large blunt needle

yesterday i was going to be joining some friends for boot camp. i was excited because it was going to be challenging and with 3 awesome ladies from work. before bootcamp i met up with another friend and i was telling her about this new adventure i was going to be undertaking that evening. she told me that it was a level 5 intensity of out 5 and it was outside. yikes! no way was i gonna do that. i haven't worked out since my car accident in august and cold air and asthma don't go well together. so i bailed....and ended up convincing another girl to bail (that wasn't my intension though). i decided to have her over and we would do the Biggest Loser Boot Camp video. when we got to my place i was super thrilled about this new endeavour. i ran up, threw my workout clothes on and began searching for my yoga mats and medicine balls. i came across one yoga mat quickly, but my other equipment was no where to be found. i rumaged through every room, closet and cupboard in my house. still nothing. the only place left unturned was the big wooden chest in the basement. i turned the lock and quickly whipped open the lid. only for it to hit the wall and come crashing down...................on my finger. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! the pain was excruciating. i stumbled up the stairs and laid down. my nail was white with a chunk of purple and the pad of my finger was red and blue. i have broken many bones in the past, but never experienced pain like this. after 20 minutes of attempting to catch my breath and protecting my hand, my friend calmly suggested that i call my husband. i left him a whiny message: "i think i broke my hand. i hurts sooo bad. call me." he came home and drove me to every clinic, only to be turned away due to too many H1N1 patients. i opted out of going to emerg and decided to grin and bear the pain until morning. steve tapped my fingers and i went to bed. all night i tossed and turned, had my hand squished, and popped tylenol after tylenol. in the morning i got up, finger still swollen and throbbing, and headed to work. later in the afternoon i visited to my doctor. he told me the tip i "probably broken", and there is nothing that can be done for that. he told me i was in more pain than i needed to be in due to pressure from blood under my fingernail. he came back with a "large blunt needle," and proceeded to force it through my nail and into my finger. he took it out and squeezed my "probably" broken finger. the pain sucked! to my dismay, no blood flowed, and he followed that with "let's make that hole bigger." the "large blunt needle" was back in my finger in a jiffy. he whipped it back out and squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. i stomped and stomped and stomped my feet in pain. he told me to continue to squeeze the tip of my finger for the rest of the evening to avoid clotting. HA! fat chance. i will not be inflicting that kind of pain on myself. awesome 24 hours!

courtesy car frustrations

this sunday my sister and i are making thanksgiving dinner for our family (i know it's a random day to do it but my parents were away for canadian thanksgiving and the american one doesn't work for me). yesterday i went to save-on-foods to pick up a turkey. i know NOTHING when it comes to cooking for this many people and i also know nothing about cooking turkey. so i called my mom. i asked her a million questions about how much the turkey should weigh (being that there will be 8 people eating it), how long it will take to cook, can i cook it in a bag to speed up the cooking time, how much time to do i need for thawing it, how do i go about thawing it? after my 20 questions i picked out a frozen turkey that is almost 6kg. i paid and went out to the car. this past week i have been driving around a chevy colbalt courtesy car since our mazda was in getting repaired from my recent accident in aug (which wasn't my fault by the way). the colbalt is fine, but not as nice as the mazda. i am used to our car and hate learning the ins and outs of a different vehicle. anyway, this car is lacking in some bells and whistles (such as automatic locks and windows) and yet it has other functions such a weight/seat belt sensor for the passenger seat. anyway, since the doors don't automatically unlock with the press of a button i only unlocked my door. i got in, put the turkey and my purse on the passenger seat and drove off. within a minute of putting the car into drive a noise startled me. BING, BING, BING, BING, BING...etc etc etc. it went on and on and on. it was quite sneaky, it would make the stupid noise and have an annoying light flashing on the dash for maybe 15 seconds and then it would stop. i felt relief. yay, the noise stopped. then it began again. i couldn't figure out why it was doing this and what the noise was supposed to be telling me. after almost yelling at the car i clued in. this car is under the impression that there is a human sitting next to me that needs to be belted. how does that even make sense? i am no mathematician but isn't 6kg around 13 lbs? no human can be in the front if they weigh less than 50lbs (in fact they are to be in the back in a booster seat....or at least that's my understanding). does this car think i am an idiot and would allow a small child to sit in my front seat and not be belted? i finally succumbed to the car's wishes and belted my turkey.

