aim, with the $25,000 to be won, is to help low-income families spay, neuter and vaccinate their pets in order to help curb the already problematic business of sick, unwanted pets.

So how can you help? It’s easy. Click here and vote. You can sign in using Facebook connect so it really does only take 2 clicks and you’d be making a world of difference for animals and their people. Plus you’d be making Phaedie and I incredibly happy.

We need to try and get them to #1 or #2 as only the top 2 spots receive funding. Currently they’re in 3rd place, so we need to make a solid push to get then into 2nd! I know people don’t have money to give to every charity that comes their way, but if you’d normally be clicking on Farmville crops anyway, please use your mouse-fingers for this as well and help make a difference in the world. Thanks.

The contest voting is until June 30th, it’s a daily vote and I’ll be posting every few days to remind you to vote in case you forget.

It stopped raining long enough for me to take pics, so here they are!

Admittedly the window boxes are a little unimpressive, but as the summer goes along, the alyssum will start filling in the empty spots and the pansies will spread out to fill the box completely. Or at least that’s the plan.

I didn’t save the little stick-ums that say the names of the flowers so I don’t know what kind of pansies I have, but I liked these ones because they looked like Johnny Jump Ups.

I love alyssum. It’s so versatile!

My kickass gerbera daisies! I love them!

These are the pansies I planted around the gerbera daisies.

Voila!
These are actually going to go in the front, I just haven’t moved them yet.

Blake and I planted all of these pretty much in the dark because it was dark when we got home, so they may be a little crooked, but that’s okay, they’re just flowers and it’s not like I’m in any garden tours or anything. We also had to take down last year’s sunflower stalks since the birds are done with them and I’ll be planting this year’s sunflowers – lots of them! – this weekend.

Speaking of this weekend, my boss gave me the okay to take tomorrow off to rest my wrist for the long weekend. I don’t get Monday off, I could have had it if I asked for it, but I think 3 days is a good rest for it and I’m going to get a wrist brace at Shopper’s Drug Mart tomorrow to help things along.

On Saturday night we’re having a Keep Off the Lawn/End of the World Party which may just be Blake, Madison and I, depending on what Ronny & Alex are doing. They still haven’t gotten back to me so I’m not sure what’s going on yet. Rain or shine though, we’ll be planting the seeds in the front for the wildflower patch and I’m going to pay the kids to weed first. I’m not sure what’s coming up in there yet because I haven’t looked exactly but from where I sit when I smoke, I can see dandelions and they have to go.

Planting the seeds is the easy part, all you do is scatter them with your hands and then stomp on them to dig them into the dirt. Wild flowers are not picky.

For the sunflowers all you do is rake a trench, pour the seeds along and then cover them up. All pretty easy stuff that won’t affect my wrist too much and the stuff that does, I have helpers to help me with. I’m very grateful for my friends and family. <3

Of course after you plant all the seeds you have to really soak the earth so they can start growing. Luckily it’s been raining all week so the ground is already nice and moist, but we’ll have to get out the hose and soak them after they’re planted anyway.

I am so looking forward to this, you have no idea. This is definitely my favourite part of spring. Oh and another thing that’s happening at some point this weekend is that Blake is going to be raking out the back garden so we can plant veggies in it next weekend. We still need to buy more dirt for the upside down planters and larger tomato cages than the ones we have because last year they were insufficient, but my seedlings are doing good, the cat hasn’t eaten any of them (*knock on wood*) and we should be good to plant by next weekend. Right now we’re all drinking pop and iced tea like crazy so I can have the 2L pop bottles for mini greenhouses for the seedlings. You cut the tops off them and put them in the earth upside down over your seedlings so frost (and cats!) doesn’t get them. So far I think we have 4 bottles but we need like, 12? Or more? I’m not that worried about it, but it’s something we’re working on.

Anyway, my kwish is ready and I’m starving and my wrist is hurting from typing this so I’m going to shut up now and go eat! Happy Thursday!

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

My friend Phaedie loses one of her friends at least once a week. That’s because she works for a high-capacity cat sanctuary in Richmond, British Columbia, run by the Richmond Animal Protection Society, and unfortunately feline leukemia and feline AIDS is a part of the job, especially when dealing with such close quarters.

To keep cats out of shelters, people need to spay and neuter their pets and that’s what RAPS is aiming to do with Pepsi Canada’s Refresh Project contest. Their aim, with the $25,000 to be won, is to help low-income families spay, neuter and vaccinate their pets in order to help curb the already problematic business of sick, unwanted pets.

So how can you help? It’s easy. Click here and vote. You can sign in using Facebook connect so it really does only take 2 clicks and you’d be making a world of difference for animals and their people. Plus you’d be making Phaedie and I incredibly happy.

We need to try and get them to #1 or #2 as only the top 2 spots receive funding. Currently they’re in 3rd place, so we need to make a solid push to get then into 2nd! I know people don’t have money to give to every charity that comes their way, but if you’d normally be clicking on Farmville crops anyway, please use your mouse-fingers for this as well and help make a difference in the world. Thanks.

The contest voting is until June 30th, it’s a daily vote and I’ll be posting every few days to remind you to vote in case you forget.

