Something a Little More Recent

I feel so lost not writing in this blog for so long. It’s only been a week but I feel as though it’s been way longer than that. How far back do I have to remember at this point? Hmmm.

Ok, so I worked an extra day this week to make up for that horrible day in which I was sick. Whenever they ask if you want to work some overtime, that means that you’ll be doing something which isn’t your regular job and you really have no idea what it entails until you get to work and report to the supervisor. I got to work and the first thing my supervisor said was “so are you ready to get dirty?” I’ll admit that I was a bit excited to see what they had in mind for me to do that day. Unfortunately my job for the next 12 hours consisted of cleaning an area of the plant which hadn’t seen the light of a broom or dust pan until about 1985, and normally I really enjoy cleaning but this kind of cleaning had a whole new dimension. When she first showed me the area I was to clean I thought to myself “they want me to clean this tiny area in 12 hours? I can do this easily in 5”…yeah right. This part of the plant was covered in this extremely fine zinc dust which I compare to the kind of dust that you see on TV when they show the ashes of a cremated person blowing in the wind. It’s the kind of dust that seems to disappear the second that a breeze hits it. I am a bit of an anal retentive crazy person when it comes to cleaning (sometimes…) so cleaning up this stuff gave me a bit of a complex. As soon as you sweep it off of one area it settles in another area, so then you sweep it off of that area and it gets into the air and settles back onto that area you just swept off. There were times in which I had to remove dust from an area 6 or 7 times before I felt it was passable for me to move on from that spot. There was a point that day in which I was certain I would need therapy to get over the trauma that zinc dust caused me.

Fortunately the next 4 days went by without any complications or stories of dismantling forklifts. Quite quiet and uneventful which is good for that place.

My first day off, Chris and I headed to the lake to spend the night at my parent’s trailer. They have a place out at Woodbury which is about 5 minutes past Ainsworth Hot Springs. I’ve been waiting for them to head out there on my dad’s days off so that they can show me how to work the trailer in lieu of the event of the two of us spending some time out there alone someday. We arrived around 5pm and got to work on setting up a tent for us to sleep in. About 10 minutes after its completion we realized that the weather might not work in our favour that night but decided to wait and see how it turned out. After dinner we came to the conclusion that the 40km/hr winds that were quickly coming from the north would not be the easiest to sleep in, so we crashed on the supremely uncomfortable hide-a-bed in the trailer. I won’t be making that mistake again.

The next morning proved to be a bit more accommodating to our plans for the short trip to the lake. After breakfast, dad and Chris headed out in the boat to do some fishing (I won’t leave you on pins and needles…they didn’t catch anything). While they were gone I went for a little hike up the mountain to enjoy the lovely weather and coolness that the trails generate. When I returned I decided to just go for it and jump in the lake. In case you are not familiar with Kootenay Lake, it’s a glacier fed lake that is just slightly above “omi-effing-God this lake is effing freezing!” temperatures. I was sweaty and warm and decided it was now or never. It turned out not to be all that bad. Plus my mom and uncle were there to witness my misery to I had to go in or else I would have looked like a wimp.


After the quick dip, dad and Chris still weren’t back so mom and I decided to drive to Kaslo to see what it had to offer. She wanted to pick up a few odds and ends for supper and I just love Kaslo so it was easy to drag me along for the 20 minute drive out there. Kaslo is this tiny little town in which the main street is about 4 blocks long and consists of amazing little organic restuarants and mom 'n pop shops which make lovely locally made crafts and gifts. I always fall in love with the area all over again whenever I go there. Plus, in my opinion, the area has the best mountains in all of the Kootenays. Dare I say even in all of BC? Perhaps. Anyway, I ended up buying some amazing hemp body lotion which is locally made and left me smelling my hands every 2 minutes, plus some infamous Kalso Sourdough Bakery bread. Yummmm.

