a friend!

Not knowing ANYONE in the public system has been weird. I mean, there's a few folk who have made a point of being friendly and talking to me, but in general it's a busy time of year and I know no one. The size of the school doesn't help with the getting to know people either - few people share rooms, there are no dept offices cause everyone has a classroom, you can print directly to the photocopier so you don't even need to socialise there! It will definitely make getting to know people much harder than in the catholic system where you are constantly sharing different spaces with people.

So I was very happy to make my first actual friend. By that I mean stop by each other's classrooms to say hi and see how things are going friends. Spend an hour talking when we should both be working friends. Yay! I kinda knew who he was before we started talking - I took his job this year and he's a regular at the club. Turns out we both worked for the same shit company in Japan, have travelled to the same countries, and love and have lived in Quebec. I laughed pretty hard when he told my his first stop in QC is always Simmons. Oh SK, you're just so darn tiny!

I was concerned it would be months before I found someone I could harass on a daily basis that wasn't 15. Yay to my neighbour.

a little lunar eclipse

So life in the public system isn't perfect. A few glitches occurred to me on my second day.

Our department meeting was strange. At my previous school, the math department was like an old group of friends. Sure we did our own thing lots of the time, but when we got together it was fun. Our PD day was more of a stress reliever/visiting session over something more on the serious side. Sure there were some minor disagreements sometimes, but there was just an general understanding that everyone was there to help everyone else. I found my first department meeting tense. It was quite obvious that I'm working at a competitive school. I thought at one point there was going to be a flat out argument over which graphing calculators should be bought. Not really cause anyone had any good points, just cause they felt they were "right." Maybe this less friendly environment is because the department is larger than I'm used to (strange when the schools are the same size...) and the age/experience range is much larger. The other thing I felt was odd was that no one offered to help me out if I needed it. True I'm not a new teacher, but I am teaching a new course. Now I know (well at least I'm pretty sure) none of these folks would tell me to get lost if I asked them for anything, but it was strange not to have the offer extended. Maybe I just exude that much confidence. Ya right. I hope future interactions with the dept are a little warmer - maybe I just don't know anyone well enough, and quite possibly people were stressed with better things to do than discuss who has supplies.

We don't get dayplanners!! I live for my teacher dayplanner. True once I get into the swing of things I will neglect it for days at a time, but it keeps me sane when things get stressful. Yesterday, being quite concerned at why I hadn't gotten one yet - and not being able to plan properly without it - I went to see the secretaries. I don't know if the lady I dealt with was new or not, but the interaction was painful. I might as well have been speaking Japanese for the kinds of answers I was getting from her. At first she tried to tell me I'd gotten it. No, no, I don't want a student dayplanner with a teacher sticker on it. I explained it was large and for teachers. She tried to give me the school calendar. 12 photocopied months with the times of soccer games on it. Ummm, not what I want. I'm getting impatient, I have things to do and I need said planner to accomplish it. After some more very confusing and painful interaction with this lady I come to the conclusion that I won't be receiving a teacher dayplanner. Ever. I'm crushed. Seriously, I understand from a budget point of view somewhere I'm sure this makes sense. However, I would have fed myself breakfast that morning if the money saved could have bought me a planner. Bagels and creamcheese I can get myself, anytime. A teacher planner is not so easy to come by. Today, after trying to deal with it, I went and photocopied some blank pages from my dayplanner last year. I much less stressed just by filling out tomorrow. Is making 196 copies and a bagel cheaper than the book? I doubt it. And it's not bound. Sigh. I'll come up with a better system (or if someone could steal me one from another school that would be very exciting) soon.

wha?

C95 has recently found some deep hidden love for Joel Plaskett and has entered his "new single" high on their regular playlist. Wha? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy Joel. Quite a bit. However, he's been in regular radio rotation on independent stations for his "new album" for at least a year and a half now, probably more. Who exactly decided that he was now ready to play amongst the never ending oldies, 80s and pop/hip hop junk they play everyday in the same order? We are talking about the same radio station that denies the fact that Tegan and Sara (now beloved in the States) exists. I'd like to think that this means they might actually start to play music I like more than twice a day, but I know better. Some Idol winner must have had words with a top exec at Rawlco and gotten their song pulled as punishment. Said exec must have been busy and told the closest nerdy intern to find some replacement Cancon and to jack it up as much as possible to "show that Idol jerk" the power of Rawlco. And the world makes sense again.

a warm welcome

Today was my first day back at school. And what a wonderful way to start off the school year!

