Happy Halloween!

Halloween was a bit of a bust since we started way too late and I got home much too early. Most of my friends were headed out to a party way out in the middle of nowhere and the time they were expecting to get home would be pretty close to when I needed to get to work this morning...so unfortunately I had to miss the party out there. But at least dressing up was fun! Here's a few pictures to explain!









We got many more trick-or-treaters this year compared to last year which was nice to see. I think we only got about 6 last year which was quite pathetic. Maybe my awesome pumpkin roped them over to our front door. Just a thought.

Homework, Costumes and Mice... Oh My!

It's Friday already and I have absolutely no idea where the week went. Well, I mean, I have little blurps of memory here and there about my doings and whereabouts the past 5 days, but the fact that it's Friday (night!) just blows my mind.

I've been working lots this week but now I have 2 days off to get my shit together and make some headway on my To Do list. Tonight I officially completed my Halloween costume for tomorrow night so I am relieved to have that done and out of my mind. I'll be dressing up like Morticia Addams which I am excited about. I realized tonight that I have never dressed up as a character before for Halloween...that I can remember anyway. Throughout the years I would dress up like a witch or devil or ghost but never an actual character from a TV show or movie. So this year is a first for me which is very cool. Hopefully I can pull off the Morticia look. I've got some pretty big shoes to fill to look at hot as her.

Speaking of Halloween, this year I bought my pumpkin nearly a month ago and it's been sitting on the front steps just waiting and waiting to be carved. I started to think that I would never get the chance to carve it, and the thought of that just broke my heart because I LOVE carving pumpkins. I look forward to it all year and when I finally get the chance I have so much fun. So today, even though I did not have the time to do it, I hauled that giant gourd inside, pulled out the knives and went to town on that sucker. Now this was no small feat. Had I known that this pumpkin had the hugely thick flesh that it had I may have not attempted the carving at all. It took me well over an hour to hollow it out, gets the seeds separated (which I roasted and ate copious amounts of) and actually carve. But in the end I am happy with the result. But I can't seem to get my picture of it uploaded onto this blog which is frustrating me because I wanted to share him with the world! Oh well. Bummer. But I can tell you that he was meant to resemble this fella....


We got the keys to the apartment today so Chris has been busy packing and moving some of his stuff into the place. I'm waiting to move most of my things tomorrow since that's when we'll have a truck and I'll have the time to do it. I was talking to Sam tonight about the reality not sinking in yet that I am actually moving from this house and within a few days I will have a whole new address. I think that since we've all been so incredibly busy that we haven't taken the time to stop and realize that yeah, I'm heading out of here. We don't talk about it much (we don't see each other much though) and I haven't done a huge amount of packing...plus I don't own much stuff anyway, so it's not as though my belongings being gone will leave much of a dent in anything. Except for maybe the walls.

One thing is for sure though, I will be happy to not have to share my food with any more mice! We've already killed two in the past week and it's not even November yet! The poor little guy I cleaned up this morning had his entire head covered in peanut butter. But like Kaylynne said, it's a good way to go! At least he was happy and oblivious while indulging in delicious peanut buttery goodness before his neck was snapped. There are worse things.

And this is my favourite cake of the week

This one makes sense when you think that "RIP" stands for "Rest in Poo." Bahahaha.

Shout Outs

Today is a busy busy day for me so I want to just send out a few (yet very important) shout-outs.

The first goes to my amazingly wonderful dad who celebrated his birthday yesterday. I called him as soon as he got off of work and wished him a very Happy Birthday. Unfortunately my sister and niece had just arrived at the house as well which not only took all of my dad's attention away from my phone call (Cadance is good at taking over a room when she enters it), but it also made me miss my family that much more. Happy Birthday Daddio! I hope you had a great dinner with everyone. Love you.



The second shout-out goes to the celebration of the 25th anniversary of Back to the Future! I may have only have been 2 years old when the movie came out, but I've seen it over and over again and enjoy it every time just as much as the first.

So how do I tend to celebrate the most? With an amazing cake! Here is one of the town square. The thing that makes this cake that much more amazing is that it is someone's wedding cake. The fact that someone had this for their wedding cake makes me think that I missed out on one hell of a party.

