Girls' Night!!!

The Bath Bombs that Wouldn't Be

Last night us girls from the C&C had a Girl's Only night ...and it was SO MUCH FUN! Seriously, it is totally different when the females are all alone! I'm pretty sure we giggled ourselves silly over the littlest things. There would be an explosion of laughter followed by a small siiiiiigh ("Good times...")....and then I would start laughing again and everyone wouldn't be able to help themselves....it was a vicious cycle! By the end of the night our cheeks were hurting from laughing so much. Carissa showed us some expert cheek stretches, which basically makes you look like a fish...
Yeah it was a good time!
We started off by making Spa Bath Cookies...recipe shown below.
I showed off my baking expertise by immediately confusing the teaspoon and tablespoon.

The first time we mixed it, it was too crumbly to mold, so we added another egg.
Which might perhaps have been the biggest mistake ever.

But the extra egg made it stickier, that's for sure.

Seija put them in for 10 minutes, while we did our Bible study.

This is probably my favorite picture of all time!!!!
Carissa was smelling them.
They did smell more like cookies than bath bombs...

And they were awfully hard to get off the pans...

In the end, they didn't fizzle in water like they were supposed to....BUT....they did provide many a belly laugh, so it was all worth it in the end! We even almost got Dave to eat one when he got home, but when he reached for it the room went quiet and we all stared (hopefully), and I think that probably tipped him off....
Too bad!
Maybe Dana succeeded in getting Kurtus to eat some....
heh heh heh....

Complete

I've been journaling since I was like...six. But I think this is my favorite journal (center picture behind the cat cartoon). It started out as a regular coil-bound book from superstore, probably $5...but it was transformed into the patchwork of pictures that you see above, by me(click on the picture to see the random stuff better). In the last year I have grabbed scraps and bits of paper that made me laugh, I thought were cool, or had something to do with my life.
Among these random things are an Mac sticker from my iPod, the Chinese character for Dragon (my year), a licorice spice tea bag (its my favorite tea), a Mars bar wrapper (My favorite chocolate bar), the Irish flag, my favorite cartoon of all time, and a Billabong tag because I thought that promoting name brands was cool at the time, and now I realize that it is just lame. Anyway, this is a tribute to that book, because it is complete now, with no more pages to hold my over-abundance of thoughts. I must move on to a different book now, which makes me kind of sad...

So True

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving weekend!
(Translation: No blogs til Monday at the soonest)

Addicted to Wasting Time?

At work I have a lot of time to waste.
Its usually pretty slow, so I read, write, think...
And at home I have few responsibilities, and when I DO go to work, its usually for a max of 6 hr shifts sooo...there is a lot of time to be had.
And I've been wasting it.
Mostly on the computer.Email, Blogs, Facebook...mostly computer stuff. (Ok, maybe I don't consider all that stuff a waste of time....but I don't need to check them all every five minutes...THAT is a waste of time!)
I was thinking about it at work today...and I've decided that I've gotta cut back on the computer stuff and attempt at being productive. I can be SO bad with time management.
So for now I am limiting myself to 2 hrs on the computer a day. I'm not really sure how much time I do spend on the computer, so I'm going to see how hard/easy this will be. Maybe eventually I will trim it down to 1 hr. But for now: 1 hr in the morning, and 1 at night.
Let's see how it goes, and how much I get done because of this!

Why I Never Wear White

My hand-mouth coordination sucks big time.
Especially when it comes to chips and salsa.

The Strathmore Trip

Matt & Alicia's wedding was beautiful! My cousin Matt has always been such a quality guy; strong in his faith, mature, and really, really fun! I had never met Alicia until this weekend, but she seems like such an awesome girl I am excited to get to know her more in the family reunions to come! The two of them looked SO happy to be together, it was really sweet.

I don't know if you caught what the pastor said there....I actually video'ed it by accident. I thought I was taking a picture! haha...anyway, the pastor started off the ceremony by quoting the Impressive Clergyman in "The Princess Bride" ...which I thought was HILARIOUS! The whole wedding had a good sense of humor about it which I enjoyed.

