Crock A Doodle

For a Christmas present for Mom we decided to take her to a Crock A Doodle studio. Crock A Doodle studios have pottery pieces that you can paint using a wide variety of colours. We had a lot of fun with it.

I just picked up our pieces and since Jennifer is back in Halifax, I thought I would post pictures here to show her the final products!!

The finished product!

A cute little penguin plate!

A Monet inspired picture frame

A crafty frame of mind

It was about a year ago that I purchased a frame that had most likely held a mirror. I had seen some great projects on Pinterest for frames but it took about a year before I actually did something with it! I had even purchased the spray paint last year, but it sat in my room gathering dust.

Jennifer helped me spray paint it with a heirloom white then Kirk helped staple chicken wire to the back. The original Pin had pieces of wire hung across but I thought using chicken wire would provide more room to display pictures. I used wooden clothes pins and paper clips to hold the pictures on.

 
 

I am so pleased with how it turned out!! I love how easy it is to change the pictures around and how great it looks in my room. A successful Pinterest attempt!

My super, awesome, fantastic birthday

I recently celebrated my birthday and I honestly cannot remember having a better birthday! Kirk came over on Friday after work for my 'party' as I was visiting my aunt for my actual birthday. 
This is what Kirk saw when he went around back. 

Yes, I did go to Wal-Mart and buy three water guns for my birthday. Jen, Kirk and I used the new guns, and Dad found the large pump-up one in the shed. And it was awesome! You should all be jealous that you were not here. I created two safe zones at the hoses so we could fill them up without getting attacked, but Kirk did not read the signs and sprayed us anyways. 

I missed the memo about making a menacing look

 Trying to take a picture was a challenge. 

Attempt 1 - Jen! Stop that!

Attempt 2 - Hey! Who sprayed me?!

Attempt 3 - Good enough

This is my attempt at making a rainbow cake. It clearly was a disaster, but that is a story for another day. 
 

I took the train to visit my lovely aunt and had a wonderful time for my birthday! I was able to see my cousin's piano recital, and my other cousin's swimming lesson. I had a fantastic lunch my birthday and was given a beautiful sundress! It was a great birthday! 

What fun and fantastic things have you done for your birthday? 

Share in the comments! 

Things I would have Tweeted if I wanted to bombard everyone with Tweets all day

And I don't even like tweeting that much. I am never sure if I need to include a #hashtag, or if it is ok not to include one. So these are more of..... 'short remarks on events that occurred throughout my day'. Maybe you won't feel so bad about your day after reading these, or you will become super jealous on how awesome my days are if they are like this everyday. {Which they are not, it is actually very hard to describe a 'typical' day here so I am going to include a disclaimer that says this is not a portrayal of a typical day}


Disclaimer: The following 'short remarks on events that occurred throughout my day' are in no way a portrayal of a 'typical' day for me.

• Maybe I should just pretend to still be asleep so I can continue reading my book.

• SOMEONE STOLE THE WHEELBARROW! (You know, the one we take the garbage down to the street in). Oh wait, Jen just put it away this morning.

• I hope we have stock in a paper towel company: these cats make a huge mess.

• Nothing says ‘change your baking plans’ more than finding an entire mouse skeleton in the container you were planning on using.

• Being surprised to find something where it should be is never a good way to show your appreciation for your mum’s cleaning.

• Standing at the door for three minutes, waiting for the dog to come in, finally giving up only to have that same dog bark one minute later to be let in.

• I am not embarrassed to admit that I am so very excited to register for my classes! 

• Nor am I embarrassed to admit that I have three different schedules laid out in case I can’t get into a certain course.

• Does asking your boyfriend to quit work so you can spend every single day together qualify as being too clingy?

• Taking rain jackets on a beautiful, sunny day with no clouds in sight is sadly not the craziest thing my mum has done.

• Quote of the day: 'Now that is an aggressive fountain'.

• Cherry passion Tic Tacs, why are you so tasty?

• You know your baking skills are atrocious when you don’t think twice about purchasing a cake mix in case baking the cake from scratch doesn’t work out.

• Buying clothes at the grocery store; something just feels so wrong about it but that certainly didn’t stop me!

• And no, that wasn’t me buying shoes from the children’s section. 