halloween

well halloween is coming up and i am super excited to be living in a townhouse cause that means i will most likely get some little trick or treaters this year! i pretty much haven't had any kids visiting my house in 11 years. when i was 13 we moved to langley into the country (from burnaby) and we didn't get trick-or-treaters, then for 2 years i lived in a condo and we didn't get kids there either. now, i have no idea how much candy to buy. i purchased 2 boxes of candy (each with 90 bars) but is that enough? i will give at least 2 to every kid. the big problem is that since this candy has been sitting on my kitchen table i have been eating it. normally my kitchen table doesn't get used at all so things that are on it we don't even notice. however i recently moved our computer out of our living room and onto the kitchen table so now the candy is starring me in the face whenever i am online. it's really not good. according to the empty wrappers sitting next to me i have eaten 6 small chocolate bars in the last hour!!!!!! ahhhhhh!!!! i think i better put the candy upstairs so that i have to actually take stairs to get any....that might stop my eating frenzy. I calculated how many choclate bars i will go through if i eat 6 eah day until halloween and i will eat 60!!!!! holy crap, that's almost an entire box. must hide candy!

toe nails

i have been spending a lot of time with my grandpa these past few weeks. my parents have been on an amazing cruise for 3 weeks so i have stepped up my visits with grandpa so that he isn't so lonely. i have taken his pants in to be drycleaned, picked up random stuff for him from the store (such as hickory sticks and mints), helped him fill in his new phone book, taken him to 2 eye appointments and today i had the lovely pleasure of escorting him to the podiatrist. i didn't know what i was in for. i sort of thought i would just pick him up, drive him there, wait for him in the waiting room and drive him back home. but no.

some background on my dear grandpa. he hates being late.....not only does he hate being late, he hates there even being the slightest possibility of being late. he is also seriously lacking in confidence so he doesn't trust his eyes or eyes to get him from point A to point B.

his appointment was at 11am. he asked me to pick him up NO LATER than 10:30. the appointment was literally a 2 minute drive from his house. when i arrived to pick him up he was sitting in the lobby with his coat on, hat on, sunglasses on, and his walker. when i walked in he shot up and was ready to leave. we were in my car by 10:33, with his walker safely stowed in my trunk. we drove to the dr.'s office and i found a spot to parallel park right in front of the office. we were in the office by 10:38. so we sat and waited......and waited....and waited. MANY people went in and out. the office was filled with the elderly. i guess they are the main ones who need someone to clip their toe nails for them. one thing about older folk is that they don't realize how loud their voices are. my grandpa told me a very lengthy, and in depth story about his nausea and diarrhea that took place from saturday afternoon to sunday morning. good times!!!! i am sure my face was bright red as i noticed the lady across from me, who had accompanied her mother, snicker. by the time grandpa was called in to the office it was 11:25. he got into the chair (much like a dentist chair) and asked me to remove his socks and shoes for him because he wanted to be ready as soon as the dr. arrived so there wouldn't be any time wasted. i was not looking forward tot his, i removed his shoes no problem, but taking off his socks made me cringe. they were tight, especially on his left leg which is always swollen due to having a vein removed for his heart transplant. once they were off we sat and waited another 10 minutes. when the doctor showed up he clipped those nails so fast and then pulled out this crazy drill looking contraption. he turned it on and boy was it loud. then he grabbed the end of a vacuum hose and held it close to the drill/file thing. he then "chiseled" away at my grandpa's big toe nail on his left foot. as he did all the filing were sucked into the vacuum. it was a rather nasty process. then he went on to the other foot. man oh man i could NEVER do that job. it literally only took him 5 minutes to do all of my grandpa's nails. the doctor left and i then put my grandpa's socks and shoes back on, loaded him into my car and took him back home. we walked back into his place at 11:55.....5 minutes before lunch.

