I'm here!! Really :) I didn't fall off the face of the Earth!

Hello :)

So, I've been neglecting this a bit, but really, it's paid off.  I got 98% (49/50) on my Stats Midterm, and all my homework assignments have been in the high 90%'s to 100%, the house is still clean, I've been making it to church, and I even had some hang-out/visit times! So I've been busy, but good. I'm kinda tired after the crazy week/weekend I had, but life is good and I'm going to get a good sleep tonight and get back on track.

So I had a good hang-out with a friend and we went for a wonderful supper and then a drive and just re-connected (we both have crazy lives so it had been months) and that was awesome.  That was about a week and a half ago now, and then I was busy prepping for the midterm and getting assignments done, then on Friday I was the assistant photographer for a lovely wedding and we had lots of fun shooting in the mall, and I can't wait to see all the photo's, but mine were pretty sweet, and I did post up a few samples even though I'm busy and won't be working on the photo's, they all go to Lauri, but if you're curious, they're here and they're cool, and while you're there you should "Like" my artist page... just saying :D 

So then I was pretty tuckered out, and Saturday was stats homework, house cleaning, and early to bed so I could get to Church in the morning.  And we did make it, and it was really good.  Good message on God's value system versus ours, and hoarding, and all sorts of stuff, and it was really good, and the worship focused on the fire of God and stuff.  Yeah!  Anyhow, so we made it to church (yeah for 3 Sundays in a row!) and then we got groceries, then another friend came over for lunch, and then we played games, and then we chatted till past my bedtime, and it was all good. :D

Today I went to school, got the wonderful news about my awesome midterm mark, and got my assignment done and handed in, then came home and kinda just vegged, watched Francis Chan clips, like this one:

(And man were these good little messages..... I do not want to live my life like that, but some days I'm sure I start to grab the beam instead of doing something awesome!)

And then I went upstairs and sang with my mom while she practised songs on the piano, and then we had supper, and now I'm blogging then heading to bed.

Oh, and we have a new set up for our dining room making it far more effective.  Before we had two tables both covered in food and sihes and generally just being used for storage of things, and not being used as a table, so we sent one table home with Ryan's brother and his wife, and the other table is in the living room as a games table, and then we have shelves and a "new" (hand-me-down) table that is functioning as, yeah, you guessed it, a table! *Gasp* Wow!  It's pretty exciting over here anyway :D

So I just figured I'd share a couple photo collages I put together for my project... I've been taking photo's, just hadn't had time to do anything with them until today...

 So here's one, this is for this week... well, I guess for last week (gah this month is flying by)... I went for a walk to Blockbuster to pick up the Lord of the Rings extended Trilogy Blu-Rays set, complete with "The One Ring"... and I walked all the there and back in my new Vibram Five-Fingers shoes, which I LOVE!... if you're wondering what those are click here... I totally never want to wear anything else.  But anyways... so I walked/jogged (since the mosquito's were REALLY trying to eat me) all the way there and back and was so proud of myself.  And I did it all dressed up all cute and french-y... You can't see it here, but I'm wearing my Eiffel tower earrings... and I decided to take a shot of the "field" I walked through, and of the construction mess on our road.... So yeah, that was one of my little adventures last week :D

And this is a collage of one photo I took while I was dying my hair the week before last week.  I tried the foam/mousse stuff, and I liked it.  My hair is pretty much the same as it was, minus the darker-ish roots that were coming in... but yeah, I thought the photo was kinda fun, and decided to totally play with it, then liked so many of the versions I decided to make a collage.  Really, one of these days I will just post one photo and be done with it.  I will try.

So that pretty much sums everything up for right now... I don't want this to drag on.  I hope you are all enjoying your summer and God bless!!!!

Whoops, A Little Late...

Gah! So, I really did take the photo's last week, since that's the week this picture is for, and did most of the work on them last week too, I just never got to my blog.  So this is 2/52 for my 52 Week Project! (Oh and no, I don't wear glasses... don't have contacts, don't have any eye problems... but I always thought glasses were so cute, so I nabbed a pair of my parents reading glasses for this project, and now I want glasses... haha. I just think they are so cute and intelligent looking.)

I'm actually really enjoying my Stats class and wish I had started summer school sooner.  I love having one class to focus on, and it goes at such a great pace.  I got my first assignment done and in on time, and have already started on my second assignment, due Friday, and I'm keeping my notebook all organized and up to date too.  Feeling so great about this class!

