green green grass!

before:



after:



they still have to do the front yard but does the backyard ever look good! we need to get a sprinkler and start watering the new lawn, soaking it twice a day.

and, not sure if i mentioned this, we bought a barbeque last thursday. it's being delivered tomorrow and the natural gas is being hooked up saturday. all i need is a "chaise longue" and i'll be all set for the best tan ever. and full belly i guess. i'm hoping ng bbqs won't be as scary as propane ones. did i mention that i hate barbequing because of the explosive nature of propane?

tanning, barbequing... best. summer. ever!

i run you run we all run run run

title is definitely not as good as the ice cream chant. oh, the ice cream chant....

i ran on saturday. i'm hurting now but i was pretty much okay for the race. i was really worried about my calf and how it would feel (ie. hurt) but it was fine. my time was a little slower than last year, just over an hour total, but i finished and i didn't hurt myself more. so i'm happy. and i do have pictures, some really good ones, but i haven't taken them off the camera yet.

it was a busy weekend and i'm guessing this will be a busy week since it's the last week in the country for my brother and for j's sister. not sure exactly how that will make us busier than usual though.

okay, more later when i can post some pictures.

where did the time go?

has anyone else noticed that it's the end of may already? honestly, what happened? this year is flying by. maybe by not playing baseball this summer i'll have a chance to spend some time relaxing and actually notice the time as it passes. maybe but maybe not.

my race is tomorrow. it actually snuck up on me too. maybe it's because i haven't been thinking about running lately and actually haven't run in two weeks. i'm going today after work to switch to the 10K and maybe look at shoes. they always have tons and tons of shoes there for real cheap. the past two years i've been able to find my kind in my size for about half the regular price. good deals.

for some reason, the week after the long weekend is always a tough one and this week was no different. i was getting about 5 hours of sleep a night and finally crashed last night. my big plan was to go to bed early without napping after work. i was doing fine until i went to read my book in bed. it was hot and i was obviously super tired so i fell asleep. for two hours. but was it ever nice! and i was still able to fall asleep at night, about an hour later than usual. not bad.

so today i'm feeling good. we got to work pretty much on time and get a little break for a funeral (j's grandparent's neighbour and good friend) and then it's the weekend. i have some friends coming to town for race weekend so i'm hoping to see them and catch up. it's been too long, like always.

but only because time passes too quickly.

so tired

okay well, there's more to say. i still can't quite remember everything we did this past weekend even though i was sober the whole time. j sealed the garage floor so all of our stuff was on the front step and in the hallway inside. stuff everywhere. thankfully, we were able to put everything (except the car) back in the garage tuesday after work with the help of some new shelves.



we ended the long weekend with a bbq at our neighbour and j's coworker, jp's house. we sat and talked and ate and talked more. it was nice to finally spend some time with jp's girlfriend.

we got home that night and started the week off with very little sleep because sleeping properly after a weekend of staying up late and sleeping in late is impossible.

tuesday was a regular work day, but i yawned more than any other day i'm sure. i had hockey late tuesday night so the bad, no-sleeping continued. yesterday we slept in and got to work 2 hours late (note to us: maybe we should start work later so we can actually work a whole day) but only stayed one hour later than usual. -1 hour. i had baseball last night, late, and guess what? i'm tired today. but the plan for tonight is to go for a run and then go to bed early.

i have no updates on running because i haven't been for the past two weeks. i wish i could say that my leg is feeling much better, but after my warm-up run last night at baseball, it was killing me. even the 10K is looking a little long. i'm going today or tomorrow to switch my race so we'll see what i do about that.