When we got back to the campground the boys had returned so Chris and I took the kayaks out onto the lake for a while. We paddled around for an hour or so and admired the amazingly huge houses that people have out on the cliffs. If I wasn’t such a klutz I would have brought a camera along to prove the obsceneness of these houses that people build. But I can just picture myself hopelessly watching the camera quickly sink into the dark lake water as Chris points and laughs at my stupidness. Luckily I got to laugh at him while he nearly flooded his kayak as he attempted to paddle up a very fast moving creek. I was going to warn him but boys will be boys and I know that me telling him to not do something would just end with him calling me a paranoid woman. I know my role. Sit back and watch them stumble along while I clean up the broken pieces and tell them they’re still a man even though they failed miserably. Did I say that outloud?

Today was an odds and ends kind of day. Amy called and asked me to baby-sit Cadance while she did some errands around town which didn’t include packing around a 2 year old. Cadance and I ended up having this hilarious water fight which involved me laughing so hard that my stomach was aching. I don’t think I realized just how playful that little girl was until today. She’s hilarious. Chris showed up a while later so we decided to walk Cadance down to Gyro park so that she could play at the playground and enjoy the water for a while. It’s so hot out so a nice cool off in the Columbia was definitely called for.

All in all, my days off so far have been pretty great. Only one day left before I head back to work. Booooo. Luckily after I finish those 4 days at work we are heading to Vancouver for a couple days to see some friends and go to a concert. TOOL!!! I’ll admit that I might actually be more excited to see Doug and Dustin than I am to see Tool. I think someone should check my temperature because I might be sick.

A Lookback to Father's Day

So I haven't had any internet for well over a week because for some reason, our stolen connection to the neighbours isn't working and it's extremely inconvenient. So now we decided to become legit and actually pay for an internet line. What is the world coming to in which we can't regularly steal high-speed internet from other people? I mean, c'mon! Have some decency. Something that I do when internet connections suck is I type out my blogs in Microsoft Word and save them until I get a proper connection that allows me to get onto my blog and post them. This one was written on June 21st:

I’m not sure why I have been agreeing to work extra shifts at work since my days off go by so insanely fast that it seems that I don’t ever have any time off. It’s quite depressing actually. As soon as I start to relax and enjoy not being at work, I have to go back to work. Then I go and accept to work an extra shift here and there and I end up just kicking myself in the end. It’s a vicious cycle. Yeah the money is nice but is it really worth it in the end? (as she contemplates her ever growing shoe-buying obsession…it all starts to become clear).



It seems like I’ve had a busy couple of days and yet I don’t seem to have accomplished anything. Weird how that happens. My first day off started kind off crappy. I got home around 6:30am as usual and as I was crawling into bed, suddenly some really bad techno music started blaring from a neighbours house. Who plays techno at 6:40 on a Saturday morning?? We figured that maybe it was music that someone was working out to but as the minutes trickled by it seemed that it would never let up. I was at that point where you’re so tired that you might start crying at any second (I cry when I’m tired and frustrated) because I’d just got off work and all I wanted to do was sleep, but I could still hear the music through earplugs because it was mostly all bass coming through. Ugh. I eventually crawled out of bed and headed to the bed in the spare upstairs bedroom in hopes that it wouldn’t be as loud up there. The music was definitely more muffled so I was eventually able to fall asleep. Chris went to my dad’s house with Jer a little after 10:30 to get some work done on the basement floor (they’re installing ceramic tile) and I figured I might as well get up too. 3 hours of sleep is enough to keep a body going right?? The rest of the day is a bit of a blur. I did go to the parent’s house around 3ish to see how things were coming along over there and I ended up weeding my mom’s garden/flower beds for about 2 hours. And there was the lovely chicken poo manuring session that took place. Man that stuff stinks.