We started off the day with breakfast. It was actually a pretty poor showing for breakfast, but I work in a school and it was free so that says a lot right there. Muffins and cheese. Fruit? Nowhere to be seen. At my old school we got free fruit everyday, so I was a little confused at the lack of even apples and oranges but maybe they think juice AND fruit is redundant.

Staff meeting. It was kept pretty short. One AP likes to ramble... I'm sure people will make some attempt to keep him in line. The best part? No mass!! This gave me an extra hour to myself to do stuff I actually wanted to do. Do I feel deprived in any way spiritually or otherwise? Nope. Excellent.

I met with my mentor so she could answer some questions for me. She took me to get school supplies, and somehow I scored a stapler. I know this sounds stupid, but in the world of teaching staplers and holepunchers are precious things. She also showed me a cupboard full of resources that had been left by teachers previous. Excellent if I ever have 8 hours to kill to go through it all...

More working. Then lunch will my mentor and some of her friends on staff - good people. Taco Time was mediocre as a choice of venues, but considering it was the only lunch offer I had... And as mediocre as my buried was, I do love mexi-fries. Mmmm.

After lunch we had a short "new to the building" meeting. Again kept short. The attendance policy seems straightforward, nothing else too important was said. Followed by a meeting to show all the staff how to use the new attendance program. It's called easy attendance for a reason - it's crazy easy. Somehow there always seem to be several people who get confused when that should be impossible. Now I understand that I understand computers and the programs that run on them more than the average teacher. However, when the lady says "Then you'll click on Add" there should not be an outcry from the room that she's going too fast. It's a button. Click it. How in the world did you get lost and/or confused? Argh.

Off to work on things of my choosing. My neighbour came over to introduce himself, I chatted with a couple of teachers who taught me. Mr. D remembers most of us as "kids who could do English but just didn't really like it." I laughed, cause it's true and it's funny he remembers that 8 years later. Oh ya, and Rach, the staff are WAY to up to date on your family (though Mr. D is also very happy Kels got her shit together, he said he always questioned when she would).

A quick trip to see the principal about my extra curr. It was discussed way back in May that they'd be needing another female SRC advisor. While Human Rights was my first choice, SRC was definitely second. Interestingly enough, there was talk of the Human Rights club needing an advisor at the Staff Meeting... I approached the principal hoping to maybe share Human Rights with someone seeing as I thought I also had to do SRC. Looks like the HR group has a new advisor. It's me! Seriously, I couldn't have wound up with a better extra curr. Working with an engaged group of young people on things of their choosing? Hello. AND I don't have to do SRC. There is so much love going on for me it's crazy. It almost feels like some kind of crazy trap. Two weeks from now all hell is going to break loose or something. Til then though, it's all kittens and rainbows.

Well, I do believe it's time for a free BBQ at my principals house. People were calling this the dark side?

i heart strep

All the paint fumes really started to get to me after awhile. I was tired, headachey and even started having a sore throat. I was pretty happy attributing all of this to living in a house full of melamine paint for a week and a half. Until the mold showed up. The mold that likes to grow on the back of my tonsils.

Doctor time. As much as I love my doctor, it's getting a little ridiculous that it takes 3 months to get a physical and over a week to get an appointment with her. When could you ever wait a week to see your doctor if you were actually sick? Luckily she works in a building with a fairly competent on call staff, so I didn't have too much of a problem with seeing not my doctor.

He is shocked at the pus-yness of my tonsils. I still prefer to call it mold, but I guess in the medical world it's technically pus. Yum. Anyway, he's more surprised that I think it's normal. Seriously, when I looked at my tonsils the morning of I thought they looked pretty darn good for me, and was only going to the doctor so soon cause I knew what they would look like in a day or two. He starts skirting around the idea of me having my tonsils out. NEVER has this been proposed to me as an idea. How to tell who's the crazy doctors? Anyway, we start discussing symptoms and he starts talking mono.

