Mmmm...

... chocolate cheesecake truffles. Droooool away folks. This is what I spent some of today making.

Lesson of the day for me - white chocolate is harder to work with than I expected. Good to know.

Doesn't my life sound full and exciting?!

So, as per usual I'm sorry I haven't blogged since last week. I've actually been fairly busy, which I'm enjoying. After my blog post last week, I was busy preparing supplies for the day camp reunion BBQ that I was holding on Sunday. Saturday was beautiful so I beached it with mama and papa bear, and Sunday was the day of the BBQ so that was somewhat hectic but really fun. The BBQ went off without much trouble and everyone really enjoyed themselves, so all my hard work was well worth it. I took Monday and Tuesday off work, so Monday I went shopping in Truro with mama bear and Tuesday I took a quick trip to Metallifax with my boyfrand who hates shopping for long periods of time. All we did in city was stop at Town Shoes to pick up my birthday boots and then went to Toys R Us in the MicMac Mall to buy Rachel a baby gift.

Rachel's baby gift! A Moses basket and some supplies.

The card I made for Rachel's stepdaughter. We also got her a gift but I don't have a picture of that...

Mission accomplished, so we headed back home. Yesterday I worked and then volunteered all evening doing three hours of face-painting. I can't even begin to count how many kids I face-painted... it was a lot. I was getting damn good at it by the end though... spiders, butterflies, Boston Bruins symbols, the Hulk, dogs, frogs, and sooo many more. I couldn't believe how good the kids were at sitting still for me. I was really impressed... I can only think of one that was hard to do but that was only because she was under the age of two and didn't really understand why she had to sit still so long anyway. So anyway, you can now clearly see why I would not have time for such a silly thing as blogging in the midst of all that! Don't count on another post this weekend either... tonight Chris and I are helping his brother and brother's girlfriend move into their new apartment (exciting for them!) and tomorrow I'm heading up to Antigonish after work to enjoy some party rockin' with my girlfriend Rebecca. Saturday I'll probably be hungover and we all know that no significant thoughts other than "TV is goooood." and "Why do so many of my body parts hurt?" will be happening that day. Maybe on Sunday I'll blog about my job prospects for the fall. Won't that be exciting for you all! :) Check back in then...

Clients deserve better.

Today I'm thinking about how much it scares me that certain people are able to work in the helping field. Psychologists, counsellors, nurses, etc. There should really be more criteria to be met before you are even allowed to enter the education institutions for these types of careers... like, I don't know, a lifelong interview? I'm thinking of some people I know of who are on the path to a career involving helping people, and the only way you would really know how unsuitable they truly are for the job would be to know them for years and see their personal lives. But, to the general population they appear capable and they can pay the cost of education, so they're in!

What scares me the most is that once these people have careers in the field, they will be working with a pretty specific population. That population is People Who Need Help. That sort of population is not always at peak levels of critical thinking, especially for those facing crises. Impaired judgement may render them unaware that their helper may not really be qualified to help them in the ways they really deserve. A helper who is self absorbed or seeking validation from the clients should not be norm. I wish I knew how to make this more common knowledge for people, but alas, I do not have that kind of power in this life.

NOTE - This post is not a reflection of my experiences at the Women's Centre. It comes from my own education and experiences over the last couple of years.

I doubt you're that popular.

Today a thought popped into my head while I was on facebook. I've had this thought many times on facebook, so today I figured I might as well express it via blogger.

Why is it necessary for people to have so many friends on facebook? Almost everyone I check has over 400 friends. Some people even have thousands. GET REAL. There is no way in hell that you actually have 400 friends in your life. Maybe you have met that many people, or they could be distant acquaintances, but they are not your friends and I'm pretty sure you don't need them on your facebook friend list.

I frequently go through my friends list and clear out anyone I don't talk to on a regular basis or wouldn't be able to have a conversation with if I saw them in person. I just checked, and I currently have 88 people, some of which will still probably get cut out in the upcoming months. Even that number is excessive. Do we really need so many people to be able to access us or for us to access them? I don't think so. If I don't feel the desire to know you enough that I would befriend you in person, then I don't see the purpose in having access to your personal life via facebook. Sure, sometimes I'm nosey and like to see what people are up to, but facebook has become excessive in that it becomes a competition for some people. If you don't have a lot of people on your facebook, you must not be popular, right? At a cyber-bullying workshop I attended the Community Policing Officer told us that there is a sort of fad happening with youth where it's like Facemon instead of Pokemon - Gotta get em all.