Yesterday was Father’s Day so that meant a big family dinner at mom and dad’s house. Unfortunately dad spent a good part of the day with Chris and Jer working on the floor (although he did spend a lot of time upstairs watching the PGA tour). I can’t imagine how relieved they’ll all be once the floor is done. It seems like it’s taking incredibly long to finish…although I doubt that can be attributed to the amount of beer drinking, smoking and World Cup watching that has been going on around there. As for the dinner, I was in charge of dessert so I made some black forest cupcakes. I was originally going to make the traditional cake but last minute decided to make chocolate cupcakes and fill them with cherries and whipped cream. They were quite adorable and everyone seemed to enjoy them. Dinner was a kind of potluck which always means that the food is amazingly delicious because all of the people who were there are great cooks. Life is good.

Dude! I'm Being Sarcastic!

In my opinion, there isn't anything much more painstakingly frustrating then when something you say is misinterpreted to another person. I am a rather sarcastic person and most of the things that I say should not be taken literally. Seriously. I'm not being sarcastic right now. I promise.

So for me, it's really hard when something I say is translated differently than I anticipated it to be. Mostly because if that person interprets my words in a negative way and takes what I say to heart, then my comeback of "I'm just kidding!" will not be enough to make that other person feel better. Think about a time that someone said something that may have hurt your feelings and then they followed that with, "just kidding"...you didn't feel better did you? And I hate the fact that I might be doing that to other people when I talk the way that I do. I really don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Should I try to change the way I have spoken for the last 26 years and omit the sarcasm? (well, I guess it would be closer to 23 since I apparently mostly spoke gibberish the first 3 years of my life). Perhaps I should consider just continuing to tell people "Dude, relax. I'm kidding", even though I know that these latter two words just aren't good enough. I think that most people know that when we say something as a joke, in actuality we were something like 50% serious in what we said. Could that be true? But there's a difference between sarcasm and the "just kidding" kind of talk. At least I think so.



Another topic that has recently come up in my life is the whole misconstruing of things that I write in emails/letters/blogs. People who don't know me well enough to understand the way that I talk are much more likely to read my words one way when I actually mean them in a whole different light. For me, this really sucks! I don't want people to mistake my words and think of me in a negative way when it's complete sarcasm that's pouring out from my words. Should I change the way that I type now? So many questions to ask oneself. I know that a lot of people think of sarcasm as a very immature and the lowest form of wit, but it's all that I have!

A friend and myself once discussed that they should create some kind of font to show when one is using sarcasm in emails so that confusion can be avoided, and the two of us actually agreed on a way to show sarcasm when sending messages to one another. And guess what?? Today I found a company who did that very thing! It's called the SarcMark and it supposed to be inserted close to the sentence in which sarcasm is being used. You can upload it onto your computer and use it freely. Very cool. I just might look into this. It seems that I have no choice. Now my big problem is having to explain to every single person that I write emails to what the squiggly symbol is that follows every third line of my letters. Maybe it would be easier to just tone down the sarcasm and try to use real humour. I guess I'm going to have to be imaginative and witty from now on. This seems like a lot of work.

Tip of the Day: Lighten up!

Love 'em, Hate 'em

So the other day when browsing through a little shop in Nelson, I came across this wonderful little book called "The Encyclopedia of Guilty Pleasures: 1001 Things You Hate to Love" and took a quick peak inside. I found myself laughing at the list of things that most of us do truly hate to love. Some of the ones that they had listed were:
-Antiques Roadshow
-Archie Comics
-Movie Sequels
-Baywatch (Pamela Anderson is also one I believe)
-Before and After Photos
-Family Matters (the TV show, accompanied with a picture of Urkel)
-As Seen on TV Products
-Marshmallow Fluff (I've never tried it before)
-Blood Pressure Machines (in pharmacies)
...Plus another 992...