3 weeks tomorrow we fly out to bc. i'm looking forward to the trip and, hopefully, the sleep.

stayin alive stayin alive

i'm still alive - i just took a break from blogging. it was a long weekend afterall. and a busy long weekend at that.

friday night we had some friends over. it was really nice to see m&r after so long. and i really thought the 8 of us got along well. definitely some of my favourite people, all in one room. it was nice.

j left a little early to go see permanent daylight's last show. he called at 1:45am asking if i wanted a junior chicken. he was drunk. i said no. then, around 2:30, when i had just gone to bed, i hear the key in the door. and then the hugest, not-stealthy-at-all hiccup ever! and then about 10 more of them. j was convinced the mcdonalds gave him the hiccups. i think the rum and cokes might have had something to do with it.

saturday was the going-away party / family sees my house for the first time party. not everyone could come, but we had a good time with the people there. my family is a good bunch of people. but really, i can't believe that this guy:



is actually smart enough to have figured out how to leave the province and the country (and the continent!) and actually survive. he has (almost) everything sorted out. he leaves on sunday. i'm guessing mine and his relationship will be much like it is now. i don't call him and he doesn't call me and we see each other the odd time. sad but true. he's a bad communicator and i'm stubborn. don't get me wrong though, we do get along, we just don't see each other much.

anyways, that little get together was early saturday afternoon and then j and i went next door for a bbq with the neighbours. their house is the mirror image of ours so it was fun to see it and for j to try and pee in the garage (the bathroom and garage are across from each other and obviously opposite in either house) and to get to know our neighbours.

i can't remember if we did anything else saturday night. in fact, i'm going to sleep on it and update this post later. sorry!

can't go the distance

this post has nothing to do with my relationship and everything to do with running. i simply cannot run 21.1 km - the length of a half marathon - the way my leg is feeling. the drugs are working, but that doesn't mean that i won't hurt my leg if i attempt to run that far, i might just not FEEL it. and that scares me.

so i'm running the 10 km instead. 10 km is so much more attainable and possible and likely and safe. i like safe when it comes to my body. i don't want to make myself run the half marathon because it's something i think i should do when i haven't trained hardly enough and i have this leg thing going on. plus, i can always run it later.

i really like the saying "i run because i can" but right now, for me, 10 km is all i can run.

*huge sigh of relief*

pink!

every now and then, i get a little bored with the appearance of my blog. and so the pink. i kinda like it.

long weekend - not soon enough

this week has been a long one and i can't wait for our day off on monday. we've been really bad this week at making lunches and at getting up on time. so bad that yesterday we didn't get to work until almost lunch. we were four and a half hours late. incredible. and then today we were 2 hours late. but we have an excuse for today. last night, i woke up at 3:45 to rolo puking. i followed him around the house and cleaned up his puke more than 10 times. and when he was done and we could finally go back to bed, i couldn't fall asleep because i wasn't sure if he was okay. yuck yuck yuck. at least he seemed like his normal self this morning.

in happy news, with the new drugs, my leg has been feeling much better. though it could be that i just can't feel the pain anymore. and that's why i'm scared to run the half marathon and have asked the race organizers if i can run the 10km instead. i haven't run for almost a week so i'm going to try tonight and see how it feels.

but we also have stuff to do around the house. we're having people over friday night. at first it was only going to be s&l but then it made sense to open it up to a&s and m&r as well. good thing we have chairs or else there wouldn't be room for everyone to sit. i'm definitely looking forward to seeing everyone, especially m&r who have been gone for the past 6 months (maybe more?).

and then saturday afternoon is the going-away party for my brother, who is leaving june 1st for his year in prague. we have most of the family coming over. again, we're thankfull for the extra chairs.

but then sunday and monday are open and hopefully will be relaxing. i need to relax.

if only

if i could access my flickr page at work i would post the picture of the huge bruise on my calf but you'll have to settle for a link - it's my picture of the day from may 10th. i can't believe i haven't mentioned it on here. last sunday (may 6) i ran 16 km. my left calf was bothering my after the run and for days. well, actually, it still is, but monday night i noticed a huge bruise on my calf right where it was hurting most. i was a little relieved to know that i wasn't making up the pain, but a little worried because the middle of the bruise was a large bump. so i went to see my doctor yesterday who said that i had a major muscle pull and prescribed some anti-inflammatories and then confirmed that the bruise was a bug bite, most likely a spider bite.

