merry christmas!

december in rambles

It seems I have disappeared for a bit too long. I have lost interest in blogging for awhile and only a few events stand out to write about. This past month my time spending has mainly consisted of going to work and sleeping. When I wasn't doing either of those things, starting the Harry Potter series, watching seasons of shows borrowed from a friend (Glee and Roswell), going on friend dates (which were too few in my opinion), and occasionally picking up my drawing book filled in the rest of the hours of my days. I have been pretty wiped out the last couple of weeks with doing mostly night shifts, plus not sleeping properly due to my princess & the pea syndrome + noise outside keeping me from dream land. These two things made me not feel overly productive or motivated.

Some good news in my slump of a few weeks was that I finally went and picked out a camera as my graduation gift. It's the Canon Rebel T2i. I haven't had many opportunities to use it yet, but I hope to put it to good use soon. I have been wanting one for several years, and it was worth the wait to have the version with HD video capabilities. I like options. I am excited!

Other news is that I won a blog giveaway! I got a free spot in Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas class on shimelle.com. Pretty neat to actually win, since I'm such a sucker for signing my name to anything to see if I will!  (Thanks to http://heyjenrenee.blogspot.com/ for hosting the giveaway). I bought a bunch of sparkly things to use in the potential album, but I have yet to actually put something together. It's hard when I have no physical pictures to inspire me. Trips to Walmart are random and unexpected (no buses!) so I forget to bring a cd of pics to print off. Anyway, it felt good to win something, and I do intend to put some pages together soon. Including some of these gems:

Going to the SASF Christmas banquet, getting to eat a festive dinner from Swiss Chalet and take pictures with friends all while lookin snazzy was a highlight. Making a people photo-flip-book, whipping hair back and forth, introducing the awkward leg and getting a gift card for Booster Juice in the longest-ever chinese christmas gift exchange wasn't too bad either. (Above pictures are Robyn's!)

Having some brunch with Sarah made one of my Saturdays significantly better, and seeing at least one of my immediate family members at some point in each of the last five days has made me happier. Walking around shopping and talking with my mom felt good last night. (I am hoping that one of my bestest friends is feeling a bit better now that she is at home with hers in CB.)

Finally, I am looking forward to spending Christmas at home. I am looking forward to pestering my sisters every day and to my double bed waiting for me every night! I have Christmas Eve off so I'll get a full three days away from work. And on the 28th, I'll be picking Chandler up from the airport in the wee hours of the morning to welcome him to windy & wet ol' Newfoundland once again. (I'm hoping I'm not scheduled for work too much, or too inconveniently for that week.)

Well, this has been a very unorganized update on my life. At least I decided to go back and add pictures. When I start liking the Internet again, I'm sure I'll post something more thoughtful! xo

One more thing. Here is something that Robz put together after we hung out one night about a month ago. Quite random, but the more I watch it the more I love it, and the more I want/need fun random nights like this in my life. 

window shopping

Last week I broke the strap off of my favourite black flats. They were $3 on sale and they served me well. I wish they were still intact. As much as I'd rather have a ton of everything, I end up being the type that uses one thing at a time until it breaks or wears out--especially with my purses and shoes. Ever since my shoes have been out of commission, I've been searching for their perfect replacement and finding myself drooling over too many.

 link

 link

 link

link (one in every colour please-comes in half sizes!)

 link

link

Okay. I'm done for now. :)

like a dying leaf, we all are more beautiful

Elizabeth came in over the weekend and since this is such a pretty time of year we stopped by Bowring Park to enjoy it. Afterwards we went to the mall and shared chinese food and a DQ Blizzard. Then it was movie time! We watched "Red" which turned out to be as good as I had hoped!

I like Sister Days.

listen to | gungor

All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

robz mcdawgunit

Today is this pretty girl's birthday. Throughout the past two years of our friendship she has continued to be an incredible blessing in my life. She shows me every day what it is to be a good and supportive friend and I thank her so much for her kindness. Give her a big hug whenever you see her because she is wonderful.

listen to | he is we

Oh, happily ever after, wouldn't you know, wouldn't you know.
Oh, skip to the ending, who'd like to know, I'd like to know.
Author of the moment, can you tell me, do I end up, do I end up happy?

sh*t my sis says

My sister, Catherine is a very smart girl. She has a quick wit and can be clever in her conversations. She makes me laugh a lot. I think this is why, when I catch her saying something completely ridiculous, I treasure it and don't miss the opportunity to poke a little fun at her. She gets me all the time too.

Yesterday we were having a chat about her weekend at YC (after coming back in from our disaster of a fishing trip) when she brought up that a guy she knew had started up a new band and named it Cain.

Catherine: Sure, Cain killed his brother.
Mom: That was the reason he got kicked out of the garden.
Cat: Uhh, no that was Adam. Mom, I know more of the Bible than you do! And all I know about Cain is that his Mom was in on it, and they put fur on his arms.
Me: No, that was Esau and Jacob...
Cat: Oh. And wasn't he (Jacob) put in a hole?
Me and Mom: No, that was Joseph. 
Mom: So do you know who was in a fish?
Cat: JONAH! Um, I think I need to go back to Sunday School guys.
Mom: You said it!

Favourite quote of all time from her though was when she came into the kitchen wondering what we were eating, looked really confused and exclaimed, "Is that fish wings?!" She will never live that down.

Oh, that girl.


Title making reference to the hilarious Twitter account/Book Sh*t My Dad Says

deep-dish cookie

 oh my word.

I'm back in St. John's, and I tried to be a healthy grocery shopper by refusing to buy myself anything chocolate or sugar related, because if it's near me I'll probably eat it. I was feeling strong about this decision, a whole 24 hours, until I saw this (originally found on The Kitchn.) Soft and gooey chocolate chip cookies with ice cream on top? I. Want. Now.

wide, wide as the ocean

Last week, September 30th to be exact, I went along with my father and sister on a little afternoon fishing trip.

The food fishery was on and the waves were few so we went out to see what we could catch. It was my first time out on the water in quite some time. Unfortunately Mom wasn't feeling well, and Elizabeth had to wait on a call for work so they didn't join us.

We packed up the boat with everything we needed. Well, except for a snack! We had already started our journey when I regretted not grabbing a package of crackers before I left the house. Not for its seasick-calming effect, but for its hunger curbing powers.

I feel like fishing and crackers go really well together.

It was probably my most pleasant fishing experience I've ever had in the history of fishing with my family.

Catherine was the first to get a nibble on her line.

And it was a big one.

She wanted to pass it off to Dad so we wouldn't lose it, but he was busy with my fishing pole instead. She let me hold it, but since it was the first fish/a big fish and I wasn't used to reeling things in at the time, I kinda lost the big fish. I felt a little bad about it, but mostly thought it was funny. It was funny because Catherine was "rotted" at me for the remainder of the trip and would not let it go. Even to the end.

I happened to attract and catch the next fish, and it ended up being the biggest fish of the day.

She caught the next one though not long after (thank goodness!) so it appeased her slightly.

We caught other beauties too. :P

Catherine cut the cods throats for them. Don't trust her when she's in this state of mind.

The weather has been amazing so far since I've been back on this beautiful, rocky soil and I'm glad we were able to appreciate it in this way for a few hours. The day was like this for most of our trip.

A few other folks were catching their quota as well. A lovely couple happened to have crackers and gave us some! I was incredibly grateful!

The wind picked up so we had to put on our jackets and soon after, headed back to the harbour. It was a good day.

Here are some videos from the day. I was sort of yelling because I didn`t know if the motor was going to drown out all of the sound, but you could hear us pretty well after all.