This got me into thinking of the things that I personally hate to love and these are some of my stupid little guilty pleasures that always get the best of me:
-Collecting Recipes. I have a book dedicated only to writing out or cutting out recipes that I find out there in the world. Most of them I have never prepared and possibly will never create, but just knowing that they are waiting there for me to make them just makes me content with life.
-Romance Novels. I went through a major romance novel stage and every so often am tempted to pick one up and enjoy the utterly ridiculousness of it (did you know that young virgin women always have multiple orgasms their very first time having sex?)
-Lady Gaga. This is a hard one for me to admit but I can't help but start to bust a move whenever a song of hers comes on. They're just so damn catchy it's sickening.
-Mean Girls. The horrible Lindsay Lohan movie, not the evil girls in high school that tormented everyone else. I know that my heterolifepartner agrees with this guilty pleasure since she's secretly in love with this movie as well, so that makes me feel a teensy bit better about it.
-Cedar Bugs. For anyone who doesn't know, cedar bugs are these ugly bugs that slowly walk around the house/yard and will let off an obscenely strong odour if they are touched/squashed. I find these bugs to be absolutely hilarious and enjoy watching them fly aimless in whatever direction they happen to be facing. They're rather cool to look at and as long as you don't step on it or get in it's way, they can be lovely little housemates. (My sister thinks I'm nuts for enjoying these things).
-Project Runway. I know nothing about fashion and my tastes in clothes are mostly pathetic, but I am always drawn to any Project Runway marathon that happens to come my way. They people are always so dramatic and flamboyant and I just think it's a fabulous show.
-Tattoos. I love them. I hate that I love them because they are addictive, expensive and stuck with you for life (unless you get the painful laser procedure to get it removed). I am drawn to people who have lots of them which is stupid because it's such a stupid thing to be drawn to. Wow, you have ink on your body...be my friend! There is no logic with this at all.


-Buffets. So much food to taste yet not near enough stomach capacity. They're so wonderful and yet so frustrating. I always feel so guilty after eating at a buffet because I always eat waaaaay too much and somehow manage to consume about 90% of my calories in dessert since there are always so many to choose from, therefore I need to taste a little of each.
-NKOTB. Why? There are at least 5 good reasons. Step 1: We can have lots of fun. Step 2: There's so much we can do. Step 3: It's just you and me. Step 4: I can give you more. Step 5: Don't you know that they time has arrived?

I know there are are easily 1000 more but that's all I have right now. Guilty Pleasures are very common with me and I know that they're common with all of you as well. So fess up to your silly little things that you love to hate. They're what make you, you!

Welcome Baby Aiken!

Today I am dedicating my blog to Sarah and Ralph Aiken who are dear friends of mine and are celebrating the addition of their third child, a son, today. They have named the little guy Phin and I can’t wait to meet him. Congratulations to the both of you on this very happy day. I am delighted to also congratulate Parker and Piper on their new baby brother! Good luck!

Stupid Hypocritical Girlfriend

I think it may be safe to say that summer has arrived here. FINALLY! The past two days have been absolutely amazing and the temperature topped out today at 34 degrees which was definitely what we needed...especially our poor tomato plants which have been desperately waiting for some heat to perk them up.

Unfortunately I spent the first day off sick and actually had to call in sick to work! I was thinking back that day of the number of times that I have called in sick to work since I began working when I was 16, and I think the grand total is 3 times. The thing that killed me was that my current job is not the kind of job that you call in sick because...well..you just don't! It broke my heart to call and tell them to please find someone to take my shift that night. Grrrr. I actually take that back. I was more angry than anything. I really don't want to be thought of as "that person" who calls into sick all of time and is unreliable, because I'm so incredibly not that person. I'm the one who covers everyone else's shift when they call in sick. Frustrating situation, but I couldn't help it that day. Hopefully they understand.

The next day I was feeling much better so Chris and I drove up to Pam's house and grabbed Splash so that we could take her on a good walk. We did the walk from her house down to my parent's house in Rivervale. When we got there we once again somehow ended up hanging out and staying for dinner. How this always happens, I am not quite sure. My mom has a gift for throwing food into the direction of every guest that enters her house and somehow convincing them to eat it even if that person just consumed a five-course meal an hour earlier. Oh that mom of mine.