i almost swore at him i was so mad! what are the chances of me getting a bug bite right on my calf where it hurts right after running longer than i've ever run? slim to none, except that it happened. gross.

so that's the running/calf/soreness/bug bite story.

but another, more exciting, story is that yesterday after work, j went with his work friend, steve, to pick up a little puppy. it's a cross between a pug and a beagle and is teeny tiny. j wants him to call her puglie but i doubt that'll happen. (puglie link until i can access my pictures). the little dog was a little scared and was having some tummy trouble and apparently stunk up the whole car! such a little dog, such an awful smell.

now, the beef of the post: my ex boyfriend got married this past saturday. and, thanks to the geniuses at facebook, there are already pictures up. and yes, i looked at them. i had some things hit me real hard. 1. i'm very glad he's happy. and it's so obvious that he's happy and i'm happy for him. lalala. 2. i'm very glad it wasn't me. we dated for over two years and i know things could have turned out differently if this and if that, but they didn't and i went off and found j and seeing the ex on his wedding day makes me so very happy about all the choices i've made and with j and my little family and with how far i've come since then.

there is no doubt that x and i had a good time together and got along well. but there is also the fact that we weren't meant for each other and i'm so glad i figured that out. there's nothing like a starter marriage these days, but it just isn't for me. and neither was he.

catching up

this weekend i spent a lot of time catching up. lately i've been finding that my days are dragging on but the weeks are flying by and all of a sudden it's may. it's already a third of the way through the year and i could have sworn it isn't even my birthday yet. time to slow down and smell the roses.

and i wish that was a seguay (or however you spell it) to a grand story of me going to see all the tulips, but it isn't. i didn't see the tulips, but i do plan on it. just haven't figured out when.

friday at work, i made a little sticky note for myself with the things we had to do on our way home. on it were catfood, drugs and stools. sounds bad, but it isn't. the catfood that our little cats can stomach was recalled so we had to switch to another sensitive diet food, which is a big hit, but we needed more. so we got that, and then we picked up some "drugs" for j, which is really protein shake stuff. and then we picked up our two lovely stools.



we are very happy with them and have already eaten two meals at the kitchen counter. on the way from the stool place, we had to go by the place we got our dining room light fixture and we knew they were having a sale so we stopped and got the matching wall sconce for the hallway going down to the basement. perfect!



and then on saturday we went to ikea and bought the dining room chairs but not the table. the table, in the colour we want, isn't in stock yet. but the chairs are on sale and likely being discontinued so we got 6 of those. then we had a race to see who could put together chairs faster. i lost. big time. and, just so you know, i signed the bottom of the chair i put together so that when it breaks and someone falls and hurts themselves, once we're sure they're okay, we can laugh at me. i'm a good sport.

chairs but no table:



we also got an extra mat for the front. it took two trips to ikea for me to convince j and now he's talking like he thought of it. he does that. finds something he likes and then claims to have invented it. it can be annoying, but he's cute so it's okay.

and finally, we got some curtains for the upstairs bedrooms. the house gets super duper hot when it's hot and sunny out and then the upstairs stays hot when you're trying to sleep. dark curtains are the answer. no pictures of those yet because they aren't all up and pretty yet.

i also caught up on being social. friday night we went to a bbq with some of j's work friends. i had the best pasta salad ever and then sucked hard at guitar hero (am i good at anything?) but blamed it on my left-right-handedness. i maintain that being ambidextrous is a good thing, but sometimes it's a curse. come to think of it, my terrible guitar hero skills could be blamed on the mojito i had. hmm... saturday, we did our shopping-for-house-things and then went for pho with pike and watched the hockey game with him and his little dog. crazy little dog. and, because i can't run, i had a beer. one extreme to another for me.

sunday was family day, well mother's day, so we saw a lot of family. we went to kanata to see my parents and then picked j's mom up at the airport and had dinner and the coffee with her and j's sister.

