TV Time in the Summer

It drives Ryan nuts how much TV I watch.  But I can't help it, it's just the way that I am.  I don't have outdoor activities like he does.  He probably wishes I would spend my TV time actually putting away all of the clean laundry....I mean I don't have 4 hampers full of clean laundry waiting to be put away!

This summer I have actually found that my TV schedule is fuller than usual.  That's probably not a good thing.  Of course Big Brother is one of my favourites and it always takes up three nights a week. 

My biggest issue is that everything is on Monday nights.  5 hours of TV.  Don't worry, I don't watch it all, I tape some of them to watch later.

So I start out my Monday nights with Under the Dome.  I missed the first episode but have gotten totally into this show.  I can't wait to find out what they do when they run out of food!

Then of course, there is The Amazing Race Canada.  I think that they are doing a great job with this, and it doesn't seem cheesy like a lot of Canadian TV.  Canada is really stepping up their game with their reality TV shows!

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I think that my favourite show at the moment is Mistresses.  I have said that I would watch this even if it was on in the fall and I had to choose it over some of the other shows that I watch.  It's kind of a cross between Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives.  And that right there is a good combination. 

My other go to shows are The Real Housewives of Orange County, The Challenge: Rivals II and Kendra on Top (hides head in shame).  Nothing like watching other people's train wrecks for your own enjoyment!  But seriously, can Diem and CT just get married already?


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It looks like the trend here is reality.  I don't know why I can't quit you reality TV.

Something I would never say....{via}

Prince George

So I'm a bit late on this one, but I feel that something like the birth of a future King of England needs to be mentioned.  It's kind of a big deal.  And although a lot of people seem to be annoyed and don't understand why there is so much media coverage of it, like it or not, this is a big moment in history. 

My mom used to talk about how she got up early to watch Diana and Charles wedding, and so when Kate and William were married, I made sure that I got up early to watch as well.  I still remember where I was when we found out that Princess Diana had died, even though I was young enough that I didn't fully understand it.  So the birth of this baby is important.

I was somewhat disappointed with the name choice.  George just doesn't seem like a baby name to me and I had high hopes that William and Kate would buck tradition just a little bit.  I shouldn't have been surprise because their wedding was also very traditional.  I think that had the baby been a girl, we might have had something a bit more modern but still a name fit for a queen.  Something like Charlotte or Sophie maybe.  I'm very interested to see how the name George jumps up on the baby names list.

But I think that the most fascinating aspect of this whole thing, is pictures like this:

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I saw one article that said that it was disrespectful to women that there is so much discussion about Kate showing off her post-baby bump.  I think that it's the complete opposite.  Women gain a lot of their insight on post-pregnancy bodies from celebrities.  You don't see celebrities come out after having a baby until their body is back in pre-baby shape.  Which seems to be about 3 weeks after giving birth.  This is completely unrealistic and gives women and unrealistic goal when it comes to having a baby.  I bet a lot of people don't even realize that your stomach doesn't just disappear when you give birth.  So I think that it's fantastic that Kate is showing that she's a real woman and that the post-baby bump is irrelevant when you have a new baby in your arms.

So congratulations to William and Kate on the birth of their new son!  I hope that they are truly enjoying every minute of it. 

This Week

This week has been a blah week.  I've just been in a bad mood and I'm not really sure why.  Time for a vacation I say!

To go along with my blah week, I have had nothing to blog about for what feels like months now.  I do love blogging.  I feel like it makes my uncreative accountant brain a bit more creative.  During those non-blah weeks, I also feel like blogging can make you enjoy life more and appreciate the little things.  You look for things to blog about, and so that causes you to participate in more activities or look for the positives in the smaller and seemingly insignificant moments. 