The following morning (yesterday) Chris and I got up rather early and did the near-hour drive to Nelson to spend the day over there. Nelson is definitely, by far, my "happy place". When I drive into the city I feel as though I am home and I just can't help but feel a sense of relief and satisfaction. We started off by me showing him the places that I used to live and some of the sights around the city. We walked around Baker Street for a good while and had a snack at the bakery where I used to work. Then we walked along the water front and down to Lakeside Park. For a pleasant surprise, we discovered that the city installed all of these really cool exercise machines down by the water where people can go down and get a bit of a work out while overlooking the lake (literally, the lake is 10 steps from all of the machines). Most of them used your own body weight as your resistance so of course we had to test out the equipment which were really rad! After spending a good amount of time in Lakeside Park we headed back up to town and walked around some more to check out some more shops and sights. Dinner was eaten at Max and Irma's which I am a huge fan of. That place never lets me down. Leaving Nelson after dinner was a bit sad, as it always is for me. I am excited for my next trip out there. I'm hoping that Chris will go to one of the Open Mike's that The Royal puts on every Wednesday night.

So today was a rather productive day...somewhat. A few days ago Pam informed me of these series of hikes that the Inspiring Wellness program through Teck plans out for anyone who wants to partake in. Her and Graham (and Splash) were going to go so Chris and I decided to tag along as well. We all met up in Rossland at around 10am where we grouped up with the rest of the Teck employees who wanted some exercise as well. The hike ended up being roughly and hour and a half and it as a really nice climb up the mountain; not too steep but not too easy either. Apparently the hikes that are planned out over the summer get harder and longer as the season progresses so I am really hoping that these hikes fall on my days off because I would really enjoy trying them all. Here's the view from the top of the hike, looking down onto Rossland.



After the hike we headed down to my parent's house where I needed to do some gardening. See, my mom and I made a deal when I got back to BC. She would only plant a vegetable garden this year if I promised to help take care of it (meaning doing the weeding since her knee is really bad and she can't bend over) and in return I can take as much veggies as I want. DEAL! So today I needed to get some weeding done. Between myself and Chris, we got that garden weeded out in no time. He decided to go help my dad out with putting down the tile floor that is going in the basement and I kept on weeding some flower beds and under the cedar trees as well. By the time I was done I was quite hot and sweaty...and the river was looking especially inviting.



The Columbia River flows directly behind my parent's house and we all spent many summers jumping in and out of the frigid water to cool off. I'll admit that I chickened out more than once today since the average temperature of the water of the Columbia River on June 13th is around 58 degrees (yes, I researched the average temperature of the river on today's date). After about 5 or 6 psych-outs I realized that I am not a wimpy person and I am clearly being a wimp; so I jumped. And yes. It was cold. But man did it feel amazing when I got out and got back into the hot air. Mmmmmmmm.

After arriving back home I realized that I got a horrible sunburn on my back. The ironic part of it is that for the past couple days I've been on Chris's case constantly about him putting on sunscreen since he's quite freckly and already got a mild burn on his shoulders a few days ago. So this morning, after some rolling of the eyes and pouting from him, he reluctantly slathered on the sunscreen to please me (bless him) meanwhile I forgot to do my back and ended up with a nasty burn. Stupid hypocritical girlfriends. They're such a pain in the ass.

Pinching a Loaf

Two weeks into doing shifts by myself and I am already training a new guy. Does anyone else see the flaw in the system here? Come to think of it though, 3 out of the 4 people who work the job are students so the chance of one of us having to help with training is inevitable. The guy was already employed by the company so he’s really familiar with the building and is well trained already on how to use the forklift so it’s basically safe to say that he’s already better at the job than I am in many ways.

However, there are two problems that I encountered today when training a person.

Problem #1 – my job isn’t hard and there is barely enough work to keep one person busy on a really busy day. Plus, my boss literally told me to just sit there and watch him and let him do all of the work and only intervene if he needs help. In other words, I got a good amount of reading done today.

