Amberism

It's a lonely cyber world

My usual email buddy is out braving the wilds of India (or rather, he's visiting family, but hey, it's India, so for a glow-in-the dark gal like me India seems exotic and wild) so my inbox is eerily quiet. My other email buddy is either very busy, or she's ignoring me :). At any rate, the work day sure does drag without those little bits of email goodness. If only my husband would learn the art of email banter. He either completely ignores my emails, or doesn't get my attempts at email flirting. That is rather sad, seeing as he's my husband and all, but he's good with the in-person flirting and since we do see each other in person fairly regularly I forgive him. Plus he has dimples. You try staying mad at a guy with dimples. Betcha can't do it.

That combined with the no updating on this site for 10 days and scaring off my readers makes for a lonely cyber-Amber! Come back, regular readers! My ego needs you!

To add to my cyber drama, Google is experiencing problems of the sort where you try to go to Google and you're redirected to a google-like site on occassion (I'm told) that downloads some sort of spyware. We've been warned to stay clear of Google. This is difficult when Google is your search engine of choice. You realize just how often you google when you can't google no more. I google a lot.

In other news, my course is fast approaching so I'm really starting to get nervous and think about all the stuff I should have been doing to prepare for this course a month ago. I started the readings (eh, yesterday) and have gotten through Module One. There are 7 modules, all significantly longer than Module One, so I have some serious reading ahead of me. I hope I'm not in over my head here, since there is a lot of ecology in this course that I'm just not that familar with. I find it fascinating, I just don't have that much of a background in it yet.

I was disappointed to learn that my idea for a group project wasn't all that unique, there's a restoration project already underway. Hmph. Now I have to think of something else, I'm considering my front yard as my restoration project. I wonder if that will fly...

My rambling here is done. Now it's your turn.

Because Fearthainn fears the blank page, er, blog.

My week holiday was simply fabulous and I am very saddened that once again I have to return to my usual routine. I don't want to grow up! The kids were so much fun to be around, and were so good, I'm constantly amazed with how patient Michelle's kids are, I swear my 4-year old goddaughter is 100 times more patient than I am!! Plus they're so cute you just want to eat them for dessert.

The weather has been absolutely STUNNING. I'm talking +30 C weather;* we've had the boat out, we've been to the beach, we're crispy red with freckles all over. Summer has arrived and I want to smother it with love. I've eaten the island of all it's ice cream, so please, send some. I can always eat more ice cream.

I do have some pictures of our holidaying around the island, and hopefully I'll post them soon, I have to run the film to London Drugs (my favorite place to develop film) and it's not in the least convenient so these things take time.

Today we had the boat out at Sprout Lake, and the dog jumped out of the truck before we could catch him. High drama, let me tell you. He ran RIGHT up to this grumpy old guy and started barking at him. He wouldn't come to us when we called (which isn't his usual behaviour - he was being a right jackass) and then even went back to this guy and caused even more of a rukus. I thought I would die of the shame of owning this bad dog. Although, honestly, the guy was a real ass (not that he didn't have a right to be, what with my dog being so FUCKING STUPID) but he just wouldn't let up with the threatening and yelling at us and was just excalating the situation because Vegas is protective and was perceiving this as threatening. If at any moment I wanted to kill my dog, and well, all the fucking stupid people in the world including this guy, it was this afternoon.

The whole incident basically ruined my afternoon of boating. We've been continuing our training with the dog on our own, but obviously, we're not consistant enough and then when you have a freak incident like this (I'm not the type of person who normally lets my dog run wild like that, it was an honest-to-god accident) it just seems to spiral into this overblown situation. More training is in order, absolutely, it's just ...disheartening.

I still love summer and my silly over-protective dog. I really wanted to end this post on a positive note!

*eh, is this an appropriate use of the semi-colon?

This is an update, yo.

I feel as though I should update, mostly because I'm sick of seeing the same post at the top from last Friday.

It's been an exciting week. That was dripping with sarcasm in case you missed it. First, I went to the dentist for the first time in a good long time. It was not pleasant but it wasn't horrific either. My hygenist was kind to me and my teeth are prettier than Steve's and I had no cavities whereas he had FOUR. That's right people, count 'em, FOUR. I feel all righteous and superior.

Then again, I have to have some sort of synthetic material grafted onto my gum because there is recession in one area. My righteousness was rather short-lived.

