joy of books

Saw this today. The things people do with a little bit of time and creativity amazes me.

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. 

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

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.

 
 

trey and kelsey's brooklyn bridge engagement

I got the priviledge of meeting one of Chandler's good friends, Trey Turner of The Icarus Account this summer. Last Friday he proposed to his girlfriend on the Brooklyn Bridge, but dropped the ring through a crack as he was taking it out to pop the question! Through coordination of several very fortunate events, the ring was found by a construction worker and safely returned to the lovebirds. Kind of incredible. A sweet miracle. A story sweet enough to be featured on The Early Show this morning!
Chandler called me excitedly to tell me that they were on TV being interviewed about it. I couldn't find the channel in time, but I found articles about what happened and here's a link to the clip on youtube. Such a sweet guy, and I wish them the best!

I like weekends.

Finally it's the weekend so Chandler doesn't have work!

Today has been filled with random goodness such as video chatting with Robz while sitting in the kitchen during band practice for The Decour at Dalton's. It was loud. Can't forget to mention getting lost on the way to finding a CVS for batteries. This week has by far been the most productive in putting together my mental map of Charlotte;

going to Carolina Place mall to see the Shop til you Rock promotion where some friends were playing an acoustic set. They were also giving out gift cards if you answered some questions and Chandler won me one for Forever 21!;

eating a mediocre meal at Taipei South. Luckily the fortune cookies never disappoint;

playing FIFA with Chandler since it's been his new obsession the past few weeks. (I was terrible at it, considering I haven't touched a sports game like that since I was about 12 years old. But I improved!)

A pretty full day I think.

Merry Christmas from Newfoundland!

(ps. sorry for the lag in the audio. i don’t know what happened)

listen to | lisa mitchell

Lisa Mitchell | Clean White Love

A woah ah oh you’re my clean white love

A woah ah oh you’re my clean white love

What are you doing?

What you doing, what ya doing to me?

What are you doing to my head?

I want to live in this music video. And I want her red boots.

Her Morning Elegance

I like watching this from time to time.

Last night part of my dream involved playing that corn hole toss game (whatever it’s called) with some of my favourite people.

I think this means someone wants to be in the south real bad.