Problem #2 – when you’re told to sit and do nothing and forget your book, you begin to zone out and think about the most random and stupid things. For example, this is what I thought about for way too long this morning while staring blankly at nothing in particular. “Alright. I call it banana loaf but he calls it banana bread. Which is it? A loaf or a bread? We say ‘loaf of bread’ but we never ever say ‘loaf of banana’ so that must mean it’s a bread. But is it technically bread? Can you make a sandwich out of it or dip it in your soup? And what is the definition of a loaf anyway and what does one entail to qualify to called a loaf? Loaf is a strange word when you think about it and say of over and over again. Loaf. Loaf. You can have a loaf of meat (meatloaf) but not a loaf of banana. Should meatloaf be called ‘meat bread’ instead?” I kid you not. I did actually have this entire conversation in my head at one point this morning. Sad isn’t it?

Tip of the Day: Jogging (even if only for a tiny length of time) in heavy steel toed boots is not a good idea.

Screwing Around

Today would normally be my third day off from work, but I was asked to work an extra day this run so that makes today my last day off until Friday :( Bummer. It seems like I've been doing nothing but running around since Chris got here so we haven't had much time to actually do anything fun together. Well, I mean that's not true. We did a good hike the other day and explored the mountain up in Warfield. We also somehow got sucked into spending all afternoon/evening at my parent's house playing Yahtzee, eating pizza and moving freezers. Not too sure how that happened. Plus the weather has been complete and utter crap so going on outside adventures just aren't the same. The rain ruined our planned trip to Nelson yesterday so I am really hoping that on my next days off the weather is decent so that we can make the drive over there. I'm excited to show him that area of the Kootenays because it is so dear to my heart and it's amazingly beautiful. Not that it isn't beautiful in the rain but the experience just wouldn't be the same because I wanted to walk around lots. So like I said...fingers crossed for good weather by Friday.

So on my last day off this run, we were greeted by Pam and Graham (and Splash) knocking on the door at 9:30 to put the sub-floor in Pam's kitchen. They pulled out her old floor last weekend (which revealed an AMAZING old brown 70's style flooring) and the plan was to install the new floor this weekend. So I spent today doing errands for them and screwing lots and lots of screws into the floor. I hadn't operated a cordless drill in many years so I was really rusty at first but eventually got the hang of it by the end (4000 screws later she gets the hang of it). So tomorrow the actual tile will be put in and when I get home there will be a new shiny kitchen floor for me to enjoy! YAY! I can just see myself being the most anal retentive extremist at keeping it clean because it's so new and pretty and I'll want to keep it that way. Damn this OCD of mine.



Something that I am really enjoying about having Chris around is that everything in this area is new to him and it's adorable to see him all wide-eyed looking at the mountains and enjoying the views when we go for walks. I grew up in this area and while I appreciate the beauty tremendously, unlike him, I'm used to looking at it. Growing up here as a little kid was great because we had the outdoors to play in. Being a teenager sucked because there was never anything to do. Coming back as an adult I definitely appreciate the area more...even though there really still isn't all that much to do. If it weren't for the outdoors to spend my time in then the location here would be less than ideal to tolerate. I love the mountains. How do I survive in PEI without them?

The Curse Continues

So the other night at work I was driving along, minding my own business when I found myself in a tricky situation. I had to take from a pile of zinc that was in a tight corner and didn't really back up enough to get out of the area properly. I ended up turning a bit too wide which resulted in a slight (and I mean slight) rubbing of the back tires against a stack of zinc. After I cleared the stack the forklift was driving really weird and I thought that maybe I had knocked off a piece of zinc and was dragging it underneath the machine. So I hopped off the forklift to take a look. YIKES! is what I saw. I had managed to pull the tires right off and twist the drum from the axle. At first I was just completely dumbfounded. How did this happen??