I finished painting my office. What on earth possessed me to start painting the office over a month ago is still a mystery, but as we have company showing up tonight I suddenly felt compelled to finish that project. Except I didn't move the 5-tonne bookcases full of books. I painted around it. That's right, I am one of THOSE people. And even though you can't even tell, it drives Steven insane, and that really only adds to it's appeal if you ask me :).

I broke my electric, push lawn mower last weekend attemping to mow my 2.5 acres, so now we have one section of our lawn mowed and the remaining lawn is waist-high (and I'm not even exaggerating all that much). I weed-wacked a path to the shop, and weed-wacked under our screen tent, and in the process moved a chair too close to the screen and ripped the screen. I didn't feel very righteous admitting to Steve that I broke his tent. Anyone ever fixed a screen tent before? It's a really nice one that wasn't cheap so I feel incredibly foolish.

I've run out of scenarios in which to use the word righteous.

I have my godchild and her parents coming to visit for 10 whole days tonight! hee! I'm so excited! But I'll be scarce for the next little while. Pretend to miss me!

Friday, Thank God

man, it's been a rough week. I'd elaborate but this being a public forum and all, you're either going to have to email me or make your guesses. And no, for the love of God, I'm not pregnant. At least, I don't believe myself to be and I believe that I'd be in the know on that one. If I was pregnant, wouldn't that be the poison icing on the under-cooked cake.

It's going to be a rainy weekend, all that snow in Alberta has moved its way westward and turned to rain out here. It'll be good, though, because I have a lot of indoor errands I could be focusing on. The rain will make sure we don't get tempted to go outside and frolik in our West Coast way. We really have to do our taxes, we've procrastinated too long already. Can you believe that I still haven't received an amended T4 from work?! Seriously. I got my first try at the T4 late, and it was wrong, and I've yet to see the amended copy even though I basically email regarding it every_single_day.

I can still do the preliminary taxes but because of my special tax situation I can't file electronically, all my papers have to be sent in, therefore, need that pretty little piece of paper. Fuck, I hate taxes.

Every morning this week I've been greeted with either a bit of annoying news or had some comedy-of-errors drama. This morning the cat bit me and the dog scratched my lip. That isn't messed up either, even though you'd think it would be the other way around. The cat must have thought my sparkly necklace was a toy and I suppose went to bite the necklace and missed, biting my neck instead and waking me from my precious sleep. I rolled over and attempted to go back to sleep when the dog pawed at the bed, instead pawing my face and cutting my lip with his lion-like claws. At this point I just accepted my fate and got out of bed. I'm very sleepy.

What are you going to be when you grow up?

I'm wondering what I should be when I grow up. Seems like a good a time as any to finally settle down and think through this decision. This leads me to wonder, what do you all want to be when YOU grow up? When you're thinking through your life plan, what is your approach? Do you write lists? Do you have a book you refer to? Goal setting? Do tell.

I got the course notes for the diploma program I'm starting at University of Victoria in June, and the course seems incredibly cool. It's Ecological Restoration, so I've started doing some reading and researching. I have to come up with a project that will restore an area and I have a few ideas which as time goes on, you're going to hear a lot about. That's just the way it is.

And in News From The Backyard: Steve and I finally went around and took a good, hard look at our fruit trees. Specifically the fruit trees that appear to be, well, dead. I can't tell you what's wrong with two of the three dead fruit trees, but the last one seemed to be infested with tent caterpillars (see how smart I am with a reference book? Very smart indeed). Caterpillars creep me the fuck out, and it appears the organic way to deal with them is to collect them and burn them. It seems unbelievably cruel, but we did it because an infestation of caterpillars might just kill me. Ick. I'm using the term "we" liberally here, in all honesty, Steve collected them and burned them. I don't do bug collection.

Looking at the seem-to-be-dead trees led me to look at the live trees to ensure their health because I care, I really do. This led me to come across something unbelievably cool - ants farming aphids! Seriously! The Pest Control guy came by to check the house last Saturday and he told me the big, black ants I'm seeing are sugar ants and they are known to farm aphids for their honeydew excretions. They'll literally herd them along the tree and protect the aphids from predators. The ants aren't really "sugar" ants, the term I found on-line is moisture ants, but still, seeing all these ants maintaining a certain number of aphids throughout the tree was cool. Here's someone else's pictures but it basically looks the same at my house except my ants don't look half that scary.

It's sad that I'll be hosing them all off this weekend, but they don't get to farm aphids on my acreage. Sorry ants, but you're seriously starting to get on my nerves what with your kitchen raiding and aphid farming.

