starting back

so i guess i'm going to start a 30 day post marathon.. NaBoPoMo? Correct me if i'm wrong.
I would like to get my mind off of some things going on around here so if you have any requests to hear stories of my life or whatnot, please don't hesitate!

- Deb

The past few days

Thursday, July 9th had Jessica's bachelorette party. Joni (who had come from Calgary), Danica (Jess' sister) and i went to decorate the surprise hotel room around 1pm. I went home made up a jeopardy game for the party and a wedding catch phrase game.. talk about last min *rolls eyes* lol.

Danica hosted a purse party at the hotel. A lady came to the hotel before everyone else and set up about 50 bags on the beds and set up a display of jewelery. Most of the bags were hideous in my opinion. Huge, and disgusting colors lol. Why do ppl hate these colors for most anything, for years, and then some celebrety starts wearing huge bags the colored of mustard and it's all the rage. So ridiculous. Anyway.. there were a few that i liked. I wasn't going to buy one, and i shouldn't have, but i ended up buying a pretty mint green midsized bag. I needed a new purse. I was still using the same one i bought last summer. It's great, i love it.

So there were about 10 girls there, having some drinks. Then walked out of the hotel onto the boardwalk and went to the Ale house for some drinks where a creeper guy tagged onto two of the girls (one who wasn't even supposed to be there) who figured they'd make the night about them instead of the bride. After that walked a little to O'leary's where there was a live band playing. It was thursday so there weren't many ppl out but it was still a good time. Danced some.

Friday was the rehearsal dinner where the groom's parents paid for everyones meals at Vitos. It was nice. Jess and Brandon handed out the bridal party gifts. The groom gave guys an engraved beer stein which they loved. Jess gave us girls (it was a beach themed weddin) an awesome beach bag filled with a few things - a beach towel, flip flop bread spreaders (so cute!) pretty magnets and a couple of other things i can't remember right now.

Saturday was quite a day, the big day, but everything went so great! Got up at 6am, washed and dryed my hair. Danica picked me up and then we went to help joni and jess with the stuff and we all drove to the beach house to decorate, for over two hours. Thankfully the guys showed up halfway to help. Then went to get our hair done at 11. Everything went perfectly and one of the bridesmads from out west (Jessica's friend since 2nd grade, who is now a resident surgeon) paid for all the girl's hair. I was like, you totally didn't have to do that! But thanked her a few times (money has been pretty tight for us the past couple of months). After hair we went to Danica's friend's house who was doing Jessica's makeup. She had just graduated from the program so that worked out great. Limo picked us up there and took us to Jessica's parent's house to get dressed and everyone else's makeup done. It was my first time in a limo so it was pretty cool. Drank some complimentary champagne (also my first time).

Got ready, photographer took some pics of us, then piled back into the limo where we noticed the napkins inside the cups changed from pink to close to the color of our bridesmaid dresses.. awwww. Such a nice touch. Man it sure was weird tho, those poor limo drivers. We were probably in the house for over an hour, close to two and every time one of us looked out the window the driver was standing at the limo door, hands folded in front. And it was hot out.

So on our way to the wedding site (it was an outside ceremony). Got out and situated ourselves down the path. Then the music started (jess was lucky enough to get the Saint John string quartet to play which was awesome) I was first so i was pretty nervous but at the same time glad i could just go and get it over with.

It was the perfect ceremony. Neither of them religious and both of them doing what THEY wanted. It was basicly You love her, you love him? Great sign this lol.. well not quite but it was just simple and beautiful and they even wrote a few words themselves. I don't think i could be a bridesmaid for a ceremony where i'd have to stand up front like that for 25 mins.. uuguhghghg, that would suck.

Then was pictures... can't WAAAAAIIIIIIITTT to see them! Went to the beach house where cocktailhour was already taking place. Everyone recieved two tickets for two free drinks. Katelyn and jenn were working the bar so i was glad i could just go over there and relax a little with them.

Then we all sat down, and the bride and groom come in from finishing up pics of just them. I SO can't wait to see them too!

Then it was time to eat, and speeches. The food was good and there were a few tears lol. I love my friends, but i would never be able to be a maid of honor lol.. i just could not get up there and do a speech lol.

Then the first dances of course, and them the dance. It was a perfect day. Perfect weather. Perfect everything.