In other news, I have been doing Jillian Michael's 30 day shred.  I have only skipped it for alternate workouts, so I'm on either day 10 or 13 depending how you look at it.  Today was my first day of level 2.  I had done this workout a year or so ago, but I forgot what a challenge it is!  I literally had sweat dripping off of my forehead.  TMI?  If a 20 minute workout can make you drip sweat, then I think that's pretty good.  I feel like I worked much harder than I do in a lot of 45 minute fitness classes. 

Do you ever go to your Pinterest home page and you can tell that one person went on a pinning frenzy?  For example, I just went to Pinterest and the first 20 pins on the feed had dogs in them.  This also happens with muffins (or food in general) and similar wedding pictures.  This is just an observation, I don't really have a point.  I'm sure I have done the same thing.  People probably thought I was cuckoo for cocoa puffs when I started pinning everything Jennifer Lawrence.

How's that for a random Friday post?  I guess that just shows how disorganized my brain has been lately. 

Summertime

The biggest part of summers for us is time at the cottage.  My grandpa and aunts and uncles built this cottage back in 1988 when I was just about a year and a half old.  So it's been part of my life for as long as I can remember.  Each family had their own room and we would spend weekends up there playing with our cousins.

Oliver loves the cottage!

Thursday there was a 3 week old baby that came to visit

Things have changed a bit recently.  Most of us are grown up, some married with kids of their own.  As the family has increased, the room in the cottage seems to decrease.  So, we now do individual weekends.  Each family has two weekends in the summer where they can go to the cottage and invite anybody they want.  Long weekends are for everyone, but no extra guests.  This past weekend was one of our weekends.


My dad found a turtle, Oliver didn't know what to think

Luckily, it was a beautiful weekend.  I went up to the cottage on Wednesday and we were still in the middle of the heat wave.  So Thursday and Friday were quite hot!  (And Friday was quite stormy in case you missed that post!)  The heat wave broke overnight on Friday, but it was still a nice warm weekend.

The PAL Lounge

  

On the Pontoon

I read on the deck, I sat in the lounge, and I read in the pontoon.  Basically a lot of reading.  I'm reading Amanda Knox's Waiting to be Heard and it's fantastic, I couldn't put it down!


The box got wet, so we are down to a classy bag of wine now

That's basically it.  What else do you do at the cottage than read, suntan and eat?  I guess sometimes we hide out in crawlspaces, but that's pretty rare.

Through the Storm

This past weekend, I took Thursday and Friday off and went up to the cottage with my mom and sister.  My dad, Ryan and my brother were going to join us after work on Friday.  This weekend post is actually going to be a two-parter because Friday was pretty eventful.

Everything started out well.  They were calling for thunderstorms, but it was a nice morning.  The heat wave hadn't broken yet, so it was about 40 degrees and the wind was actually kind of nice.  I had invite my friends Adam and Meaghan up for the day with their baby.  My cousin Ryley and his girlfriend had also come for the day.

We did know that there was a tornado watch, so it was something that we were aware of, but so far the sky was blue.

Then everything changed.  The sky started to get dark so we cleaned everything up and moved up to the deck, underneath the awning.  It wasn't raining yet, but we were sure that the rain was imminent.

Then it just started pouring.  The wind was blowing, so Tali and I ran out to try to deflate our eight person lounge before we went inside.  We were all sitting around inside, enjoying some wine, talking about what game we should play if we were stuck inside for the rest of the afternoon.

I'm not sure what changed and what made us think that we needed to be a bit safer than we were while we were sitting in a living room with a full glass wall.  My mom was napping so we went in and told her that we were going to the crawlspace.  She took us seriously because that's not something that we usually do.  I closed a bedroom window and noticed that a tree was already down in the driveway. 

The cottage doesn't have a basement, just a crawlspace.  I have never actually been in the crawlspace before.  Until now that is.  We thought that it's better to be safe than sorry, so up the floor came and in a few of us went.  It ended up that only Meaghan, Tali, myself and the baby were down there.  I'm not too sure what everyone else was doing, watching the show I guess.  They saw the floating dock fly up and barrels come flying towards the cottage.  They saw a tree fall in the front yard.  We were just down in the crawlspace making sure that we had room for everyone.

