May 2007 Archives

Ok, so maybe it's Thursday for the rest of you, but I have tomorrow off work, so this is my Friday! I need it too. I got to sleep after 2am this morning, and I got up at 7 to drop Rob off at work so I could take the car. I went to the gym, then drove Mom to work, then I went to pick up Gran to bring her grocery shopping. Then I had lunch at Gran & Gramp's, and then I went to Bulk Barn to pick up a couple of things I needed to make Rob some coconut bon bons. I did all that before 12 noon. Then I made some bon bons. I only made a dozen or so, as they didn't turn out quite as perfect as I would have liked. So, I rolled the rest of the fillings into balls and stuck them in the fridge, so they'll be plenty firm for me to finish tomorrow.

Tomorrow on my day off I plan to make bon bons, then lay in my hammock and eat them. Oh glorious day. Oh wait.....I have to put the hammock together first. That defeats the purpose. I have no idea what the weather is supposed to be like tomorrow either. I bet it will rain. Oh well, I have plenty to do in the house too. I think I need to sit down and do a little sewing, as I'm going through withdrawl. I've got to get snapping on making more doll clothes too, because a girl on a Blythe forum sent me a load of cute fabric for free, I just have to make her some clothes and send them back to her. Sweet deal. I adore making doll clothes. I've got some in progress too that I'll be selling in my shop. Speaking of sewing, I don't think I mentioned that Christmas is going to come early to me this year. Rob is letting me get a serger (aka an interlock machine). That's so exciting.It will come in so handy. I can't wait until I have a huge craft room that I can set up my sewing machine and my serger and leave them set up. So, my serger is on layaway at Singer. There's no interest, and no deadline to pay it off. So, I'm taking all my Etsy earnings and using them to pay off the machine. Plus, I may make some payments on pay days too. :) It's so exciting.

Rob and I recently watched Oceans 11 and Oceans 12. Rob loves those movies, and I must say, I really loved them too. So much that when Rob asked me what movie I'd like to see this weekend, I chose Oceans 13 over Pirates of the Carribean. Too bad Oceans 13 isn't out until next weekend. :P Oh well, we'll just have to go to movies both weekends! We don't go to the movies enough, so we deserve it.

I've been totally addicted to playing "Mario & Luigi - Partners in Time" for the DS since I borrowed it from Bucky a few weeks ago. He wasn't too big on the game, but I love it. It's M&L, but an RPG too. FF-type fights. It was pretty cool. I've played it pretty frequently, putting in over 30 hours, and last night I finally finished the game. I had to try the final 2 bosses a couple of times, but I figured out a good stratedgy, and finally kicked some booty. I can't believe I'm done. My only two complaints about the game was 1)It didn't show the enemy hit points, and 2)It took waaaaay too long to beat the bosses. Even if you hit them with your best arsenal, and didn't take any hits back, it took forever.

Now, I hope Bucky is bored of Diddy Kong racing, so I can borrow it. Or, maybe he's bored with my Mario Cart, so I can play that!

Incase you haven't already guessed, it's not too busy at work this evening. I thought it would be crazy busy because yesterday was Memorial Day in the US. But, we're not swamped with calls. It's nice when we are because time passes so fast, but it's also nice when it's not, because I can sit back and relax. Yesterday was so dead here, and I didn't bring anything to do at all. No book, no DS, nothing. Today I did bring my book, but for now I'm content to catch up on posts.

Apparantly this weekend we're having a yard sale at our house. We have one every year, and my Grandmother loves having it at our place, I guess because we're in such a central location. She's been going on about one the past few weeks, so I figured since I have Friday off, that would give me tiem to get ready for a Saturday yardsale. I don't have a whole lot to put in the sale yet, but I do have some things in mind, I've just gotta root through the kitchen, and I suppose a few other rooms too. Mom and I cleaned out the back room in the basement Saturday, and we filled a few boxes with yardsale stuff there. So, I suppose I have a few things. I don't think I'll be making any serious cash though - usually I make over $100 easily. This time I don't think I'll even have $100 worth of stuff to sell. I wonder if Rob's got anything stashed in the basement that he'd want to get rid of. If I don't remember to ask in person, hey Bert, go through your junk to see if there's anything you want to get rid of eh? ;)

We got the car back again this weekend. The altenator had gone in it this time, but it was still under warranty. Man, that car is becoming more of a burden than it's worth. We're thinking it's time to get rid of her and look for a new one. We'd like to do that sometime soon, but right now our work schedules are totally opposite of each other, so no can do. Although, I do ahve Friday off, so maybe Friday after Rob gets off of work we'll go look. We have a general idea of what we'd like (read Honda Fit), but we're a little torn on that. Rob says there's no way we're buying brand new, becuase of the depreciation that happens as soon as you drive a new car off the lot. He wants something that's a year or 2 old, like just came off a lease sort of thing. The problem with that is the Fit is new. It just came out last year, so there would be no leases finishing yet. Who knows though, maybe we'll get lucky. Rob is a lucky kind of guy.