Sunday was the brunch at jessica's parent's house. Had some good food and the bride and groom opened up their gifts. I FINALLY was able to use the wonderful idea of the wine bottles with tags attached stating "to celebrate - first Anniversary, first christmas as a mr and mrs.. yaddayadda. So i had this wooden basket that fit the 5 bottles of wine, two bottles of run and two bottles of coke in just perfectly. As well as the beach themed whine charms which Jess LOOOOOOOVED by the way! I couldn't believe how everyone was just in love with the idea and the basket itself lol.. i felt pretty good about myself. I wanted to give them some cash too but i just couldn't : (. Oh well.

The weekend was so great. I didn't take many pics at all cuz i was kind of stressed out and i just thought that i would take a break from that. I had enough going i didn't want to worry about my camera and such.

Anyways.. probably didn't write about it very well but i just wanted to record what i could about My best friend's wedding! She's the first of us HS gal pals to tie the knot!

A little bit of gratitude maybe? Sort of?

I am so thankful that i enjoy things, LOTS of things and i know i would enjoy even MORE things if i was able to do them (unable to do them because of lack of money and/or opportunity to do them)

I Love to read. I am reading My Sister's Keeper right now that i am borrowing from my friend. I wanted to read the book first before the movie because they tend to change things in movies and i really like being the kind of person that enjoys reading the books over sitting in a chair for two hours and not even getting half of the "real" story.

I LOVE photography. I love how i have such an interest in a fine art. I am so excited about the possibility of making it even somewhat of an "on the side" job and NOT just a hobby. It makes me feel all warm inside when someone makes a comment on pictures i have taken and put on facebook.

I Love making cards. I spent endless hours making Christmas cards for my friends and family last year. This year i have also been crafting my friend's birthday cards and they usually take 2-3 sometimes four hours to make depending on the difficulty of them, which i don't realise until I am halfway through making them sometimes. I even make my own envelopes. I have a lot of pride in the work that i do on them and just love giving them. It seems like it would be really awkward and strange to me now to just go to the store and buy one. I would just feel like i was copping out and of course wasting my money.

I Love watching movies and tv. I'm so glad i enjoy lots of different genres of movies and types of tv shows. No matter what time of day it is or if it's a weekend; if i sit down and flip through the channels i can pretty much always find something that i will like watching... and i actually like that.

I still want to play my clarinet. I played in Junior high and highschool. I stopped playing in the band at the end of the 11th grade. Mostly because i was also in cheerleading and the past two years practice schedules often conflicted. I really enjoyed playing, so that made practicing easy for me. But it seemed most of the other ppl who were actually still in the band were either forced to stick it out by their parents and didn't actually care, therefore didn't do much practicing at home. Or they felt the same as i did and thought it was a waste of time because of the ppl who didn't care. The band instructor paid so much attention to them that it was kind of pointless for us to be there at all, until of course it was time to play at a concert or something. ANYways.. i really enjoyed it up until that point where i really just had to choose between band and cheerleading. At that point, cheerleading seemed a lot more fun. I had already had 5 yrs of band. I really wanted to get my last year of cheerleading in, something of which i would NOT be able to do by myself in my bedroom (i was a flyer). But nonetheless i would still like to play it. The only problem is i don't know where my TONS of music is. I don't really feel the urge to buy any. Hopefully someday i will find it.

I also really like the fact that i enjoy music and instruments so much I am willing to teach myself. I tried on the guitar. I asked for one for Christmas a few years ago but it was much more difficult than i thought it was going to be. I figured I'd need lessons, but just wasn't interested in that. Now i have a flute, bought my friend's for $100. It was actually my first choice of instrument going into junior high but when they got to me there were already SOOO many flute players so i said it was okay if i went with my second choice. I have gotten somewhere with the making decent sound but am waiting on getting a book before i really get into it. Anyways, i'm so glad i'm not so much of an adult that i can't go ahead with this type of interest and goal.

I Love going to the beach and wish i could do it every day like my friend and i used to in the summer time. I love going for walks with my friend Katelyn, for some reason we always have so much to talk about. I love hanging out with my friend jess and just talking and getting tipsy on a bottle of wine. I love playing games with my friends like catch phrase. I'm glad i still like to have a few drinks because i do think it makes things more fun, but i'm also glad i am not really in that time of my life anymore where i don't know when to stop, or i know i should but i don't.

