Please Help

I know this is going to be a long shot. I have posted on Facebook and Instagram to no avail (aside from a scammer), so hopefully by posting on my blog, that no one really reads, maybe, just maybe, I might get the help that I am needing.

Last September I started going to university part-time online at CapU. I have finally found my calling in life as a career and that calling is law. I am currently studying to become a Legal Administrative Assistant, and I eventually want to become a Paralegal. I am loving the course so far. With three semesters under my belt (and three to go), I am currently sitting at a 4.06GPA (4.33 is the highest) and have been on the Academic Honors Merit List for the past two semesters. My goal is to achieve Graduation with Distinction.

And now is where I need the help. Tuition is due on Aug 19. Normally, I would have my tuition saved up to pay for the coming semester. However, one of the wheel bearings on my car decided to seize while I was driving it, thus causing me to spend the money that I had saved for tuition on fixing my car. So now it is 12 days before tuition is due and I do not have the money to pay for it. I have started a GoFundMe for myself to see if I could get some help from my various circle of friends, but no one is helping. Here is a link to my page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/6r2nfp-tuition-for-semester

I don't want to have to drop out. I've been trying to sell stuff to make the tuition, including my motorcycle. Not having the money to pay my tuition has put me into a depression. I don't know what to do. My parents can't give me any money. I'm trying all that I can do to make the funds, but it isn't working. There is a huge roadblock in my future and I don't know how to get around it.

It sucks being the one that helps everyone else out, but the one time that I ask for help myself, I don't get it. I know that putting this on here is a long shot, as I rarely post and not many people read my blog, but I'm getting desperate.

MeToo

Hi everyone

To begin with, I'm just going to say that this is going to be a very somber posting. Also, if you're not into somber posts, please skip it. It will be one that is pretty much polar opposite of any of the postings that I have made before on this blog. Hopefully once I get this out of my system, I can continue healing from it.
As many of you are probably aware, earlier this year (or it may have been last year now) there was a MeToo movement. And I'll say right now, that I refuse to put the hashtag in front of that, as I am old school, and hashtag is also known as "pound" and having the movement be called "pound MeToo" is completely opposite of what the movement was about. If you don't know what MeToo is about, please google it. There, I even did it for you.

Before I got into my relationship with Justin, I was in a different relationship with, ironically, someone named Justin. For the remainder of this post, he will be referred to as F. If I ever talk about him in real life, I use his last name but I don't want to put that information out on the internet. I was in that relationship for 5 years. That was 5 years too long. It has been almost 9 years since I have left that relationship and I have only really started coming to terms with what happened in that relationship in the past year or two. With me coming to terms with it, I am also trying hard to work past what happened so that I can once again become the person that I was before F entered my life in a negative way.

I have known F since elementary school. I was horrible friend, as he also happens to be one of my friends ex's. We started dating during the summer that I was going into grade 12 (I think, I honestly cannot remember). One of the first things that happened in the relationship that should have been my signal to run away fast without looking back was the fact that early in our relationship he told me that if I ever broke up with him he would kill himself. The fact that he told me this while having the knife in his hand, was pretty convincing not to do it. I had already been thinking about breaking up with him anyways, because he had this stupid idea that he didn't want to be a virgin when he turned 18 (which would be in December). Being that I'm a nice person and I did not want to be the cause for him to kill himself, I did not break up with him. And also because of that, we ended up losing our virginity to each other, much to my dislike. I did not want to have sex. But with the fact that he would take his own life otherwise, I did not have a choice in my mind. It is never a good sign, when the female ends up crying after the first time.

So with the knowledge that he'd kill himself looming over me, we continued our relationship and he started controlling my life. I wasn't allowed to hang out with my friends (thankfully they still stuck around even though I pretty much vanished), he forced me to be involved with a blatant MLM (I knew it was from the start, yet he wouldn't take no as an answer), he had our taxes done together and they were filled as "married" (we weren't even common-law at the time. Unfortunately, I discovered that too late to have it changed) and he decided that we needed to open up a joint chequing account then proceeded to take out a $5000 loan in our name, which he used on a "vacation" to Australia.