what a morning.

tough crowd

last night i had a lovely evening out with the girls. linds, janine and i went to see couple's retreat. i had no idea what it was about before getting into the theatre. i laughed a lot, so did my friends. everyone in the theatre laughed and gasped in unison. yes, there were some parts that weren't overly appropriate (i don't get how it was rated PG, but whatever), but man oh man was it funny!

today steve was actually home. yippee! we decided to go out for dinner and go to a movie. we looked at what was playing and there was nothing. for every movie either i had seen it, or he had seen it or neither of us wanted to see it. we decided to go see couples retreat (even though i saw it last night.....i figured i laughed so much the last time that it would be fine to see it again). we ended up inviting my brother since he has been home sick with asthma issues for a few days and i think he needed some time out of the house. i told them both how funny it was and told them that they would love it. as every pee my pants funny moment passed there was an awkward silence. nobody was laughing....what the heck?!?!?! i started to feel stupid when i wanted to laugh. am i lame? why am i finding these things funny when no one else is? was everyone just hyper last night when i saw it the first time? or are these people lacking in a sense of humour? i don't get it. needless to say neither steve or brad enjoyed the movie. i feel bad that there was money wasted on this movie all because i told them it was excellent. i guess the crowd makes a big difference. i actually almost fell asleep near the end. i don't like the people i saw the movie with tonight (not steve and brad, but everyone else). i used to think i would enjoy critiquing movies but i am started to feel like i would have a lot of upset readers.

blonde moment

i hate losing my cell phone. whenever i get home i immediately go through my purse and and grab my phone. it comes with me pretty much everywhere other than the bathroom. today when i got home i put my stuff down and started rumaging through my purse so i could check my messages but i couldn't find it. i began to feel a little anxious so i started pulling stuff out of my purse. still no phone. i grabbed my keys and ran out to my car (God forbid i miss a call or a text). i searched the front seats the floor and the cup holder where i normally keep it while driving. no phone. i went back inside. took a couple deep breaths and looked through my purse again. i checked under the bench where i put my purse when i came in, just in case it had fallen on the floor. no phone. i began to retrace my steps. i had my phone when i left school. i talked to my brother when i was driving lauren home today. i went to my chiropractor appointment and i remember hearing my phone beep with texts during my appointment. did i leave it at the chiro office? nope, i definitely checked my texts when i left the office. so it had to be in my car right? i went back outside to check my car again. really started to get overly frustrated by this point. i finally decided that i would ask my sister (who i was talking with) to call it so i could hear if it was in my car. then i clued in. i was talking to my sister.....on my phone!!!!! oh my gosh!!!!!!!

you may laugh at me

i don't really have anything exciting to write about today but i thought i would share my most embarrassing moment with all of you. i have told this story to some people so if you have heard it before i apologize.

when i was in college i took a course on learning disabilities. the prof, bill, was great and often started class with an activity that would help us feel like we are 'learning disabled'. he had us look in a mirror and trace a picture. it was difficult because it's flipped. he had readings for us where all the bs, ds, ps and qs were mixed up to illustrate what it can be like to be dyslexic. one day he put a bunch of different paragraphs on the overhead and had different people read them outloud. some had the letters mixed up, or the lines all over the place, or words jumbled. others had wrong spellings for each word. we did our best to to get through each one at an alarmingly slow pace. when it came to the last one bill asked for a volunteer to read it. no one wanted to. too many people had been embarrassed by their speed. i finally raised my hand and said i would do it. i decided that the best way to get through it was to go back to the basics. i would read it phonetically. i struggled through the whole paragraph, sounding out each letter. people snickered throughout my attempt, but i didn't mind because i had done the same to those before me. when i finally made it to the end i was relieved. bill looked at me oddly. he just stared. i looked back at the paragraph on the overhead and saw (to my amazement) that it was in perfect English! The look of shock on my face must have been priceless. bill spoke up "well, thank you lael. however the point of that paragraph was to demonstrate how fluent OUR reading is in comparison to that of someone with a learning disability." SHOOT!!!!!!! i wanted to die! thankfully i was in the front row and could not see anyone's expressions behind me. english is not a language where you can rely on phonetics. there are many rules and exceptions. and yet i managed to completely botch it.