I Don't like to clean.. but i do enjoy the house when it is. I notice things and place things like pictures on the hallway table or the dining room buffet. I like the house a certain way. I like having the dining room bare except for what should be in there.. table and chairs, the rocking chair(cuz there is nowhere else to put it) my curio cabinet, the buffet where i hide all my blankets and the large fake plant on the floor. I feel really good after a the house is practicly perfect and smells of clean.

I still like to color! I don't really do it that much but i'm glad i could still be content with a good coloring book and some coloring utensils (i think i have written about this already) and i am not ashamed of this.

Some ppl don't like any of these things. Some ppl don't like much of anything. I would hate to be the kind of person where all i really liked to do was sit at my computer and read things on there, listen to things through my computer, watch the same type of movies, never watch tv unless it's all done and on dvd to watch all at once, play video games. Not be able to hangout with my friends because they do things i'm not into like have some drinks or just think these ppl are pointless anyways. Feeling down because of all the problems in my life and thinking other ppls problems are so petty that i would actually point out i just can't deal with hearing about them.

I have one of these ppl in my life right now and it's become annoying to me. Are they jaded? What is the problem? Why don't they like doing things? I couldn't imagine not enjoying a variety of interests as i have stated above. To me it feels as if this person enjoys doing one type of thing and it always involves a screen.... that just seems so boring to me. Am i judgementle, should i just accept this person for who they are? Or is it ok to be annoyed by this.

My name is Debbie

and i am addicted to supplies. Art supplies, stationary, pretty journals, and plain notebooks. Pencils, pens, markers, even boxes of crayons. Ok, maybe not addicted, since i don't actually go out and purchase this stuff all the time, very rarely in fact. But i do have somewhat of an obsession with the stuff. I LOVE going to the areas of stores like walmart, michaels, etc where this type of thing is sold. And i'm in love with the aisle in the doller store that holds lots of pretty notebooks for a buck.

I don't even have anything to write in these books. I don't think i'd feel right about taking the crayons out of the box and coloring with them, i have no need for lots of pretty pink and blue post its. Yet i want these things. Lots of them. WHY? Why do i love these things when i have no need for them? I have always loved this stuff and enjoyed going back to school shopping. I used to buy notebooks and make up reasons to write in them. Did i say used to? I just bought three pretty little notebooks on saturday at the dollar store. If i could justify spending the money, i would have bought 20 of them. I would love to be the kind of person who could write in a journal on a regular bases, and use the exact same type of book every time, for years, and just have a shelf dedicated to these books looking so pretty with my whole life written neatly inside.

On my desk right now are three unused boxes of crayola crayons. Two with 24 crayons and one with 8 (Declan is not much of a colorer). I wish it was more appropriate for adults to color on 'their time', not just with the kids. I would do it (and i do every few months or so). I came across these boxes of crayons in a bin i was going through in my closet.

Why, WHY am i like this? It's so annoying! I enjoy notebooks and boxes of crayons. What is wrong with me? lol Is this something stemming from my childhood? Am i weird?

Today I...

... Did my last participation day at Declan's preschool, forever. He has been at the school for 2 years but will be going to kindergarten in the fall. I'm really going to miss that preschool. Everyone - teachers, parents, aides, were all so friendly, caring, welcoming, and accepting of everyone else. I have a feeling it's not going to be like that at all in the bigger school. There's no participation days in kindergarten and most kids will probably be getting to school by bus, so there won't be time for the parents to get to know each other and become friends. I'm going to miss those parents that i got to know, and their children. None of them will be going to the school Declan is going to.

He has one more day of school left, Monday, June 15th. It's not my day, and it would be my very last day to myself (for 2 hours or so) .. but i think i'm going to go anyways. I cursed myself today after i thought this morning of taking my camera, but thought against it. However two of the other parents had their's with them, so i was pretty upset that i hadn't brought mine. So monday i'm going to go and take my camera and take some pics of Declan at school. You'd think of the two years he's been going, i'd have done that at least once, but no.

