sold

I've been locked out of my online banking from my home computer for quite some time because at some point or another I accidentally typed in the wrong answer to a verification question. Something about my mother's first name and her legal first name not actually being the same word and apparently I forgot which one I had used as my answer... *sigh*

After 20 minutes on the phone with a very nice girl, I got my password and verification questions all reset, got everything up and running again, did my banking and she even conned me into buying some GICs! All without stepping foot inside a bank.

Two years ago this bank account was paying 4% interest - it was wonderful! Now, it pays 0.75%. Sick. (That's 'sick' in a bad way.) The GICs I was sold are paying 2% at the moment which is only slightly better than a kick in the pants, but since this is my 'maybe someday 40 years from now I'll actually be able to afford a house' money, I figure I can tie it up for a couple years without too much harm coming from it.

Now, if I can only figure out the exact formula for investing my RRSPs so that I don't lose money on them year after year...

So much for 'Freedom 35'

Sunburned again

Ok, if you see me sitting out in the sun at any time over the next two months, just tell me to put sunscreen on. Seriously. I have been burned enough this summer and its only June. On the plus side, I almost got rid of that watch tan, and I am successfully fighting off the farmers tan (something that was necessary before my little bro gets married).

On the watch front: Telling time wasn't really that important this weekend - big family gathering on a lake (not my real family, but my adopted family), essentially it was a 3 day holiday. Time isn't really important when your goal for the day is to sit outside reading a book! However, I still caught myself on a number of occasions about to ask someone, anyone, what time it was. I was hanging out with a watch-free family though. Only 1 person in about 20 even had a watch - figures, it was the military man. I think I need to replace my watch, and soon.

We fasted today. All of us. A proper 12 hour biblical fast. Not something you'd typically do at a family gathering, but it was important, so we did.

At church this morning the speaker talked about fasting and prayer: why we do it, why we SHOULD do it, the significance of it, the biblical nature of it, the results of it, denial of things versus the denial of self (selflessness vs selfishness). And possibly the one point which stuck with me the most: on average, us lazy North Americans eat 40% more food than we really need. Gross.

Telling Time

I didn't sleep well last night (which is totally beside the point of the blog), it was hot... and then I got a couple texts (which I was glad to get)... but then it was 2:30am before I finally fell asleep again.

I woke up quite begrudgingly to the sound of construction at about 7:30, and then again at 8am when my watch beeped its alarm.

That was the last sound my watch will ever make. It beeped long enough to wake me up, and then promptly died.

I guess... it was about time. The watch has gotta be 10 years old; the indiglo light quit working about 7 years ago; its had no less than 3 replacement wrist straps; and I've not once changed the battery.

I'm so used to always wearing a watch that I almost put it on this morning anyway just so that I wouldn't feel naked. But I didn't and, aside from the white un-tanned stripe on my wrist, I am watch-free.

So...

Do I go cheap, replace the battery, and continue wearing the watch I am so familiar with?

Do I visit the jewelery counter at the local Zellers and pick something, dare I say, a little more 'girly'?

Or do I shed the watch altogether and free myself from telling others what time it is? Becoming one of those people who rely on others to feed their constant demands of 'do you know what time it is?'

Decisions, decisions. Oh well; my weekend starts in about 3 hours and I won't need to know what time it is until Monday morning.

Maybe I'll work on getting rid of that watch tan.

I am so friggen tired of saying 'goodbye' to people.

Fr Adam left work today. He's off to study in Rome for 3 years. I'll probably never see him again.

Just one more person in the list of people who have stepped out of my life.

And if you recite that 'people come into your life for a reason, season, or a lifetime' hallmark crap to me, I might punch you in the nose.

Signs, signs, everywhere signs

Granted, there are some pretty silly signs out there. We've all had at least one email forward full of 'actual' signs that make you go 'wha??'.

But on rare occasions, you might actually get to see one of these signs in real life!

