Can you just look at me for a sec?

OK people. Can we just take a second here, and just look at me. Please. Just look.






Do you see the epicness of this costume? Do you even realize?! Cause some people did not. Made entirely from SCRATCH. Minushe bow and arrows, I MADE this entire costume! Real leather! It is my masterpiece.

It embodies who I am. Out of every Halloween costume I've EVER worn, this ties for 1st. It only lost points for fitting places...like vehicles....and inbetween people at the dance. If you are wondering what tied this beautiful piece of art for first...it was the old granny costume. I'll try to find a pic, but that one was amazing...and I could sure bust a granny-move.

Anyway. OBVIOUSLY I'm a Viking. If thats not obvious, please, leave. People said I looked very Braveheart. Which I guess is close... but then people were asking me if I was Robin Hood. Oh, excuse me... Robin Hood WAS the ONLY person in 'history' to use a bow right? Its not like they were a common weapon back in the day... if I have a bow I MUST be Robin. COME ON PEOPLE.

Also, I don't have to BE a SPECIFIC person. Can't I just be a Viking? ...Like when people are dressed up like a Mummy, they don't have to be Tutankhamun. We can just BE things! And as a matter of clarification. I'm a real Viking, legitimately. Ancestoral right. AND REAL Vikings never wore big gleeming helmets with giant horns protruding out the sides. Think about it, they are totally impractical. Archeological evidence supports that Vikings wore simple helmets, if they wore any at all.

I should've just been Xena, that would've made everyone happy.

My costume had it all. The tunic, with leather ties. The emu-skin boots with wooden toggles. The calf dagger in a black leather sheath. The black belt with gold buckle. Bow. Quiver. Arrows. Fur wrap. Sword. Bull whip. Left arm bracer- Leather, with ties. Right leather wrist guard. Awesome. I had to leave the axe... I refuse to carry a fake one, and taking a real one to a dance? Probably not a good idea. But this was amazing...

I'm sorry the pictures aren't very good, but I didn't have my camera, so these are taken with my phone. And there won't be any pictures of anything really, the dance kind of lacked epicness. Three costumes worth mentioning- Actual Robin Hood. This guy had it nailed, kind of hot. Michelle Frache and lil Scott went as a Peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was AWESOME! I interrupted one of their dances to tell them it was awesome... And then Wayne Orr. I have to hand it to him, he pulls it out EVERY year. Last year was inspector gadget, which really worked; this year? Mr. Bean. He had it right down to teddy. And he played the part perectly. It was a sight to behold. Greatness. Words do not do it justice. SO FUNNY!!!

Well, that was day 1 of All Hallows Eve. I'd say it got off to a good start. I may wear my costume just for the fun of it. It was comfy, and it makes me look awesome...

I dare you to say different...

Amended

This is a first for my blog- I have to print ...post... a retraction.

Yesterday, I posted a blog, and in this blog I declared that the Pumpkin Seed Challange was a Fail... Due to improper rule specifications, and the effort of one individual, Challenge Completed.

I came home today, and I started to do dishes. The pan of seeds still happily sat on the stove from the night before. There was a stack of dishes already in the sink so that is where I started. I was one dish away from grabbing the pan and dumping the seeds when Jo, runs out of her room, flys down the stairs and proceeds to eat seeds as fast as she humanly could. I'd go so far as to say that she began to scarf them. Without a word. I turn and look at her, she looks up at me, and it dawns on me. She explains that she wasn't aware they had to be eaten that night, and that I didn't specify. She continued to eat the seeds with hope in her eyes, looking at me, like a little puppy. I told her that if she ate the remainder of the seeds, i'd amend my post. Obviously she did it. But, it was not without cost. Im sure she feels gross. there were quite the amount still on the pan, and she downed them at an exceeding pace. Good on her.

SO- Retraction! Challenge was NOT a fail. Challenge was a WIN- due to JOCELYN.

Taco Night and Halloween

Readers Digest version- A few weeeks ago Dallas wanted to drive to Montana for steak. I had to work too late, I offered to make him steak, he took the idea and ran with it, he came over and we had a glorious food night. This was so good in fact that someone suggest we make this a "thing". Thus I give you- Taco Night.