Tomorrow is a very busy day. In the morning we are going to purcahse a birthday presesnt for a little girl in Declan's glass because she invited him to her birthday party (which is tomorrow). After shopping it's the preschool end of the year picnic (kind of strange they are having it before the last day of school). We'll probably stay there till about 12 and then Erica's birthday party is 2-4. Declan can be a handfull so I am going to be staying, and I will be able to take lots of pictures. It's a costme party so i am hoping toys r us has some because the only ones we have are a pumpkin which is way too small for Declan now, and a monkey suit which would be much to hot. I'd like to just find like a cowboy costume where there's a vest, badge or something because Declan doesn't like to have too much weird things on him. This is his very first birthday party, aside from friend's kids parties. So i am pretty excited.

Today i have a lot of cleaning to do. Ugh... seems i will go a couple weeks keeping everything up and nice, then there's a day where i don't feel like doing anything, next day i have a lot of stuff to do out of the house, and then the house is trashed lol.

Well, i better get to it.

- D

the sick entry

oh, my, god. The past little while has just sucked SO MUCH. First, of course, the whole thing with Rob. He came home and we tried to settle in and then Declan gets somewhat disturbingly sick. So we take him up to emerg. He was coughing non stop for almost two days, had a fever, and was coughing so much he was throwing up. His oxygen sats were low enough that after triage, registering, and sitting down for all of 2 mins, we were called right in.. THANK GOD! Not that anyone is ever in the mood to wait a long ass time in emerg... but of course i am selfishly going to think my son should get in asap lol. We were so worried he had pneumonia again like last year, and the partially collapsed lung. They took a chest xray but none of that... THANK YOU! They gave us a prescription for a liquid steroid and a puffer. I don't even know when that was, i think maybe 8 days ago. He's doing a lot better, but still has a horrible cough and runny nose. As do i. I must have picked it up from him. Beginning of this week i started getting this pressure in the middle of my chest. It would come and go and then it turned into this deep chest cough. Then for a day/night i had the aches, no fever though. I'm never sick for more than a couple of days so i thought hey, i'll offer to help my friend Jess and her fiance move on thursday. Kind of a mistake lol.

I woke up yesterday at 7, took some buckley's cough medicine and a cold pill. Walked to her place (including up a very steep hill). It was a beautiful day but once i got to her place my lungs were burning and i just knew that today would hold some very achy legs. Luckily she placed me outside to watch the truck and the stuff as the others packed up the truck. I probably wouldn't have helped but since it was a thursday, they didn't have much help. I don't regret doing it tho.

Then the evening, Mary called (my dad's gf) and asked if i wanted to go for a walk with her and her daughter sara (who doesn't live that far from me). SO i did that as well. Today I am still pretty sick. This cough is atrocious. I was going to go to a movie with a friend today or tomorrow because she's moving (about an hour away) from school on sunday, but i think i better just stay home. I'm also very very sore from all the walking yesterday lol.

I almost had to do participation day at Declan's preschool today. I HATE calling another mother to switch days for me but i was like (on wednesday around 7pm) if i don't do this i'm going to hate myself on friday because i'll prolly still be sick, and then have to get up early get ready yadda yadda.. soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo glad i called someone to take my day. OMG.

In other news, my bridesmaid dress is in and i have to go try it on someday soon. I mentioned it to mary and she said that if i need alterations to let her know (YESSSSSSSS! She is a seamstress. I didn't want to ask her to do the alterations because she's really busy this time of year with prom and wedding dresses, but i am so glad she offered. ) I still need to find some cute and comfortable white sandal shoes and a bra for the dress ugh.

Went through a bunch of my stuff and just decided that i have to get rid of a lot of it. Stuff i have not used in a long time and probably never will. Some clothes, books, and other misc stuff. I think i might have a yard sale. I'm gonna need to make some money for all this wedding stuff. Still need to pay 120 more for my dress, then shoes, bridal shower in may 31 so need to do the gift thing (which i may have written about but will write about again at another time), i need to get a hair cut, the pre bachelerette party the end of june, bachelerette party that is a couple days before the wedding, jessica wants to also get nails done which i may or may not do. It's not necessary.. more of just a fun thing to do together with all the girls, but with all the other stuff it might just be someone i need to sit out. Either way i'll definitely have to stop biting my nails lol. Which is going to be hard because it's a nervous habit. Good news is i have gone 3 months last summer without doing it so i know i can do it. NOT TO MENTION i have THREE friends' birthdays coming up.. one may 12, one july 1st and the other Aug 27th. OMG, i think i am way over my head. HOW CAN I MAKE MONEY!!! LOL without getting a job obviously which i can not do at the moment. I wonder if anyone would buy cards this time of year. I have a lot of card stock lol... probably not.