it was a good, long, relaxing weekend lacking in stress and not-fun things and full of friends and family and fun. absolutely perfect. oh, and by the way, i caught up on uploading my pictures so head on over to my flickr site.

anorexia understood, kinda

i use this blog as a launching page. i open it up and visit most of the links on the right every day. i told you i blogged for myself. anyways, i have to scroll down if i want to go to all my friend's blogs and i keep seeing the pictures of me with the kitten. i also see them when i log into my flickr page. and i'm skinny. it hits me every time.

i've never been a big girl. i was bigGER in first year university when the frosh-15 hit me, plus 5, but even then i wasn't big big. but i still don't consider myself all that skinny. i see all sorts of other girls and think they're smaller than me. seeing these pictures of me makes me think that maybe about half of those smaller girls are actually smaller, but that half of them must be bigger.

and then i get it. i can kinda understand the aspect of anorexia where the person thinks they're fat. we really have a skewed perspective of ourselves and i believe that it's because we are mostly looking out from ourselves and never really see our bodies the way other people do. to me, my feet always look super big but it's because i see them from the top. most people don't even notice my feet, let alone how long they are.

it also has to do with what we hear from other people. people tell me all the time that i'm skinny but i never really HEARD it until i was at my doctor's office and the admin, who is a very petite woman, said i was a "teeny thing". i'm shrek-sized compared to her. and then i realized that we both look at each other and think the other is smaller. why do we do that? how do i change how i see myself? is the media to blame or is it ingrained deep within me to see and exaggerate my flaws?

and really, i'm comfortable with my body and never get on a scale. i don't know where my perception of myself comes from but now that i understand it better, i'm going to do what i can to change it and to remind myself that it really doesn't matter. really.

take a seat

friday recap: i spent most of my work day friday bumbling through, doing my normal whatevers, but then i felt really sick so i went home around 1 and left j to find his own way home. i'm nice that way. i managed to sleep from about 1:30pm until almost 7 and then woke up for a bit, ate, ran and internetted, and then back to sleep for almost 12 hours. apparently, i wasn't feeling well AND i was exhausted.

saturday recap: the 12 hours of sleep took me until 1:30pm so i had a pretty lazy day. j had left early that morning for a car thing where we had our car detailed for free. it is so sparkly and shiny and clean now (thanks jamie!) so i was left to do whatever almost all day. i can't say i did much - some laundry, some tv watching, some showering (well, just one shower), some eating - and then j got home and we went to ikea and found a dining room table we like (didn't buy it though) and headed to kanata for a bbq and hockey game watching at j&s's house. s's parents had just moved out so it was celebratory in that way. and there was bbq'd food.

we left after the first period and headed downtown to catch our friend landon's second last show. his band, permanent daylight (remember them?) were playing at cafe dekcuf. he was given two beer tickets and gave us one. so i drank most of a beer. incredible. it was a good show and we were home pretty early so that was good. plus, j kept telling me i looked nice. apparently brushing my hair makes me look nice. (a little history: once, a bunch of years ago, i got my hair cut and when j saw me he asked me if i brushed my hair! a little brushing goes a long way!)

recap sunday: i woke up early sunday (early for me) and started making pancakes. it's the batter in a box kind of pancakes and i was a little weary about this box because my saturday pancake was disgusting. so i actually looked at the box only to find out that it wasn't "add water" like the last box, it was "add milk and an egg"! oops! so i put the batter and the milk and the egg in the bowl and was stirring the incredibly dry mixture when i realized i put twice as much batter as i was supposed to. i read 300ml of batter and put in 3 cups. i don't understand me either. so i made a double batch of pancakes, but at least they tasted good this time.