Change is Strange

The apartment hunt is officially over! We got a phone call on Tuesday telling us that we were approved for the apartment that we were holding out for. The relief of not having to keep calling to set up appointments to look at places is fantastic. Now I will admit that when the lady called to affirm all of this I started second guessing everything! Was it the right place? Should we keep looking? Can I really survive without any closets? (the place has no closets....) Do I want to live right in the heart of downtown like that? The questions and doubts just flooded my mind. But once I had a minute or two to think it all through, I remembered how much I liked that apartment when we walked through and how I pictured where our stuff would go and how we could decorate it. I am also glad that it's really close to work and the bus route to school. So we put wrote a check for the damage deposit and it's all done. We have an apartment.

Now, the real test begins. Finding the time and energy to pack up my stuff and move it down to Dorchester Street. The 1st of November is the worst day for me to move in terms of school work. I have a quiz, a midterm, a paper and an ADIME to write due for that day. For those who don't know what ADIMES are, they are pure evil Clinical Nutrition assignments. It's not so much that they're hard as you just second guess everything that you write about and end up handing it in with the confidence of a chihuahua entering an iron man competition. I think that if I do the packing slowly when I have pockets of time then I can get it done in time.



This morning I woke up a little early and the house was empty so I decided to do a tiny bit of packing. It just felt strange. I think what made it so strange is that I am the only one packing so when I remove my things from the bookshelf or a cupboard, Sam and Kaylynne's stuff remains in place. I feel this guilt of removing my stuff and leaving the rest. Knowing that I am leaving these girls here while I move downtown is hard. Really hard. There's a sense of abandonment within me and it sucks and I'm not sure how to deal with such a feeling. I feel like one of those wives who packs up all of her stuff while her husband is at work and leaves only a note in the entryway to say "Goodbye and Good Riddance!" Except I'm not saying goodbye or good riddance. I guess change is just strange. I am definitely a believer that change is good and is needed for people to grow and learn...but still it can really suck sometimes.

In The Name of Love?

I am taking this class called Psychology of Personal Experience and it's a rather strange course which has copious amounts of articles, textbooks and novels to read. Every week we do all of this reading then on Monday afternoons we all come together, create a giant circle of chairs in the classroom and talk about what we read. It's basically a book club which we pay to join. Most of my classmates think that this class is a major pain in the butt because there is SO MUCH reading, but every so often we bring up a subject which sparks my interest. Today there were two subjects actually which got me speaking feverishly in class, but I will only talk about one in my blog because the other is so big (religion) that I can't even begin to imagine talking about it in this blog because it would take years to explain everything I wanted to say. But the other is the lovely topic of unconditional love.

Unconditional Love has many dimensions to it such as:

- those who love without expectation of anything in return
- you learn to accept others as they are without setting conditions for their behaviour
- you allow others to be themselves without judgement, criticism or condemning them
- still love someone even when they do something you do not approve
- you can allow that person to leave you for someone else and hold no bitterness, jealousy or resentment

So today in class, one of the questions which our group was asked is if we have felt that we have received unconditional love and how we give it to others. Looking at the definition of unconditional love made me really stop and think about this question. Is there someone out there who looks at me and accepts me without setting conditions for my behaviours? Does another person/people feel no judgement or criticism in terms of their love for me? And yes, I do feel as though I am lucky enough to have this in my life. My parents definitely give me unconditional love. Even when they know that I am making a stupid decision in my life, they allow me to make that mistake and love me when I come to them admitting that I did in fact make a terrible decision. They love me what I dye my hair purple or move across the country or become obsessed with some new fitness craze that the whole world is involved with. Thanks mom and dad. You're the bestest.

One point which our group brought up is that having unconditional love for a boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband/partner can be tricky. Can a person truly (and I mean truly) love another person completely and unconditionally no matter what? We were thinking that every person must have a line that their partner can cross which can break that ideal love. It can be something like an affair with another person. For most people that would be the event which can make or break the entire thing. Realistically, for this topic, I don't think it's healthy or possible to love someone unconditionally. Wouldn't it be hard to give all of your love to another person and not expect a single thing in return? I believe it would be. There must be a balance somewhere in terms of a loving relationship between adults.

