Songs In Blue

The last time I left for a long term trip, I was going for something new.  I wanted to experience other places, and have fun doing it.  I was going to ‘play’ as my mom called it (and play I did).
I only cried once.  It was the night before I left and after having spent the last few months planning and getting excited, I had a “What the hell am I doing?” moment and broke down on my dad’s deck.

This time it’s different.

I’m going to work, pay rent, live (I’ll a bit play too) – basically the same thing I’d be doing here, but in a different country.  Of course I’ve been excited to go, but I’ve been equally sad this time around too and it’s made saying goodbye even harder (with a lot more tears).

At least it was until I walked off the ferry this evening. I realized there’s nothing left to plan or organize, and only one more goodbye to get through…everything’s DONE! I don’t have to worry and can just be excited!

I get to go on a 16 hour flight with airplane food and my own mini tv! I’m aware that most people don’t look forward to those things, but I was raised on an airport – it’s in my blood.
Then I get to see Matt, live with Kiwis, and have a fresh start in a country I LOVE.  So I’m in no way complaining, even if leaving my family and friends has made me cry more in the last 3 days then the last 3 years. 

This post will be very random which is a pretty accurate description of my brain’s current state.

Life is getting really insane right now.   My flight isn’t until Wednesday night, but I’m leaving the coast tomorrow afternoon and will be spending the night at my dad’s.  It’s just easier to go in the night before and not have to worry about ferries being late, plus I get to have dinner with Danielle and hang out with Dad and Gail.  The only problem is that I leave my house in less than 24 hours, and still haven’t packed.  Go. Me.

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Last night was Lance’s 19th birthday.  The dude’s awesome!  He lives up in the Okanagan with our sister, so it’s always good times when he comes down to the coast for a visit.  We went out for dinner at the pub with mom, Lance’s friend Seth (who also turned 19 this week), and Seth’s parents.  After dinner we all went to our house for birthday cake and some presents then it was back to the pub for some drinks and free pool with friends.

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I’m adding another project to my never ending list of things to do.  That might seem a little backwards, I know, but I like to have a lot of things on my plate.  This is really just to force myself to put (and keep) equal attention on each thing because if I don’t…it’ll all fall a part.  I do enjoy a good balancing act.
I’ve signed up with Bluehost.com to start hosting my own site!  And I have no idea what I’m doing! Actually, the first couple problems I experienced had nothing to do with me, and everything to do with my domain being transferred from my sister’s account.  All that’s sorted now, so when I get a few minutes of free time *cough*good luck*cough* I’ll get my site looking all pretty and hopefully, fully functional.  Cause it’s not all about looks right?

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Speaking of being hot, I made the final vote for the Hot Blogger Calendar!  I find the whole thing more funny than anything, but it is my first blog-related contest so I’m kinda excited to see what happens with it.  I’ve already been told that I’d be the hottest person there, but that was from my boyfriend and he may be a little biased.  Anyway, you only get to vote for ONE chick, so it’d be sweet if you voted for me   There’s a button on my sidebar – GO VOTE FOR ME!

I think I’m a little late in posting this, but I was nominated as a Hot Blogger (as were a TONNE of other people)!  The deadline is tomorrow, and the bloggers with the highest number of nominations make it to the final vote.  So, GO NOMINATE ME! 

That’s my bed.  I’m not posting this picture for any other reason but to set the scene for what is so far, the most terrifying moment of my life.

It all started at about 1am, Sunday morning.  I had only been home for a couple hours and was sitting on my bed, typing off a quick email to Matt before I called it a night.

Most of you know I also share a room with my little bro (Chad), due to lack of space in my mom’s house and my stay here only being temporary.  His bed is to the left, and a few feet up from mine, since I’m kinda tucked into a corner.  Anyway, our room was extremely warm and humid thanks to the weather we’ve been having lately, so Chad asked me to open the window (see above photo).

This prompted the following conversation:

Me: “I don’t really like sleeping with my window open.”
Chad: “Why not?”
“I don’t know…I always get scared that somethings going to rip through the screen and get into the room, and I’ll be the first victim.”
“Uhh, ok….”

Chad usually falls asleep listening to his Mp3 player, so once our chat was over, he put his head phones back on.

Not 2 minutes later, I hear the loudest growl/snarl/roar RIGHT OUTSIDE MY NOW OPEN WINDOW.
I froze.  Chad heard it too, and ripped off his headphones just in time to hear me say in a frantic whisper,
“THIS is why I don’t sleep with my window open.”
As soon as he realized I wasn’t the one who made the noise (thanks dude, I’m not THAT loud), he instantly knew what was out there,
“Oh my God, that’s a freaking bear.”

So I’m lying frozen under the OPEN WINDOW, Chad’s in his bed absolutely FRANTIC, and we can both still hear the thing grunting and sniffing around right outside.
I have 2 choices.  I can either stay frozen, let the bear get in, and proceed to be MAULED…OR I can close the window.
In what felt like forever, I reached my hand up to the window and SLAMMED it closed as loud and hard as I could, hoping in would scare the bear away.  Then we both leapt out of our beds and ran out into the living room, only to stop suddenly when we realized every. single. window. in our house was wide open.
So we rush around closing them all (of course, Chad left the ones closest to where the bear had been for me), then ran upstairs to get mom.

At that point, I let myself start freaking out.  I had so much adrenaline going through me and my legs were shaking so bad, I thought I would fall over…but I was also laughing!  Even though I was scared out of my mind, it was probably the most fun I ever had too.  Chad dealt with his rush in the same manner as he usually does, by talking…A LOT!

Once we got back to our room, Chad asked me how I worked up the nerve to close the window, cause he didn’t think he would be able to do it.  I reassured him that it wasn’t that easy, and I nearly wet myself in the process, but it was a hell of a lot better than the alternative.