Mono? Dude, did you fail to read in my file that I'm a teacher? A teacher that goes back to work in less than a week? Mono isn't really an option here. Unfortunately with the way I've been feeling, it almost makes sense. He swabs my throat, writes me a prescription and sends me for bloodwork.

I spend the next two days sleeping, finishing my kitchen with much difficulty (hang one door, sit and rest. repeat) and not prepping for school. Two days later I am feeling much better, though still quite sick, but have not gotten any phone calls from the clinic.

For once, I heart you strep throat. You hit me hard, but you're not mono.

TA-DA!

I know you've all been dying to see them, my "new" kitchen. I know I never actually finished blogging about how all the painting went, but the gist of it was that it took forever. The highlight was probably me spilling a whole cup of melamine paint the very first time I went to paint the edges of the cupboards. Luckily I did have a drop sheet on my table, not so luckily the drop sheet was not mine. I have no idea if you can wreck a drop sheet, but if you can I did. Sorry Uncle R. The 16 hour wait between all 5 - that's right 5! - coats on the cupboard doors was the killer. A garage or basement would have been very nice. I'm not too upset to no longer be performing acrobatics anytime I need across my living room... Especially the last two days when an complicated set up of tomato steaks and books was used to lifts the doors up so I could paint the edges.

All said and done, I'm not actually done. Turns out I'm not a very good painter after all... I need to redo the two big green walls cause I skimped out on the paint and it looks blotchy in spots. The cabinets also need a little touching up where I missed with the white right near the black. I'm not to upset about that seeing as when I painted that I was crazy sick and barely conscious anyway.

Stay tuned for kitchen reno #2, a much smaller project. I found an awesome corner shelf at Ikea, but will be sanding it and painting it black to match.

the pics

Blogger is being a loser, so hopefull this works if I do it in two posts.

i prolly shouldn't have

...but I did. It was about a year and a half ago when I first saw them and tried them on. THE most amazing pair of jeans I've ever had on. They fit perfect in the bum and legs. They also were had a neat lime green-ish wash to them - not too much to make them look weird, just enough to make them unique. Adding to their uniqueness was the waist band - it sits higher on one side. Surprisingly this looks good on me.

When I first saw them they were on sale, for 150$. Ouch. That's not really a sale in my world. In fact, it's more than I'm willing to pay for anything at regular price. I left them, but kept thinking of the magic jeans. I went back a few months later to see if they still had them and/or if they'd gone more on sale. Horreur! They'd come off sale. At 235$ they would not be part of my wardrobe anytime soon.

For a year I've continued to think of them, and want them. I was in Ultimo this week because of a really cute jacket they had on the mannequin in the window (not in my size) - the jeans were still there and on sale for 50% off. They still fit great, I sucked it up and bought them. After a year and a half of still wanting them I figure I'll wear them enough to justify the price.

Tomorrow I will have my jeans - they alter them in the waist for a custom fit, mucho excellent considering everything I ever like gapes in the waist.

Here is what they look like (photos courtesy of someone on ebay). No fear, they look much better on me than on said person's floor.

indian intermission

Enough with reno talk for just a sec. Last week Kev and I, not having seen one another in awhile, were making plans to do drinks and/or supper. I suggested we do Indian (knowing it is one of Kev's favs and having no other friends who like Indian food in S'toon). Kev was excited, as was I. Until Kev assured me the only real place to go was the Taj. Ouch - I wanted to eat Indian but I wasn't really wanting to shell out that kind of cash without some kind of special occasion. While trying to think of acceptable options, Kev suggested we make supper ourselves. Done! We took a cooking class together about a year ago, and Kev also took classes while traveling through India so we even had many choices of things we could cook. Kev choose our menu from his cooking classes - we would have spinach paneer, dal, and chapatis.