First of all, can I tell you how gosh dern good it is to come home to an attractive man making you dinner? Words cannot describe. He went all out on this one, I walked into my house and it smelled amazing! He made dinner for my entire house, plus some. Which is no small feat- I live with 7 girls. We listened to Spanish music and had a good ol time.

Slowly the roommates started to trickle off, leaving only myself, Dallas, KT, Dan, Jocelyn and Trev. Allison ran away, but not before being mauled by me. And we decided that carving pumpkins was in order. We ran to safeway to find the biggest pumpkins we could find, awesome and took them back to get to work. Allison was in and out, kind of a party pooper. We were trying to coax her out of her room, to come join the party, offering her things, and Jo went and hugged her, and things were said, and Allison said "NO to Alaya hugs"(because of the previous mauling)...oh really Alli? We'll see. So I ran over there and violent-hugged her. It was useless to resist. She learned, you NEVER say 'no' to an Alaya-hug.

ANYWAY. We are carving pumpkins in teams-
JOCELYN & TREVOR









ALAYA & DALLAS










KT & DAN








So the event continues. I bust out my knife collection and we all get to work.

I make some pretty stellar pumpkin seeds, and by the way- At the beginning of the night I made a statement- that it never mattered how many I made, all of them, have never been eaten. There are ALWAYS left overs that get thrown away. 3 people accepted this as a challenge. I made the seeds, they were phenomenal, as always, we ate a fair amount, but there are still seeds on the pan. Challenge Failed.

Dallas makes a mess....

all the time.





Classic Trevor move----------















Dallas' BrainChild- Allison's face.








KT and Dan's Beauty. With normal lighting...

and super LED lighting!










And to end the night- A Walk through the scary-movie-fog.


Took a stroll around the U of L pond/through the trees. Tres Spooky.
...But not really. Who can be scared when there are big strong men around? Ok, it wasn't the fact that there were big strong men, but the fact that we are all hilarious together.

The last supper...

Ok, I'll try to make that the last sacrilegious thing I say for a while. But this is kind of what it is. Today is my Grandpa Brown's 75th birthday. And that means that my family is gathering out in Carmangay for a potluck. And if there is one thing we know how to do, its Potluck.

So here is the thing- I'm allowing myself, one last day of horrible eating and sitting around. After today, things are going to be different. I'm making a change of lifestyle. As of late, I've become REALLY aware of how much I've let myself go. And its bad. I don't care what you think, I know it is. I've never been skinny, but there have been times when I was fit. Where I could go for runs and they would last for more than 15 minutes. And I miss it. Also I hate when people assume that I'm not good at sports, or that I don't know what I'm talking about because I look a certain way. I can run, my endurance sucks, but I can. I can shoot, I can skate, I can tackle, I can pass, I can ruck, heavens knows if you tried to scrum against me, you'd lose. I can box, I can wrestle, I can bat, I can bump, set and dig. I used to be able to serve and throw, but since separating my shoulder that's gone downhill. Now Im about average at it. Better than some, but not really good.

Point is; I'm done being fat. It's too much work. So mark my words, things will change. And they will change good and fast.

6 pack by next summer? Oh, I think so.

Top 5 Greatest Things About Today

In chronological order.

1. I had waffles for breakfast. Mmmm.
2. I ditched work for two hours to catch the U of L rugby game.
3. Everything that comes out of Kessie's mouth; ie. "Probably shouldn't have had that popcorn before the game." ect. Greatest moment of the game? UBC finally scores one, the kicker sets up to kick, Mike yells something about not missing it. Their kicker turns around, and gives Mike a thumbs up. Awesome. She calls the kick, makes the kick, im not even mad. Kessie- "That was a great kick, it was worth 92 points!!" So funny(the score board said 31-92...whoops.)
4. When I went back to work, it was awesome. Time flew by. We had some laughs. Good day.
5. Horns Women's Basketball kicked some Trinity Western trash!

Ok, so its not much of a list, and the point is I ditched work and watched an awesome rugby game. And I could've just said that... but I didn't. Get over it.