I instantly went to find the night supervisor to tell him what happened. I couldn't find him so I told everyone I saw to ask him to come up to the charge floor if they saw him. Luckily the pink forklift that I had been training on was still hanging around so I jumped on it and got back to work. About a half hour later he appeared and we went to look at what I had done. All he did was laugh. He took the pink lift to lift up the broken one to see the damage. As he lifted it, the entire axle broke off. He laughed even harder at my misfortune. He told me not to worry about it and he'd send the mega big forklift up later to take it away to get fixed. Poor forklift. I broke it good.

I found this picture and I am going to use it as a metaphor. I am the dinosaur. The forklift is the forklift. Who will win in the end is the question.



On another note, I am now that person who sleeps on their breaks. Yep. I have now successfully napped twice while on my lunch breaks. The first time I was just resting my head on the table in the lunch room, only to be startled about 20 minutes later by someone in the kitchen area. Luckily he woke me up or else I would have way overslept. I was only 5 minutes late back onto the floor, so that was good. The second night I decided that a nap was in order so I headed down into the ladies changeroom and pulled out the bed that someone constructed a good while ago. There is also an old dusty alarm clock up on one of the shelves so I plugged it in, set the alarm and went to sleep. It's weird to sleep while at work but I figure if they want us to work for 12 hours during the night then it must be a least a little bit expected....right??? Here's hoping!

Oh, and they later told me that what happened with the forklift is that a crucial pin which holds the entire thing together was jarred out of place causing the whole area to fall apart. Makes me feel a bit uncomfortable knowing that this huge heavy piece of machinery that I work on is held together by a small pin.

Part 2 of Weekend Wedding

So I'm a few days late with getting back to the blog, but better to have blogged and forgotten than never have blogged at all? Better late than never? Alright, here we go.

Saturday was the big day. The bridal party were all getting their hair done at 9am, and even though there wasn't anything a stylist could do with my hair, I felt as though I should be there for moral support. Chris brought me some red dye to colour my hair with (provided by the lovely Sam Gallison whom I want to thank), which I ended up colouring the night before. I was so incredibly hesitant to colour it just in case it turned out horribly and I really didn't want to eff up Sarah's wedding by being the freak show maid of honour with the Bozo the Clown orange hair. But everyone was telling me to do it so I did it and thankfully it was a major hit! Anyway, all of the ladies (plus Sarah's daughter Grayce) got their hair all sexified and I'll admit that I was jealous that I can't do fun twisty-curly things with my mop...but these things happen sometimes. The price I pay to have short hair I suppose.


So we got out of the salon around 11 and headed to Sarah's grandma's house where the ceremony was being held at 2pm. We leisurely got our makeup done, got all dressed up, had some snacks and just kind of chilled for a while. Sarah got some pictures done around the house and we just kind up hung out. The guys arrived a little after noon (giant tuxedo fiasco! It all turned out in the end but there was a moment when they were short a tux because the company sent it back for some reason. Stupid people. One tux ended up being different then all of the rest, but no one even noticed.) Guest began arriving around 1:30 and 2 o'clock was show time!


After a minor meltdown from Sarah's daughter prior to walking down the aisle (her kids walked her down the aisle), the ceremony went very smoothly. My bra was stuffed with tissue but I didn't cry! I was totally shocked. I think I just found the whole scenario really sweet because I could hear the little private comments that Sarah and Mike were saying back and forth to each other so I think that that helped keep me from losing it. Plus I was nervous as hell carrying around Mike's ring prior to the ceremony. Right before the ceremony they decided that they wanted me to hand Mike's ring to Sarah and for Glen (best man) to hand Mike Sarah's ring, so carrying it around all morning was freaking me out. That's a big responsibility. So I was on the ball making sure not to drop it and to make sure I gave it to her at the right moment. But it all worked out well and was a success! They are officially married.