So, Australia. With "his" cash in hand, he decided that he wasn't getting any younger and that he wanted to take a one month "vacation" to Australia. Now, this trip to Australia did not involve me going with him. Nope, he was taking this trip by himself. The plan was for him to take "his" $5000 and spend a month traveling the coast of Australia, enjoying life, while I sat at home and worked. Well, the guy isn't the smarted tool in the shed. He ended up calling me on his layover in Hawaii (plane needed fuel) telling me that he lost his wallet...Awesome. Thankfully, they didn't switch planes at all, as low-and-behold, his wallet was between the seats the whole time. He also complained that he thought that he was getting deep-vein thrombosis (6 hour flight so far, pretty sure it doesn't set in that quickly). So he eventually gets to Australia, where he proceeds to blow the entire $5000 in a week and a half. At least he was smart enough to save enough to get home. When he gets home, he takes me to a hotel as he has a surprise for me. We get to the hotel and once in our room, he opens his suitcase and throws a necklace at me. Literally, he throws a necklace at me. Congratulations, we are now engaged. Yeah, he proposed by throwing a necklace at me. Still wish I had the courage to walk away...

Wedding plans are made. A dress is bought. And I have been spiraling downhill for quite sometime. Needless to say I am good at hiding my emotions. Also, my intake in alcohol has increased. A lot. Just the thought of him touching me would make me sick to my stomach. I tried to avoid having to do anything physical with him as much as I could (I had a lot of headaches). He didn't really notice my increase in drinking, as at this time, along with living with me, he also had a place in New West that he shared with people. He had started his own tiling company and had been hired on to tile the skytrain station (which one, I have no clue now). So instead of commuting, he rented a room. I was just happy that he was away from me, although I'm pretty sure that he was sleeping with one of the girls that also lived in the suite. I tried to ask him about that, but he didn't answer my question (she was a ginger, and I asked him if he knew if it was natural or not). It was about this time that I had started doing some freelance work with a friend and ended up talking to this guy from Florida. Yes, I was attracted to him, however I was able to talk to him about what was going on and was able to get an outsiders view of what was happening. So with his words in my mind, and after talking to my mom a bit (although she doesn't know what really went on), I decided to grow a pair of gonads and break up with him. F, of course, blamed it on Florida and that I wanted to sleep with him. I told him, no, I had been feeling this way for a while and talking to Florida had just confirmed it. And with that I left. He insisted that I help pay back the $5000 for his trip to Australia. I didn't have the money to, but did what I could. As long as it got him out of my hair.

One of the first things that I did after I left him was got a tattoo of a hibiscus. He had said that I could never get a tattoo as long as he was around, so that was one of my defying moments. I now have 4 tattoos, with a 5th one in the design stage. After the final payment to the joint account loan, I blocked him on Facebook and have never looked back. All I know is that he lives in Saskatchewan now. No idea where, or what he is doing. And quite honestly, I couldn't care less. He can go ruin someone else's life now.

It has been a long and hard 9 years since I was able to get him out of my life. No one, not even Justin, knows exactly what happened in that relationship. They know bits and pieces, but I have never fully come out and talked about it. With the incident at the tool store, people kept referring to him as "my high school sweetheart." I hated it when they would say that, and even asked them to stop, which did not happen. He was in no way, shape or form a sweetheart. The main reason why I decided to write this out is because yesterday, Justin asked me why I now decided to go into the LAA program. I have always loved law. It was my favourite subject in school. But due to the toxicity of the relationship that I had been in, I could not go after my own dreams. Everything I did had to be to what F wanted. Not what I wanted.
It has taken 9 years for me to really start living again. It has taken 9 years for the pain and the hurt to start to subside. It has taken 9 years for me to even try to get my life back to what it was before F was in the pictures. I missed out on a lot in that total of 14 years that has been stolen from me because of F. And I'm only now just starting to get it back. There is no telling if I'll ever be able to get to where I really should be at this stage in my life. Needless to say, where I am now currently, was not where I had imagined myself being.
The road that we follow is not always paved for us, it can be paved by someone else. But if we can chip away at the materials that they laid down, we can eventually become back to our own paths, with our own paving. Or in my case, gravel. I am going to keep following my arrow on the path that I am currently on. Because my arrow will lead me to greatness, it is just a matter of time for me to get there.