I snapped this on the way up to Alberta.....mom falling asleep at the wheel?? (Sorry Mom, I couldn't resist putting this up)

It was raining hard when we left, and when we reached higher altitudes, it began to snow! CRAZY!

The hotel we were staying at turned out to be right next door to The Station- where my friend Angela from camp works! We surprised her...unfortunately it was Friday night and she was too busy to talk much. Luckily we managed to snap some shots of her to use as blackmail heh heh heh! What will Irwin say!

Mountain Goat things on the side of the road.

Lake Louise! So beautiful!

I didn't end up taking nearly as many pictures as I wanted to, and some of them didn't turn out...which I think had more to do with me being inept with the settings, than it had to do with the camera itself....hopefully I have more luck in Ireland!

Updates, Updates...

1. Mike and I zipped up to Vernon yesterday around 2:30 PM, picked up Katie at her work around 4 PM and then spent some good times over at her parent's place. We met her family (really cool people!) and toured the sweet acreage and house (built in the 1930's *sigh*), not to mention got assaulted by their ridiculous pug dogs, Molly and BooBoo. It was a real treat.
We spent the night, and left early this morning. I ate a Tim Horton's bacon breakfast sandwich on a cinnamon rasin bagel for the first time in over six months!!! (when I worked there I ate them a lot...it was very strange eating one again)

2. My passport arrived today!
...
I got really nervous all of a sudden.

3. I got my hair cut! It was in desperate need of pruning. It had become an overwhelming mass over the summer, but since it was up all the time I didn't notice until I got home. I got SO MUCH chopped off, it looks much more under-control now.

4. We are leaving bright and early tomorrow morning for Strathmore! We're gonna go see good cousin Matt get hitched on Saturday! It will be fun to see all the family again, but I'm not looking forward to the drive! I'm not sure what time we get home on Sunday...

Anyway, that's all my updates at the moment.

More Exciting News!

Aw, isn't it cute???
This is my baby: Sony Cybershot DSC- H3.
I picked him up from Staples this afternoon. He was so happy to come home for the first time.
I'm very proud of him. He has 8.1 MP, 10X Optical zoom, and lots of very exciting features.
I feel confident he was the right choice for me, and when we venture to Ireland together he won't let me down.
And you, my friends, will benefit as well, because the essence of that wondrous place will be captured more accurately and PJ will be happy to show off the fruits of my labor. Assuming I get internet access there.

In other news...its off with the old, on with the new I'm afraid.
Good ol' Pentax Optio (who took the picture above) is on the market now. Optio is happy to forward the funds he raises to my Ireland trip, so if you're interested in a nice, basic camera let me know :)
He's going for a very reasonable price!

Surprise!

My brother Mike made a surprise appearance Sunday night! Paul and I had just got home from C&C and suddenly there he was! Its been great having him "home" (is that a correct use-age of quotation marks?? Now I always question it...thanks a lot Ryan!).
Last night we watched the last few episodes of "the Office" (season 2) together which was so fun because.
1. The Office is hilarious!
2. Its sooo much funnier if you are watching it with someone else who finds it just as funny!
And tomorrow we are planning on taking a little trip up to Vernon...because....well Vernon has such a charm around this time of year....heh heh heh....

(To Be Continued...)

Preemptive Eating?

They say you should only eat if you are hungry.
Ok, so let's say you are not hungry at supper time so you don't eat supper.
Then at let's say....8 PM you get hungry so you eat.
Does that really make any difference to your body?
If you ate at dinner time with everyone else wouldn't that be a "preemptive" meal, and therefore you wouldn't be hungry at 8 PM? Is it better to eat at regular intervals even if you're not hungry, if you know you will be hungry later anyway?
Its the same amount of food, but you just consume it when your body is in a different state of hunger. Doesn't it all even out in the end?
Is this a dumb question?