after my breakfast settled, i geared up for my long run. since the race is fast-approaching, i need to start putting in the distance so i tried for 16K and i'm proud to say that i made it 15.8 and was only gone for about an hour and 40 minutes. it was hot and my face got sunburnt and my body was killing me (and still is!) but i did it! that is 5.8K longer than i have ever run. this sunday: 18K. the sunday after that: not as far. and the sunday after that: race day! 21.1K!

i also had baseball practice sunday night. yes, i quit this year, but i also told my team that i would come out if they ever needed players. well, they need players this week and thought that maybe a practice before stepping into a game would be a good idea. so not only are my legs and feet killing me, my arms are in pain now too. c'mere, advil!

monday recap: i went to a workshop on the 7 habits to a healthy life at work and learned some neat things. because of my bad memory, i can't tell you what those 7 habits are, but i was given a website to go look at. the thing i do remember though, is that we are conditioned to think negatively. you ask someone who has back pain, for example, how they want to feel and they'll tell you that they "don't want to feel pain." exactly, that's what you DON'T WANT to feel. now, how do you WANT TO FEEL? get it? they want to feel "great" but they can't say that. it was interesting to have that pointed out. i've caught myself a bunch of times saying things like that. weird.

we stopped by staples on our way home from work and bought a new desk chair. the one we had was mine from university. a $40 walmart chair that lasted since second year but was finally falling apart. actually, falling apart. so now we have a brand new and very comfy desk chair and rolo has a new box to play in.

i went to baseball last night. we won and i played okay. i went 1 for 3 and had a good catch in the outfield. plus, i almost threw out a girl at first from center! that would have been great. and if j had a blog, he would tell you about his friend, pike, and pike's dog. this dog apparently smells like nachos but sat with j while he played games / watched tv and j was a happy camper about that. too bad we have cats, j, but at least they smell like nachos... is that a good trade off?

kitten!

we went over to see the new kitten again last night. poor a&s are having people coming over all the time now. the little cat ran around the whole time we were there and passed out right before we were leaving. she passed out on the couch so sylvia put her in my lap. she was happy to stay asleep.

pictures!

day off

i took yesterday off from blogging. mostly because i had nothing to say. will today be any different... not sure.

because of my back, i didn't play hockey tuesday night. i have no idea how my team did, but am guessing that they won since that's what we seem to do. my back is feeling better though. i'm still not sure what exactly i did to it, but i was able to run last night. i think it might just be that i'm getting older and don't recover as well as i used to. but i'm okay now and that's all that matters.

oh, and about running, i'm raising funds for the ottawa hospitals this year. i have a page all set up if you would like to donate online (i also accept cash or cheques) but don't want to link to it here because it has my name (i need to feel like not just anybody can find this blog) but please please please let me know if you would like the link. i will be sending out an email soon. (and asking for the link doesn't mean you HAVE to donate. you can always just look at the page.) i'm hoping to raise $150 and will see how the next couple of weeks go, if i have to up that amount.

in other news, my brother leaves june 1st for prague. he is spending a year-ish there for work. i'm very proud of him. we are not well-travelled and for him to be able to pick up and move across the world is amazing to me. we are hoping to have a little going-away party for him.

and at the same time, a little going-away party for j's sister who is leaving june 2nd for afghanistan. she is going on a 6 month rotation (look at me picking up the lingo! it's actually just a "roto" in deployment-speak) as a civilian. again, super impressive.

i would be huddled in a corner, wimpering. probably. but that's just me.

so may is proving to be a busy month full of stuff to do. at least we get a long weekend because i don't think i can handle this month without getting more sleep.

finally

i finally know what it feels like to throw ones back out. i don't know if it was my run or the stretching afterwards, but my back, the lower left part specifically, is in agony! i had a hard time sleeping last night because no matter how i lay, my back was bothering me. thankfully, once i was asleep, the pain didn't wake me up. but now that i'm at work, i'm not a happy camper. i can only sit up straight straight which isn't as comfortable as slouchy slouchy. whine whine whine.