A Beginning, A Plan Of Action

Hello beautiful people of the internet!

September is upon us which means that school will be starting again for all the little kidlets that have been around all summer. This also means, that I too will be going back to school. Albeight it will be part time and online. I am pretty sure that I have mentioned in a previous post that I am doing an online course for the next two years to get my Legal Administrative Assistant Certificate. The plan after that will be to get my education to become a Paralegal. I still haven't decided if I want (or can with the way I'm doing my schooling) to end up getting my Bachelor of Law Studies - Paralegal. Which in my mind would be pretty skookum. Seeing as no one in my family, well except for my brother who went into trades, has any formal education after high school.

Along with the beginning of school, I also have a plan. See, although it is hard to tell in my photos, with my height, waist measurement and weight, I happen to fall into the obese category. So, one of my friends on Facebook has decided to start a 21 day challenge. This 21 day challenge is a no junk challenge. See rules below:

For the most part, it should be fairly easy I think, seeing as I currently don't drink pop or eat candy. The biggest challenges I see are the donuts, muffins, fast food and chips. Those will be my biggest obstacles. This challenge will be starting on Sept 1 and I will try to do an entry every day for the challenge to help keep me accountable. Also with the Facebook group, that should keep me accountable also.

And to push myself even further, during this challenge, I also want to throw in a 30 day *insert exercise here* challenge. The ones that I'm talking about are the ones that get increasingly harder every day. I have a bunch of them saved on my Pinterest page under Kill The Muffin (Top). So I will decide shortly which one I want to conquer.

Hopefully, you will continue to follow me on this journey. Seeing as my path seems to be splitting and converging in multiple places currently. Only time will tell as to where it all end up.

Until next time lovelies!

New Endeavors

So in my last post, I mentioned that I bought myself a new DSLR camera and that I'm going to be showcasing my photos on this blog. Well, I have changed my mind just in a bit in that regard. Instead of showcasing my photos here, I'm going to be having a secoundary blog, as I going to start doing freelance work for my photography. My main focus will be events and outdoors. I am not interested in doing straight on portrait sessions (such as engagements, maternity, kids, wedding). I have never been the one to tell people to go into such and such pose. Having people in their natural states is more interesting, and only really having to tell people to pose when I ask them if I can take their photos. Photographing corporate events, sports, reunions and the like is more what I want to do.

If you are interested in checking out this new branch of my life, you can reach my photography blog here. At the time that I am making this post, I haven't done anything with the new blog as of yet, except create a simple page. Don't even have anything posted. Hopefully I will have some more on it in the coming week, as I already have one photo session that I want to showcase on there.

Hope you check out my new blog, and if you ever have an event that you would like photographed, please consider me.

TIme Goes By....

So 2018 is already half way over. How is that even possible?  It only feels like we just celebrated Christmas. Now we are on to Canada Day and summertime. And like always, I'm back to only posting in this blog twice a year. Nothing new there, I see. Although I do happen to think often about posting on here, however nothing ever transpires from it.

Being that we are half way through the year, I'm going to do a recap on what has happened so far.
1 - Had another successful (haha) year at the tax place. Although being back this year, I realized again why I stopped working there in the first place. So this year, will definitely be the last year that I am there. It is too much of a headache, and in this year in particular, it wasn't worth my time. Majority of my time was spent on my phone, playing games and not helping clients.

2 - I bought a motorcycle! Specifically I bought a 2018 Honda CRF 250 Rally. Awesome fact about this bike (who will from this point on be referred to as Girlie). She has the limited edition black paint scheme, and her serial number is #1 in the edition. So that is pretty cool. I haven't put many km's on her yet. I have decided to take riding lessons, as I figured I'd get a better handle of how to ride it as opposed to having Justin teach me. He did try teaching me, but I ended up getting more frustrated than anything, which wasn't a good thing. Today, I passed the Motorcycle Skills Assessment (which removes the restriction of having someone supervise me while I ride). So in two weeks I will be doing the traffic portion, learning about riding in traffic. Then in mid-August I will be taking my motorcycle road test. So that gives me lots of time to practice between when I do the traffic course, to when I do my road test.