We went and got new cell phones this weekend. Roger's plans are SO much better than Telus. Phones for the both of us are going to cost less combined per month than my Telus phone cost by itself. Frig. And, we have free text messaging, which is super handy right now because our schedules are all wonky while Rob settles into his new job. Rob got a phone with all the bells and whistles, but I just wanted the basic no-extras phone. I got a cheapy $20 one, but man, it still has a camera, mp3 capability, and even a video camera. A lot better than my cheapy telus one.

My sister Vanessa is the best! She felt so bad about me having to suffer through stupid hair that she went and got an even stupider haircut than mine!

*snicker*

I was thinking maybe I'd go home early from work today, since my head cold is still horrible, and I really had to force myself to come in, but here I am. Less than an hour and a half left. The DayQuil and Buckley's are wearing off though, and I'm out of Ricola, so I'm in rough shape. I'm totally talking with no nose, so I sound like a dork. It's pretty funny considering I workin a call center. Speaking of work, we have a new shift bid happeneing, and there are zero 4 days on 3 days off shifts. I don't know what gives with that, because that's the shift I most covet. I work 10 hour Mondays now, and an extra 2 horus a day 4 days a week would be nothing, but a 3rd day off would definately be something!

My head is currently floating on the ceiling. MMmm, medication. That for some reason makes me think of my stupid haircut. I don't feel so bad about it anymore, since Vanessa dropped by a couple of days ago. Her hair is so funny. She has an old lady hiarcut! I at least have the excuse that I'm in the process of growing my hair out. *point*laugh* heh, what are sisters for?

I miss geocaching, old school style. Before quantity became the norm, and quality went out the door. I'm not saying there aren't good caches out there, but unless you know the people who put out good quality caches (which I thankfully do), it's like finding a needle in a haystack. I got down about the state of geocaching, and I didn't geocache at all last year. I do miss it, and maybe we'll have to go out and do a few this year. It just breaks my heart that so many caches are disgusting. I'm not saying that you have to spend a lot of money on a cache, but just a little effort would be great. Nowadays, you find a bunch of used junk drawer crap in a plastic bag, hanging in a tree by the side of the road.

A good cache, in my opinion, can bring the seeker to a beautiful, location (like Crooked Creek), offer a good challenge (puzzle caches), teach you something, or just be interesting in general (like with a theme, or aimed at kids). I'm not so much for the cache contents, but dirty junk drawer items show the placer didn't put any thought into the cache. If you don't have the money to even put some nifty or useful dollar store items as cache items, how about making something? Instead of placing 50 poor caches, why not put all your resources into a few really fantastic caches. Those are the caches that make people talk, and become one of the few "must visit" caches in the area.

I'm not sure if geocaching all over the world is also suffering from the quantity not quality syndrome, but I know that here in the Maritimes, it's in a sad state. I'm sure we'll go out and do the few caches in our area that we know are good, but it's just a pain in the rear to sift through so many caches that are horrible to find the few gems.

Rob and I both have head colds. So do half the people here at Asurion. Call centers are the worst place for catching colds. I think this is my....5th cold/flu since the fall. Uungh. I just want to go home and crawl under the covers with Luna and Arty and sleep the day away. I debated not coming in, but I'm glad I did, because it's really no different sitting here in a chair or laying at home in my bed with my laptop. I''ve got myself pretty convinced of that (shhh). Must be the DayQuil. I really had to come in though, because in order for me to get the stat holiday ay for yesterday, I have to work my shift before and shift after the holiday. And, yesterday was a 10 hour work day for me, so I can't just throw that money away. I brought some DayQuil, Ricola, and kleenex with me, so I should be okay. usually DayQuil works great for me, it clears my sinuses totally and wakes me right up, but this time we bought the cheaper version to try it out (as it's like $5 less a box), and while it is working on clearing my head up, it's not doing too great to stop my nose from running.

