Happy Father's Day!

Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Janice who was the first child,



first grandchild,




and first great-grandchild*.


She was so blessed to have such wonderful men in her life.

Happy Father's Day!

*At least on one side of the family

One of THOSE People

I realise I haven't written in a month but to be fair I've been sick. Yes, I've been sick for the last month. I can't believe that I've become one of THOSE people who seems to be sick all the time. It started with dizziness then about 5 days later my ears started to ache. Convinced it was an ear infection, I went to the doctor that informed me that it was only viral that it could last 2-4 weeks.

After 3.5 weeks of not doing much but watching TV and improving my Tetris skills, I started feeling much better. This was following by 3 consecutive nights of not being to sleep very well which was followed by 2 very busy days and then I ended up being sicker than before. Bleh. I returned to the doctor in which I was informed, it is still only viral and all I can do is rest. Double Bleh.

Don't get me wrong, I love watching TV and I really am a home-body by nature but I'm sick of being stuck in this house. Yesterday I was feeling that best I have in a very long time. I was feeling awfully restless so I decided to go on the treadmill. I don't know what I did to my neck but by afternoon I could barely hold it up. On top of that I've had tension headaches the last two days*.

As far as the immune system goes, it really isn't a surprise how sick I've been considering the amount of black mold I've been exposed to over the last 3 years. I had black mold in my classroom in Calgary after a flood. After I quit that job and as I prepared to move back to Regina to return to university, I discovered black mold under my bathroom sink. Upon returning to Regina, I experienced increasingly worse migraines, fatigue and various other ailments. My doctor and allergist were just convinced that my immune system just need some time to recover until I ended up in the hospital twice.

Blog posts that I've started in the last month but intend to finish someday:
- Crush of the Week: Whedonverse Edition
- Memorable moments of each year of my life

Sorry this wasn't terribly witty or well written. If I want to get back to writing, I figure I just need to start even if it is awkward.

*I have no idea why because the most stressful part of my day is trying to get past level 9 of Tetris. It really is my own fault since I'm not an ambi-turner.

The people in your neighbourhood

For the third night in a row, there were some strange noises outside keeping me awake at night. Finally figured out that the neighbour has been doing construction work in the middle of the night. I've been hearing hammering and the table saw all night. Blah. I wish I was brave enough to go over and tell them to stop.

I realise I finished 3 sentences in a row with the word night but I'm too tired to care about variety in my writing.

Spam or just a creepy person?

Comment left on my blog:

Hello Dearest,
My name is Judith, I found your contact today and I would like to start a good relationship with you, if you are interested please contact me through my e-mail for easy communication and from there I will scan my photo and send to you. thanks from Judy.
God bless you.

Who wants to be a princess?

Have Royal Wedding fever? Always wanted to be a princess? Try the princess maker.



Princess Janice

One Ticket

It has never been easy for me to make friends. The "get-to-know-you" stage has always been the most difficult because I'm complete rubbish at small talk and even worse at flirting. I've had many close friends move away and others starting families. Instead of complaining about how I don't get to see old friends as often, I became resolved last October to overcome my nature and meet new people. Easier said than done...

I've met a lot of interesting people in the last several months that I would love to get to know better. My greatest difficult now is asking "Hey, want to hang out?" I'm always looking for the perfect opportunity that never comes. Case in point: I have an extra ticket to a Salsa night this evening. I originally bought two because I figure that it force me to ask someone to go with me. I did ask someone but there was a miscommunication as to when it was so now I have an extra ticket again.

There will be other people there I can hang out with tonight and I know I will still have fun but that really isn't my point. I feel like the ticket is a symbol of my current inability to "put myself out there". Did I have time to ask someone else? Yes. Did I have people I wanted to ask? Yes. I'm not sure if anyone of them would have been able or interested in attending but I certainly didn't ask to find out.

Even though I'm not talking about romantic relationships specifically, my situation reminds me of the Herman's Hermits song "No Milk Today":

No milk today, my love has gone away
The bottle stands forlorn, a symbol of the dawn
No milk today, it seems a common sight
But people passing by don't know the reason why

How could they know just what this message means
The end of my hopes, the end of all my dreams
How could they know a palace there had been
Behind the door where my love reigned as queen

It isn't a symbol to anyone but me. It probably doesn't bother anyone but me.



PS This is my new dress that I will be wearing this evening

A Blogger's Dilemma

I'm having an online identity crisis. Things have changed so much in the 3 years since I have been out of teaching. I've been thinking about this for awhile but I am really feeling like a need a non-anonymous online presence. The braveness started with posting links to my blog on twitter then on Facebook. It was hard to admit to people I've known my whole life that I had a blog for years. I've done a pretty good job of keeping my professional and private life separate online.

If I started new blog but how often will I post to the old one? What would I post on the new blog? Do I take some old posts and put it on the new blog?

