The Pipperstink

Hey there blog friends.  Pipsi here.  I'm taking over mom's blog today to talk about how I'm trying to slowly destroy their house.  First of all, the key is to look cute so that they can't stay mad.  Then, when they aren't looking, mass destruction!

It all started when I was a kitten.  I pretended that I wasn't big enough to jump high and would dig my claws into their kitchen chairs.  I also tended to climb everything in site.  The curtains, the walls, the lazy boy, the ironing board.  I've gained a bit of weight since then, so I just can't do the things that I used to do.

My mom really loves her duvet cover, so I try to dig my claws into that as often as possible.  It's a mess.  #sorrynotsorry

Lately I have been working pretty hard on their bedroom furniture.  I tricked Mom into thinking I'm cute by climbing on the drawers and crawling inside.  But on my way up I make sure that I scratch the furniture.  Sometimes I hear Mom say "we should have gotten her declawed."  Ha! Too late suckers, I got these babies now and I'm going to use them.

Caught in action

The other night, I saw a bug on the other side of the kitchen window screen.  So I jumped real high and put a hole in the screen and pulled it out.  My bad.  But don't you worry parentals, I got that bug! 

Silly humans think that I like them, but really I'm just trying to take over this house and make it my own.  Let's show them who the real boss is!

 

Expect the Unexpected

It's that time again! Big Brother is back to consume my life. At the beginning of every season I like to look at the house guests and take a guess at who will make it to the end. So much is based on the alliances that they make an who wins HOH each week. This season has a whole new twist to it as besides the HOH nominating 2 people for eviction, a fan voted MVP will also nominate someone for eviction. This could be a game changer as regardless of the alliance of the HOH, another alliance could still have the power to evict someone of their choosing at the end. Floaters grab your life vest is right!

Aaryn

I see Aaryn doing well in this game because she's a pretty girl who seems both smart and social and she didn't annoy me during the first episode. Some girls are just a bit too much and come on strong and I feel like they won't make it.


Nick

I think that Nick might have what it takes because he seems like an alright guy, not super athletic looking or anything, so I don't think he will be seen as a huge threat. I feel that he could play the Dan game of flying under the radar and making other people do his dirty work.


David

How do I put this nicely? That look on David's face in the picture? Kind of what he looks like all the time. Goofy and not incredibly bright. And for that reason, I think that he will join up with other athletes in an alliance and since he won't be the mastermind behind any decisions, his alliance members will be targeted before him.

Big Brother always finds a way to make the season interesting. The great thing about this show is that since it is aired basically live, they can make changes to the format and add twists depending on viewer reactions and how interesting the cast is making the show. I can't wait to see what is to come this summer!

All images found on the CBS Big Brother website.

Summertime and the Living's Easy

Remember the days when you were young and summer meant something different.  Once you were out of school, it was like you had some sort of freedom.  Now, we still have to work everyday and just have to try to soke up the sun as much as possible on evenings and weekends.  Despite the sadness that comes with this responsibility, I'm pretty excited for the summer.  There's a whole lot that I want to accomplish this summer!

I want to go on some hikes to waterfalls.  It feels like we never do this anymore or just never make the time for it.

Sit on my deck and read.  First I need a deck to be built, but hopefully that's coming soon.

Have a BBQ.

Go to the beach.

Eat on a patio.

Hang out on the pontoon.

Go for bike rides.



I would love to try paddleboard yoga.  Or just paddleboarding in general.


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Make smores on the campfire.

I could keep going, but I will stop there.  My main goal is to just take in the summer and enjoy it. Because before I know it we will be back to what feels like Canada's 10 months of winter.

Deliciousness on a Graham Cracker

First off, my goal for the summer is to work on my photography.  I'm not taking any courses and I think that it would be a great time to really focus on learning something new.  I also want to learn how to take better photos of food.  Some people out there have such great food pics an mine are just blah.  Half of the problem is that I'm usually too impatient and want to eat it before I take pictures of it.  Oops.

For the roofing event, I made these S'more Cookies.  My mom makes them all the time and they are deliciousness.  I'm not sure where she originally got the recipe from, but I googled it and found one on the blog The Girl Who Ate Everything just to make sure that I was kind of doing it right.  On that blog, she makes the chocolate chip cookies from scratch.  We use a roll of Pillsbury cookie dough, it makes these cookies quick and easy.  What more do you want from a recipe?