• 
  

A crazy homecoming

This has been a crazy month! As the month draws to an end I am finally finding time to sit down and write a bit,  so hopefully I will be more frequent on the posting. 


As soon as school finished with my last week of practicum  {which was really sad}, Jennifer came home {which was great} and then we packed for a 12 day Mediterranean cruise {which was beyond words}. As soon as we got home our wonderful friends from Alberta where back 'home' for a week, so there was no rest for the wicked. 


Throughout all of that there were sick days, job interviews and babysitting Avelee. Not to mention trying to adjust back to 'normal' life. That is to say, not waking up everyday to eat a buffet breakfast then to visit ports that I had only dreamed of seeing and to go back each night for fantastic suppers and amazing entertainment. 


I am working slowly through the thousands {yes, thousands} of pictures I took, trying to decide which ones to post to Facebook and which ones to put on here. So I am working on it, just slowly! 


Until next time! 

Still here!

Final essays and now exams have reduced my available time to almost nil, and while I want to post, it is not high on my priority list. 

This is going to be a random posting, as I have some pictures I have been wanting to post and things I want to share with Jennifer!! 

So get ready for picture overload! 

Adventures with Kirk

Kirk isn't very strong

But I am!! One finger lift! 

 -Jennifer!! When are you coming home??

This is as unfuzzy as I could get!

I don't have time to write any reviews right now but if anyone is looking for some fantastic books to read, I just finished some great ones!

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

The Violets of March - Sarah Jio

The Language of Flowers - Vanessa Diffenbaugh

And now back to studying!! 

Day 7 of March Photo A Day

YES!!! Posting today which officially means I am caught up! Now only to get caught up on school work...


#6. 5 PM

{And yes, I did move the time back to get this picture!}

I love this clock! Jennifer gave it to me for Christmas and it is the most amazing thing ever!


#7 Something I Wore

This picture is more important than it first appears! Do you see what the picture is of?? SHOES!! Not boots, shoes! Which means it was nice enough weather today to wear shoes! The weather was spooky nice today, without the strong wind it would have been almost hot. But of course, tomorrow it is suppose to rain/snow, depending on what weather you are looking at. At least I was able to wear my shoes a few times in March. These are actually my favourite shoes of all time. I bought them in 2008, right before I went to Europe with Jennifer. They are, sadly, starting to get worn out but I refuse to accept that. 

Running with the shoe theme {get it?? running! with the shoes?}, do you have a favourite pair of shoes? Is there a pair that you refuse to get rid of?  

Photo Challenge Catch Up

I was so happy because I took all of the pictures I needed to take over the weekend and I was going to catch up and feel great. Reality: I left my camera charger in B-ford and my camera was out of batteries. It was quite depressing but now I am going to post the pictures from the weekend and everything will be great. 


#3. My neighbourhood 

Living where I do is something that I know I take for granted. Growing up living on a small hobby farm is an experience that has positively shaped who I am today. There were so many options to chose from when deciding what to photograph that best represents my neighbourhood, from the farms all along the road, to the creek, to the beautiful forests but I ended up choosing the nature trail. My neighbours generously donated a large portion of their land to be made into a nature trail for everyone to enjoy. This picture not only represents the beautiful nature in my neighbourhood but is also a representation of the wonderful people I am lucky enough to live near. 


#4 Bedside

Compared to the other bedside pictures I have seen for this challenge, this is nothing special. But here we go anyways: 
- a lamp
- unscented hand cream that doesn't make my hands break out with eczema
- medicated cream for when my hands do break out with exzema
- Tylenol because I have had a bad headache these past few days
- Kobo covers, depending on my outfit of the day I change the cover [not actually!! I just have two awesome colours that make it hard to pick one]
- Kobo light
- A light thing with a scented shade which should probably have been changed a long time ago
- a bell, Paige has the same one and we have bell ringing competitions every week or so [not really, but doesn't that sound epic?!]
- Valentine's M&Ms that I should probably eat
- random paper clip and sticker for character


#5 A Smile

I had so many ideas for this picture but since March 5th was my darling baby sister's birthday, I figured this would be so appropriate! Happy Birthday Jennifer!!! Your smile is adorable!! 


And now I am caught up! It is a good feeling!