Should I just scrap my current blog? I like a place to share/vent my silliness and certainly think it would be unprofessional. About a year after I started my blog, I had hundreds of visitors a day but now on a good day I don't even have a tenth of that. Maybe it should just be contained to Facebook?
Even though I'm Facebook friends with most of my readers, you just don't have the same control. On the other hand some of my best writing on this blog was about the hockey playoffs last year. This writing is not related to education but certainly not unprofessional.


Would you (all three of my readers) be worried about being connected to me using my real name? So many bloggers I know have worked so hard to stay anonymous. What happens when one is anonymous no more? My dad and sister are anonymous bloggers but would be no more if I did not handle things carefully.

SO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT.

There's No Rest for You Here (a haiku)

Saw dust in the air
Jackhammers beneath my feet
When will they be done?

Sweet, Delicious Nitrates (a haiku)

"Have bacon for lunch"
Beyond doubt, I have no choice
Scrabble foretold it


Current Scrabble game between myself and May-B.

Glad she never became a teacher

While I was on a former student's Facebook profile, I noticed she had updated her education:

For those keeping track at home, this would be 3*

I woke up with such a fright, I couldn't get back to sleep for hours.

In my dream, my dad and I drive a school bus to a hospital to pick up twin boys who are friends of the family. Dad kept the bus running and I went inside to retrieve them. My sister met me inside but we couldn't find the boys anywhere. We looked down the atrium to the main floor and we could see Data from Star Trek fighting off zombies with a phaser. We jumped down three flights to help with only a barbed wire fence to break our fall. I'm not sure what Mary was using but I was fighting off the zombies with my mom's letter opener.

This morning after church I told the twins and their brother about my dream. They were super jealous that I have such awesome dreams.


*This is my third zombie related dream. Others include Zombie Grandma and Zombie Apocalypse. Technically my dream about the Count from Sesame Street attacking was a continuation of a dream about the Zombie Apocalypse but since there were no zombies in the dream I don't count that one.

Comfortable (or how I spent $50 on a pillow)

My RMT went to New Zealand for a couple months to train for the Ironman Triathlon. In his absence, I've been seeing May-B's RMT who works in the same office. Her diagnosis: "You have a great core but the rest of your body is a mess." Tell me something I don't know.* She recommended a new pillow since the one I've been using are a couple years old.

I have a hard time finding pillows that I like. Since I sometimes sleep on my side but mostly sleep on my back it is hard to find a pillow that will be comfortable for both situations. In the store I tried out all the pillows but the only one that seemed comfortable was $49.99. This might not be a big deal to you but I have never spent that much on a pillow before. I've been having so many neck problems lately it certainly didn't seem like the time to skimp.

So far so good. Most of the time my neck feels worse in the morning but now it either feels about the same or better.

Wow, that was a really boring post. I'll try to make it more awesome:








*A couple months ago my chiropractor gave me "as we age..." speech. Ouch.

My First Crush

I didn't even know his name. He was so cool the way he wore that yellow pail handle around his neck. We played in the sand that one afternoon but then never again. Years later when I was grade 1, I bemoaned to my friends what could have been. I certainly never went through a boy hating phase.

I've always loved winter

One of my favourite winter memories was the time my dad made a tiny ice rink in our backyard. By tiny, I mean it was probably less than a metre in diameter but despite the size I had so much fun skating on it.

We are the (bridesmaids) stereotypes

The new movie poster for Bridesmaids makes me feel so clichéd.




Been there, done that


Photo taken July 16, 2005

What Rough Beast

I realize the poem is about post-war Europe but I think it is very applicable in a post-9/11 world:

The Second Coming
W.B Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Student Logic

Yesterday I had to deal with two students who handed in the exact same lab report. The department has a very clear policy on the matter which they are informed about during the first lab.

The first argument was "I didn't know I couldn't copy off of him".

The second argument was "I did all the work so I should get full marks".

The third argument was "We live together and copying saved me a lot of time".

The argument degraded to "C'mon, you should give us a break".

I'm not sure how anyone of those arguments is supposed to help them. They fully admitted what happen but tried to justify it.

Dear Adobe Acrobat Pro,

You didn't do a very good job recognizing text. Smarten up!



Love,
Jsnny

I might have forgiven Jerry O'Connell

As a teenager I had a huge crush on Jerry O'Connell. First he was on My SEcret Identity then later on Sliders. I swear, every time something important happened on TV on Sliders, his character was in the shower so he's have to come running out in a towel.

The first time Jerry O'Connell was on Conan, I was disappointed to discover that he was uninteresting and a bit of a moron. [My sister can verify as she remembers watching it too]. I think he might have redeemed himself after the Golden Globes:


I love photobombing! I also found this awesome one of Michael Douglas.

Didn't know the old man had it in him.

My favourite photobombing of all time belongs to my mom's dog Prince:

Dear Firefox,

Don't be stupid, Scrabble is obviously not done loading.



Love Janny