I arrived ready to cook, fresh ingredients bought from the farmer's market in hand. Side note - check out Lakeview's farmer's market on Tuesdays if you have a chance, cheap and delicious! After touring Kev's new townhouse we got done to business. We would make the paneer first. Technically Kev had already started - the evening prior he took it upon himself to make cheese. Yes, that's right, Kev made cheese to make our supper that much better. With Kev directing, I boiled spinach and then pureed it, pureed some tomato, and prepared the onions and spices. While I was doing the paneer oriented stuff, Kev did whatever it was he did for the dal (lentils).

I finished first, and was set to the task of making chapatis. Chapati happens to be one of my favorite Indian words (and foods actually). Say it, it makes you happy. Chapati! See, if you could taste them as well you'd be even more happy. There were a few issues with the dough (Kev also premade this) seeing as it was incredibly sticky for no apparent reason. I prevailed and soon was attempting to cook said chapatis on the BBQ. This took an unnaturally long time. Kev came to the rescue with some delicious wine that was provided by a friend we have in the Queen city. They were still taking a long time, but sipping on wine, enjoying the awesome weather and french screaming from the kids next door made it not matter so much. In the end we realised when Kev instructed "Not thin like crepes, but more thin like pancakes" he really meant "Thin like crepes." He also produced some kind of neat crispy seasoned bread wafer that we fried up.

While I was busy with the chapatis, Kev finished up the dal, added the cheese to the spinach paneer and set the table. Time to eat! Holy man, if that hadn't take us so long, we could certainly go into business (if only to have 3 menu items...). There was some serious goodness going on. The spinach paneer is now my favorite Indian food to date. I say to date cause there's most likely lots of things I haven't tried. It was the perfect amount of spicy as that I could eat it, and the cheese held together and added just a bit of mild. It was so good I didn't even pick out the onions. That's pretty darn good if you know me. The dal was also wonderful and best eaten with the crispy bread.

For dessert I sliced up some farmer's market peaches - heaven! I'm thinking this should maybe be a weekly occurrence from now on, Kev tells me the Austrian (his newly arrived gf) is also a big Indian food fan, so I don't see why there would be any objections.

before

Just thought I'd post a couple of before pics.





Now maybe you can see why I wasn't such a fan of this 80s monstrosity...

makeover makeover...

Painting a kitchen is hard. More hard when you're by yourself. Well if you're me anyway - I could have used a few more muscles lying around to help me at time, but I managed. Whatever, I'm kind of on a schedule, I don't have time to wait around for help. Also, I'd also used up my free painting help from dad.

There are an awful lot of edges in a kitchen. I don't mind edgeing, put when there is no one painting behind you and you keep having to switch tools it's a little annoying. One of the first things I manage to do - stub my toe. Hard. Next challenge was getting the fridge out so I could paint behind it. This probably involved involuntary swearing. I was a little concerned I was wrecking my floor (by far the nicest part of my kitchen) but I think it's ok. Under/Behind the fridge was surprisingly "clean." I found my vacuum and did some extra cleaning anyway.

So I managed to paint behind the fridge, jammed into a space the size of a fridge. Not so comfortable, but doable. All around the bottom half of the kitchen til I met the stove. The stove was a much bigger challenge to get out than the fridge. I almost gave up and called someone to come help me when finally I won. The stove somehow is not only the exact size of the space it slides into, but it's also the exact size of the space it can be pulled out into. Getting in behind the stove to paint wasn't much fun either. It was at the point that I realised I was trapped in my kitchen and I needed more paint. It was inconvieniently in the dining room. I had another mini battle with the fridge so I could get out.

Nest task, paint around the top of the room between the ceiling and the cupboards. Akward! My hair kept getting stuck on the stucko, finding footing wasn't very much fun either. It was at the time I noticed I'd gotten some goo on my toe from moving the stove. Or not, how bout back when I stubbed my toe I took a huge chunk out of it and it had bled quite a bit. Short pause to clean up my wound. Back to pretending I'm some kind of flexible monkey - I don't really think it's healthy to bend your neck in that position for as long as was necessary, but I did get finished.

The two walls were by far the easiest part, but it did require wrestling with the stove and fridge again. It was easier this time and I managed not to hit the still wet paint with them.

Day one fini. Total painting time - over 3 hours. I wasn't particularily looking forward to repeating that the following day.