Tip of the Day: The Beatles may have had it wrong...is love really all you need?


Then there's the topic of children. It's famously known that people who have children say that having that child is their first experience of the feeling of unconditional love and that there is nothing that that child could do which would doubt that love. Now I am not a parent and neither were anyone in my group today, but our professor agreed to this point. Now my thought is, what if your adult child bad-mouthed the entire family for 30 years then burned down the house, stole the car and the dog, emptied the bank account and convinced your boss to fire you...would you still love the kid then?

This next point may sound silly, but I thought I would bring it up anyway. Many people may not think of this initially but it was one of the first things that came to my mind when I thought of unconditional love; my dog(s). One of my favourite sayings in life is "be as great as your dog thinks you are", because our dogs think so highly of us and most of us will never actually be able to live up to that greatness, which is unfortunate. Our dogs love us when we gain weight, lose our jobs, date terrible people, get in fights with friends, eat a tub of ice cream in the middle of the night (because they may get a bite) or forget to fill their water dish. Unconditional love doesn't have to be complicated and dogs prove this to us.

MMMMmmmmmmm

Alright, I made this recipe tonight for dinner and it was so delicious that I felt that I needed to share it with the world! It's a white bean chili and the recipe is as follows:

- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 4 cloves garlic, minced (I used double the amount because I have a love affair with garlic)
- 1 cup sliced button mushrooms (if you don't want to use mushrooms, add an extra can of beans)

*Saute these items in a large pot for 5 minutes
- 1 Tbsp cumin, coriander AND oregano
- 2 (4oz) cans of green chilis, chopped

* Add these to the pot and cook for a minute
- 3 cups chicken stock
- 2 cans (19oz) white beans, drained but not rinsed
- 1 pound cooked chicken, chopped
- 2 tsp jalapeno hot sauce (or more if desired

* Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 1.5 hours.

* Add salt and pepper to taste

The recipe suggested adding chopped cilantro and yogurt to your bowl when you spoon it out for yourself, but I didn't add these options. The chili was delicious without them. Please make this at home. I wouldn't steer you wrong.

Tip of the Day: There is no such thing as too much garlic.

Another Week

I'm getting too behind with this blog lately and I apologize to all of my fans...I know all 6 or 7 of you have been on pins and needles waiting to learn about the incredibly adventures of me. The good news - I have a few minutes to write a new post. The bad news - I have no life which means that this won't be interesting.

The one thing that I hate about being a student is that you're so busy all of the time and yet you don't really do anything. Most conversations go something like this:

"Oh man, I was so busy the past few days! I'm so stressed out!"
"Really, what did you do?"
"Oh you know...nothing really. School, work and stuff."

My past few days have consisted mostly of homework and going to work. There's been a little bit of sleep in there but mostly just homework and work. Plus Chris and I have been looking for a place to live (somehow I have managed to not bring up the subject that I'm moving out and looking for a new apartment...weird), so we've been spending a fair amount of energy on that adventure. Oh how lovely apartment hunting is! We have a couple leads on some places but nothing is for sure quite yet. Considering my room will be filled in about 2 weeks, the pressure is starting to build. I'm trying to remain optimistic though. Something should come up that works for us. And if not, I heard there's a cozy place under the bridge that I could seek out for a while. Maybe it has Wi-Fi.

Work is going fairly great! I don't know why it took me so long to ever look for a serving job because I'm really enjoying it a lot. I also really like the atmosphere of this restaurant as well, so perhaps I just feel comfortable at this job. Oh, and here's a little pocket of information that I found to be fairly awesome. Yesterday my boss Googled the restaurant name (oh admit it, we've all Googled our own names before) and this blog came up in the first page of results! Actually, the more I think about it, the more creepy that might be. People looking for info on Rufus and Rory's will end up at this blog, see my face and maybe somewhere down the line become my obsessive stalker in both the real world and the online world.

Wow I'm conceited.

Gourd-geous Day!