And so, for your viewing pleasure, I'd like to add a sign to the collection:





That's right.
This is a real sign. It sits all new and shiny, about 5miles from my parent's house, on the edge of a paved road.

Now, I donno, maybe I just wasn't aware of the Tree Ent problem in the area...

Maybe the small trees are more feisty? A little more spry and unpredictable in their movement perhaps? I'd personally be a little more worried about a big one jumping out in front of me!

The thing is, the sign appears within a clump of rather tall, seemingly securely rooted, cedar trees. Not a 'small tree' in sight.

I have a feeling that the dumb-ness of the sign is directly co-related to the alcohol consumption in the area.

Slow down

I woke up this morning to the news on the local radio. A warning that a local country road continued to be closed to traffic after a nighttime car accident.

There is only one reason a road stays closed for that long after an accident. They didn't say it on the radio; they didn't have to.

Sort of a deflating way to start your day.

You start praying to God that it wasn't anyone you know, but when you live in the sticks like I do... Well, there aren't '6 Degrees of Separation' out here, there are about 2.

Didn't hear anything about it again until late afternoon when a 'We'll miss you Becky' status appeared on facebook. Facebook. Word travels fast on facebook, faster than anywhere else it seems. But today it was remarkably quiet.

Finally found out the circumstances the old fashioned way: by talking to the parents. They knew; of course they knew - it happened within the borders of this fine township we call home.

Gravel truck, little car, missed stop sign. Not a pretty thing. 'Becky'? Well... no, I don't know her. But like I said, only a couple degrees of separation in this neck of the woods. I do recognize the name. My parents do know her parents. And a whole lot of people's lives just got shaken up.

Makes you think. Makes you sit back, take a breath... Slow down.

Unintentional

My blog has become drivel. Here's some more!



OHMYGOODNESS!

It has taken me 5 whole months to realize this...

Look at my profile picture up there in the right hand corner.

Yeah, now, look at the profile picture on THIS blog.

Look familiar? They should. They were taken at the same place on the same day. And apparently, we both like to take wonderfully flattering self-portraits.

Silly.

I can't believe it took me so long to realize I used a similar picture - how embarrassing :S

Oh well! :P

(The owner of THIS blog could likely put up a similar picture - not that he would, he's just not that cool.)

Blog, blog, blog. !

I've been blogging less. Why? I donno

• Maybe because I don't feel like I have anything blog-worthy to discuss.
• Maybe blogging has deep-seated emotional ties that lets the writer explore his/her innermost secrets, allowing him/her to muddle through the difficulties of life while still being vague enough to keep most people in the dark. And I don't need that right now, so blogging has become unnecessary for me. ? :P

Meh. I mostly made that last one up.

• Mostly, Its SUMMER!! And I have better things to do that sit here for hours on end writing silly stuff for you to read.

For example: I've been watching the tv series "Firefly". Many a good person has given rave reviews to this show. 'Ooh', they say, 'you like Dr Horrible, you'll love Firefly! They're very similar.'

Umm... yes? Ok, but... really, they're not. Captain Hammer and Captain Reynolds are played by the same actor I guess.

Dr Horrible is this 45 minute comic book hero/superpower/feel sorry for the bad guy/satirical/musical that is even more fun just because it isn't a high quality film. Firefly.... Well... Its good and all... I've watched about 8 or 9 episodes of it.... but.... Lets take every hour long Saturday afternoon tv show ever made (Zena, Hercules, Sinbad, That 3 Musketeers one, The Relic Hunter etc, etc), bunch them all up, pull out a space cowboy adventure, and ta-da! Firefly. Meh.

I bet you feel very enlightened.
How about this:

When I wake up in the morning, my house is shaking because of the construction down the street.
When I get home at night, my house is shaking because of the construction down the street.
My car is filthy dirty because of the construction down the street.
I have to take an annoyingly traffic-jammed long way to work every day because of the construction down the street.