What you need:
Graham Crackers
Mini marshmallows
Plain chocolate bars - I used Jersey Milk
Pillsbury Cookie Dough

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.  Lay out the graham crackers on the cookie sheet.  Scoop tablespoons of cookie dough onto the graham crackers.  I put a bit too much on, they don't need to be large tablespoons.

Cook for 5 minutes.  Take out and press one square of chocolate into the middle of the cookie.  Add some mini marshmallows around the outside.  Cook for another 5-7 minutes or until the cookies look done.

And that's it!  Easy peasy.  One of the great things about these cookies is that they are pretty rich and so you usually only need to eat one at a time.  Which is good, because they may or may not be the most healthy treat around.

The Best Way Ever to Spend Your Money

We had an expensive weekend over here at the Osbott house.  We redid our roof!  I was just kidding about that fun way to spend your money thing.  A roof is the least fun way I know to spend a bunch of money.  It's a lot of work and you don't really get any enjoyment out of it besides not having a leaky house. 

However, we were extremely lucky that we have some great friends and family who were willing to help us out with it on Friday and Saturday.  Doing the roof yourself significantly cuts costs and so we are so appreciative to everyone who came out to help.

My assistance came in the form of food.  I bought the food and made some of the food.  Ryan's mom brought some as well an we cooked up a bunch of hot dogs and hamburgers for everyone at lunch.  Moral of the story, to get people to help you, make sure you provide them with sufficient beer and food.  But not too much beer, they are on a roof after all.

 It was touch and go for a while as twice during the day there was a pretty big thunder storm.  This resulted in a few wet spots in our house as it kind of came out of nowhere the first time and the roof wasn't fully tarped.  But luckily, they didn't last long and they were able to finish the roof.

It's nice that it's done and we don't have to worry about it anymore.  Now we can think about spending our money on something that is a bit more fun - a new deck! 

Pipsi had a rough day running around the house playing with my mother in law and brother and trying to figure out where all that noise was coming from!  So she was totally wiped out by the end of the day!  It's exhausting being a cat she says.

Breaking News!

Word on the street, and by street I mean the interwebs, is that baby Kimye has a name!  I was expecting some ridiculous name that started with a K like Kookaburra. 

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They named the baby North.  North West.
When you name a baby you have to think, this baby will have this name for the rest of her life.  Or at least until she gets married at the age of 17.

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 It's ok Kim.  People will only judge your baby name until another celebrity names their baby something ridiculous or Amanda Bynes commits another crime.  Then we will have better things to think about.

Weekend Wednesday

So I suppose I should share a little bit about my weekend.  It's not that my weekends are boring, just sometimes I don't feel that they are exciting to people outside of myself.  I'm trying to get myself to blog more though, and I think that part of that is just posting things sometimes even if you don't think that they are your best posts ever. 

This past weekend was especially great because it was the first one after my exam.  It's so nice to sit around doing nothing and not feel guilty for it.

Friday night, we went to see Now You See Me.  It was really great!  What was even better was that we used a movie pass that my mom had given us and so the two movies, two pops and popcorn cost us....wait for it....$0. 

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Saturday night was a little graduation get together for my sister.  We went to a local patio, had dinner and some drinks.  It was a good time.  Ryan also put up our new clothesline on Saturday.  I know, married life is thrilling!

Sunday of course was Father's Day.  So we spent time with both of our fathers.  We headed out to Ryan's parents for Brunch in the morning and then to my parents for dinner.  We took the traditional Father's Day picture. 

There's my weekend in a nutshell, and now I can feel better about myself for having taken the time to write about it.  If you have made it to the end, I commend you.

Bookish

I haven't linked up with Literary Junkies in forever, and I love to talk about what I've been reading!  So let's get started with this month's questions.

1. What are you currently reading?
I just started Dan Brown's Inferno.  And by just started I mean I've read the prologue and that's it, so I really can't say too much about it at this point. 

The last book that I finished though was called Look Again by Lisa Scottoline.  It was about a woman who has an adopted son, and then she receives a flyer about a missing kid who looks just like her son.  It was a pretty good book.  It took me a little bit to get to the point where I couldn't put it down, but I got there.

2. Who is your favourite book character and why?
This is a tough question for a reader.  The first person that comes to mind is Rachel from Something Borrowed.  I think she stands out because you should hate her for what she's doing to her best friend, but you are rooting for her anyways.

3.  What would the title of your memoir be?
I have no idea.  Maybe "Yes I have a lot of Freckles".  Just to put it out there right from the beginning.