And I'm feeling great about my eating healthier.  I just checked in on my scale today and I'm down 4 pounds!  This is exciting, but even more than that is just knowing that I'm putting good food in my body and am feeling better.  I still need to be more regular about exercising, but I do do a bit of a walk to get to class and back since I park about 2.5 blocks from my class... which is great except for getting rained on lately.  I love the rain, when I get to curl up next to a fire with a book.  I like overcast and light/spotty sun for going for walks and being outside, and with all the rain and the mosquito's, walks have been out.  So I'm looking up little at-home exercises to do, and am really going to try to do my yoga more, and occasionally go over to Colevin and Ebony's to use the fitness room there (gotta love ellipticals and recumbent bikes!).

We made it to church, albeit late, this past Sunday! Woot! It was really good.  Community is definitely where it's at.  Now if only we could find a couple people to regularly hang out with and build relationships with and it would rock.  We left early to go get groceries and work stuff, and things, so we could have a bit of a games and pizza birthday party for Ebony, whose actual birthday is today. (Happy birthday Ebony!!).  I'm still not doing great on my Spiritual Life changes... I got some pamphlets at school about certain things, and one was goal setting, so I think I'm going to do a proper goal setting thing, and have those printed out and on the wall so I'm reminded of what my goals are and can more easily work towards them, with clear direction.

The house is staying rather clean, which is in itself rather a miracle, and very exciting.

I'm having a great week and will post again, since I want to do this goals thing, plus I need to do this weeks portrait project.  And maybe I'll stick with just one image this time. Haha.  So for now, goodbye.  I hope you're all having an excellent week, and that you had a fabulous weekend!  And I leave you with this, my motivation song and the song that reminds me of what should be the most important life change I make, my Spiritual Life and improving my relationship with God:

Summer Class

So yesterday I started my summer class.  For the month of July, and the first week of Aug. I will be taking Stats 141 every MWF, 9am-Noon.  The professor seems good, so I'm hopeful I'll get through this.  Lots of note taking and assignments, and I already have my Midterm on the 20th!  This is gonna be such a fast month.  Eeep.  But yeah, kinda nice actually, to have something that's a set schedule, since it will help me keep track of my life better.  When I have nothing really structured in my life it gets even more messy than usual.  So that should be good.  I'm trying to schedule my life better to meet my Life Change Goals.  And I need to set actual, proper goals.  So I'm scheduling house-chores to specific days of the week to spread it all out and keep anything from building up and getting overwhelming.  For Mondays I've scheduled the bathroom cleaning, which I got done, and it didn't take long and was basic.  So nice.  I'm going to try to plan meals in advance like my sister-in-law Beth seems to be able to do, so we can eat at home more, which is healthier and cheaper.  So I had planned and half-prepped for our stew supper we had yesterday the evening before, and just stored the chopped up veggies in the fridge. So I got supper made, and swept the kitchen floor, and tidied up while it cooked.  We were both tired by the end of the day since we'd had maybe 5 hours of sleep so we watched a movie and near the end of it the stew was finally done and it was SOOO good!  I think it was my best stew ever.  And we had our ancient grains bread with it.  Amazing.  We finished the movie, I washed up all the supper dishes, and we basically called it a day then.  All in all the day turned out well, but we need to get better about getting to bed Sunday nights... we always want to extend the weekend, but then we pay for it on Mondays.

The weekend.  Ummm... so the weekend was good.  Saturday we went to the Farmers Market.  It's still early in the season for most fruit and veggies, but we got some farm eggs, some homemade beef jerky, some of the most amazing saskatoon berry jelly (and when we go next time I'm tempted to try her unique Carrot Cake Jelly), and some awesome coconut almond cookies.  We also got some hormone free, free range meats from Red Tractor Meats.  That was the stew beef I used.   Really good.  Can't wait to try the Chicken Cranberry Sausage I got, and Ryan got Rodeo Burgers, which are bison burgers with spices and black pepper.  So we had fun there, then we went and picked up some veggies at the grocery store for the stew and while Safeway doesn't have the best Organic section, I'm trying to get as many of the Dirty Dozen foods (the 12 foods that contain that most amount of pesticides, and you can't really wash it out) in Organic if I can.  The fruit is so good in the organic section.  We had some of the best grapes ever, and even the celery was really tasty.  Then we came home, and Colevin and Ebony came over and we played more board games and made chicken taco's for supper.

Sunday I was really tired and didn't get up with my alarm, and so we were running late and chose to go to the Alliance church since they have a 11:15am service so we wouldn't be walking in to church late.  So we actually made it to a church service this Sunday, but I did miss Community.  It's just kinda hard to appreciate other Churches when you're used to Community.  Everything else feels way to human-scripted.... but we did go to Church, and it was good I guess.  Hopefully next week I'll get my butt out of bed sooner.  Gotta work on this getting more sleep thing.