3 - In September, I will be going back to school part time (online) at Capilano University. I will be taking the Legal Administrative Assistant program. It's only been 14 years since I graduated high school. It is about time that I figured out what I want to do career wise. I am super excited for this program. It will take three years to complete (seeing as it is online and part time, as I will be continuing to work full time). Once I successfully complete this program, and have the grades, I can move onto their Paralegal position. Which I am also excited to do.

Other than those three big things, it has just been minor things. Competed in a couple archery tournaments (although we've really been slack on that lately), bought myself a new DSLR camera, went to Calgary to buy a new dirt bike (Mini Me) for Justin, been on a few fishing trips (some together, a couple solo ones), and have been working. Oh, and I also just completed my Occupational First Aid Level 2 for work. So I'm certified in that now.

I will attempt to try to post more here. I really want to start getting into photography more (hence the new camera) and I think here would be a good place to showcase my pictures. Although that would also require having more traffic come to the site. Otherwise I'm just doing it for my own enjoyment. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

Until next time, lovelies!!

New Beginnings

Greetings and Salutations this fine 2018 day!

Well, the time has come for me to retire this blog. I haven't posted in here nearly as much as I was hoping that I would have throughout the time that I did have it. Plus I no longer have an Xterra, so the name is no longer relevant.
I am however going to be starting up a new blog. I am going to attempt (haha) to post in it everyday. We'll see how long that actually lasts. I will include a link at the bottom of this post once I think up a new name for my blog.

See ya'll on the other side!!

PSYCH!!! 

So it turns out that I can just change the name of my blog willy-nilly, so I do not need to create a  new one. I can just redesign and change up the one that I currently have. That is so much easier than thinking of a new name, and domain and theme. Yay for short cuts!!

Anywho... I will get to the redesigning later. For now I will finish up this post and start up a new one on what will hopefully happen with this blog.

Ta ta!

Making plans

Hello blogging world!

Oh look I'm back to my twice a year postings again. Definitely a step backwards.

There really hasn't been a lot going on lately. From the date of my last post there has been fishing and hunting. I can see that in the future there are going to be some changes. I'm not sure as to when these changes will come about, but I know they are coming.
Yes, I do realize that that was extremely vague. But for now being vague will have to do. I'm pretty sure that no one I know actually reads my blog, but if for some unknown reason someone I do know does read it, I'd rather be vague and have them wondering than throw my suspicions around the internet for all to read. If my suspicions end up being true, then I'll write a post about it. If not, then no one will be ever the wiser...

That seems good for now. I was going to write more but I think I'll save it for later.

One Never Truely Leaves

I had started this post on February 16, 2016 on my phone. It is now December and hopefully I can finish writing it...

My grandma passed away on Saturday morning (February 13). 

I knew it was going to happen soon. Let me tell you a bit of a back story first.

A couple weeks ago, my parents had gone to Edmonton at Grandma's request. She was tired and knew she wasn't going to be around much longer and wanted to see my mom before she passed. 

[this is where I had left off originally. I'm going to fast forward a bit as I don't remember where I was going with that.]

I had put off calling Grandma, as I wasn't ready to say goodbye yet. She was getting regular blood transfusions and I was scared. I finally called her from my parents house on Friday, Feb 12. It was in the afternoon (after I got off work), but she was sleeping when I called. However Mom's  cousin was there and we left a message a message with him to let Grandma know that I called and that I loved her.  It was the best that I could do. 

I worked the next day at 7am. Saturday mornings are fairly slow at the gas station until about 9:30-10:00am. So I usually spend the morning stocking and then wasting time on Facebook. I went onto Facebook at about 8:30, and had seen that one of my cousins had changed her profile picture to one of Grandma with her mom, her son and herself. As soon as I saw that picture I knew that Grandma had passed away. I then had to close my phone as there were guests coming into the store. About 15 minutes after I saw that picture, my parents showed up. They hadn't even come in the store and I knew that they were going to confirm what I had already known. 

I am glad that I was able to say goodbye to her before she left, even though it wasn't directly to her. It was almost as if she was waiting for me. 

I found out later from my mom that Grandma approved of the tattoo that I had gotten of Grandpa. 