This all may sound fairly hypocritcal considering I'm blogging on the big old world wide web here, but to be honest the only reason I continue to blog is to give myself an outlet for my writings, and also for the people that I know in life outside of the internet who enjoy reading it. For some reason the friending craze on facebook just seems to bother me. Maybe it's because I hate that people put on such facades in their lives, and it is now spilling over onto fcebook as well.

To be clear, I don't expect anyone else to necessarily feel the same about this whole rant, or to rush over to facebook and delete half of your "friends". This is my blog, and these are simply my ramblings. Enjoy it for what it is.

I am not a vegetarian.

So yesterday evening I had an experience that I probably could have done without. Chris and I went over to his parents house after supper to see how the building of their deck is going. As we drove up their driveway, we noticed a raccoon laying in the middle of the parking area. First thought: Is he dead? Did the cats really manage to take down a raccoon during their late night hunts? But anyway, he moved his head and looked at us so obviously he wasn't dead. But he was sick. Chris's dad told us that he had been around since about 4:30am and he had seen him fall out of a small tree and take convulsions at around 8am. The poor raccoon had been stumbling around all day like he was drunk. A while after we got there the poor thing took more convulsions so it was decided  that it was probably time to put it out of its misery... and out came the handgun. Great. This type of thing does not sit well with me and I prefer to have no part in it, so I went in the house with Chris's mom and Lesley.

Now, just to be clear, I am not against killing animals. And by that I mainly mean for food or out of necessity. I understand where my meat on my dinner plate comes from and I can accept that. The problem I face is in the actual moment of the killing of an animal. I am uncomfortable with someone being responsible for that moment of death. I can handle life or death separately, but I dislike the moment where life turns into death.

A couple of summers ago I was driving from my parents house late at night and Chris was in the passengers seat. I rounded a dark turn and a bunny was in my path. I struggled in my split second decision. I thought there was a car behind me (turns out he had turned off anyway), and Chris was there so I was unwillingly to slam on the brakes and risk the safety of the people around me. So I hit the bunny. It was awful. I drove a few hundred feet and then had to pull over because I was pretty much hysterical at that point. I was afraid he had a bunny family that he was leaving behind, I was afraid he suffered, and I was afraid to have to drive past him everyday because I frequented that road so much. Chris told me to calm down and he walked back in the dark trying to find where the bunny had been, and he picked it up and threw it in the woods for me. That's love for ya folks. Picking up dead bunnies that your partner just ran over over. Doesn't get much more romantic than that.

But anyway, I felt awful about being the cause of that moment between a life and it's death. Sometimes I even feel bad when I either intentionally or unintentionally kill plants. I guess Serial Killer is off my list of potential careers. Oh well!

Sports analogies are hard.

So just as a continued update from my last couple of posts... I totally scored a hat trick. Except it in no way involved anything remotely athletic. Finished all three books in a series in three consecutive days. One book per day. Pretty nice, I'd say. Except that whipping through books like I do ends up costing me quite a chunk of cash. The good news is that I'm now onto reading a book that a co-worker lent me, so that's free plus it's a bit of a thicker and in-depth read so it might take me a little bit longer to finish. Unless the story is really good... then maybe I'll have read four books in four days by this time tomorrow. What sports term means four in a row? I have no idea... sports are obviously not what I'm best at, which might be obvious considering that this is probably the first and only time I have mentioned anything sports related in this blog. Anyway, it hardly matters. It's another dreary day in the neighbourhood so off I go to pursue my usual challenging work day of interneting and reading novels.

Stop it.

I sit at my desk for 7 hours a day waiting for the phone to ring to give me something to do. Then, when I decide to go to the bathroom I often find myself thinking "I hope the phone doesn't ring cause no one else is available to answer it right now...". But nature is calling, so off I go to use the bathroom. Of course, during those couple of mintues when I am not eagerly available and waiting to answer any and all phone calls, BAM the phone rings and no one answers it.

This is a cruel game and I do not understand who my opponent is, but I don't like it anyway. I can only pee so fast!!

Nerd Alert!

* Okay so just as a note, I began writing this post on a Tuesday and am now finishing it on a Wednesday. If there's any disconnect, that's why.

I am such a bookworm. Between waiting for three hours for my car to get fixed yesterday and an extremely slow work day today, I've officially finished two books in two days. It'll probably be a hat trick by 4:30pm tomorrow.

This prompted me to think about how much I love reading and learning. I'm not really one of those people who loves to read anything with words... some things I find uninteresting or I just hate learning it. Like math. I can be good at it if I try... and it can be useful... but I so hate to do it. English is my cup of tea though. I used to literally get excited for my English exams in high school. Couldn't wait to challenge my creativity and skills. I kind of miss getting to take English courses. My college program had Writing Skills but it wasn't quite the same. I am wondering if Nursing requires any kind of English course... seems like probably not... more like Writing Skills again I suspect. Report writing... snore.