Why'd you even bother reading that?? Its completely useless! Yeah, construction - its SUMMER! Get over it.

And now, I need to go grocery shopping. I've got a family reunion and a bridal shower to attend this weekend and both require food.

mmm.... bacon wrapped waterchestnuts....


As an added bonus to you my dear faithful reader, just because you have made it this far:
I have had a song stuck in my head for a good week or so. Goes like this:

If you're going through hell, keep on going
Don't slow down, if you're scared don't show it
You might get out before the devil even knows you're there

Why I have that song stuck my my head, I really don't know. Good advice I guess, but I don't really feel like I'm going through hell right now. At all. Seriously. Life is peachy. So... If YOU are going through hell, by all means, stick this song in your head. But for the love of all things good and holy, GET IT OUT OF MINE!!! Its driving me crazy.

K. Grocery shopping. I trust that it will be an uneventful trip.
Ciao

Boys are Stupid, or so I've been told

So way back when I was young and naive and had just started working, there was a priest (my boss at the time) whom I met, but didn't ever get to know very well. A couple months after I started working, he moved on. He's not even a priest anymore; he still works for the church, but now he's married and is no longer called 'Father'.

He calls people in the office once in awhile just to say hello, but I always sort of assumed that he had forgotten about me. Afterall, I had only been working, part-time, and not directly with him, for a couple months before he left. But apparently he asks about me sometimes.

The last time he called, so I've been told, he casually asked if I was married yet. (That would be a no.)
His response was 'Well, Grey County boys are stupid for not marrying her!!'

:)

100

This is my 100th post.

Ridiculous, isn't it?

I should be in bed.
I should be writing something a little more '100th post-ish' instead of just random junk.

But...

My windows are open and I can smell the sweet perfume of skunk.

Some dude just drove down the street blaring his horn (I could tell it was a guy by the way the horn sounded - just trust me). That happens more often than you would imagine. I don't know if they like to think they're waking up the old folks in the nursing home next door, or trying to piss off the cops down the street or what. Its just annoying.

A group of people just stopped on the sidewalk outside talking loudly and swearing. I kinda think they were talking about buying drugs - they were trying to figure out how much money they had between them anyway. Where is the landlord's dog when you need her anyway?

I stumbled across the National Film Board website today. Naturally, I went looking for one thing. A 10 minute cartoon I hated watching as a kid, but now it's nostalgic and therefore cool: The Sweater. Didn't we all want a Montreal Canadiens sweater after watching that?? I also found The Cat Came Back, which I also vaguely remember watching as a child.

Speaking of hockey, am I the only one who thinks Detroit should win tomorrow night? I don't care if they won last year, that doesn't automatically make it Pittsburgh's turn to win this year! (Not that I really care, I don't really follow sports anyway.)

Tomorrow is Friday. That's a good thing.
I'm going to have dinner at Kings Buffet. That's an even better thing!

Am I... do I sound like a different person through my blog than I do in real life? I mean, there is that certain element of being able to hide behind a computer screen that makes me feel more willing to share thoughts and ideas through my blog. But man, some days, I wonder if my blog is taking on a personality of its own and maybe it's not a true reflection of who I really am. Or maybe it is?

Here is a picture

Here is the story behind this picture:

I went for a walk one evening this spring. It had rained most of the week; things were wet.

I was almost to my destination when I looked over and saw a jet of water gushing out of the ground.

'Haha', I thought to myself, 'the sprinkler is broken!'

But then I realized that I was standing in a park-esque area surrounded by woods. It would be silly for a sprinkler, or any sort of water pipe, to be there.

Take a good look at that picture. That isn't a water pipe. Its a tree root.

Who woulda thought?

What would cause a tree root to become hollowed out so that spring runoff could run through it and then spout up into the air?

I thought it was a really cool thing! But there was no one around for me to share it with. And then I wondered... What if I am the only person to have ever actually witnessed this crazy little thing happen?! I mean, there's a lot of little circumstances that all have to be just right for that to happen; what if I'm the only one to have ever been there at just the right time to have seen it?