4. You be the director! Cast your favourite book characters for the movie version that has not yet been made.
This could be difficult because it seems like they turn everything into a movie now.  Apparently Gone Girl is supposed to be a movie but they haven't cast it yet.  I think that they should bring back the Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams pairing. 

50 Shades of Grey is always a fun one to think about too!  I think that Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds would be perfect.  Blake is gorgeous but I think that they could make her look plain enough in the beginning to make it believable that Ana is so naive.  And I don't have to explain Ryan Reynolds...

5. What book or series do you remember reading as an elementary/middle school age?
I was really into Nancy Drew, which I have talked about before. 

Toning it Up

Usually on Saturdays I try to find a new workout, whether it be something from Pinterest, or combining different moves to make a new Tabata routine.  This week, I decided to check out the Tone it Up girls. 

 

I hear about these videos all the time, but had never actually done one of the routines because I usually like to watch TV in the rec room while doing my workout.  But their workouts are about 10-15 minutes longs so I thought, I can make it through 15 minutes of working out in the office with the computer!

 

The first workout that I did was the Barre workout.  I've heard so many good things about Barre, but there are no Barre classes in my area.  The moves look so easy, but they weren't!

 

Then, because I didn't feel like 16 minutes was a sufficient workout (for a Saturday when I have a lot of time that is), I did the Bikini Love Handles workout.  I thought that both workouts were really good and I'm sure I will be doing more of them in the future.  They are perfect because they have enough videos to do something new every week, and the videos are short enough that if you only have time for a 15 minute workout, you can do that.  15 minutes is better than nothing!

{via pinterest}

A Little Throwback Thursday

I couldn't resist the urge to participate in Bonnie's Throwback Thursday linkup, so I swiped this picture from my mom's facebook.  I realize that the quality is terrible, but mybe she just blurred my face so that people wouldn't know it was me driving that beast of a car.

 

Technically this is my second car.  I had this cute little red Grand Am that was in an unfortunate accident that we couldn't save it from.  So as a replacement my dad bought me a Pontiac 6000, also known as the Goole or Ralph, as we affectionately named him.

Despite Ralph's terrible exterior, he was a great car.  He drove like a dream and never caused us any problems.  He was a six seater, which came in handy on more than one occasion.  Sometimes when my sister would drive my brother to school, he would make her drop him off down the street so that other kids wouldn't see him arrive in Ralph.  One day my mom picked my sister up from school in him and my sister told her to never do that again because people would think we were poor.  It's one thing for a 17 year old to be driving Ralph, it's a completely different thing to be a parent driving him.

As ugly as he was, you really can't complain when you are a teenager who is lucky enough to have a car.  My sister might disagree with that though, I don't think she appreciated Ralph the way I did.

Exam Writing 101

As I wrote an exam last night it got me thinking about all that I have learned from writing exams over the past 5 years of post-secondary education and 2 years of designation courses.

Disclaimer: I am not an exam writing expert, just someone who has been writing exams for what seems like half of her life.

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1. Don't study too hard

This seems opposite of what you should do right?  I mean study hard, but don't go to your exam and sit outside the room with a piece of paper trying to cram stuff into your brain, because it won't work and it will just stress you out.

2.  Don't ask people who are writing the same exam as you if they have learned this and this and this

That freaks them out and will leave them panicked.  And it's basically just rude.  And maybe I don't care if I get 11% on this exam because I have calculated it and I only need 52% to pass the course at this point.....end rant.

3.  Bring multiple pens and pencils

You don't want to be that person who runs out of ink.  And bring both, even if you think you won't need a pencil, in case you forgot that the multiple choice was using a scantron sheet or something.

4. Relax before the exam

I stop studying a few hours before my exam to just chill out.  You also don't want to be exhausted when writing.  Take a nap that day if you need it.  (Or sleep for an hour and a half yesterday if you are me).  If your exam is in the morning, study hard the night before, but go to bed at a reasonable time and get enough sleep.

5.  Eat

Nobody wants a grumbling stomach mid exam.

6. When it's over, celebrate!

Usually, when I have an exam on a Saturday, I go shopping on my way home.  Because when you are studying for an exam you never feel like you have time for that.  It's nice to do something you enjoy without feeling guilty for not studying.

7. Forget about the exam afterwards

There's nothing you can do to change the results at this point, so don't go over every answer in your head and worry about it.  Easier said than done for some people I'm sure.