Reading Week!

Here we are, the Thursday of Reading Week. Today was a bit of a wake-up call as today was the first day I actually sat down to get some work done! 


The weekend was a relaxing weekend, hanging out and doing nothing. 
Monday was Family Day, once again a 'do nothing' day. 
Tuesday was shopping in London for what seemed an eternity. 
Wednesday was more shopping and a movie. 


And of course, today I am struggling to make up for those relaxing days. Not that there is anything wrong with just spending time with my family, especially as Jennifer came home for Reading Week. But this means that my plan for getting a start on three essays this week is starting to look slightly out of reach. 

[On the plus side, I have seen two movies and read a book this week]

'This Is Where I Leave You' by Jonathan Tropper was included in Holly's book list of 2011. It was only a good book; it was funny and intelligent but I did not fall in love with the book. I enjoyed reading the novel but I could not relate to the middle-aged man whose wife cheats on him with his boss around the same time that his father dies. Judd Foxman, while having a ridiculously awesome name, is quite pitiful and while I am sure that was the intention of Tropper, it was only for the writing that I continued to read and not for the characters.  

I have heard some really great things about 'Crazy Stupid Love' from some friends but always just ignored the advice to see it. Until this past weekend that is. Kirk and I were at the video store for the longest time, not finding anything that interested us. As I became frustrated I grabbed this movie, having reached that 'I do not care anymore' stage. I was not really sure what to expect but I am sure glad I picked this movie. It is now my new favourite movie. I loved everything about it. I am still in that stage where I don't have any words to describe how much I loved it so all I will say is that everyone should watch it. Sorry Kathryn for not going out and renting this movie right after you told me about it! 

Yesterday Mom, Jennifer and I went shopping again and then to see 'This Means War'. I had seen quite a few trailers for the film and thought it looked hilarious. I was really excited to see it, but I quickly ran into problems when I tried to find a theatre that was playing it! Our normal theatre wasn't playing it and the only theatre in London that had the movie was SilverCity. I was really disappointed that there was so few places showing it but we did end up going to see it, despite the longer drive. I believe I could have really loved it, if it were not for 'Crazy Stupid Love'. Yes, I am blaming 'Crazy Stupid Love' for ruining my ability to enjoy a romantic comedy. My standards have been raised now and I have a feeling it will take some time before I stop comparing everything to 'Crazy Stupid Love'. 'This Means War' was cute; Reese Witherspoon is cute, Tom Hardy was cute [his accent, on the other hand, was fantastic] and Chris Pine was cute. Overall, cute. I believe it was the chemistry between two characters that saved this movie from being horrible. And that chemistry did not Reese's character, who just seemed an odd match for either Hardy or Pine. It was the bromance that gave the movie something interesting and exciting as their friendship seemed realistic and honest. 

My essay is coming along nicely now, so I should probably start to focus on it a little bit more than I have been. But to conclude:

• 'This Is Where I Leave You' - good, read it if you need something to fill your time. 
• 'Crazy Stupid Love' - go now and watch it! Seriously, go now! Stop reading this and go! 
• 'This Means War' - worth renting for a girl's night. Cute. 

Have you seen 'Crazy Stupid Love' or 'This Means War'? Or have you read 'This Is Where I Leave You'? Drop a comment with your thoughts! 

Sisterly Love

Today is September 1st. The beginning of a new month. It is also the beginning of a new adventure for my little sister. She has left to go to NSCAD University in Halifax for ceramics. And as exciting as it is for her to be starting this fantastic stage in her life, it has left me feeling a little lost. 


I am not really sure what I am going to do with my little sister. From the day she was born she has been my best friend. Growing up meant growing closer. I cannot think of a time that we were apart when we were young children. 


My best friend, my playmate, my rock, my fellow adventurer, my sister. 

 Now that we are both grown up we each have our own lives. We have different interests now and we have separate friends but we always come back to each other. 


It is sad to say good-bye, but I wish Jennifer all the best at school and I know she is going do amazing. I know this because she is my sister. And no matter where she goes, she will always be my little sister. That is something that will never change and something that I will always take comfort in. 

Cheers to you, Jen!! I can't wait to hear all about your wonderful, new life in Halifax!