What if it was a God thing?

What if God said to himself, 'self, I'm going to make something way cool to show to one of my kids. Just me and her, we're the only two who will see it - it'll be something we'll share, it'll be great!'

Wouldn't that be cool?

I think that's something God would do.

Nothin' but birds

I woke up quite suddenly at 4am last night. No idea why. But my brain immediately went into gear and started thinking thoughts about work. That was annoying. I normally try really hard to not think about work when I'm not there, but I had a meeting last night and that always throws my brain into overdrive. Boo meetings.

Its amazing how wide awake you can feel at 4am, and then how completely exhausted you are at 8am when you should be getting up!

Its also amazing how quiet the city is at 4am! Nothin' but birds! That's all I could here, the morning chirping of birds.

Now, in the country, birds chirping at 4am is the most horrendously annoying sound on the face of the planet! I have cursed those birds on more than one occasion - how dare they wake me up before daylight! But in the country you can hear birds chirping all day long.

In the city, between the hours of 5am and midnight or 1am, there is constant noise: traffic, sirens, jackhammers at the construction sites, lawn mowers, horns, loud music, kids yelling, that stupid drumming circle, traffic, traffic, always traffic. Human noises completely drown out nature noises.

So to hear absolutely nothing but birds chirping, if only for a little while, was one of the most peaceful things I have heard in a very long time.

And then there was an ambulance siren.

And then I feel back to sleep.

We're all a bunch of scallywags

I was at a concert at the Molson Amphitheatre in Toronto on Saturday. It wasn't just any old concert where you listen to the artist, shout & yell & scream, lose your voice & your hearing, fall in love with the band, and then run out & buy the t-shirt.

This was a Hillsong United concert. A worship service. A three hour (8pm-11pm) concert which included all those things I mentioned above, but also included somewhere in the neighbourhood of 12,000 young people praising God. It was really neat.

From what I gather, Hillsong is a community church in Sydney Australia (the single largest church in all of Australia - so big it has its own leadership college). Hillsong United is the praise & worship band from the church and they are so widely popular that they now go on world tours and end up in places like Toronto.

Honestly, they're good. But they work the worship service formula: start with high energy songs to get the crowd warmed up, throw in a prayer or some words of wisdom, sing some more loud songs, bring out the high-energy youth speaker with the great sermon, guilt 3/4 of the crowd into thinking they need to respond to an altar call, sing an hour's worth of quiet reflective songs, then when we all think its just about over, pound the crowd with some more high-energy songs to rock out to and send them all home happy & smiling! They really are good! Just... predictable.

Anyway... One of the girls in the band used the term 'scallywag'. And, as much fun as it was to hear her repeat the word in her Australian accent, she made a good point that the church is full of misfits & scallywags who don't have the answers, and who don't have it all together, and who are generally messing up left, right & centre, and are ultimately banking on God's grace & love to get us all through. The church is far from perfect because the church is full of scallywags. I forget that sometimes and expect the church to be perfect, and then it disappoints me because it doesn't live up to my expectations. Scallywags. Remember that.

When new bedsheets become exciting

Had dinner out with some friends & my parents last night. (uh... I saw the bill... sorry about that - at least the appetizer was free? Love me anyway, right?)

The friends, I have known since kindergarten. Next year is party year - we're all turning 30, and we will have known each other for 25 years!! That calls for a week away somewhere with lots sun, beach, and booz- ... heh, good books. The friends also didn't subject me to the gigantic horns of doom that Montana's likes to put on people's heads, so I guess I'll keep them around for a little while longer.

The parents, bought me bedsheets. And I was excited about it! That right there is a sure sign that I am getting old. My ideals have changed and I now get excited about boring things. wow!

No birthday cake though. (so... technically... I'm still 28?)