Makeover makeover...

So I decided something needed to be done about my ugly kitchen. Seeing as I'm unemployed and not receiving a paycheck til the end of Sept, that something needed to be cheap. Paint is cheap. All the reno shows I watch have taught me that you can indeed paint ugly away. Or you can make a significant improvement anyway. With that in mind I decided to paint pretty much every surface in my kitchen. If you could paint fridges and stoves I probably would have done that too. For now, it's walls and cabinets.

Part 1: Prep

Turns out I like patching walls. It's fun. There was quite a lot to patch and I kinda cheaped out and didn't do it all. Honestly who is standing on my countertop critiquing the paint between the cabinets and the ceiling. So far no one, and I think it should stay that way. I'm also pretty decent at sanding after the patching, having had a lot of experience when we first painted in my condo. Walls were the easy part.

Ugh. Cabinets. Require a ridiculous amount of screws for their hinges. Sanding the wood piece to "scuff" it wasn't too bad thanks to my dad's "friend" who thought to lend me an awesome foam sanding wedge that just so happened to fit perfectly in the handle part. Yay Lynn!

The cleaning of the cabinets sucked. Lots. If you ever think you may want to paint your cabinets may I recommend that you remind yourself to clean them on a 6 month basis? Not just the front of them, backs too. I figure the front part must be obvious to wipe down, but it's the rest of the cabinet that just keep on silently collecting grossness. My best hope is that paint sticks to clean dirt, cause it's not going anywhere. This dirt has become one with the cupboards. Rinse, dry, tape. The taping was kinda fun, but I've always liked playing with tape.

We're all ready to go for paint now.

step up

This movie was everything I hoped it was and then some. How can you go wrong with "thug meets ballerina"? The answer; you can't. The only thing that would have made this movie any better was a flying broom interlude. I guess you can't have everything. Unless of course you're a thug learning a tough lesson through dance and love. It's the dancing love that makes the world go round.

See it. You know you want to.
(Dad, maybe you don't actually want to.)

good times

In honour of going to see "Step up" tonight (can't wait, so fantastic!) I thought I should post this. Jeff posted it first on his blog, but it's so good you can watch it twice.

Oh yes, I've changed who can have comments again. Seems some of you are concerned about being found in the real world so you can once again be an anonymous poster. I think it's lame, but you can do it.

And totally non related, how can a blog site not recognize the word blog in it's spellcheck?

i like blueberries

I haven't for the 25 years previous to this one. I'm not sure what exactly what I've been holding against the blueberry, but it was a pretty big grudge. I would occasionally eat them if they were blended into something else, something with much more flavour, but that's it. No pie, yogurt, or muffins for this kid.

While I was hanging with Mr. W watching episode after episode of Veronica Mars (so good!), he offered and made me lunch. Then when we were finished Mr. W offered me dessert. Me say no to dessert? I don't think so. Especially not dessert that I don't have to move to get, it's the best kind. So dessert arrives in front of me - the biggest bowl of blueberries and yogurt you've ever seen. There were more berries than I'd eat cereal some mornings. Maybe Veronica had made me so happy I would have eaten monkey brains if you'd have put them in front of me, I'm not sure. I certainly couldn't tell Mr. W I didn't like blueberries now that he'd served them to me. So I dug in. Quelle surprise! They were good! With a little effort I finished the whole bowl (good, but oh so many).

Thanks to Mr. W and Veronica for the new addition to my menu.

b-i-n-g-o

Wednesdays is bingo night in Waskesiu. Awesomely I arrived on a Wednesday. Seeing as Rach didn't get off work til 8 and the bingo fun begins at 7h30, we were a little late. No matter, with bingo you can just hop right in. It's because bingo loves you.

I probably haven't played bingo in about 10 years. I remember liking it, but also not wanting to spend money on it. My sentiments are still about the same. The good part is when you play bingo at the lake, your money goes to support the local heritage museum. So you're at least giving to something good, instead of someone's pockets. Go heritage! Also kids are a large part of the bingo crowd so the atmosphere is a little more laid back than the one at bingo places in the city - less dirty looks from the hardcore folk and more funny trashtalk at the tables.