 

I could keep going, but I will stop at lucky number 7.  I know that everyone has their own exam writing style and the things that work for them.  So really this is most likely irrelevant to most people, but it is what has worked for me!

A Wand for Me

I am a huge Harry Potter nerd.  I want to go to Harry Potter Land like yesterday.  It's all my brother and I talk about.  So lately we have felt like should probably have our own wands.  We need them.  Pretty sure a wand is a life necessity.  We were talking about whose wands we would want.  Ideally of course I would want the wand to choose me, but if that doesn't happen I'm sure somebody else's wand would suffice.

Harry's Wand

I guess that the obvious choice would be Harry's wand.  That right there is a nice looking wand.  But everybody probably wants Harry's wand, and I don't like to be like everybody else.

Hermione's Wand

Next up is Hermione's wand.  I'm not really a fan of the light colouring, so it's out.

Bellatrix's Wand

Bellatrix had a neat looking wand, but I feel like the curve in it would be hard to handle.  My spells might go in the wrong direction.  And she's a bad guy.





Cedric Diggory's Wand

Now Cedric Diggory's wand would be powerful.  He's a wizard and a vampire.  

Ron's Wand

Ron's wand is nice looking too.  It looks pretty sturdy and I feel like it would do its wand thing well.


Ginny's Wand

In the end though I think I would choose Ginny's wand for a few reasons.  First of all, I'm a ginger so I relate to Ginny.  Also I like the colouring and size of this wand, I feel like it would be the perfect wand for me.

What's that?  You can't actually do magic with these wands?  That's the great thing about Harry Potter, we can always pretend that it's real.  Someday one of these wands will belong to me...I just need to make the trek down to Florida. 


All wand pictures from here.

Farewell, Old Friend

My PVR just died.  I was in the middle of enjoying an episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County when it just stopped.  Then it told me that I had to reformat my PVR, which it wouldn't let me do.  So I unplugged the PVR.  Last time this happened we did that and it started working again, without us actually losing any of the 1,568,578 hours of TV that we had (I mean I had) recorded.  Now it doesn't even read that we have a PVR.

So now I'm blogging, hoping that the PVR is just angry with me and is perhaps sick of playing The Real Housewives and needs a break.  If I go back in half an hour maybe it will work...

Luckily, TV season is basically over, so I'm not losing too much.  We will lose the 6 episodes that we haven't watched of Two and a Half Men and a whole bunch of movies that I had taped from the Movie Channel.  But it could be worse.  That's what I keep telling myself.

On a happier note, last week I purchased a new camera lens.  It's a 35mm F1.8.  It's just beautiful, and she's so petite and cute.  I haven't had a lot of time to play around with it, but so far I'm pretty happy!  I had been wanting the 50mm forever, but was questioning whether I should go for the $250 version of the lens, or buy a better camera so that I could get the $150 version.  Then the other day, I just felt the urge to buy it, and the 35mm was on sale.  It's probably cheaper to spend an extra $100 on the lens as opposed to buying a new camera.  I'm really impressed with the amount of light that it lets in.  No flash required for indoor shots, it's fantastical!

A Thought

You are not behind schedule, and there is nowhere else you should be on your journey. The mind likes to continuously tell us otherwise. It likes to make comparisons to other people; it likes to convince us that we aren't ok, and our life should be fixed in some way or another - but it's not true. You have a choice. You can accept your reality or you can fight it. Either way, you are exactly where you need to be." - Byron Katie.

How often do we feel that our life isn't where it should be.  We think we should be married by a certain age, have kids by a certain age, be making a certain salary.  I've been there.  I was supposed to be married at 24, have kids at 26, 28 and 30.  OK well maybe I'm not that behind yet since I did get married at 24, but my chances of having kids by the time I'm 26 are slim!  But that's a lot of pressure to put on yourself.  You might rush through life an do things that you aren't really prepared for, just because you think that's what's expected of you.

We compare ourselves to our friends.  We think, well so-and-so is married and has a house and a real job, why don't I?  We are disappointed in ourselves when we graduate from university and don't have a job that pays $80,000 immediately.  If everything in life came easily, would that be fun?  What would we learn about ourselves then?  We wouldn't be able to see how strong we really are.

I guess it's just important to try and see the positive in life's situations.  Easier said than done, right?  Know that you will always move past any situation.  You are never in any life stage for long, situations change quickly.  So enjoy what you can out of them while you are there.