One of Mom's other cousins, Janice, was visiting with Grandma and Janice had asked Grandma if she had seen the tattoo that I had gotten of Grandpa. Grandma didn't even know I had a tattoo. So Janice logged onto Facebook and found a picture of it. Grandma loved it. I'm very glad that Grandma approved of my memorial tattoo for Grandpa (my Uncle Doug also said that even though Grandpa didn't approve of tattoos, he would have approved of mine.) 

I already have my memorial tattoo for Grandma planned out. It is now a matter of throwing the design into the computer, printing it to match the size of Grandpa's, and then going out to Chilliwack to book my appointment to get it done. It'll be about a year before I'll have it done (that is how popular my tattoo artist is. After I had gotten Grandpa done (Oct 2015), I found he was completely booked for 2016.) I know that waiting that long will be worth it. He will make Grandma's tattoo just as great as Grandpa's.

I don't do well...

I don't do well at taking criticism. I made rabbit stew in the slow cooker with baking powder bisquits today for dinner. This was my first time ever making stew. Needless to say, I have some work to do to create a good stew. (And biscuits for that matter.)

What went wrong? The veggies were not cooked, the meat did not fall off the bones as it was supposed to, and my bisquits were semi hockey pucks. Other than that, I thought it tasted good. It was flavourful and had the right amount of spice. Did I get any recognition for even cooking dinner? No. All I got was criticism. This was wrong, this was wrong, this was wrong...

I'm sorry my 1st attempt at stew was not up to your standards. Mistakes will be made while trying to traverse in the realm of wild meats. Wild meats have to be prepared differently. I was trying to go an easier route for my first stew attempt, rather than royally screwing something up trying to make it on our extremely finicky stove that doesn't like working half the time. At this rate I don't want to attempt stew again. Either in the slow cooker or on the stove. But you know what? I will try it again. And if I get the same results again, I will find a different way to cook rabbit. Although that may be the end of my stew making, as I'm not that huge a fan of beef stew. I'll eat it, but it isn't my favourite.

As for the bisquits. That was the result of bad baking powder. That powder has now been dumped out and has been added to the grocery list. They will be made again. It is a tried and true recipe that my mom has been using for years. I just have bad luck with baking powder. That recipe will eventually be posted, as I want a permanent pin for it on Pinterest. Then I don't have to keep taking a photo of it every time I want to make them.

Gotta Stop Questioning Movies

When watching Disney movies, it is better not to question the movie. We are currently watching The Good Dinosaur.  These are the comments that have been said so far....

1 - why are the dinosaurs farming?
2 - why are they growing corn?
3 - how did they know how to build a corn silo?
4- He looks a lot like me when I was a boy (Justin referring to the little boy)
5 - why does the snake have legs?
6 - for a Long Neck, his neck sure isn't long
7 - and now we have ranch hand T-Rexes...
8 - and now they are running like horses, but they are just T-Rexes

Pinterest Win–Pineapple

So in June, it was my cousin Becky’ wedding. Now as I don’t have a lot of money, I wanted to make them something handmade and unique. As they have two houses currently, they did not need a lot of the usual items that newlyweds need. I tried to get answers on decor from her sister, but was not given any good information. So I went on Pinterest and started looking for unique craft ideas. I searched and searched to no avail. And then one day I came across this pineapple.

So I thought to myself that this would be the perfect gift for Becky and Brett. I asked my mom to ask one of her clients for a recommendation for a good bottle of cheap sparkling wine. After getting the name of a good one, went out and bought it and then waited for pay day to come around to buy some Ferraro Rocher. Mom was nice enough to buy me two boxes that had 12 each in them. With those original 24, I mocked out the bottle of wine with the chocolates to get a rough estimate on how many packages I would need to buy. I ended up having to purchase 16 more packages (16x3=48 + 24 = 72!!). After it was all said and done, I had 6-8 chocolates left over from creating the pineapple, so my estimating was pretty spot on.

And now, here is how my pineapple manifested (and turned out better looking than the one that I had pinned originally).