judging

today i did a much needed grocery run. i am one of those shoppers who is super embarrassed by the junk food i buy, or anything that is remotely unhealthy. today i purchased TONS of veggies because i am in charge of bringing veggie dishes for thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. i used the veggies to hide anything that the person in front of me, behind me or the cashier would deem as 'unhealthy'. i don't know about any of you, but i often look at other people's groceries and needless to say i judge them based on what they are buying. the people who only buy organic fruit and veggies i think are possibly a little pretencious. those who only buy pop, pizza, chips and cookies i tag as being close to a heart attack. i also look for animal food, or baby food and make assumptions based on those items. then there are those who have a normal balance between junk and healthy food. today the majority of my groceries were healthy and not things i would be embarrassed about. rather i was secretly wishing that the ladies before me and behind me were scoping out my healthy loot. i always make sure that i tuck the pack of gum under something else, hide my kettle corn amoung fruit and veggies and lay a pack of toilet paper over any pop (i didn't buy pop today though). am i weird, or is this fairly common?

thursday night movies

every thursday some friends and i get together and watch a movie. yesterday we couldn't agree on a movie. 4 of us wanted to watch shattered (since we had never seen it and it has pierce brosnan and gerard butler in it) and one smart mouthed guy (jk) did not want to watch it because he had never heard of it and assumed it would suck. the same guy wanted to watch benjamin button because the girl is 'hot'. we then spent the next hour discussing who is and isn't attractive in the hollywood scene. here is a list of who was mentioned as being attractive:

FEMALES:
liv tyler

(not attractive in my eyes...looks too much like her dad. i don't know what the guys see in her. anyone else think she is good looking? yes, she is skinny but is ther anything else attractive about her?)

cate blanchette

(i don't like the combo of her hair and skin colours. i also think she is a little old for the guys who were saying they think she's 'hot'. what's with that? i thought guys usually went for the young ladies?)

jessica biel

(obvious choice, beautiful and totally in shape)

jessica alba

another obvious choice....i think jessica biel is more attractive because she has sharper features.)

scarlette johansson

(this was a hot topic. some of us thought she was on the slutty side. she plays some innocent roles, but somehow she always looks like she is trying to look sexy. she does some weird thing with her eyes and mouth. she smizes (smiles with her eyes) and leaves her lips slightly parted. it's annoying. she also often wears low cut tops. ok, i get that she has a nice body, but doesn't the face count for something???)

eliza dushku

(pretty, but she was in Bring It On, which is pathetic. some pics of her look good, others not so much. i actually can't think of a single movie where she played a memorable character.)

MALES:
bradley cooper

(my fav. great smile and eyes, nice hair (even though brown hair is better than blonde) and he plays great parts in movies. always the nice guy)

timothy olyphant

(yesterday i said he was not attractive but looking at more pics on google i have changed my mind. he looks kind of like matt from 7th heaven which i don't like but it has a bit more of a rugged edge.)

jason statham

(i don't see it, especially since he was in crank and that movie was ridiculous. he looks too tough and kind of mean, plus i hate shaved heads.)

at one point steve called and tried to add his in favs too but he couldn't remember her name, what she looked like or what movies she was in......needless to say he had nothing to offer. :D

i find it totally crazy how people can have such different ideas when it comes to who they find attractive. we are all made so differently. there were some meanish words tossed around during the 'discussion', but overall it was hilarious! we never did get to a movie.