Sadly there was no winning at our table. Maybe there was less bingo love than I originally thought. We were even given good luck dog treats from one of our table mates. Apparently dog bones don't actually bring good luck, not even if you put it in your bra (I wonder who would do that?). Now you know for next time (Rach). The funniest thing is the "buzzing" that occurs. Like a giant bee hive, the room gets very excited as a collective whole when people start to get very close to winning. It's pretty entertaining. The only thing bingo at the lake needs is more troll dolls. It's just not the same without them...

Oh yes, and next time I should win. That was missing too.

waskesiu!

So after quitting, the only proper thing to do is to run away to the lake. You don't have to twist my arm! So Wednesday after visiting with JJ (thanks for stopping in!) I packed and headed off to Waskesiu. An uneventful drive got me there just in time to pick Rach up from work.

Wednesday night Rach and I played bingo (more to come on that). Thursday we started the day off with a pancake breakfast for the United Way. While Rach went to work I went back to the cabin to plan for school and watch the rest of Veronica season 2 - in that order. Well we all know what order that actually happened in. Mr. Webster joined me an episode or two in and we watched right through to the end. Man, so good! If you haven't started watching Veronica yet, you should really get on it. When we finished the season Mr. W summed it up with "that's a good show" and went to join happy hour. Amazingly I also did a very good amount of planning for the Math A30 course I'll be teaching this semester. Go multitasking! I picked Rach up from work and we ordered pizza and hung out til it was time to go to the bar for New Years. Mobadass was playing, they were good as per usual. Friday I finished planning my unit and did some reading (I'm halfway through the summer of my amazing luck if you're interested). Rach forgot some stuff at the cabin so I dropped it off at work for her. Boy do they ever work hard at Parks Canada on Fridays... I showed up at 4h30 and wound up hanging out there with Rach and her coworkers til close at 8.

Friday evening Sean-o, Heather, Dan and Fearless were supposed to be joining me so we could all camp. The Regina crew had some time setbacks due to a small detour to Vegas earlier in the week and didn't wind up arriving til late - Fri evening we all visited but stayed in cabins. I think it beats trying to set up tents at 10h30. Saturday proved gray and not very nice so we spent much of the day lazing around. When we finally got moving the girls, with a little help from teamwork, packed a pic-nic "lunch" and coerced the boys into hiking Boundary Bog with us. Teamwork makes delicous lunches. The Bog is more of a walk than a hike, but it takes you through many of the parks different forests all in 2km. It's certainly the Reader's Digest version of exploring the North. It's also all about the learning. Good times. Parks Canada wouldn't want you to be lazy in your hiking endeavours - they have high expectations. There's even a quiz for when you're finished. Stay sharp! Mother Nature was feeling generous later on in the day and she gave us some sun to eat our lupper in, and continue with the shining so we could get camp set up and not be freezing. High five to Mother N. The rest of the evening progressed as you would expect - food, more food, smores, fire, beach walking to see meteors, good company and eventually sleeping. Tis the good life. I awoke Sunday to the sweet sweet music of Fearless chopping wood on which she would later use to cook me bacon and eggs. Tasty.

That pretty much concludes the trip. We had to leave early-ish Sunday so Rach could get home in time for her own going away BBQ. Mother N was finished with being nice by about 2 anyway - she unleashed some serious fury on someone as we were driving home. I don't think it was us as we cleaned up our campsite and payed our campfire fee.

i quit!

I quit my job, again. It's something I'm getting really good at. So for those of you who are confused, after I quit the Odeon back in April I started working at the Athena. It was a fairly decent job, especially considering I made very decent coin most of the time. There are certainly worse lounges to work at. However, on a whim I realised summer was coming crashing to an end and I still had many things I wanted to accomplish. Turns out work was the thing I least wanted to do. A quick look at the bank account and I quit less than 12 hours later while driving to the queen city to visist Heather, Dan, and Fearless (Sara).

For those of you who are still somehow trying to keep track of my many jobs I now am unemployed for 2.5 weeks until school starts. I'm helping my mom at her store occasionnally (I don't actually get paid in money and it's fun so is that a job?) and I may or may not help out at Diva's if I feel like it. Essentially, I'm just teaching now. How very novel. I think I like it.

would you like to try that on?