Supplies

• Bottle of sparkling wine or champagne
• Approx 75 Ferraro Rocher (I suggest buying a large box first and then measuring out to get an estimate like I did)
• Green card stock
• Pencil or pen
• Hot glue gun with glue sticks (I used a low-temp gun, regular may work better)
• Clear cellophane wrap (I used the stuff that can be heat shrunk to baskets)
• elastic band

Instructions

1. Start off by opening all the packages of chocolates. I had them spread out on my work table. And plug in your glue gun. Wait for that sucka to get hot.
2. Once your gun gets hot, take a chocolate and put a trigger squeeze of glue on the bottom of it and push against the bottle. Don’t push too hard on the chocolate as it will crush it and we don’t want a deflated pineapple. Start at the bottom of the bottle and go all the way around.
3. On your secound layer, you will want to stagger the chocolates slightly so that they are sitting within the spaces of the first layer. Try to keep them as close as possible.
4. Keep repeating this process until you get just past the shoulder of the bottle. A word of warning, the chocolates like falling out of their little brown “trays” as you keep rotating the bottle in circles. Just leave them off until you are done putting all the chocolates on. Use a little bit of glue to get them to stay back in their little trays.
5. Once all the chocolates are attached, it is time to start making the leaves of the pineapple. The pin that I had found had no instructions at all, so I wasn’t too sure on how to proceed at this point. I ended up googling an image of a pineapple leaf and just free-handed all of them. This is where having the pencil will come in handy, as I kept changing the way that the leaves looked. I drew the leaves close enough that they could just be cut out as one piece and then glued to the bottle. I used about 2 or 3 pieces of cardstock to make all the leaves for my pineapple.
6. You will want to start off with bigger leaves and then work your way to smaller ones as you go up the crown. You can add a bit of curl to the leaves by running them along the edge of the table. I ended up adding the curl by running my finger nail along the center of the leaf. This way you can adjust how much curl each one has. It is easier to do this part before gluing them to the bottle.
7. Keep adding leaves until you work all the way up the stem of the bottle to finish the crown. For the top pieces, I ended up gluing a large piece of green cardstock onto the foil wrapper of the lid to cover the brown. I then added a single leaf to the very top. Once you  have finished adding the leaves, take a look at it and glue in individual leaves wherever you think it could use it.
8. Voila! You have now created a pineapple. Your final step would be to wrap it with the cellophane and secure the loose ends at the neck of the bottle with the elastic. Be careful getting the elastic over the leaves! I did end up getting a bit of help from Justin to do this part. If you use the shrink wrap cellophane, be very careful when you shrink it with the hair dryer so as to not melt the chocolate. You just want it so that it is taught against the chocolates.

Becky loved the pineapple! Turns out that pineapples are her favourite. Needless to say, the bottle of wine will never be drunk. She loves her pineapple.

Overall, I would call this a Pinterest Win!

It will not be in a tomb

So I have acquired my mom's canning supplies and I have started a new hobby. I have started canning. I have only done two things so far, but I definitely want to continue.

I have made some Cherry Jam and Habanero Cherry Jam. And am currently canning some plums. There will be incoming posts on both of those. Unfortunately no pictures od of the process of the jam. Next time...I'll try to remember.  I can't guarantee anything. 

On the list items to be canned in the future is plum jam, plum salsa, and maybe plum chutney. I also want to try my hand at a mango habanero salsa. After that we'll see what happens. 

So look for those posts in the future.

Foxtrot India November Alpha Lima Lima Yankee

If you didn't understand the title, it says "Finally" using the phonetic alphabet.

For some strange reason I have been trying to memorize the phonetic alphabet for about 4 years. I have never been able to though. I would get A-F then O, N, S, T, W. The other letters were a mystery to me.

Then comes this past Wednesday night shift. I decided to try it again. I was able to recite my usual letters, but still got hung up on the others. So I googled, wrote the entire alphabet out on a piece of paper, read it a couple times and then folded it up and put it in my wallet. Whenever a car pulled up and I could see their license plate, I would sound off on the letters. I did that for about an hour,  still missing the occasional letter but after a while, it finally stuck.

I can now say that I can efficiently recite the phonetic alphabet, with only minor hang ups.  Usually G. Not sure why.

Tango Alpha Tango Alpha {space} foxtrot October romeo {space} November October whiskey

What Is Your Vice?