It's been a busy but enjoyable couple of days. Let me break it down for you:

Wednesday - went to my orientation for my new job! All of us met at the restaurant in the evening to meet each other, learn how to use the computer system and take a look over the planned menu. The food is very roadside diner which means that I may have to bite my nutrition student tongue LOTS while serving people. It will be delicious though! I look forward to actually seeing plates of food and seeing how it's all going to be. We're doing a test-run at the restaurant on Sunday for the owner's friends and family. It'll be open for a few hours and we'll just be working out kinks in the system and stuff like that. My first official shift is on Tuesday!

Thursday - This was a bit of a slack day. Went to the gym, did a little homework, went to the FANS potluck at school, went for a walk with Jess which headed in the direction of Hunter's...drank some beer and played trivia. Great day! Lots of amazing food, some beer and trivia. Can't go wrong.

Friday - Last night was Chris's first ever show! He played at the Wave which is the bar on campus. They opened for two other bands; one of them being The Sidewalks which are a fairly famous local band. Well the bar was very quiet (everyone went home for Thanksgiving weekend) but that didn't matter because I brought a posse and we went to cheer them on. Of course they did great and I'm very proud of them! Good job boys!

Saturday (today) - After a late night last night I was hesitant to get out of bed this morning for the festivities planned for the day, but I told the gals that I'd join along...which I am glad I did because it was a fun day! We first went to the farmer's market so that I could get some bread and coffee, then me, Sam, Kaylynne and Jess all went to Wintermoor Orchard to do some apple picking.




Kaylynne wanted to get some to make a pie for her Thanksgiving dinner with her grandparents, and I just wanted to buy some delicious apples! We honestly had a really great time. Apple picking is awesome. Apple eating is better though. Plus they had free warm apple cider to enjoy. Mmmmmmm.









After the picking was complete, we headed over the Veseys Seeds where they were hosting the 17th Annual Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off which is exactly what it sounds to be. Growers from all over PEI brought their sizable squashes to contest for the heaviest of them all. And the winner was 1075 pounds! There was also a BBQ going on, pumpkin carving, pumpkin games for the kids and of course, a hayride around the property.

If there's one thing that PEI does well, it's autumn. That may sound strange but it's true. People dec their houses out with fantastic displays of squashes, hay, plants...you name it. It's just so country-side out there...in the country...side. After the weigh-ins were complete and the winner was announced, we went to our friend Mia's place for some tea and snacks for a while then headed back to town because we felt like we should do something productive (like do homework).

But what did I do instead? Went grocery shopping and now I'm going to make some cookies! Hello weekend!

The Good Kind of Contagious

More than once I have brought up the topic about the little things that make life good. Today I was reminded of one that is not only enjoyable to witness but always gets my mind going when I see it occur. You know when you're walking along in your own little world and you look at the face of someone coming towards you who is also in their own little world, and for some reason that other person has a huge smile on their face? I love that!!! I love how I have no idea what is making that person so happy at that moment and that I was present the moment as it occurred.

This happened to me at school today as this lovely young lady walked by me, she was just grinning ear to ear. This made me smile as well because I know what it's like to be that person with the shit-eating grin in her face while walking along the side of the road. Sometimes if I'm listening to my headphones and a certain song comes on, that can ignite the hugest of smiles. But anyway, when faced in that situation, I start thinking about all of the possibilities which could make that other person smile like that. Did she just get an awesome grade on a test which she expected to have gotten poorly on? Did she finally kiss that boy last night that she's been wanting to kiss forever? Was she thinking of a stupid joke that a friend make earlier that day? I love not knowing this information. I love the contagiousness of the smile from a stranger who doesn't even know that they are the source of the smile which has now materialized on your face.

Peacocks!!!

When I saw this addition of Cake Wrecks yesterday I was overcome with happiness. I've been wanting to get a peacock tattoo for a while now and just keep putting it off due to the healthy price tag that generally comes along with scarring your body for eternity. But this just made my day and inspired me to possibly go down there tomorrow and talk to the guy. HEHE! (Sorry mom)










These two (top and bottom) are my personal favourites.