i got to see a&s's new kitten yesterday. i had a doctor appointment just down the street from their place and it went quickly so i decided i had time to stop by. what a cute little cat!! it's very fluffy and bouncy and clumsy in the little-kitten kind of way. very cute. she makes my little cats seem huge.

that's about all i have to say today. well, right now. have a happy first day of may, only 3 weeks left until the long weekend!

random ramblings

a bunch of weird things happened this weekend. i had a call thursday about some suspicious activity on my credit card. i called about it friday after work and found out that there had been two more book purchases after the one i had made last wednesday. so they cancelled my card and were sending my file to the fraud department. great, except i don't have a credit card for 7-10 business days. i'm happy they caught it though.

and then we had a call from the vet (through j's sister) saying that our cat food had been recalled. we had to go and swap the stuff we did have for a new kind of food. we only bought a small bag in case they didn't like it. they have the weak little digestive systems so i was picturing fun times coming out of both ends for a while until they got used to the new food. but no, no problems at all. they love the new food and don't seem bothered by it at all. a big relief for us.

i was talking to j's dad who said that the half marathon was at capacity and that i couldn't sign up anymore. i went online to check it out and was waiting for an error message telling me the race was full, but it never came, and so i am officially registered in the half marathon. there is no backing out now. good thing i can run a whole 8K. and j was talked into running the 10K race with his mom. i hate to say but he doesn't seem all that enthused. i'll try and get him out.

and i guess the last piece of news is that we picked up my bike from the old house last night and so i will be biking again soon.

nothing as exciting as a new kitten though.

to bathe or not to bathe

i came up with this last night and i was all pleased with myself. for about two seconds. then i realized what it sounded like. here goes... i think i finally like to bathe. get it? it sounds like i only bathe because i have to when in reality i have nothing wrong with being clean and actually prefer it to being dirty. but what i mean is that i took a bath last night and enjoyed myself.

i started showering as soon as i could. i never liked lying around in the tub. just not something for me. and then, when i was 19, one day near the end of the summer right before leaving for university, i mysteriously had all sorts of huge mosquito bites all over my legs. i went to the walk-in clinic not far from my house and sat in the waiting room scratching my legs until the bites turned into huge, distorted welts. i was crying so hard because i had never ever felt such pain. i was so itchy and i was convinced my legs would never go back to normal.

i got in to see the doctor - they put me ahead of other people because of all the wailing - and was told that the mosquito bites were in fact hives. and hives are the body's way of telling you that something isn't right inside so they did a throat swab. could be strep, could be mono. doc told me to go home and take a baking soda (or powder, whatever it is) bath. still crying, i head home, pour the soda/powder into the tub and get in. a little while later i woke up. still in the tub. still covered in hives. and crying once again. people drown in bathtubs.

and that was the beginning of the worst month of my life. the throat swab came back, positive for mono. to make a long story short, i spent the next 4 weeks not training for hockey as planned, but in bed. and three of those four weeks, when i wasn't sleeping, i was puking. i'm not exaggerating. and i wouldn't puke in anything other than the toilet so everytime i had to puke, which was about 25 times a day, i would wake up and run to the bathroom down the hall. one time, on my way to the bathroom, i fell over (i was obviously a little weak) and my head hit the wall. that's what broke my fall. but i still had to puke, so i got up and wobbled to the bathroom, crying of course. i was a mess.

i lost 40 pounds that summer and didn't make the hockey team in the fall. and then the cruel frosh-15 came and hit me hard giving me the frosh-20 on top of the 40 pounds i gained back once i started eating again. your skin just can't forgive you for that.

all that to say that i don't like taking baths. never have, but after falling asleep in the tub and (possibly) almost drowning, it took years for me to even consider taking one again. but now we have a big tub and i chose to take a bath last night. and i liked it. seems like i finally beat mono. at least there were no hives involved this time.

oooh questions in the comments!

be still my heart (i don't think i've ever said or written that before) there are questions in the comments and i haven't thought of anything to write about yet for today so i'll go about answering some questions. or maybe just elaborating on some of my previous statements so that it will be more clear and there won't be any questions. i don't know.