So tonight I started binge reading one of my friends blogs. http:// www.nyafatkid.com/
I have "known" her for quite a few years as we were both on the same forum together. When the forum folded, we all traversed over to Facebook and made our own secret group together there.

While reading one of her posts, it made me think of my own little food vices and eating habits. Needless to say, working at the gas station is not the best for getting better eating habits. (As I look at food for the shift, which includes: half a small bag of Doritos, a can of Guave Rockstar, 2 pizza pops, a bottle of Nestea Green Tea, a bottle of water and a crapton of pumpkin seeds. I also have a pretzel and peanut butter chocolate bar sitting with my stash, but I haven't had any of it.)

The thing that I hate having in the pile the most is the Rockstar. This has to be one of my biggest vices at work. Yes I know energy drinks are extremely bad for you. Heck, I'm not even drinking it for the energy aspect (my brain wires are backwards and energy drinks put me to sleep and sleeping pills wake me up. I have actually found out it is hereditary on my dad's side). It just tastes good. But only the guava flavor. I used to drink the fruit punch Mountain Dew Kick Start but the flavor has changed.
One of my resolutions this year was to kick the energy drinks and all pop. The pop I have been able to do quite easily. I can't do pop anymore, since quitting. Proof there...I had decided last week that I wanted a small can of Sprite as I was wanting a drink but water just wasn't appealing. I ended up dumping about half of it down the drain as it was just too sweet and I didn't like the taste. Anyways, I have gotten down to 2 Rockstars a week. Yeah I'm still drinking them but it isn't nearly as bad as what I used to be drinking. To be honest I'm almost a little scared to cut these last 2 because the caffeine migraine that I got when I first started was brutal. It lasted a week and I was not a happy camper. 

I will eventually cut the 2 out of my diet. It may take a little time but it will happen. Hopefully sooner rather than later. This reason being that I want to start doing the 21 Day Fix. I am going to do it alone or I'm going to somehow talk Justin into doing it with me. He may be on board as I know he wouldn't mind losing his "pillow".

That is all for tonight as I have to start counting. Gotta actually work at work lol

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of Year....

As long as you aren't depressed. (although my favourite Christmas song just came on my player and I'm waiting for all the customers to leave so I can unpause it and play it really loud).

Anyways this is going to be short and unsweet. I hate stress. I hate money. I hate Christmas.  I'm surprised Krampus hasn't come these past two years instead of Santa. Yes I do still believe in Santa. 🎄
I am sick and tired of the string of bad luck that has been following me since what happened at the tool store. It is just one thing after another. after another. I believed in Karma before. Bad karma. Good I rarely saw. Bad karma definitely happens. I am the living proof of that. But this bad karma is going to break me. I am at my wits end. I cannot take much more. I don't have anyone to talk to about what is going on. Sorry. That's a lie. There is a couple people I could talk to, except that I am scared to talk to them. I'm not the type of petson to ask for help or to share what is going on with me. Which is how I got into this whole mess in the first place.

I seriously need something good to happen in my life soon.

Lets Play Dr

You have to love mystery injuries. Two Wednesdays ago at work, I noticed a rather large lump under my thumb. It didn't hurt, so I didn't think much of it. Fast forward to the following Saturday.
Lump is still there, however I now have pain going to my pinkie and ring finger. Okay maybe I'll start thinking about it a little bit.
Wes (one of my old coworkers) comes in, and although I'm trying to hide my tensor bandage in the sleeve of my sweater, he notices and asks what I did to my wrist. I tell him that I am not sure and proceed to tell him about it. He says that it sounds like a ganglion cyst, his girlfriend has one. Okay I have a name for it now. So I look it up. Yeah that wasn't smart. Lets drain it, inject it with anti-inflammatory and then wait for surgery. Okay I'll see a doctor about it.

Fast forward to today (yes I waited another week and a half. Not my fault, tried to go Monday but they had already reached walk in capacity). So I show the doctor my wrist and tell him that I think it may be a ganglion cyst. He does some palpitations and decides to send me for an ultrasound and an xray on it to confirm that if it a ganglion or if I possibly have tendinitis. And he told me to get a wrist brace for the time being.