 

Crawling out of the crawlspace

Eventually the storm stopped and we went outside to this.

 

Trying to collect the missing barrels

The broken dock

The neighbour's Willow tree, which took out about 5 of our trees

The driveway - It's going to be tricky for our guests to leave!

 

Luckily, we have a friend who's parents live on the lake.  Her dad came over with his tractor and chainsaw to help remove the tree from the driveway so that people could leave.  We were also so lucky that we had invited people up for the day.  It would have been a pretty scary situation (well scarier than it actually was) if it had of just been us three girls.

 

 

The girls even helped

 

I made it through the Tornado Mom!

So yes, Friday was eventful.  Luckily nobody was hurt.  Our cottage and the one next to us seemed to have the worst of it.  As far as we know, there wasn't an actual tornado, just a lot of wind.  But it sure did create a pretty big mess to be cleaned up.  Our poor cottage guests will probably never come back....But I'm still pretty glad that they were there and that we weren't alone.

 

Throwback Thursday: Moving Out

This weeks Throwback Thursday topic is moving away from home.  The first time that I moved away from home was to go to University.  University is kind of a nice way to go about moving out of your parents house because it's only for 8 months at a time.  But that first time is still scary.  Not only are you moving away from home, but you are going to a new city with little to no friends and have to do school work on top of that.

Yes, that is my doll making sure she isn't forgotten

I chose a University that was about two hours from home.  I thought that this was close enough that when I wanted to come home I could, but far enough away that I wouldn't rush home every time the urge struck.  I still feel that it was the right choice for me. 

Living in residence kind of eases you into the whole living on your own thing.  You are around lots of people and have a meal plan and don't need to do a whole lot on your own.  Then second year kind of pushes you into the real world a little bit as you need to start buying your own groceries, and making a solid effort to get to school on time as class is no longer a five minute walk from your bedroom.

This was actually moving out of the first house, but we moved out about 6 weeks after we got married

Now, if you want to talk permanent moving out, I suppose that would be when I got married.  But I'm a special case here as I moved approximately half a kilometer down the road.  I can go home whenever I want.  Those people who move across the county, I don't know how you do it.  Even people who permanently live 2 hours from their family, I think that would be tough.  So I'm glad I live close.  This is how I grew up, with all of my family in a 15 minute radius.  My grandma could pick us up from school if my mom was busy (be prepared for that mom!).  

For some people moving out is really hard.  For me, although it was a change, I really liked the independence that came along with it and not being accountable to anyone except for myself. 

Introversion

Lately, I have read a couple of posts on Lesley's blog about introverts.  They are awesome and you can read them here and here.  And they made me more aware of the fact that I am an introvert, and so am not as weird as I thought.  They have also got me thinking a lot about this whole introversion thing that I'm dealing with.

You know those busy weekends that are jam packed with activities?  I hate them.  Socialization drains me.  Does that mean I'm anti-social?  Maybe.  But maybe that's ok.  Ryan is definitely an extrovert.  He loves to go out and see friends or spend time at the neighbours.  I also like friends and neighbours, but given the choice, I might choose to sit on the couch and watch a movie, because that's what I find relaxes me.  It works out well I guess for us, because as long as he spends some time with me, I don't mind that he goes out and sees his buddys without me.

Parties stress me out.  Even when I know everyone there, there is just something about them that I find hard to deal with.  And this is something that is probably the most difficult for me.  I don't want to be that person who never goes to things, because people will start to wonder about me.  So maybe I will go to a party for a few hours and then leave.  It's not because I don't like you, it's just because I've had enough.  I would much rather spend time with a few close friends than go to a party with a lot of friends.