Last night I did a serious purge of all my clothes.  I can now fit every single article of clothing I own into ONE drawer of a previously FULL SIX-drawer dresser.

Did I mention I had to get rid of all those clothes because I’ve lost 17 lbs and don’t fit them anymore? No?  Well, considered yourself informed.

I’ve been losing weight somewhat consistently for about 2 months but didn’t want to say anything because I usually give up after a couple weeks a day.

I’ve always been a bit of a curvy girl (I have child-bearing hips, yo) and hovered around the same weight for the last 2 years or so.  But after Matt left in January, I gained a little bit more than I was used to.  Did NOT like that at all.  So even though I’ve lost all that I gained (and a bit more), I don’t feel like I look that much different.  I’m just back to normal.

It’s just that now, ‘normal’ is no longer good enough. It’s not a matter of being skinny (I love my boobs WAY too much to lose them) but I want feel good, healthy and a little more confident.

Yes, I said ‘confident’ (stop laughing). You might not think that I lack it, but I am a GIRL.  More importantly, a CURVY GIRL.
I trick myself into feeling good about my body.
Instead of standing in front of the mirror, picking out every flaw, I focus on the good (my boobs(ok, fine. my hair, eyes etc.)) and voila! Instant confidence.
But I know I can do better, work harder, get healthier, so I’m going to.  I want to be in the best shape I can be, so I can worry about more important things.

Like all the shopping I’m going to do this weekend.  Kidding.

I can’t count the number of times I said that to WHOEVER WOULD LISTEN this weekend.  But seriously, she is.  You know who else is awesome?  Grandma’s sister, Nancy. 

They’re both so awesome, I just had a momentary loss of words while thinking of their awesomeness.

We spent a lot of the weekend just hanging out.  One night, a few of Grandma’s friends came over for dinner, which turned into one of the funniest evenings I’ve been a part of in a very long time. 
My fear of getting old is completely gone after hearing some of the conversations, and seeing how much fun they were having. 
There was even a debate as to which one of us kids was going to be the ‘designated driver’.  Chad, Courtney, and I all won that one and walked one of the ladies home after dinner was over.  In her defense, her husband just died and I felt really bad for her after we dropped her off.  I think I may even get her email from Grandma and keep in touch.

I think as we’ve gotten older, Grandma’s become less censored. Now, she virtually ignores any and all of mom’s ‘Don’t-you-dare-’ looks, leaving us kids (and mom) in shock but extremely amused.
It’s fun seeing your mom, embarrassed by her mother.

For someone who has been through so much in her life, she is one of the most positive people I know.  She is unwavering in her opinions, but says what’s on her mind without any form of judgement.  She’s real, honest, and believes in the best of people.

I want to be like her when I grow up.

Grandma, Mom, Me, Nancy, and Courtney

I’ve been pretty busy this week and haven’t had much time for blogging, but there will be a proper post after the weekend…which will be spent on the island with my awesome Grandma!

Carry on… 

A few days ago, I got my hair cut (and it looks great)!  My stylist is the only person I trust to hold a pair of scissors to my head, plus she’s my age so we have lots to talk about.
While I was there, she told me that she’s ENGAGED!  That’s another one…who’s keeping count??  Seriously.
Anyway, that’s not what I want to talk about.

One of our conversations left me a little stunned and quite amused.  So this is for Matt, who I know will start ranting once he reads this, just like I do when someone asks if I, being from Canada, live in an igloo.

Stylist: “So, what language do they speak down there?”

Me: “Seriously? English.”

“Well that’s easy for you then eh?  What’s your boyfriend’s name?”

“Matt.”

“Wow, that’s a normal name…does he have like a New Zealand name too?”

“No…it’s just Matt.”

“Oh.  So is it hard to get into the country?”

“Well, I got my plane ticket and visa all sorted…but I have to do this like Maori-tribal-haka-war dance-thing before they’ll actually let me into the country.  So, fingers crossed!”

*blank stare*

“Yeah…I’m kidding.”

This has been a while in coming, but last weekend I got to hang out with my eldest brother, Chris, and his family.  It was so awesome to see them all since it never happens, plus they brought my nephew (from Ontario, that I NEVER get to see either) down to stay with us for a week!

Unfortunately, Chris and his bunch had only one day to hang out with us before going back to Alberta, but we fit in as much as we could.
After a yummy breakfast (mmm, peameal bacon), we all headed to a waterpark in New West:

Chris' kids

The camera came out, and the horns went up. Funniest thing ever!

Dad and Chris

Courtney and Nick (our nephew from Ontario, who's only a few months younger than Courtney...)

Of course, being Vancouver, we couldn’t stay long since it started to rain.  So we took the kids for a ‘ride’ on the skytrain, you know, for fun…
They loved it and even threw their arms up in the air when we went down hills.  It was well worth all the strange looks people were giving us.

One of the downsides of having a large family, is that everyone generally spreads out across the country.  It makes trying to see everyone really hard when you decided to, oh I don’t know, MOVE REALLY FAR AWAY.  Add in a 4 weekend time restraint and it looks almost impossible.

However, I generally scoff at the impossible and love having so much on my plate that I don’t have time for rational thought.  It works for me. Also? Lists work for me.  So I should have pretty much everyone covered by the time I leave…included my awesome Grandma.  Love her.

This weekend will be our summertime tradition of going to watch the Celebration of Light fireworks at Kits Beach.  We usually show up at 11am and stay for the whole day.  This year, my sister, Mel (cross another one off the list) and her husband, will be joining us and she is always up for good times! 
There will be food, swimming, slushies, tanning, and our yearly poker tournament…can’t wait!