Day 1 of the UofL's Weekend sports home opener would've been a clean sweep if the guys hadn't botched up their game... Seriously, it was brutal. I considered walking out of it. Horrible passes, most of which went almost straight to the other team, ridiculous fouls, and they couldn't hit a shot the save their life... final score 76-116. Ouch. Better do something between now and tomorrow night, cause I swear if you suck it up that bad again, ima start cheering for TW.

Kumo

I started writing this blogpost over a(two) week(s) ago, but had a rough time writing it, every time I started I couldn't really find the words, and/or i'd get emotional...

Lets go back 14 years. I was 9 years old. Life was great, our family decided to get a dog. ...ok, fast forward to now. Two weeks ago, my mom calls me up and we are having a little chat, when she brings up our dog, Kumo. Mom says -we need to put her down, she has all kinds of health problems, and we decided it was time. Holy, drop a bomb on me mom! Kumo lives out at the clinic as a guard dog, I hadn't seen her in a while so, I went out to see her the following Saturday with my parents, Marly and Jarett.
Seeing Kumo like that made me so sad, she could hardly get up, her breathing was labored, pretty much she was in rough shape. It was a moment. Usually seeing pets die doesn't phase me, but with Kumo it was different... See, usually when pets die, its either an accident, or they die after a long, nice life of being loved. This wasn't the case with Kumo. See, we all loved her, but we couldn't/didn't handle her. We got her when she was a puppy, she lived with us till she grew up, she chewed everything, no one spent time with her to try and train her. We had good times, and we loved her, but the novelty of having a dog wore off after a couple of years... and my dad, being a vet/owning a clinic, we all decided that Kumo would make a good guard dog. Us kids worked at the clinic so we saw her pretty much everyday... and here is where it gets me. Because she grew up with us, and now she lived at the clinic, I felt like she didn't think that the clinic was home. We saw her everyday, and every time we left, she wanted to come with us. ...shes a dog, and I know that dogs follow, but its just what I thought. There was just something about it that made me think that she thought that one day, she would come back home with us; where she belonged. I felt like When we went and saw her that Saturday, its like all these feelings came crashing down in a single moment... We spent about an hour with her in her dog-run. It was hard for me to see her in such bad shape, and to see how happy she was to see us. All I could think about was how we had all kind of abandoned her, and yet she still loved us. Years. When I say it had been a while since I went and saw her, I mean it had been about 2 years. And I wasn't the only one, no one went to play with her, to see her. There were the people that worked at the clinic who fed her, and stuff, and im sure they cared about her, but, to me- she grew old alone. The moment that got me? We had to go. ...and she wanted to come. She thought she was coming, the way she was walking with us. She thought, 'well, I put in my time, I get to come home now.' But thats not how it was going to be, she didn't understand. And you could see it in her face. She was so happy when we were there, and she was sad, watching us leave. It killed me knowing that this was going to be the last time I ever saw her. And she had no idea. And because my imagination hates me, I thought about a week from now, how they would bring her inside, like any normal day, and they would lead her to on of the surgical rooms, where she would first sense something was wrong, they'd put her up on a table and this is when she'd start to get scared, she knows something is wrong... and i've seen dogs get put down before, and its called being 'put to sleep' but its not like going to sleep...
Stupid imagination...I hate you.

So we put her down on Friday afternoon, and we buried her Saturday morning. And because we didn't have anywhere to put her in the mean time, she sat in the back of the suburban, in a black garbage bag...good thinkin Dad.

This is how Saturday morning went. We gather at my parents house, waiting to drive out to the farm, one of us asks "hey, where IS Kumo?" My mother answers "In the back of the suburban." I ask "How long has she been there....?" Answer? Since yesterday afternoon... Now it wasn't really hot out, but at the same time, it was NOT cold. SO... dead dog smell? Yup.


Because our parents felt like we needed some bonding time/we wanted to save on gas/thought it would be funny?...we all decided to pile in the suburban to drive to grandmas together, with the dog in the back...I opened the door, jumped right in and took my usual seat in the back left. It stunk. Everyone else took a little more convincing to get in the car. It was pretty bad, but not unbearable. The thought of it was worse than the actual smell.