Sorry for this entry being so jumbled and hard to read probably. I took a couple cold pills and well, i'm sick and don't really give a crap right now. But i thought since i was just lying here on the couch i'd use rob's laptop to write about this stuff before it became irrelevant.

Till next time

- D

Jessica's Birthday Dinner

Went to Jessica's birthday dinner last night at Vito's. Everyone made it, which was nice. It's so great to have the gang back together. Love it.

First.. my meal. I ordered something i had never seen before. Ate about a third of it (and was getting full) when Liz, who had had it several times before, noticed it didn't look right. So i told the waitress and it turned out it was what i ordered, except it didn't have an ingrediant on it it was supposed to, and it had something on it it wasn't supposed to. So, they took it and cooked me up what i did order. I could only eat a couple of bites before i asked them to box it on up! At bill time when the waitress asked if everything was on separate bills, i told her i was also going to get Jessica's meal. I actually didn't go into dinner expecting to pay for her meal, but i was prepared to if no one else piped up (i didn't talk to anyone about it so i wasn't sure if someone else was going to or not) but i don't think anyone should have to pay for their own birthday dinner. When my bill came the waitress let me know that my meal would be on the house, because of the mess up, so i was no longer upset about it lol. I was totally not expecting it to be free, but it was awesome. I also did not tip, i don't think she liked that very much. But hey, she also forgot my drink!

Moving on.. gifts. I really enjoy giving my friends gifts, but i really enjoy giving them things that are good for them, and things they actually like/will use. A while back when Jess was trying to pick out favours for her wedding (which is beach themed) she was all about starfish. So when i saw this cute starfish necklace in a store i just had to get it. I also gave her a pair of earings i purchased from an online friend's etsy store, and a wine bottle foil cutter. I wanted to get her something else so i went into Zellerz the other day and just had a look. Came across this (very heavy) bamboo Earthchef cutting board. It was really nice looking, and she really enjoys cooking.. Earthchef is also all about making things better for the earth and people, which she is also into. I wasn't QUITE sure about it.. but after she opened it she told me that earlier that day she was looking on the sears website in anticpation of doing her wedding registry, and it was the same cutting board she had been eyeing. I was soooo happy lol and pleased with myself.

I also made her a card/envelope/mini envelope to hold the money i was giving her to go towards her wedding shoes (all of us girls went in on giving her the money she needed to buy a pair of shoes she wanted but couldn't afford on her own). And lastly.. i knew she was looking for the first season of ER on dvd so i asked rob that if he ever saw it to pick it up. He was talking to a friend of his that works at Futureshop who told him that they don't make it anymore or something, but that he could order it from the warehouse or something lol because there's always some out of print stuff laying around. Unfortunately it didn't arrive in time, but rob saw the set at walmart today for cheaper, so he bought it. I'm gonna meet her tomorrow to give it to her. I'd save it as a Christmas gift but it would just stress me out to think she might find it herself before then and buy it.

Rob is home now.. he didn't have to have surgery, thank goodness. But he still has to take it very easy for the next few weeks. The hole closed but it still needs time to heal so he can't be lifting anything or doing too much incase it pops back open, in which case, he would just get surgery. He's on temporary leave from work, which he gets a hundred percent pay for Up to three months (but he will only need a month) so that will make recovery so much better. Getting paid to sit around and having me get him tea lol. Nah, he can cook and stuff, but i do try my best to make sure i do as much as i can for him. It really sucked not having him around and i would hate for it to happen again.

Picked up Declan a playdough bucket the other day. Had 7 tubs of playdough and "people" that you stick playdough in and their "hair" grows. He loved it.. cutting the hair and shaving it. I remember having a set like that when i was a kid and i played with it a lot. He loves playdough. It's one of the only activities that he will actually sit at the table on his own for a long prd of time and do without any fuss.

Well that's all i'm gonna write about for now. Up top is a picture of my card creation. For some reason i have a hard time parting with my cards. They take some time to do and a lot of thought goes into them, surprisingly. So i take pics of them. Enjoy!

- D