Rob started his new job today. That's about all I'm going to say about it, as it's not my business to post all about it, it should be posted on robdurdle.com. ^_^ He's been super excited though, so I hope his day is good even though he's got a head cold. I sent him to work with some DayQuil, but I forgot to give him some Ricola, so I hope he's ok. :( My poor Bud. If you happen to read this dude, I'm putting in some overtime tonight, til 1am. I figured I mist as well.

I hope today goes by fast though so I can go home, take some NyQuil (thank you God for NyQuil) and sleep.

With the combination of missing the Atlantic Tattoo Festival last weekend, and reading the article about it in Here magazine last week, I've gotten tattoo fever. I'm about due too, if you figure the math - my first tattoo was 10 years ago, my second was 5 years ago. So yes, I am due. I think I'm going to draw my own, or at least design the concept if I can't draw something I like. I know what I want though. I want an old school style skull, with Betty Page hair, and somehow I'd like to work in cupcakes and cherries. I'm sketching out some ideas, and I think I've come up with a skull I like, but as for the cherries and cupcakes, I haven't figured out how to work those in there yet. Old school, rockabilly, pink rock, sassy. Damn

We had to go to the mall today to get my diamond rings inspected to keep up teh guarantee, so we did a little shopping. We never go to the mall, so it was nice to walk around there for a bit. And Rob was a sweetie and bought me a treat. I am in love with ballet flats. In fact, I've been searching high and low for one specific pair of them for a year now. I saw the exact pair I wanted in a second hand shop in Halifax when I was there in August last year, and I would have paid anything for them, but the stupid shop owner wouldn't sell them, she said they were going on auction. Jerk.

Anyways, back to today. We went shopping for ballet flats! Rob was told that Aldo has a ton of ballet flats, and sure enough, they had so many different pairs! While they didn't have the pair I've been after, they did have a lot of other pairs I loved. With Rob's help, I finally decided on a pair of sneaker-type flats, in pink, white, and orange argyle (I love argyle!), with a little strap near the toes. They're so cute, some girl on the elevator on my way to work told me she loved them. And, as a plus, they're super comfy. And, Rob also bought me an awesome scarf with cherries on it. Like, not a winter scarf, but a nice silky scarf. It's long, and I'm currently using it as a belt, but I can also tie it in my hair. So exciting.

I'm trying to grow out my hair. As I'm sure you knew, I've had a short pixie cut for while now, and I'm trying to grow my hair longer again. So, in between short and long, my hair has to look stupid. I talked to my hairdresser about it, and she said I'll have to deal with my hair looking stupid for awhile, until it grows. I was thinking I'd get her to layer it a bit, but she said that would really set me back months, so I have to suck it up and live with it. I just go in to trim the back every once in awhile. In the meantime, I'm trying to come up with soem creative ways to wear my hair so it doesn't look so dumb. Hairbands are working somewhat (what great timing for them to be in style!), but I'm having a hard time keeping them from sliding off my damn head. I think it's because I wear glasses; because of that, I can't have the headband directly behind my ear, I've gotta push it back a little, and it wants to slide off. I mean the headbands that are a circle of fabric. The plastic ones work ok, but so far I've only bought one of those I like.

This weekend we had a guys night, as it's been a long time since we've had one. There were many growlers present, and I think the guys all had fun. I made jalapeno poppers, which were so simple. Just halved jalapenos, stuffed with cheddar cheese, and wrapped in bacon. They were so good! I even ate like half a dozen. Yum! I also did a pizza run for the guys, and I had the pleasure of meeting the owner of Zio's pizza, who is such a nice guy, and we even talked decorating, and I left him my number in regards to that. Pretty cool.

Yesterday we went to Gran & Gramps for dinner (turkey, yum), and then to Leonard's (my other grandfater) farm for lobster. That was fantastic, because I got my lobster, a claw from Sandra, Rob's lobster body, and dad was all generous and let me have Bucky's and Sabrina's lobster bodies too. It rocks to know how to eat the whole lobster. hehehe The lobster was great too. The shells were so full of meat, and it was nice and cold and salty. I know I say steak has replaced lobster as my favorite food, but if I had both sitting in front of me, I think I just might grab the lobster, given it was perfect.