Another thing I am slightly (aka massively) OCD about is grammar and spelling. I sit on the board for a local non-profit, and at our last meeting I had a whole bunch of corrections to mention about a letter that had been sent around for us to proofread. We had a little debate about the use of a word, and the librarian who had written the letter (along with some other board members) thought that he was right in his usage. I disagreed. Even so, he said that he was glad to see a young person take an interest, because he generally feels concerned about the younger generation and their awareness of proper grammar these days. So anyway, a few days later we all get this email from him saying that I had been correct after all. Moral of this story? I win. And I rock at editing. ;)

All that being said... please don't judge my grammar or writing abilities based on these blog posts LOL. Mostly I just throw these together when I'm bored, so I really care a lot less about how they turn out.

Sometimes I wonder if I would have liked to work towards becoming an editor of some kind. I think I'd prefer doing that over writing my own pieces. Or maybe both, I don't know really. I can see myself enjoying proofreading and editing newspaper or magazines articles, or maybe books. Who knows... I could still wind up doing it... I seem to have a long career as a professional student left ahead of me...

Quack

Sad news, loyal followers. My Fossil purse purchase might have to wait until richer times. Darn priotizied responsibilities. Took my car in to get checked out thinking I would probably leave with a new wheel bearing... turns out I did but also had to purchase new parts for my brakes as well. Bummer. Wish Mr. Mechanic Man had been correct in his initial idea that maybe my brakes were just dirty...

So that consumed my whole morning today... started and almost finished a new book in those three hours. Might stop by the book store and invest in the next book in that series after work today. A new book is rather cheaper than a new purse, sadly. As for right now, I am sitting at work wondering what to do with myself. At some point I have to do my WHMIS and OHS courses online... but I'm not feeling terribly motivated to do that today.

That reminds me, I paid my tuition last week for three academic level courses that I need in order to apply the nursing program I'm interested in. I paid $550 to take three courses I could have gotten for free in high school. Awesome. Really ahead of the game here, Jessica.

Well, that's all for now. Summon your inner duck and enjoy the weather!

eenie meenie

So now I found Fossil purses on ebay. Uh oh! Might have to invest in one. But which one? Here are my top choices:

Which one should I consider buying?!

Crop it all the way to the garbage.

Today was a Me Day. Go me! I took myself shopping in Halifax, or Metallifax as we now like to call it since seeing Metallica there.

Shopping was good... spent more than I intended but whatever. Could have been worse if I had bought the $165 Steve Madden booties I wanted. I figured I'd wait on them since I DO have a birthday coming up soon... hint...HINT HINT. Actually I've already told Chris straight up that I want the boots for my bday gift. No sense beating around the bush! Might end up with some sort of slippers or electronics if I'm not clear about what I'm getting at. Hehe... actually, to Chris's credit he is quite good at pinpointing things that are in my taste. Boots are possibley out of his league though... so I might casually find the boots online and make it my desktop background... you know, just as a little reminder for when the time comes... ;)

I did face some level of disappointment during my shopping experiences today though. For one, I was getting bored with talking to myself in my head. That wasn't too upsetting though, as I think it was evened out by the fact that I could take as much time as I wanted with no complaints from fellow companion(s) to worry about. The major dismay of the day was realizing that the "in" style right now is cropped shirts. Gross. It was bad enough that for the last couple of years the "in" thing was extra long shirts, which obviously doesn't go over well with an extra short girl. Not like I wanted to look like I have legs or anything... Anyway, at least with long shirts I could alter them or tuck them up or whatever to make them fit me accordingly. What the hell do you do with a cropped shirt to make you not appear like some sort of 80's flashback human rectangle? It's just not working for me, so therefore I once again pass on another fashion fad. Sorry... looks like you'll all have to continue living with me in my grandma-esque sweaters for a while.



This style was in every store today.



Chris says I like grandma clothes... he's not wrong.


There you go Yvonne! Hope this post was worthy of your continued loyalty ;)

blah de blah

What a blah day today is. It's a Tuesday but it really feels more like a Monday since yesterday was a holiday. I have a three day work week this week and yet I still want to go home early. I don't know why they pay me to be here sometimes. I'm totally unmotivated... would prefer to take a nap but I'm guessing that would be crossing some line about workplace etiquette. Just so hard to keep my eyes open today though... sleep was not my friend last night apparently... felt like I was in dreamland but don't feel very rested from that trip. In three more hours I'll be able to go home and veg out in front of the tv and doze off. Now, to just find something to do until then...