My Brain Hurts

Math was NEVER my favorite subject in school. In fact it is safe to declare that is was my LEAST favorite subject of all time. My mom would let me skip one subject on my birthday and every year it was math. She didn't even have to ask.
Somehow my brain refuses to understand numbers and logical math concepts. In fact logic of any kind is hard for me to absorb. I don't know why.
Today at work was the first time I had to close up alone.
Which means I had to count the till....alone.
It wasn't fun.
I don't like numbers.

New Job

I started my new job today!
Admittedly I was only there for about 4 1/2 hours...but still, it has begun.
I'm working at a little cafeteria inside the Convergy's call center called "K's Korner". They have prepackaged sandwhiches, subs, samosas, quiches, and lots of baking. And soups. And coffees of course.
I learned how to operate the non-Tim Horton's till and did some inventory and cleaning. It was very slow today, but my manager Sharon says that it will be a lot busier on weekdays, which will be good. When its busy your shift always flies by so much faster!
So this is how I will fill my days until I leave for Ireland. It will be nice to keep busy, that's for sure.

Operation: Passport

Thursday afternoon: Mom and I head down the Coquihalla hwy in the ultra hot blue Toyota Rav-4.
Destination: Passport Canada office, Surrey.

Its a long story. See, my passport is good for another year, and since I plan to only be in Ireland for 8 months that should be fine, right?
Apparently not.
I'm going with a program called SWAP (Students Working Abroad Program) and in order for them to get me a working Visa for Ireland, I need to have at least 18 months left on my passport. Grrr.
So I need to get a whole new passport before I can go! And if you go through the regular route of sending it away, it will take until January before you get it back!
I can't wait that long!
So Mumsy kindly offered to go with me to Surrey and drop off my application directly at the Passport Canada office. This means that IF we get in, I will get my passport back in up to 4 weeks.
So there we were.
7:30 AM, shivering outside the office building that opens at 8 AM.
We were the second people in line by minutes. The lineup behind us grew steadily.
Finally the doors were opened and about the first 9 or 10 of us were herded into an elevator which was activated by the guard's key. Apparently if he wasn't able to control the elevator there would be a mad rush?
We all nervously shuffled around and a few eagerly stumbled out when we stopped on the wrong floors.
When we arrive on floor 9, we were in line again. It wasn't long before we were called up, quickly diagnosed as a "complicated" case (because my passport still had a year before it expired) and sent to sit down, carrying a little tab with 'D 713' printed on it in blue ink.
Then we waited, alongside a hundred other people, for the screen hanging from the ceiling to flash our number.
'D 705' was up there FOREVER. I thought I was going to scream.
By this time I was tired (hadn't slept), stressed (I don't like beeping offices, guards in uniform, or the possibility that this whole trip could be a waste of time if there is too much glare on my picture, or something stupid like that), and hungry. This equals a shaky Jill.
I nibbled at my granola bar and felt a little better.
When the screen had reached about 'D 710' one of the guys in uniform started telling everyone about a 'faster' way to get your passport if you weren't such-and-such, and you were such-and-such. Just follow him over here and you could be done in 20 minutes.
I was keeping one eyeball on him and one eyeball on the screen that was now flashing 'D 711'. Should I wait or go?
Mom and I got up and asked him a few questions...seemed like we fit the criteria.
'D 712'
Just as we were about to follow him out of the room...
"Bing Bing" D 713!
"We're up mom!"
That decided for us.
We were done in 10 minutes. The lady didn't think our case was so complicated after all.
So now hopefully I will have my new and improved passport in my hands in 3-4 weeks.
Hurrah!

Made Me Laugh

So I was looking around the Internet for some fun t shirts (since I can't find any in the mall grumble grumble) and when I was browsing through one site I saw "Christian" as one category.
And I thought to myself, what would a funny Christian T-shirt look like? Would they all be really lame or cutesy?
Admittedly, some/most of them were...
But there were a few that made me laugh! Check them out...