Now we show our true colors...(Don't judge us, its how we deal with things) We start making dead dog jokes....and stink jokes.

Marly- "there is a dead dog... in a bag... right behind the seat...ewww"
Annalise started making gagging noises. Pretending to throw up. Steph freaking out, cause the fact that Annalise was making those noises was making her feel like throwing up.
The smell was actually so bad, the longer you were near it the worse it got.
Tanin, "Ok everyone just take a deep breath," Annalise "NO, thats the opposite of what we want. I don't want to breathe it!"
Dad asked if anyone wanted an apple, Jarett said he could go for a big juicy hamburger, Tanin was like, naw, id rather have a hot dog... then my mom chimed in and suggested you get it to go...in a doggie bag!
We then pointed out that this smell wasnt as bad as Marly's feet. Which is a true story.
Tanin asked if it was going to be an open casket.
We we're laughing and joking and it was good.

we were trying to figure out how we were going to get it from the burb to the hole, Jarett suggested making it into some kind of competition, see who can throw the dog the farthest, I said we make it a series of games...dead dog Olympics, Jarett commented that its not unlike dead baby Olympics... we all agreed. And it went on like this for about 15 minutes...

We got out there, finished diggin the hole, plopped the dog in it, and when i say plop, it was definitely the sound of a dead body falling into a hole....not that im familiar with that sound. We covered her up, chucked a couple big rocks at the head and laid a bunch of branches over it and that was that.

Real Date.

Ok people. Its the update you've all been waiting for.... the one about my love life. Ew. Or lack thereof? But this is about as juicy as it ever gets.

Dallas

We've been hanging out, and are good friends. This, I guess was the first official date.

Sunday night, he comes over after I got home from Edmonton, we chat about stuff, hang out for a while, start discussing/analyzing things in the room, and what they say about people. We find that this is something we both enjoy... analyzing things... especially people. Confession- I love people watching. LOVE it. I ask if he works Tuesday, and suggest we do some people watching, he says he gets off around 1, and he would love too. He takes it a step further and calls me up Monday, to officially ask me out. And he's turned it into a half-double date. Which im totally ok with because the other half it KT and Dan....=Awesome.

Date start time- 2:30pm- Dallas comes over, we engage in some light chit-chat. My roommate, who neglected to inform ME that she was in the hospital had informed DALLAS that she was having breathing issues, and had gone to the ER. He tells me this, im shocked and appalled that she wouldn't tell ME this. Hm. Dallas makes a phone call to his doctor buddy, to see if he happens to be at the hospital and would be willing to do Dallas a favor...he wasn't. I suggest we swing by and see if everything is ok, so we go to the hospital, meet up with Trev and another girl, no one really knows whats going on, but my roommate was being attended to, and we got bored of sitting in the ER so we left and went to Chapters/Starbucks. Got some Vanilla Bean Fraps and started 'people watching' It was great, highly entertaining.

After about an hour of that we decided we needed a change in venue, so we moved to the food court in the mall. We shared a dish of Manchu Wok. and continued just talking and watching.... and judging people... making up stories about them. Hilarious. We wandered around the mall after a bit, stopped in at Sport Check, talked sports for a while, really didn't do anything but talk.

We then wandered over to the arcade thing. Not being one to spend money needlessly, he....bootlegged? the basketball game; he's got huge, long arms and he just reaches in, grabs a ball and shoots it. we spend a solid ten minutes doing this. Highly entertaining. Especially when he is playing his own fantasy game... Center for the Boston Celtics, one minute to go, down by one. Dishes it to the corner, to the center, back to Dallas in his sweet spot, clocks winding down, he goes up! Gets fouled hard. Now he's got just three shots... first one, sinks it. Second? just a little off...its all down to this last shot. No pressure. ....There was a lot of detail in his describing of the situation, i'll spare you that. Point is, he sunk his last shot and the crowd went wild.