However! My brothers also have June birthdays and we will all be home together in a few weeks. I have been promised a bunny cake for the occasion! I don't know what it is about a chocolate cake in the shape of a bunny head wearing a bow-tie that makes it just so great - It might just be the nostalgia of childhood, or quite possibly the increased icing to cake ratio. Either way, bunny cake; even more exciting than bedsheets. :)

Now hiding from birthday cakes (but not really)

When adults become your peers

*sigh*

I was at a church book study tonight. It was about The Shack of course, because The Shack is the 'in' thing to talk about these days. It's been six months or so since I've read it; I've forgotten most of it, but I remember thinking that it was good at the time, so you should probably read it too.

It (the book) confirmed for me the idea that God is much more about relationship than rules, that judgment is not an easy taskmaster, and that love, although sometimes difficult for us, is not impossible because the core of God's very being is love.

The book talks about a 'great sadness' - that is, the pain and turmoil, whatever it may be, that you can't help but dwell on and it ends up affecting your very being. The shack itself is a metaphor, a symbol, of a person's heart where the great sadness is locked up and hidden behind a facade. The inside of the shack becomes a cold, hard, and dead place while the outside of the shack is painted nicely with its white picket fence out front; a look that says, 'nothing's wrong here', to keep people from getting a peak of your great sadness that is killing you on the inside.

In theory, at some point or another, everyone struggles with their own great sadness. And that's where I ran into a brick wall tonight.

My own general preconceptions, which I have carried with me from childhood, are that a) Adults have it all together, and b) Children are burden-free.

Now, just to clarify, I don't generally consider myself an adult. I'm hitting the big 2-9 tomorrow, but adult I am not. Adults, after all, have children who are my age. My parents are adults, and my friends' parents are adults, therefore, I am still a child. Besides, I don't feel like I have 'it all together', and adults do, so obviously I'm ain't no adult yet. (yo)

Back to book study: there I am, younger than anyone there by at least 25 years; a room full of adults and me. And everyone there is talking about their great sadnesses, times when they hurt, when they question, and doubt, and are conflicted. Current situations where they feel like they don't know what to do, they don't have the answers, they don't have it together.

But, wha... no, wait, uh - no. Adults aren't allowed to feel that way!

And there I am, a child in their eyes, (in my own eyes), with burdens and great sadness of my own; my shack locked up tighter than Fort Knox and my picket fence all white and gleaming on the outside. Dare I say, I couldn't admit to them that I have my own great sadness because I didn't want them to think that someone as 'young' as me would/could possibly be burdened by anything.

Talk about turning my preconceived notions on their heads! So if adults don't have it all together, and children carry around just as many burdens as the adults... then, holy crap! Who has the answers??

And suddenly, these people who were once my sure-footed wisened elders are now my burdened-down doubting questioning peers. God help us all!

Dear Summit Energy Guy;

I'm onto you and your sly ways. Knocking on doors, expecting people to just hand over their hydro bills with no questions. HA! You probably lure small children into your vehicle with candy too, don't you?

Forgive me that I was so dumbfounded when you told me that you had to see my current bill that I just stood there wondering if there was more to your offer. Or did you actually expected me to leave you standing at my door while I ran to retrieve the paper you sought? As if you have some wonderful power vested to you by the Summit Energy gods to go around hounding Hydro One's customers! But the idiotic 'you do get a hydro bill, don't you?' question when I didn't move from my post at the door was a little out of line. Rude even.

Tell me Sir, how many doors are slammed in your face on a daily basis?

Oh, and when I said, "I know what Summit Energy is about, and I'm not interested", that actually meant, "go away and never come back".

Mid-week birthday, not so bad

You know what the cool thing about a mid-week birthdays is? You get to play the 'yeah, but, its my birthday' card the weekend before your birthday, the day of your birthday, and the weekend after your birthday. Not bad. It's unfortunate that it took me 29 years to figure this out - so many missed opportunities!

Thus far, the weekend before my birthday was pretty swell. Saw lots of friends, had some good fun.