I wasn't able to get to the xray place today. Don't have money for a wrist brace, so I wrapped a spoon inside my tensor bandage to help immobilize my wrist. Red neck ingenuity. Currently it hurts right below the knuckle on my middle finger where it meets the hand. And it is very difficult to grip anything. Like trying to tear scratch and wins in half after they are validated,  is proving to be difficult and rather painful. This isn't fun.

The picture is of my spoon wrap. I think it has been working quite well 😃

New Toy

I sometimes wish I had some friends that enjoyed cooking. That way I could gush about my new frying pan to someone I know instead of posting it on my blog.

On Sunday while making breakfast, I realized that I needed a new large frying pan. The pans I currently have were given to me by my mom when Justin and I started living together (so according to him it has been forever). Anyways, I was cooking hash browns and even though I added oil to the pan, they continuously stuck. So annoying for a non stick pan. After breakfast I announced to Justin that I needed a new pan. He told me to make a list of the best ones and we'll go looking. After researching for a couple hours (my laptop is stupidly slow) I discovered that Canadian Tire has the Heritage The Rock pan on sale for $29.99. This is huge! Not only is it sn awesome pan, but regular price is $100! That's a savings of $70. Yay!

I have used it twice so far and in love with it. I will slowly replace the other sizes of pans that I have. Just have to wait for them to be on sale again. They will be well worth the wait.

New Tattoo

Greetings! 
It is a shame that I cannot keep up with posting on here. I really would like to have a bit of a following. Instead of just having people randomly getting onto my site from google.
Anyways....
So I got a new tattoo yesterday.  I am super happy with it. It is the perfect hand in cribbage with my grandpa as the Jack of Hearts. It is a memorial tattoo for him. The reason for the cribbage hand is, as soon as a grandchild could count to 15, Grandpa taught them how to play cribbage.  I miss my Grandpa greatly. Although we weren't able to see him as much as I would have liked growing up (living in different provinces), he was still a great influence on my life. I see him in many of my habits. Such as starting different things, and doing as much as I can. He was successful in my eyes and I love him lots.
The tattoo artist who did my tattoo said that Grandpa looked like a very friendly, happy person. And he was. When I posted it on Facebook, my uncle commented that Grandpa was not very fond of tattoos, but he would have appreciated mine.
I miss my grandpa and I wish that I hadn't made stupid mistakes in the past that I know he would frown upon. I wish I could have missed my Color Theory final exam so I could have gone to his funeral. I greatly regret not going.

Hard Decisions

So I had a meeting with my lawyer this morning regarding my case. Needless to say it wasn't the best of meetings.  I am now at a crossroads as to how to proceed. I essentially have three options. The first one I don't want to do. I just don't know.  Piece of mind doesn't fix my foot. Nothing will fix my foot. Going into depression because of an injury is frustrating.  I'm young and pretty much I can't continue doing things that I love to do because of the pain I'm in almost daily sucks. I miss dancing. I miss Zumba. I miss being active cardio wise. Because of this injury I have gained about 60lbs. You wouldn't really notice it looking at me, but when you get asked all the time "when you're due" you know it is there. I want to lose this weight, but I dont know how without incorporating cardio. I already eat well, but that doesn't get rid of the fat.
It is hard to stay positive when your youth has been taken away from you. If the pain wasn't so bad, I would just work through it. But with that I worry that I could make it worse. Although with my foot already being slightly deformed,  how much worse could it get?

The Ants Go Marching 2x2

So last week I discovered we had an ant problem.  I didn't want to spend money on poisons, and I wanted a solution right then. So after doing some research on Pinterest,  I found out that if you mixed together icing sugar and baking soda, they can't tell the difference between the two and when they eat the baking soda it reacts with their digestive system and makes them explode.
So I mixed up a couple lids of it and waited a day for the ants to take the bait. Well that never happened.  The ants didn't touch it at all. So after some more research,  I discovered they didn't like vinegar. So I went out to the dollar store, bought a spray bottle, then proceeded to fill it with vinegar when I got home.

The ants didn't know what hit 'em. There was mass genocide in my kitchen.

Though I did find that if you sprinkle the ants with baking soda first and then spray them with the vinegar, it is a much more efficient way to kill them.

So hopefully you find this post informative and helpful if you were need to get rid of ants without resorting to poisons.

Ta ta for now