It's amazing to me actually how misunderstood introverts are considering that they make up one third to half of the population.  When trying to find that statistic, I came across an article called "Are extroverts happier than introverts?"  I think that unhappiness in introverts may come from this misunderstanding.  We go to parties because we feel like we should and that nobody will understand if we aren't there.  But these activities aren't where we derive our happiness from.

So this long post has been to say, be kind to the introverts in your life and try to show them a bit of understanding in social situations!

My name is Kaileigh, and I am an introvert.

{via pinterest}

Well Isn't That Nifty

It was my mom's birthday this past weekend.  I won't give away how old she was, but it might rhyme with nifty....

Anyways, we had a small party for her on Saturday night despite the fact that she requested no party....It was just a few friends and family members, a camp fire and some snacks really.  It was mostly to fool her about what was going on the next day, on her actual birthday.

Oh heeeeey limo.

My dad rented a limo for us all to ride down to this restaurant that my mom loves in. 

She actually had mentioned that morning (while we were sitting around a camp fire in 35 degree weather...don't ask....) that she would like to go back to this restaurant for her birthday.  I think we all did a great job of keeping a straight face.

So we rode down in the limo.  It was about a two hour drive.  A few beverages were had along the way, that's the point of a limo right?  And what's classier than a box of wine in a limo?

The restaurant was right on Lake Ontario.  So we had a great view and great food. 

We had planned on eating her cheesecake in the limo on the way home, but we forgot the forks and plates.  So we ate it when we got home.  Which worked out well because my dad then got to light her candle with a blow torch.  Is that not normal?

Normal is not a word that is typically used to describe my family.

It's Friday...

It's Friday morning and what I'm looking forward to most is crawling back into bed tonight.  How cool am I.  At least I'm going out for lunch today with some co-workers, so I have something else to look forward to and to break up my day a little bit.

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Last night was another eviction episode on Big Brother.  If I had a lot of money on this season, I would basically be broke by now.  I made predictions at the beginning of the season that Nick, Aaryn and David would do well.  David was the first gone, Nick was the second and apparently Aaryn is a racist who is sure to be evicted soon and I'm kind of embarrassed that I chose her.  But that's the thing about this game.  You would never guess that the cute little blond is a racist, that the surfer dude would be the only guy not to join the guy alliance, and that the guy alliance would then break up by the second week.  This game is moving quickly. 

On the bright side, there aren't really floaters this season.  I think everyone is playing the game, which is a nice change.

That's all I have for this Friday morning.  I promise to try harder next week, blog.

Throwback Thursday: My First Job

Time for another Throwback Thursday!  My job in high school was amazing.  There was none of that jumping around from job to job for me.  I got my job in Grade 9 and stayed with it until I went to University.

I was a concession girl at the local arena.  This means that I sold things like pop and chips, chocolate bars, 5 cent candies and made french fries and chicken fingers.  But we also had time to have a lot of fun.  I started at a measly $6.40 an hour, which seemed great for someone who had never earned an income before.  I worked with some great girls, and in our down time (which was often), we would always have fun together.

One time we set up all of the 5 cent candy boxes with a spoon and one 5 cent candy on the far side and dominoed them so that the 5 cent candy would go flying.  That's productivity right there.

That was back in the day when I had a metabolism that didn't allow me to put weight on.  We could eat whatever we wanted while we were there.  Oh man, the self control I would need if I worked there now.  We ate french fries and at least one chocolate bar every shift. 

We were also allowed to do our homework there.  Win win situation, right? 

The other young folk that worked there were the Rink Rats.  Yes, I do believe that was their actual title.  They were the boys who would do some cleaning and go out onto the ice while the Olympia (I called it a Zamboni once and was told that it was actually an Olympia) was resurfacing the ice to move the nets.  It was the type of job that you could make friends at because you worked so closely with individual people.

It was a sad day when I had to quit that job because I was leaving for University. 

I have no pictures at work, but this is me and my booth buddy back in highschool