I talk about grass and daffadils. Several paragraphs worth of grass and daffadils. I need to go on a trip or something.

My week is not going well. This morning I hauled my butt out of bed to do intervals on the treadmill. Got set up, went to take a drink of water and the entire bottle dumped itself on my face and chest. Good Morning! It also fucked with my mp3 player which displeases me muchly. I did finish the intervals at least.

We have daffadils growing along side the driveway up to the house. Well, they're dead now, but they were quite pretty when in bloom. When Grandma was over she told me that I can't just let the grass take over that area because it'll suffocate the daffadils, much to my dismay because my current plan of attack was to let the natural landscape take over and every year there would be these daffadils. So much for that little idea, and since I didn't plant the daffadils I'm a little bitter to be responsible for their wellfare, but they ARE pretty so last night I weeded out grass, grass and oh! more grass with the occassional thistle and wild daisy, from the daffadil flower bed. I considered leaving the wild daisies there because I think they'll be pretty, but it was easier to pull them out because there was so much grass mixed in. The entire yard is littered with the wild daisies so when they bloom it should look like a meadow of wild flowers. I hope. Right now it just looks like a ill-kept lawn.

I was out there for two hours and managed to only weed half of my new flower bed. The other half will hopefully get weeded this week and then I'm going to sweet talk my husband into making me a raised bed out there so I can fill it with real soil and plant some native BC perrenials. If I'm going to have a flower bed I might as well go all the way, so I'll throw in some plants that don't require me to water them or care for them, but my inherited daffadils can still return every spring and not worry about being murdered by the grass.

I had a $100 gift certificate to Chapters as a wedding gift, so last week Steve and I spent $100 on books. I can't tell you how sinful that felt! A hundred bucks on books seems crazy! I bought a bunch of organic gardening books, how to control pests without pesticide and that sort of stuff. One of the books I bought was titled "How to get your Lawn off Grass". I'm looking forward to flipping through this one because I can't tell you how much I hate the damn grass in my yard. The yard is just too big for that much lawn* and the mowing is just too annoying when you're looking at over an acre of mowable space. Currently the grass out here is growing like it's on some mission to the moon or something and walking around our yard is becoming an obstacle course through the grass. I want it GONE.

*I use the term 'lawn' loosely. It's grass, quack grass, weeds, wild daisies and the like, but because of some of the species of grass in the mix, it requires mowing.

ugh. I was all ready this morning, everything freshly laundered, my gym bag packed with work clothes, me in my yoga pants and a t-shirt. Drove into work, went to the gym, open the trunk. No bag. Look in the backseat. No bag.

You've got to be fucking kidding me.

I had to drive home, a 35 minute drive, shower, change and drive back to work. No workout, and I was later than I would have been if I HAD worked out. Not a stellar start to the day, that. Do you ever wonder if you intentionally do stuff like that, subconsciously, to sabotage your own good intentions?

To honour thy Mommy, we had my Grandma over yesterday for curry and samsosas because she'd never had it and had asked me once to make it for her so she could give it a try. I find pulling together a couple of curry dishes to be a difficult task, so unless you birthed me, or birthed the woman who birthed me, it ain't gonna happen for you. I'm not a cook and pulling together more than one curry dish at a time really stretches my very few abilities.

We had two vegetable curries, rice, naan bread, and Steve made samsosas that afternoon. It turned out alright, a little spicey but nothing too dramatic. Grandma said it was good but she figured it was probably not something that she'd have again :)!

And I didn't forget my Mommy, I called her! In case you thought me a completely selfish daughter. I'm only semi-selfish.

Yesterday was also the 60th anniversary of V-Day. Lest we forget the price our ancestors paid for freedom.

Stop the Dancing!

I love you guys, all your praying and dancing worked and it rained!

But uh, we play in the rain so my begging for rain was a wee bit stupid. It did clear up before we got really into it so it wasn't too horrible or anything. We were short two girls (I guess the other girls don't feel the same as I do about commitment), so we played with two "Jane Does" which means we were short two people in the field, and every time Jane Doe came up to bat, we had an out. But we only lost the first game by two runs, and we won the second game! With two outs in our batting order! I was hitting like complete shit though, it's like I totally forgot how to hit and I couldn't even get the damn ball to move two inches from the bat. It was pathetic.

Since there were no girls, I got to back catch. I like back catching, you don't do a whole lot, and if the play is coming to you the pitcher backs you up.