Following the ceremony was mingling and lots and lots of picture taking. I am really looking forward to seeing how all of the professional pictures turned out. Chris took lots of pics from my camera but since we were all posing for another person for them we aren't really facing most of the pictures that he took so I can't wait to see how they look.



The reception started at 6pm so we got there a little early to check the place out. Everyone did an amazing job decorating the hall. The day that they decorated was the previous day that I had to go to Kelowna, so I missed out on it; therefore it was a major surprise to see how it all turned out. I wish I had pictures of the reception to share but I was just way too busy to take pictures, but at all of the tables they provided those disposable cameras for all of the guests to take so hopefully I get to see some awesome shots of the night. So people started arriving around 6 and the night got quickly underway. The toonie bar was well used throughout the night, but thankfully the bridal party all got free drinks so needless to say that there was a good amount of Crown Royal taken in by this one. Luckily the food was served quickly enough to soak it all up!

After dinner was the speeches. EEEPP! That's the one shitty thing about being maid of honour. You always have to give a speech. I wasn't nervous at all about doing it until the moment arrived, then I was nervous as hell! But it was for Sarah so I sucked it up, marched up there and did it. The one thing that totally surprised me about it was that, again, I didn't cry! Whenever I would practice the speech by myself I would ALWAYS choke up and I was certain that it was inevitable when the moment came. But it didn't. I think my nerves fought back the tears. No time to cry when you're trying not to mess up an important moment in your best friend's life. Unfortunately Mike's sister gave a speech a few minutes later that left all of us a little wet cheeked, so that made up for it. Oh, and Sarah's grandma too. Damn people.

As the night went on, the music got a louder, the alcohol was sinking in and people started dancing. The great thing about this wedding that I loved was that prior to the day, Sarah and her mom were taking music requests from everybody who was attending, so all of the music that played were all requested by people who were there that night. This was awesome because we all got to hear something that we wanted and weren't stuck listening to crappy love songs all night. In fact I don't even remember a sappy love song even playing. There was some amazing cheesy music though. This made me extremely happy!

My favourite memory of the night was when I over by myself munching on some finger food in the next room when all of a sudden I heard "Step by Step, oooh baby. Gonna get to ya girrrrrll" blast from the stereo. All I could think of was "Omigod! NKOTB! Where's Sarah?!?!??!" Sarah and I used to be madly in love with the band and it was our little secret of just how much we adored them. So I came running out of there in full speed expecting Sarah to be waiting for me on the dance floor. But she was no where to be seen so I was literally running around the hall and outside frantically asking everyone "where's Sarah? Where's Sarah?" When I got back into the main party room I saw her running towards me at full speed yelling "where were you???" and we just ran into each other's arms and starting dancing and singing at the top of our lungs. I'm sure that everyone witnessing this scenario thought that we had completely lost out minds, but it was an epic song and it would have been a tragedy to miss. We even got my sister Pam to dance as well, along with some other closet NKOTB fans who were happy to get out there to celebrate their love of that amazing 90's boy band. Good times were definitely had by all.

Oh man...what else to tell? I had a blast. I think Sarah had way more fun than she ever expected to which was wonderful. It was really fun.

The next day was the gift opening. Being maid of honour it was my duty to be the scribe, meaning that I had to sit there and write down what they got and from who to make sure that the "thank you" cards ended up being correct. Everyone was so exhausted and hung over. All we could do was laugh at each other and drink coffee. After that I had to go grab Chris and we headed to my sister's house for Cadance's birthday party. Technically her birthday was the day before, but since it was Sarah's wedding and all of my family attended the bash, Amy decided to have her party the following day. Luckily Chris, being the person that he is, held up his own in a small house packed full of my relatives and some of Amy/Jer's friends. I wish I could be half as outgoing as he is.

All in all, I think the weekend was a success. I'm glad it's over but I'm even more happy that it happened. I wish Sarah and Mike all of the happiness and love that two people can share together. Maybe next time it'll be my wedding?? (insert snickering here)