okay, the trip to bc is so that we can fly j's parent's cats back to ottawa. yes, they are the same breed as our two. back in april 2004, we flew them out there. i had just just finished school and moved my stuff back to ottawa. we were getting married in a couple of months and heading out for our first major trip together. i had a job lined up to start right when we got back. it was a whirlwind.

we had a pretty uneventful flight out to victoria. it was strange having the cats. they were in soft-sided cat carriers (think duffel bags with mesh sides for the cats to see out/ us to see in) so we each had a cat (j got whitey, the male, and i got stinky.. errr, i mean smelly... errr, i mean sydney, the female). one lady in the ottawa airport came up to me and asked if i had a rabbit. i said no, it's a cat. she asked if the cat was soft. i said no, she's not soft at all. truthfully, her hips are fluffy and soft, but she is mostly bristly-feeling. like a toothbrush. anyways, the woman left me alone after that.

the airport security wanted us to take the cats out of the carriers so they could check them, for drugs i'm assuming, but they wanted to do it right at the security thingy, where there are tons and tons of people, lots of noise and access to the entire terminal. like we want to let two scared cats loose in a huge airport. no thank you! finally some smart thinking security person thought to take us to the personal room where we took the cats out, one at a time, and had the bags checked. after that, we were off.

on the plane (you didn't think the fun ended there, did you?) we were sitting in the emergency exit row and had the attendant come to give us the little speech about how to use the doors. check. then she told us that, in the event of an emergency and we had to evacuate the plane, we were to take the cats out of the carriers and leave the carriers. she obviously doesn't have cats. let me spell this out for you, cats each have four paws. each paw has five little toes. each little toe has a sharp little claw with which to shred the skin of anyone disturbing the little pussy cats. that's 40 sharp little claws. again, we disagreed and said we would be jumping out of the plane with the cats IN their cases whether they liked it or not. we were hoping the cases would float. never did check on that though.

we had a four-hour layover in the calgary airport. right after getting off the plane, we wanted to check on the cats, so we went into one of those family baby change room thingys. we must have looked so strange: two people with school bags and duffel bags head in the family washroom for a quickie. it wasn't like that. we gave them some water and that was about it. they were a little stressing and so was j. i was just excited. we were almost all the way to beeeeseeeee, where i'd never been.

so, that's what happened on the way to victoria. we got there okay and the cats were let out of the cases and went a little nuts exploring their new surroundings, but settled in relatively quickly.

and now it's time for the kitties to come home (j's parents too, just so you know). we'll fly out there, spend a week in the warmer-than-here climate, maybe explore that area a little (head down to seattle perhaps, or over to vancouver or banff, or up vancouver island to check out the surfing.. don't know yet), and then come home with the cats.

j's parents will be driving across the country so the cats will (most likely) live with us until they're back (possibly around the second week in july). we still have to figure out how to deal with having all four in the same house. ours eat whenever they want but the other two have a strict feeding schedule and they eat different food. thankfully we can close off the basement if needed. anyways, we'll figure it out and everything will be okay.

and we get a trip out of the deal. works for me! if only it was sooner though. after my tuesday-feels-like-friday-but-really-is-just-tuesday kind of week i'm having, i could use a vacation. i did give in and napped after work last night but i napped for way too long and couldn't fall asleep until late. and i've been dreaming about the next day so when i wake up it's always such a kick in the pants that i haven't already gotten up, brushed my teeth, showered, whatever and am at work. i'm still in bed and already exhausted. i wonder if they have anything i could take for that. super sleeping drugs? i don't think i sleep for long enough at a time to take sleeping pills, don't you need something like 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep time?

maybe that's what i'll take up this summer instead of playing ball: sleeping enough. is that a sport? will it make me fit? i need to do some reading up on this activity.