Steve couldn't play (he's spranged an ankle moving all that rocky dirt for the greenhouse and it's all swollen) so he was our cheering squad and he could watch me and give me pointers, for which I'm glad. No one is ever giving you any pointers so you never improve!

Oh! I have Real News!

I am a 4 out of 6 antigen match for an unrelated bone marrow recipient! How cool is that?! I go tomorrow for further antigen testing to see if I'm a full match. It's pretty unlikely that I am, but I would be so honoured if I was. An opportunity to be able to help someone have another chance at life is pretty amazing.

Rain Dance

ok, people, I need your help. Pray for rain. I have softball tonight and I so don't want to go because 1) softball sucks and b) that glout (sp?) muscle I pulled still hurts. It's ok doing intervals on the treadmill but sprinting to first base is going to hurt like a sonofabitch.

I just want to go home and plop my fat ass on my comfortable couch and stare at the TV. My couch? It's calling. It's lonely. It needs the love and that's where we need you.

Rain. Rain in Nanaimo. Got that? Good.

(I could skip, but I hate people who commit but don't *really* commit. I said I'd play, and I'll play. I'd just rather not.)

I don't think I learned anything from that

but it wasted a good 15 minutes, so there ya have it

Your brain: 80% interpersonal, 80% visual, 100% verbal, and 140% mathematical!

Congratulations on being 400% smart! Actually, on my test, everyone is. The above score breaks down what kind of thinking you most enjoy doing. A score above 100% means you use that kind of thinking more than average, and a score below 100% means you use it less. It says nothing about how good you are at any one, just how interested you are in each, relatively. A substantial difference in scores between two people means, conclusively, that they are different kinds of thinkers. Matching Summary: Each of us has different tastes. Still, I offer the following advice, which I think is obvious: Don't date someone if your interpersonal percentages differ by more than 80%. Don't be friends with someone if your verbal percentages differ by more than 100%. Don't have sex with someone if their math percentage is over 200%.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 74% on interpersonal You scored higher than 61% on visual You scored higher than 82% on verbal You scored higher than 76% on mathematical

Link: The 4-Variable IQ Test written by chriscoyne on Ok Cupid

I'm only 60% off being denied sex, according to this test. That would have been sad.

Mortgage? I'm supposed to pay that?

This weekend I spent all the money in the world and I have some new fancy toys to keep me entertained over the summer months. Today it's raining like it's never rained before which is spoiling my party of summer toys. That'll show me.

I finally bought a decent patio set that doesn't pinch your ass when you sit on the seats and the table doesn't dip because it was made out of cheap ass plastic and cost me a total of $60 (including the 6 chairs). I don't have a patio but I plan to have one in the coming weeks (hint, hint Steve). I really want to have a patio before M and A and their little creatures get here for their holidays, and I also wanted to be able to feed them outside. The fact that I don't have a kitchen table either is neither here nor there. One project at a time.

Once you start spending obscene amounts of money you feel like you're able to spend more. So I did. Behold, our new greenhouse.

Not the greatest picture because the greenhouse building started before lunch and ended at about 9:00 pm that evening. Two hours to install my ass, it took closer to 5, and the remaining time Steve was building the base for it. We're going to be putting drainage gravel all around it, hence the black landscape fabric. And of course, plants will go inside of it.

I am going to go through the installation process for Cindy's benefit :), because girl - this thing was a bitch to put together. If you guys get one, take some notes.

The base, the greenhouse doesn't come with one so you either have to buy it or build one. Steve decided to build one which involved a lot of dirt shoveling, rock removing and leveling. Looks nice, though, eh?

The building: It says you don't need another person until you start the roof. Whatever. If you don't want the thing to blow over, you need two people. Three would have been better. I look ridiculous in a ballcap.

The Mistake: ok, pay attention here. This is the back of the greenhouse, across from the door. See that skinny metal piece?

yeah, even though you think that would go there, and even though you use that identical piece elsewhere at that level. You would be wrong. Very, very, VERY wrong. And once your greenhouse is basically built, realizing that piece needs to be removed is not a happy moment. We had to hammer out that middle section (all three panels, straight up) to fix that little mistake. Not a good time.

This is the piece that is suppose to be there

Notice that it's slightly thicker!

We also got a wooden table to go with our chairs on the front porch, but I didn't take a picture of that. Next to the greenhouse, it's not that impressive.

Lastly, to reward you for your effort of reading through this whole post, a picture of Salazer. Ain't he handsome?