Moving on, we go to buy our tickets from one of the little automated machines, I notice that someone has walked away without grabbing their ticket. It was a ticket for the social network, Dallas is like- 'you could use it to get in... or are you too honest for that?' Then im all- 'There is no such thing as too honest.... excuse me, im going to make a scene...' He supports this and I walk into the lobby area, and in my distinct, loud but not yelling, authoritative voice- "Excuse me, can I have everyone's attention please!" Every single person in the lobby stops and looks at me. Still speaking with 'The voice'-"Someone here left their ticket at the booth. Someone who is going to The Social Network, has forgotten their ticket. Social Network. Anybody?" Then this guys comes through the crowd and thanks me, takes his ticket and goes to his movie. Dallas turns to me and makes a comment on how impressed he was. Thats right. Be impressed. While standing in line a few people made comments on how nice that was of me. ...All in a days work ma'am, all in a days work.

We went and saw the movie Red. SUCH a good movie. John Malkovich MAKES it. Brilliant. So, post-movie, we are trying to decide where to go for dinner, and Dan tells us to just follow him. Ok, so we are cruising down 3rd, Dan in his truck pulls up next to the little pimped-out I don't even know what it was, but you could tell it was a real hot shot ride. The light turns green and Dan wastes the poor car. He makes it through the next light, the little car doesn't. So we pull up to the little car, and Dallas is like, roll the window down. So, I roll it down, and I signal for the guy driving the car to roll his down. He does. Dallas leans over and says to the guy- You see that truck? Thats my buddy Dan. He wasted you. Oh Dallas. Funny kid. We actually started quite the conversation with this guy. He was actually kind of a nice guy, had two kids married for a few years, the car was just a lil 4-banger.... Then the light turned green, and the little one floored it. Cute. Dallas was driving my car... The 2003 Cadillac Seville STS; 4.6L Northstar V8 with 300hp. Please. We don't even have to try. Burned him. Awesome.

Dinner at Firestone. Awesome place. Things are always funnier when you get two sets of best friends and put them on dates. Needless to say the conversation was great, entertaining, at times educational and just overall fantastic. We tried to get Dan to hit on our waiter... He didn't. ...He totally could've gotten a number... The night was still a lil young to be calling it just yet, so we decided to go on a walk around Nicholas Sheran, and let me tell you, greatest walk ever. There was hopscotch, shoving each other off the path, threatening to carry people into the lake, dog piles, stargazing, watching KT get trapped in Dan's coat and trying to hop around in it, general wrestling between all parties... it had it all.

Date end time- 12:18am

Did I go on a 10 hour date? Yes. Did I enjoy every minute of it? Yes. Will there be another one? Possibly. Am I in love? No. Should I be? Yes. Are we perfect for each other? Yes. Does this perfection increase everytime he talks about killing things, or survival skills? Most Definately.

It was utter ridiculoawesomeness.

Gleeave!!

Ok, so I've never really followed Glee. I watched episodes here and there, but never really got into it. All my roommates are really into it, I thought I'd give it a chance. So I watched the season premier, and it was awesome, it was entertaining, it was funny, and I loved it. However... the last few episodes haven't really been that good. And to top it all off, this last episode ruins my life. I've been planning what I was going to do for the YSA talent show for the last 9 months.... it was going to be epic. I was going to do a one-manned duet... AND NOW.... if I do it people will think that I got the idea from Glee. And that is entirely unacceptable to me....

Stupid Kurt. He just had to do it. And butcher it by the way. He did a horrible job. IT WAS JUST BAD! ARGH. I didn't appreciate it.

Publicity?

I have a couple good posts in the works, but i'm just having this thought, and want opinions...Ok people? Recently i've had people stumble across..../stalk my blog out, and i'm contemplating making it kind of a public thing... like legitimately telling people about, posting the link places...

Thoughts?

I mean, opening it up to the general public seems good...at first, then it makes me think about all those...people...that I may or may not want reading my life... those awkward people...that ask inappropriate questions at inappropriate times... or like.... my mom. Not that she would, cause, lets face it, she barely works the computer... but she might. And she might read things like that thing that I just wrote, and she might get offended... and if thats bad, my Grandma will totally read it, and im not sure how that will change her opinion of me...

Think about it. I had a hard enough time starting this thing in the first place... and heavens knows I still censor some things. But I want people to read it, just select people. I don't know if I can write if I know everyone is reading it. But then again, this may be arrogant of me, assuming people will actually read my blog...

So...........




Yeah.