Nick (my 5 year old cousin) was over Saturday night too, and he and I have started a tradition. When he comes over, he and I have a dance party. I have lots of dance-worthy music, so I just put some of that on, and away we go. He sure can dance. Mom sits there and watches us and laughs so hard she cries. Last weekend I taught him how to "shake his booty". *evil laugh* Hey, not my kid! ;) His mother didn't call me after he went home, so either she thought it was funny too, or he didn't tell her. ;) I've gotta say, it's a damn good workout, although the neighbors probably think I'm nuts, dancing around the living room, which has a big window that faces the road. Like they didn't before though. :)

Speaking of thinking I'm nuts, Ken, I wanted to mention to you Saturday and I forgot, the last time Lucille saw me, I had my face painted, and I hear she asked you what was with that, and you told her something like "oh, Jenn and Rob do all sorts of things like that; they had pink hair" or something like that. I feel like a dork; could you please tell her that I work at the zoo as a face painter during the summer, and I had just come home from work, and had to rush back out the door to get Rob to the after hours clinic. So, it wasn't something kinky between me and Rob, and I don't normally go out with my face painted...... :*O

So, it's pancake night again already. Man, Thursday nights are the best!

Today I just kicked around the house. I didn't drive Rob to work this morning, so I got to sleep in. I spent the day cleaning my craft area, and sorting out some crafty stuff, which I've been putting off for awhile now. It's still not done, but it's improved. I also did a couple of loads of laundry and hung them outside, and that's about it. I napped on the couch with the dog for an hour. Then I caught the bus to come into work. The bus was running like 20 minutes late though, so I ended up being a few minutes late logging in, which sucks, but what can ya do. I'll have to get up tomorrow to take the van. That way I can get to the gym too. I want to get as much centergy in as I can, since they're bringing in the new centergy program on Sunday. They change it up every few months. I like this current one, so gotta milk it. I hope the new one is as challenging, because the last one before this one, wasn't that challenging.

Oop, lunch time, gotta go meet the Bert.

The car we had rented for the Halifax trip was cool. We get to the rental placeSaturday morning to pick it up, and the guy takes us out to the car. I started laughing, because it was a little hatchback, and I told Rob "I guess I'm doing all the driving!" because at 6'4", there's some small cars, like Honda Civics, that he just can't physically drive. This was a Honda Fit, and Rob was able to drive it no problem. We actually really liked the car. I'm not a fan of hatchbacks usually, since the old ones had no room in them, but the hatchbacks of now are awesome! This little thing had tons of room. A big trunk area, and the back seats could be either folded down, or removed completely. And the leg room wasn't bad either. And nevermind that we got to Halifax and back on about...$60 of gas. We're pretty sold on them, so don't be surprised if we end up with one before the summer is out.

Speaking of cars, the Sunfire is currently having it's new engine installed. Dad said it would be done by this weekend. She is getting old though, so we were already aware that we may only get one more year out of her. I think we're due for a new car soon. Like...oh, say, a Honda Fit! hehe We have been talking about a new car, but Rob was thinking he'd like a minivan. They're rougher on gas though. But, he really liked the Fit, so when we do go car shopping, who knows what we'll come home with! ^_^

Last weekend was a blast. We had so much fun. We were a little late leaving Moncton, but we still made it there in time for the movie. (Yay Spiderman 3!). After the movie Saturday, we went to dinner with Heidi and Steve, which was nice. Saturday night Steve was nice enough to let us stay at his condo (thanks Steve!). Sunday Heidi and Steve went to church, and Rob and I went into downtown Halifax. We got there at about 11, so the stores weren't open yet, so we just drove around for an hour. Halifax has some beautiful historic houses. I took a lot of photos...and I haven't even downloaded them from the camera yet. So, we then went to Garrison Breweries (of course), as that is Rob & Brian's favorite place, and we had to fill their growlers. We also hit 2 other breweries in town, including Propeller, who also bottles soda pop. I'm not crazy over their rootbeer, but their chocolate soda is kind of neat.

After that, we went to Loomins & Toles. I adore L&T, and ours in Moncton closed a few years ago, so I love to visit it whenever I go to Halifax. We were in there forever. Rob's so good like that; he gets excited about things that I like. He was going through the store just ahead of me, and he kept saying "Jenn, look at this! It's so awesome, I know you'll love it!". He even helped me pick out some awesome beads and handmade papers. My Bert is the Best! Heidi and Steve met up with us at L&T, and we all went to Cora's for brunch (there was cantalope), and of course it was fantastic. We spent the rest of the day wandering around the city.