So today I'm going to the farm for the morning (so I'd once again better get a move on!) and then I'm back home working on school stuff (gotta transfer my notes to my new notebook and by doing that I'll review the notes and things we covered last class, plus I need to read through the next section so I know more or less what he's gonna talk about and am a bit familiar with it.  I may even start on my homework assignment that is due next Monday.  It'll be good to get out to the farm today and breathe in some horse for a bit too.  The new trainer has arrived and I need to take pictures of all the new horses for their stall cards.  So if I get all my school stuff done I also need to work on photo's... I still have to finalize my shots from the E-session I helped with, and then all these new horses and stall cards, plus some work on the TopNotch website.  Busy busy, but hey, this is just more practice so I can develop good time management and discipline and efficiency.

So off I go!  Have a great Tuesday everyone and bless you in your going out and coming in!!

GOOD MORNING!

Well, so even though I went to bed nearer to 1am, I was awake before my alarm, though I was snuggling one of my kitties, so I couldn't sit up to look at the clock so I just lay their giving and getting kitty cuddles till the alarm actually went off.   And even though I think my alarm is super loud, the music doesn't wake Ryan up, so I was able to get up with my alarm and go eat my toast with marmalade without disturbing him.  I'm now thinking of going and doing some stretching and yoga now, and after that I'll have my morning fruit smoothie, and then if Ryan's not up, it'll be time to get him up, so we can go out and explore the local farmers market that we've never been to.  Gonna try to get some yummy, healthy, locally-grown, typically more organic food :D  I'm looking forward to that.  Then I'm looking forward to getting some exercise since I was kinda bad the past two days with my health goals... but we had a good visit and then some great board-gaming, so it's OK.  Then more games!

So I hope everyone has a great morning, or in some peoples cases a great afternoon! (Oh and this: ! is an exclamation mark... it's my only complaint so far with this font, that my exclamation marks look like l's or something.)  Have a marvelous weekend everyone!

A Blessed Life

Hey there!  So yesterday was a bit of a slow start... we had power-outage surges a couple of times around 5:30 am that woke us up, and since the alarm was gonna go off for 6am, we didn't get back to sleep, though did we ever want to.  So it was an earlier start than the already dreaded 6am, and while I got up, I didn't wake up for several hours.  Didn't help that we had the window open for the cats all night and it was cold down here yesterday morning!  So I did not do my yoga, though I did sweep all the upstairs, vacuumed down here again, and washed counters, etc... so I did move about a bit.  I finally woke up while tidying the house, then decided to get into a cute summer outfit all colour-coordinated. 

 

But yeah, my house is so nice and clean right now and I am loving it.

Here is our TV room all cleaned... I pulled everything out, and off, and vacuumed EVERYTHING, and Febreze'd all the cushions, and washed all the blankets, and yeah, it's totally awesome.  We have a totally awesome TV room anyhow, but having it clean it incredible!  So yeah, except for my spare room (maybe I'll take a pic of that as it is now, and then when I get it clean I can post before and after pics), the house is clean and I seriously want to keep it this way.  It's so nice.  So why, oh why, do I let it get SO bad...... *Sigh*.... But not anymore.  Nope nope.  The house is gonna stay clean.  It's not gonna get gross anymore.

Oh, and on Wednesday we made our own pizza's for supper.  So good!!  I used a veggie mix that had red and orange peppers, onions, zucchini, eggplant, tomato, mushrooms, and green peppers.  It's a Europe's Best frozen veggie mix.  The only thing with them that I'd do next time is chop them up a bit more... they are kinda big cubes so it was hard to distribute around my pizza.  I used a garlic and basil tomato sauce for the base, and topped it with some cheddar, mozza, and feta.  I cooked up some chicken breast in some fajita mix, and added some of that, and as a treat I added a layer of honey maple ham on the bottom... but just a thin slice.  It was SO good.  Never thought eggplant and zucchini would go well on pizza, but it was good.

But yeah, anyhow, it's now Canada Day (HAPPY CANADA DAY!) and we just sent our guests off to continue their road trip.  We had a great visit.  Ryan's mom, and his grandparents, came and stayed the night.  We had a wonderful dinner at the Sawmill yesterday evening, and an almost good breakfast at The Loft this morning, save that they screwed up grandpa's order and he had to order something else, and only got his food after we were all done.  And they didn't even discount it. :P  But the food was good, as always.