Pink bleeding hearts:

White bleeding hearts:

Tulips amongst the weeds:

Blake wrote a great post about our election, which you can read HERE. He’s better at explaining things in a way that’s understandable so that’s why I left it to him to write THE post on the election. I was too emotional yesterday to do it because the results really upset me. The good news is that the NDP, for the first time ever, is the official opposition with the 2nd highest amount of seats on parliament and that’s my team. The good news is that the NDP was put in that position primarily by the youth vote and that makes me hopefuly that in the next 4 or 5 years, when it’s time to vote again, people won’t be shy about “wasting a vote” on the NDP as has traditionally been the case. It is very possible that Jack Layton is going to be our next Prime Minister and I couldn’t be more thrilled about that.  He’s going to have a lot of cleaning up to do with what Harper’s going to do to this country during his carte blanche reign of terror, but at least he’s the right man for the job. Or at least *I* think so.

Yesterday I was supposed to quit smoking and I did, for the day, but when Blake came home I asked him to take me to the store to buy smokes because right now I have a nasty cold that’s making me miserable and I didn’t want to feel more miserable than I already felt. So fuck it, I’m smoking for the time being. (Which has been my justification all along, because I can justify anything if I try hard enough.) I’m going to quit, I just don’t know when and I’m tired of talking about it so this is the last time I’m going to bring it up.

The local Mac’s is a nightmare daily because they have the cheapest gas in town and literally cars are lined up 10-15 cars deep, waiting for their chance at the pump, so I’ve been buying smokes at the Korean convenience store in town that I like better anyway because they have a lot more stuff, like used movies for $2.99 which I scoop up every now and then. Yesterday when we stopped, they had hanging baskets of begonias for $14.99, which were full and beautiful so I bought a yellow one. Then after I got home I was thinking about it and I asked Blake to go back and get me the last orange one they had because I had a feeling they’d sell fast because they were really high quality and pretty cheap for a hanging basket.

Behold my begonias:

My great grama used to have begonias. I don’t know anything about them, I haven’t even read the tag they came with yet, but I love them. One is going to hang on the front of the house and one’s going to hang in the back, once we get a proper hook for it. I’m not sure if they over-winter or not or how that all works but I’ll Google later and find out. Aren’t they gorgeous though? What a bargain for only $30!

Yesterday Blake went out to brunch with all of our Scratching Post friends and I couldn’t go because it was in Toronto and I had to work (as did Blake). I was really bummed out all day that Blake got to go and I couldn’t. I was pissed at him, I’ll admit, because I was jealous. These are people I’ve known for a long time and he’s only known for a short time and not as well as I know them, so how come he gets to go and I can’t? It just seemed unjustified and it put me in a bad mood. Then when he got home he told me that every7one missed me and he gave me a little keychain with my name on it and “Scratching Post Breakfast Club” that Mira had made us all and I felt a little better. Included.

Okay it’s time for me to work, so I’d better wrap this up.

So as I’ve mentioned, my friend Amy works for a non-profit teen drop-in centre called The Neutral Zone, which is a safe haven for kids who need one and they’re in a contest with the Bank of Ann Arbor to win some much needed funding. That’s where you come in.

On Facebook, go to the Bank of Ann Arbor’s fan page and vote for Teen Centre Inc. (The Neutral Zone) by selecting them and answering the question, which this week is “The best local meal for under $15?. Vote every day for them by adding the app until May 12th so they can get a higher ranking and therefore get more money. If you do this, you would be doing a HUGE favour to me and my friend Amy and the kids that are helped by having this safe haven to go to.

It only takes a few clicks every day and it’s 100% for charity. Please help us! Don’t think of it as helping a friend of a friend who you don’t know from Adam, you’re helping out a children’s charity. Thanks in advance. GO TEAM GO!

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Help RAPS win $25,000!

Yep another one. Now I know what you’re thinking, that I’ve already got you clicking for The Neutral Zone but this is equally as important to me and so is the person behind it.

My friend Phaedie loses one of her friends at least once a week. That’s because she works for a high-capacity cat sanctuary in Richmond, British Columbia, run by the Richmond Animal Protection Society, and unfortunately feline leukemia and feline AIDS is a part of the job, especially when dealing with such close quarters.

To keep cats out of shelters, people need to spay and neuter their pets and that’s what RAPS is aiming to do with Pepsi Canada’s Refresh Project contest. Their aim, with the $25,000 to be won, is to help low-income families spay, neuter and vaccinate their pets in order to help curb the already problematic business of sick, unwanted pets.

So how can you help? It’s easy. Click here and vote. You can sign in using Facebook connect so it really does only take 2 clicks and you’d be making a world of difference for animals and their people. Plus you’d be making Phaedie and I incredibly happy.

Currently RAPS is in 3rd place, so let’s help get them to 2nd or try to get them to #1 as only the top 2 spots receive funding. I know people don’t have money to give to every charity that comes their way, but if you’d normally be clicking on Farmville crops anyway, please use your mouse-fingers for this as well and help make a difference in the world. Thanks.

The contest voting is until June 30th, it’s a daily vote and I’ll be posting every few days to remind you to vote in case you forget.