so those are my thoughts. let me know if you agree, disagree or is others should be on this list.

fruit flies

fruit flies may very well be the death of me. this year has been a bad one for those little bugs. everyone has complained about their kitchens having tons flying around. janine once had a status on FB asking for ideas of how to get rid of them. i now i am not alone in this. and i know it's not because of a messy house. janine's house is clean, my house is clean....so don't judge me. :)
last week steve and i were all excited because we hadn't seen any around for a few weeks. it was a delightful moment when we realized that our home was fly free. saturday evening we went out with a couple from our life group and when we came home we had quite the shock. steve went into our ensuite and there were at least 60 of these pests. then he noticed tons flying around our bedroom, in the hall and in the main bathroom. i started to feel itchy all over. we made up bowls of beer and some of juice, put saran on the top and poked some holes in the saran and scattered the bowls around our top floor. the flies were quickly attracted to them, especially the beer. there was no way i was going to sleep in that room with all those things flying around. so we moved our mattress onto the floor in the den and set up camp there. the next morning a ton of them were in the bowls. i squished most of them using the saran but there were still too many flying around. i tried to kill them one by one but they are pretty fast (plus having dead bugs on your heads is pretty nasty). steve found some bug death spray. we sprayed the whole upstairs and the main floor for good measure. when we came home most were dead. there were still some fiesty ones. i went at them with the death spray again but inhaled way too much. i spent the next half house hacking and drinking water. once they were all dead i cleaned my house like crazy. wiping every surface, vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing etc. it felt awesome to have everything sparkling again. i put our bed back and felt awesome. the next morning i went into the bathroom and there they were. a few more of those STUPID GROSS FLIES!!!!!! the last few days i have been activly trying to kill every single fruit fly i see. it feels like a huge victory when one of those guys fall on the ground or splatters on my hand. (most likely i will be dreaming about them tonight after writing this. :P )

pickles

food is not something i really enjoy. i hate more foods than i like. general groups of food i don't eat:
red meat
pasta
salads
most fruit
raw vegetables (with the exception of carrots with my dip)

it is fairly well known that there are some foods that gross me out so much that i don't even want to be around them. i can be around red meat or pasta, I can even make those foods, but some things make me cringe. pickles are the worst!!!!!!!!! i hate the smell of pickles, I hate the site of pickles, I hate the thought of pickles. next comes mustard. oh my gosh it's super nasty! i hate the sight of it and the smell. there is one food that i have already told the kids in the class i work in not to bring near me. oranges. they know NOT to bring an orange to me and ask me to peel it. I have explained to them that oranges disgust me and if they bring one to me to open i will just stare at them until they clue in. yuck yuck yuck. they stink, and they have weird white stringy stuff on them. finally i despise yogurt. it also has a strong smell. it settles into a watery level and the thick level. i hate watching people mix yogurt. ew, why would anyone want to eat it? opening kids yogurt packs is a difficult thing for me. i am always scared that when i pill the tin foil top off the container that it will splatter on my thumb. i don't want to smell like yogurt. i hate being in the class when it's snack or lunch time. all the smells make me want to vomit. it's pretty brutal.