So they are off to Saskatchewan now, and we're gonna go get some snacks and drink stuff, and then we're just gonna be at home playing games!  And I was thinking yesterday about just how blessed I am.  Seriously.  I mean, this year has been pretty awesome in some regards already.  For my birthday Ryan drove me to Vancouver for the weekend so I could see Cavalia!  It was SO amazing!  Then the end of April/beginning of May we flew to the coast for a good week of visiting with family, and I got to meet my newest nephew, and play with my nephew Jack, and I even got to see my beautiful niece for a bit and my energetic oldest nephew Lucas.  And it was so awesome to see everyone and visit.  June we were in the mountains.  And next weekend we're gonna go see Dralion! Cirque Du Soleil's Dralion Video Trailer!  So yeah, that's super exciting!  And even with this summer class starting up on Monday... I mean, as much as I'm kinda like, "Ewwww, Math Stat's", really, here I am, getting to go to school so I can accomplish my dream of being a vet, and I can take this summer class, and I got into all the classes I need to for my last year of pre-vet, and I have a wonderful husband who supports my dream and works very hard so we can pay for my schooling, and amazing parents who are helping me, especially in providing accommodations and advise/support too.  So I can't even really complain about school, because it's a privilege and a blessing.  And we just got to visit with family again yesterday and today.  And we have an amazing trip planned for August to the mountains for Ryan's early birthday... gotta love those group-deal things, like groupon and livingsocial.  We're going here for 2 nights in a 1 bedroom suite with a gourmet kitchen in it, and we're getting 2 dinner theatre tickets, a float trip down the Bow River, bike rentals for the two days, and a 5pm late checkout, for, ummm... $470, or something like that, when it's usually all close to $1000.  Yahoo!  So that's gonna be a great little trip for Ryan.  He LOVES the mountains and is a bit upset that this summer class has ruined our July camping options... but hopefully this will make it up. :)  So yeah, we're blessed, I'm blessed.  I mean, flip, my life is really pretty awesome!  And I love my kitties!

-----------------------------------Day Goes On---------------------------------------

Haha.  So I never really got this thing done, and I just finished up that last part, and it's now midnight, and I'll just fill you in on the rest of the day quick then post this and wonder if anyone can get through all of this.  Yeesh.  :D
So yeah, we started games around 11am, and we finished playing games around 11pm.  Yahoo!  We stopped to make supper (shepherds pie) and that was about it.  We were more than a little crazy near the end.  It was hilarious!  We played 7 unique games, and 8 game plays total.  We played Colossal Arena, Citadels, Guillotine, Alea Iacta Est, Ave Caesar, Smallworld, and Elfenland, then played another round of Colossal Arena while waiting for the fireworks to start.  We had played everything else at our place, then we went to Colevin and Ebony's to watch the fireworks from their awesome 9-story view.

Oh, but on our way we figured, mmm, Starbucks would be nice.  But they closed early for the holiday (something I appreciated as a staff member but not so much as a customer, go figure) so then we're like, hmmmm, Second Cup is close and they have later hours... and we head over and the lights are on and we're excited and we get out of the car and we see the sign that says All Holidasy 7am-11pm, and it was just turning 10pm, so we were stoked.  Then we pulled on the door.  It was locked!!  The two girls behind the counter looked up and gave us a funny look.  We're like, ummm, Hello, you're sign says 11pm, and it's 10pm!?!?  What's up?!?  But all we got were funny looks as they cashed out the till.  So now I'm all "Super Grrrrrrr" at them.  At least, if you're gonna close early, write it on a piece of paper and tape it to the door. "Canada Day Hours: ---pm" (fill in the blank).  How hard is that.  Seriously.  Instead, you get my hopes up.  Ugh.  Anyhow, rant over.

So we went and watched the fireworks, and we could see not only Spruce Grove's really awesomely, but also some ones in the country, and the ones from Edmonton even!  So that was awesome, though I even got a few bug bites up at 9-stories.  Not impressed.

Now it's totally bedtime.  We were all so tired.  Ryan is already asleep.  I just kinda needed to wind down a bit.  Oh man, so many games, and we were getting so intense.  Elfenland has never been so heated and crazy!  I think we're totally being affected by our multiple playings of Colossal Arena and Smallworld lately.  Games were more laid back before those ones came on the scene.  But it's awesome, so who cares?

So here we are at the end of our final Colossal Arena game!  Good times. :)

Other than that, all I really have to report is that I've been pretty bad about my eating the past few days, what with company and our own private party, but I'm hoping to get back on track tomorrow.  Tomorrow we're hoping to check out the local farmers market, get some exercise at Colevin and Ebony's (they have an exercise room in their building), and then we're gonna play even more games!! Woot! 


So I hope you all had a marvelous, wonderful Canada Day!  Cheers and goodnight!