I think those last three were my favorite!
ps. please don't be offended...its all in good fun!

I'm All Alone...There's No One Here Beside Meee!

I discovered something new about myself these past few days.
I don't like being alone!
Maybe that doesn't seem weird to you, but I always thought I was someone who liked, or at least could handle, being alone.
And I can enjoy being alone...as long as I'm not completely and irreversibly alone! I like knowing that if I so choose, I can stop being alone and go talk/see/hang out with someone.
Camp was nice because I could creep off to my house and be "alone", but there was always some activity going on if I wanted to stop my solitary ways. But with my mom and little brother gone camping these last few days, and myself being somewhat car-less, I was kind of stuck at home with the cat. And I thought I would go crazy!
I had to turn up my music really loud so that it wasn't so eerily quiet, and I read a whole book (which turned out to be fairly depressing...just the pick-me-up I needed), and a I played a whole lot of piano. Yesterday I 'stole' Paul's car and went shopping...by myself...which was not fun at all.
I was not meant to be alone!
Which brings me to my fears of traveling alone...

Off With The Old...?

In an attempt to tidy my blog, I have deleted...yes, it's true....deleted three links to blogs that have not been updated in many moons. I bid a tearful farewell to Treadettes, Theo's House of Pain, and Life, Love, and Lattes. It was a hard thing to do, but in the end, I believe it was for the best. If they choose to revive, I will be waiting for them with open arms.
In other news say hello to Spider Webbers! My friend Kelsey seems like a promising Blogger, and a welcome addition to my blogging community! I don't think she quite knows what she's got herself into...hee hee hee...

I Did It!

I made myself go out for some excercise tonight!
I've been feeling so blah lately...headache-y, sluggish, fat, ugly...you know what I mean....or maybe you don't!
Then, as I was chatting with my mother today over a exceptionally sweet cup of Maple Latte, I began to remember a time...
A time when I would pull on my sweats and runners after a long day of work, plug my ears with my iPod earbuds, and make for Homewood's nearest exit. 15-20 minutes of walking/running would do the trick. The scenery was beautiful, there were no children, no ovens, no demands...just me & my tunes.
I would drag myself home, take a cold shower, and I would be completely exhausted and completely rejuvenated. Any dark clouds that hung over my head when I left would be gone.
That was in the Spring when there was time and (some) energy for such things.
I guess when the Summer rolled around I got out of the habit, and that's when the trouble started.
Anyway, tonight as I logged into Facebook for the 100th time I thought to myself, "I should go".
So I did.
It was about 45-50 minutes and completely satisfying. I was especially pleased that I COULD run at all.
Strangely enough, when I got back I had more energy than when I left.
So now I know I need to do this more often.
Argh.

Pictures

You can find the pictures of my life in the past six months on my Facebook account!
I will have more when Mike brings me some later this month :)

Back in the Desert

Drove back to Kamloops today (thanks Pops, you're the best!) and attempted at unpacking and simultaneously chucking things I've discovered I didn't need in the last six months (which means I probably won't need them ever).
It was a wee bit overwhelming, so my room is half unpacked and very messy. And I'm tired.
Friday night the remnants of the summer staff went out to Boston Pizza and we all had supper there, and then we went to hang out at Graeme's until the last ferry. It was a lot of fun, and it was nice to have some final visiting time with everyone.
Saturday there was a wedding that most people went to , so I stayed back to pack and such, and then left on the 10 PM ferry.
Leaving Homewood wasn't my favorite thing in the world. I love that place so much, and the people there are such close friends. It was hard to say goodbye to my roommate Zoe especially. Its been (surprisingly?) fun to have someone to share a room with, because you get to know them that much better.
I'm sure she's glad to have some space to herself now though!!

gah I just realized what a boring post this is. I apologize...what else can I say? I'm brain-dead right now, and going to bed. Nighty-night. I will be posting some pictures tomorrow hopefully.