I really enjoyed the trip. I really like Halifax. I've said it about St John's, and Halifax is the same, unlike Moncton, they both have so much culture and heritage. There's art galleries, theatres and shops everywhere. We think we wouldn't mind living there.

We're getting excited about this weekend. I made the car rental reservations today, and Rob and Brian found some online mapping thing that maps where all the breweries are in a city, so Rob printed out the Halifax map. I'll have to pack tonight when I get home from work. I have to try to remember to plug my cell phone in when I get home to make sure it's all charged for tomorrow, if Rob hasn't done that already. I've got to call Heidi on my last break (in a few mins) to confirm she got the movie tickets, and to let her know things are a go on our end.

Continuing from my last post. After we left Mikes, Heidi had about an hour and a half before she had to catch her bus for Haifax, so we went to the mall since it was right beside Mikes, with the bus station a short drive down the road. So, we get to the mall, and we walk around there for a bit. Heidi wanted to buy a portable cx player, so she could listen to cd's on the bus. So we go to Walmart, and we're wandering around the electronics department, when I look at my watch, and we have 20 minutes to get to the bus station! So, Rob leaves Walmart to hightail it through the mall (we had of course parked at the other end of the mall) to get the can and bring it around to the Walmart doors so Heidi and I can just hop in when she's done paying for her cd player. Heidi pays for her thing, then we go out the Walmart doors, aand Rob isn't there. We figure he just hadn't made it to the van yet, and we started walking in the direction of where we had parked. We get almost all the way to the van, when I realize that I have the keys. We get to the van, and Rob had been there because the bags of stuff were in there that we had bought (there was an unlocked door, luckily for him), but there was no Rob. So, I tell Heidi to jump in, and start it up. She says "you're leaving Rob here?!?", so sweet, she was all concerned. I told her I'd come back for him, and he'd figure it out. We gun it to the bus station, and dramatically arrive there just as the driver is closing the luggage door. We say our goodbyes, and I go back to the mall. Sure enough, there's Rob, sitting on the curb outside waiting for me. hehehe, it's a little sad, but he understood we had to go. *whew* what a paragraph....

Rob and I are going to have a busy weekend. Saturday morning we're (or maybe I'm hehe) going to the Moncton Miniature & Doll show at 10 AM. It only happens once a year, and I've been going since......1996? Wow, that's a long time. Anyways, I can't miss that. I was thinking too, that if we were spry, we'd get up super early and go to the gym before we go to the miniature show. I'll have to see what Rob thinks about that.

Then we leave for Halifax after the doll show. We're going to see Spiderman 3 at the Imax. Rob's never been to an Imax, and the only thing I've seen at Imax was one of those made for Imax programs, that wasn't really a movie, more like a documentary. Anyways, it is going to be awesome. I suppose, we're going to visit Heidi and Steve too. ;) I imagine we'll do some shopping and Rob will no doubt go to Garrison Breweries, sicne him and Brian are their biggest fans.

Heidi was up this past weekend, and it was good to see her. We had a good time, even though our brakfast was a bit of a disaster. First, we went to Cora's downtown, and it was totally packed, so we figured we'd go to the new one in Dieppe, which was also packed. So, we went to Mikes by the mall, and they were packed too. But, we decided to stay there anyways. I do have to say we were seated pretty quickly. It was about 20 minutes before our orders were taken, then it was 1 hour and 20 minutes before we got our food. Our server was nice, but I think the chef forgot our food, or gave our order to someone else. People (in bigger parties than us) that were seated after us had eaten and left before we even got our food. I know, we just should have went to Coras. :P I've got to finish my story another time, it's time to go home.

Thursday has quickly become my favorite night here at work. Thursday night has become pancake night. For the past 3 Thursdays, Bonnie has made the entire 7th floor pancakes. Bonnie is the best. I was just discussing with the person sitting beside me that I could never get sick of pancakes. You know how you get all about a food, especially when you're a kid, like, for example, say peanutbutter sandwiches. You know how you love that food so much that you take it to school in your lunch box every day? But, eventually...well, more like one day..one day you wake up and you're so sick of peanutbutter sandwiches that you can't even look at another. And that ruins you from them for a long time. Well, I can be like that with foods, but not pancakes. I could eat pancakes every day for the rest of my life, and never get sick of them. God, I love pancakes.

I kept meaning to post that he sheep poodle thing was a hoax. Still an entertaining story, that I felt needed a post. ^_^