i have a few pickle stories that have almost ruined my life. as a kid my brothers would chase me with pickles because they knew i couldn't stand it. of course it got a reaction out of me which is why they did it. my one brother would often eat pickle sandwiches. i hated those lunches. ew ew ew, i feel a little sick just thinking of it. my fear if pickles started at a young age and has only escalated since. the summer after i graduated i went to europe with my family and grandparents. one day we took a train from the north coast of Germany to Berlin. It was about a 2 hour ride. There were a bunch of cabins on the train and then a skinny hall connecting the cabins. When it came time for lunch we were all given a bagged lunch from the tour guide. Everyone seemed to dig in at the same time. All of a sudden my brothers began to laugh. I looked in my bag and saw a large tin container. Each one had a HUGE gurcken (pickle) inside. I began to panic. all of my family members opened their containers, took the little fork from the bag and shoved it into one end of the pickle and slowly pulled it out of their container. they cabin quickly filled with the smell of pickle. i went out into the hall as quick as possible but no matter where i went it smelt like pickle. everyone was thoroughly enjoying their gurcken. i ended up sticking my head out the window to escape the smell. and believe me when i say that that smell doesn't go away quickly. a year later i started working at ABC Restaurant as a cook. I did my best to avoid pickles. i didn't tell anyone about my fear because i was worried that i would then always be asked to make the food that required pickles. i had been there a few months before i had an encounter with pickles. it was the dinner rush and i was in coldpass. that meant that i made salads and desserts and did any running around that was needed when anything ran out. amidst the rush i was handed a metal bowl and asked to quickly fill it with sliced pickles. i briefly froze. i wasn't sure what to do. i wanted to hide the bowl and pretend that no one asked me but i knew that wouldn't be wise during the stressful dinner rush. so i ran into the fridge. i found the pail of pickles and took off the lid. thankfully the smell wasn't too strong due to how cold it was in the fridge. i sat there on the floor of the fridge trying to get up the nerve to pick up the pickles. i heard someone say "where's lael with the pickles?" i knew i needed to hurry up. i took a deep breath and stuck my arm into the bucket of pickle juice up to my elbow. i grabbed as many pickles as i could, dumped them into the bowl and ran them back out into the kitchen. i then proceeded to scrub my arm as many times as i could without delaying any orders. not a run night.

pvr woes

shows i am addicted to:
house
survivor
the office
jon & kate plus 8
real housewives of new york city

the top three are the ones i am commited to following (even though i have seen all of the episodes of jon & kate and real housewives) and i am always excited to watch the newly recorded episodes. yesterday i was at Bible study and when I got home i rushed to the tv switched it on and immediately went to my list of recorded episoded to select house. it wasn't there. i almost shouted "what?". i was freaking out. i quickly went to the guide and searched every channel from that moment until midnight to see if it was going to be playing again so that i could record it. but nope, no such luck. the pvr had recorded heroes (for Steve) instead of house. Some sort of time conflict. it often records 2 things at once but not this time. i was greatly disappointed. NO ONE TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED. I plan on finding it on the web, there is no way I can wait until it comes out on dvd or reruns to watch it.

etc etc etc

Wow, I am now part of the blogging world. For those of you who have know me for more than 5 minutes you have most likely noticed that I love to talk. I have a lot of random thoughts and I decided that I might as well put them out in the wonderful internet world for all to read. Haha.

Thought number 1 that I have been dwelling on for weeks.
Do you know someone who acts really confident but you have the sneaky suspicion that they aren't? There is such a person in my life. She is lovely and nice and all those warm and fuzzy words but also she comes across like she has everything together. She talks like she has a lot of knowledge, especially in particular areas. She tells me what to do, tries to control me and then compliments me when I do something well that an ape could do. It's irritating! She means well, i know that. However, there is another side to this woman. She constantly asks me what I am doing, if she can do _____ and ______, if she did alright, how I felt about _____ or _____... etc etc etc ETC!!!! She doesn't seem to be comfortable being in charge or letting me be in charge (when those situations arise). She needs a lot of reassurance. I am not sure how to deal with this lady. Should i just keep on telling her "good job", "you did great!" etc (like you would to a child), or just tell her that she needs to let go and trust herself and me? I am getting to the point where I am having to tell myself quite frequently "take deep breaths Lael, it's ok, she just needs time to settle in, she will figure it out and find her place". I am not sure that this will help for much longer.
I have always struggled when it comes to having a backbone and sticking up for myself. Slowly over the last few years I have had some opportunities to work on this, but it doesn't come naturally. There are some parts of my life that require me to use this aquired skill. I am starting to see that maybe, just maybe I need to stop grumbling and actually talk to this lady. Awkward converstaions.......not my fav.