More on bras...
I think I mentioned that I've been helping my mom out in her store when I can. Typically I do things like entering data into the computer, getting new stock ready to go, and ringing in stuff. Not so much of the fitting. I know how a bra should fit on me, but I don't really feel too qualified in the fitting of other ladies. While maman seems to have been born with a knack of the fitting, I'm not convinced it's something genetic. Besides, how bad would I feel selling something expensive to someone, only for them to realise in a day that it doesn't actually fit.

Maman and her "friend" as my grandma would call him, and my nan all went to Van for a short holiday. There was need for someone to work for mom so that her only other staff member didn't have to work a 12 hour day. That someone was me. When you are the only person in the store, it's pretty tough to avoid the fitting.

And what a first fitting experience it was! A considerably older lady, who was visiting her granddaughters, who absolutely raved about the store and told her while she was in town she needed to get fitted. Oh great, nothing like high expectations. You see, gravity and age has taken a bit of a toll on this lady's body. It's very difficult to tell how big around someone needs a bra to be, if there's absolutely no way to avoid rolls. The rolls are a fact of life. Also, grandma was looking for considerable "lift." Which is nice and all, but a bra can only do so much! Not even the Oprah bra can reverse the sands of time. Anyway, together we tried on many many a bra. Unfortunately, in the end, we came to the conclusion that we currently didn't have her size in stock in the Oprah bra (which was her favorite). She left new braless, but happy about her fitting. Go me?

wedding #2

It would appear I have reached "that" age. The age where my friends start getting married. Don't worry, I in no way feel inadequate because a wedding is nowhere in my near future. I do enjoy all the fun that goes along with them though!

So Elaine's wedding was a fantastic time. For totally different reason's than Rach's. You see, turns out in wedding dreamland Elaine and I are polar opposites. About the only thing I really liked about the wedding itself was that the ceremony was outside. Oh yes, and of course that my friend was getting married and was crazy happy. That was good too. What made the wedding so great was getting to see people I never get to see normally (E included).

We met up with JJ and her man in Stoon with a few difficulties in the Tim's parking lot. I know, you shouldn't be able to have difficulties when you're both in the same parking lot, but I'm pretty amazing if you've forgotten. Then we ran into a few more difficulties trying to find Marissa's cabin... We try too hard sometimes! Reunited we had time for a quick hug, a change of clothes and had to dash off to make it to the wedding in time. Wade got stellar directions and we weren't late. Thanks to Elaine for drawing us a map (we ALL threw out the one that came with the invite...) and to Marissa's dad for deciphering it.

Like I said, there really was nothing about the ceremony or reception that I loved. But I wasn't supposed to love it, cause I wasn't the one getting married. It suited Elaine and Brett super well, and their families (well Elaine's anyway) were absolutely loving it. A few pieces of advice if you need to plan your wedding sometime soon.
1) Buy a bra/bustier you are actually comfortable in. Needing to manhandle your boobs really takes away from how gorgeous you look. It's your wedding, everyone is looking at you all the time, you look so pretty and then you molest your boobs. There really will be no safe time (except in the washroom) to smush the girls back to where they should be, people are always looking at you.
2) Healthy cake? I know this is awesome for everyday, but it's your wedding, eat real cake. There are a few days of your life I think you should be able to veto healthy sugarfree food and your wedding is high up on that list.

Enough with the critique - cause it was awesome. We had a ton of time to visit with JJ, Wade and Marissa. Understandably not quite so much time with Elaine and Little Amy (not jj's sister) but still a good visit was had. We also got to see the Canwood bar (nicer than you would expect), dance a little, and do a lot of laughing. As per usual I forgot to sign the Guest book. Alas.

The next day Marrisa's mom cooked us a HUGE brunch complete with fresh fish caught by Wade and Marrisa's dad. Seriously, we just kept eating and eating. It was Sean-o's birthday and out of nowhere they produced a "birthday flag" that he was required to walk around the adjoining campsites wearing. Pretty darn funny. We did some relaxing on the beach and then had to leave so we could stop in PA on the way home to visit with Sean-o's family.