Overthinking, Overanalyzing....

Friday was a bit of a whirlwind for me. I had a job interview at Sobey's for a baker position. Basically, I got there and the guy instantly offered me the job. No interview, no reference check...just pure desperation on their part I think. I think that when someone comes in with a resume that has baking experience on it, then they just jump at the chance to get that person because it will save so much time and energy during the training process. I was surprised at the immediate job offer and told him that I would have to think about it for a day or so (I was still waiting to hear back from that other job interview a couple days previously). I'll admit that I got excited at the thought of baking again. Like, really excited. Working a the bakery was by far my favourite job. The walk home was my mind just going a million miles a minute, trying to make a decision of what I wanted to do. About an hour later I got a call from Rufus and Rory's, the restaurant I had the previous interview at, and they also offered me a job. Now I had to make the decision. Which to pick??? There are so many pros and cons to each job and one is far riskier than the other because the restaurant is brand new and could go under in a few months, whereas Sobey's is a huge grocery-chain and the job will be there for as long as I need it to be. This is why I need other people to make decisions for me. I tend to overthink EVERYTHING!

I think that I have come to the decision to take the chance on Rufus and Rory's. It may be a mistake but I guess I'll have to cross that bridge when I come to it. I am looking forward to being a server because I've never experienced working the front of a restaurant before and I am excited to give it a try. Plus I'd feel bad saying 'no' to the guys because they're giving me a chance (I have zero serving experience).

So today is Sunday and I have just come back from the Island Trails 4th Annual Island East Cycling Event. It was this three day long biking event in which you could pick one, two or all three days of riding specifically planned out stretches of the PEI Confederation Trail. I was asked by Chris and his parents to join them on the last day (today) to ride from Murray Harbour to Wood Islands.



It's 44km round-trip and I was a bit apprehensive to take on that long of a trail. Plus I've been up to my nose in assignments and exam studying the past week so taking the time aside to do it was also daunting for me. But, I don't get to see his parents often and I really wanted to do it because I have never seen that part of the island before, so I did and survived! I actually did quite well and I'm proud of my legs for making it. A lot of the people only did the one way trip which ended with a lovely lunch at a visitor center, but Chris and I decided to do the ride back. I'm glad I did because now I know that I can ride that far without too much trouble at all. It's a nice feeling to learn something about yourself that you probably wouldn't have given yourself the chance to learn until you get in the situation to make it happen. I could have gotten a ride back but wanted to suck it up and try anyway. Horray!

Now I have to study. Booo!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like....Summer?

Alright. So it's October 1st (Happy October Everyone!) and I am sitting here in my bedroom wearing a tank top and shorts and the thermostat on my desktop says that it's 25 degrees outside (to all of you Americans reading this, that would be about 77 degree F). This just feels all too strange. Kaylynne and I were discussing how at this time last year, we're both quite certain that we had the heat on in the house and were decked out in full winter gear already. I mean, I'm not complaining or anything, it's just throwing me for a bit of a loop! Where's our crisp autumn mornings with orange leaves lightly covered in frost?

So yesterday morning I successfully slept through my alarm for a total of 3 minutes (I was wearing earplugs). Normally I can hear the alarm through the earplugs but for some reason this did not happen and I was woken by Sam banging on my bedroom door, making sure I wasn't dead. Luckily for her, this time I was not dead. But now this may pose a small problem for me because I now am going to be paranoid about sleeping through my alarms. Last night I had this fear so I woke up, literally, every 20 minutes to make sure I didn't oversleep. This was extremely inconvenient. Around 7:30am I just decided to get up and make a day of it...jumped on my bike and went for a ride.

The best part of the bike ride was when I scared the living daylights out of this girl who was running on the trail. I mean, I feel badly that she nearly pooped her pants in fright, but the expression on her face will be with me until the end of my days. She was running and stopped to catch her breath when I passed her. She had in her headphones and didn't hear me approach, so the movement of me passing her made her perform the most incredible, blood curdling, horror movie scream in which I had ever heard before. To say the least, it was impressive. She definitely would have won a Teen Choice Award for the best scream if she had been nominated for it.