not-friday

did i ever disappoint myself yesterday. i was terribly confused and thought it was friday. i kept thinking about what i had to do this weekend and what i was going to do last night. i kept reminding myself to bring my carrots home so i could eat them this weekend.

and then it hit me: i have hockey tonight so it's only tuesday. and you know what that makes today? the worst wednesday possible. and then tomorrow is the worst thursday, and finally the worst friday has to come and go before i get to the weekend. what a cruel world.

i am melodramatic.

my news from yesterday: i booked our flights to bc for this summer. we'll be going from june 15th to the 23rd and will have two extra cats in-house afterwards for a couple of weeks while j's parents trek across the country. don't know yet how we'll sort that out but we will. i'm envisioning all-out cat epic cat brawls (not just cat fights for these four. oh nono! cat brawls!) let's just hope all four cats survive and our furniture and carpeting come out unscratched.

given my melodramatisy (and my making-up-word-isy) i've been treating today a lot like a saturday in that i've hardly done any work and i've been talking and talking with my coworker all morning. take that, wednesday!

now it's off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of oz.

of note

1) my brother is leaving in 6 weeks for prague. he is spending a year (give or take) there for work. i'm very proud of him. i'm almost positive i couldn't just pick up and go across the world for that long.

and since he doesn't read this i can tell you that i got him the lonely planet guide book for prague. j and i really liked having the costa rica book for our trip so i'm hoping he will find it useful. (j, by the way, i bought a book.)

2) crazy aunt purl, a friend of mine (where friend = stranger whose blog i read and who doesn't know me from eve), wrote a book. i feel like i know her because i read her thoughts every day or two and see pictures of her cats and plants and such, but i really don't know her. it's probably a super funny book though.

so while i was buying the lonely planet book for my brother, i pre-ordered crazy aunt purl's book. (j, by the way, i bought more than one book.)

3) umm, i also bought a latin american spanish phrase book. but j really wants this too. plus i had a gift card (maybe from my birthday?) so it didn't cost full price. (j, surprise! more than two books!)

4) i would really like to be able to call myself a runner, but i'm more of an imposter in the running world. i need some inspiration (a running book maybe?) i went to run last night, hoping to get in 5 or 6K before the rain started, but wimped out way before then because the wind was so strong it was making my ears hurt. i'm such a wimp. (but not as wimpy as j who complains the whole time we're running.. when he comes running that is.)

5) we're thinking of getting another car. we're not sure if we'll lease or buy (new or used) or what, but having one car is proving to be a little more difficult now that we don't live in such a central neighbourhood. plus, we both came into this relationship with a car and have since downsized to only one and it's trying at times. did i mention that i don't get to drive all that much? did i mention that i kinda feel like my freedom died along with lumi (my 92 chevrolet lumina, lumi, who i loved until he started dying while i was driving along. yep, that was awesome)? well, some of my freedom anyways. (j, don't worry, i still like you.)

6) lists are good for some people. personally, i am a list maker. i make lists for everthing. (drives j crazy.) and yes, the house list is a huge long list that just keeps getting longer no matter how many things we buy, but how else would i know what we need without the list? but talking about such a list got comments and comments are good.

7) complaining about deliquent bloggers on facebook got at least one blog updated (thanks, skinnykitty!) but i do understand that some people, lots of people actually, don't blog often. i get it. personally, i feel weird if i haven't blogged in a couple of days. but that's just me. plus, i can blog from work, just don't tell my boss.

8) alan and sylvia, my good friends (for real this time), are getting a kitten! it's possible i am just as excited, or more excited, than they are. their house came with cat doors already installed (or just cut out of the doors) so i'm not sure how they held out for so long, but i know they're going to have a great time with a little ball of fluff and energy running around. (ps. sylvia, update your blog!) (pps. or alan, maybe you should hijack it and update for her. she has exams afterall.)

9) should all lists end at 10? can i possibly have more to say? is this cheating? did i mention that i like to make lists?

10) yep, ran out of steam. plus, i really do have to get some work done. bah, responsibility!