It's quite unfortunate sometimes that Canada has to be so darn big - it makes weekend visits like this few and far between. JJ, I think you're up to be married next! ;)

a vanneste is born

So about Rach's wedding. It was fabulous! No bridezilla to be seen, and yet almost all details were taken care of. After some stressful weather "patterns" (no patterns, just total randomness SK style) and an agressive, full military assault by the genetically enhanced mosquitoes it was decided the ceremoney would be held indoors. Slightly less pretty, hugely more comfortable.

Us girls drove into PA to have our hair and make up done, and to pick up the flowers. A big yay to Jan Richards salon! They greeted us with coffee and then made us all look fabulous. Which I consider to be no small feat anytime in the am. We almost had a small incident when the lily for Rach's hair insisted on losing a petal, but turns out it was more head conforming that way. Or so we'll say seeing as the florists didn't have any extras.

Back to the cabin to get dressed and have silly pictures taken. What, you don't normally get dressed in a line? Oh, well you do on the day of a wedding. Also, if you've never seen Lise do up a corset in a small space while trying to get pictures taken from all angles, while in a hurry, you should. She's pretty darn talented. My job of "veil holder/supervisor" was much less demanding.

Ummm, people, we need less pictures of Rachel getting jewlery put on and more leaving so she can be on time for her own wedding. Well, the pictures were nice, don't get me wrong, but it's wrong to be late for your wedding. I say so.

Perfectly on time, for the wedding and to miss the sudden downpour. Let's pat everyone on the back for choosing indoors right now. It only rained for 15ish minutes, but they were exactly when the ceremony was happening. Yay not getting wet!

The ceremony itself was gold. No time for crying, there was way too much laughing going on for anyone to get choked up. Jeff said "I do" about a total of 3 times in the wrong place. At least we all know he's sure about his decision. Rach made sure to include a couple extra vows of Jeff accepting her inability to see a mess and dirty things. He just kept I doing away, so now he's doomed to clean forever. I think he already knew. I signed the wrong thing on whatever it was I was supposed to sign. When you say "write your address" I assume you mean my address. Not Saskatoon. What kind of address is Saskatoon? Be more specific JP lady, I don't sign marriage documents everyday.

Off to pictures. Our photographer was pretty funny, this little Asian lady with an interesting idea of what makes for good pictures. It's all good, she got lots of good ones and having the boys pose "V for victory" was fantastic for the rest of us. It was the only other time that in rained for a couple minutes, but ever prepared, Rach had ordered a big white umbrella just in case such an event should happen. To see all 387 pics, go here.

We finished up just in time to go open up the bar for the rest of the evening and light the tea lights. The hall looked awesome. The food was better. It was so good someone felt the need to take a picture of it. Dessert was AMAZING. Seriously, I still think of the raspberry white chocolate cheesecake that magically showed up in front of me. Did I mention I was the MC? Co-MC actually, Dev also got conned into doing it when 3 other people turned down the offer. Rach wrote out what we had to say and I wasn't required to be funny, so it was okay. Dev and Brent gave a speech to Jeff, with the hilight being them make out on stage. Rach and Jeff's imitation was slightly less good, but we'll blame the crinoline - not much else could get in the way of Rach jumping Jeff... My speech went alright from what I've been told. I didn't cry which was good, I think I managed to speak at an understandable speed, also good. Jeff then thanked Rach's parents for having sex, which is always good times and Rach thanked other people. Nic provided an awesome slideshow, if he gets asked to do many more he may start charging though...

What happened next? Why copious amounts of dancing, drinking and visiting! What else would have happened? Oh yes, more delicious food also appeared later on in the evening. So, quite successful as far as weddings go you may conclude. The most stressful part of the day/night was probably almost running out of ice at 11. Which really wouldn't have been the end of the world, tepid drinks will still get drunk. Just when we thought we were officially iceless, ice magically appeared 30 minutes after it was supposed to. Stress over. The worst part of the evening was not enough Marlito and Chaz time. Those crazy kids had to drive back to Stoon the evening of. So yes, all in all, excellent times.