Things That Make Me Smile

So because yesterday's post was all angry and bitter, I thought that I should even it out a bit.  Not everything annoys me, there are some things that make me smile.  And I'm going to mix in there some pins that make me laugh.  (This is a bullet point because right now blogger is making me not smile.)

Kittens and puppies.  Especially my kitten.

Anyone who has a cat will get this

• Christmas.  I'm so friggin excited for Christmas.  I think that I get more excited every year. 

• The moment when you are finished writing an exam, and although you aren't sure how you did, you know that there is nothing else that you can do about it.  That will be me at 10:00pm on December 3.  5 more sleeps.
• Christmas Music.  Not going to lie, I have been listening to it for about 2 weeks now.
• This is why I want twins
• Wine.  Sometimes after a long day, nothing tastes better.

• This long group of clips from Friends.  I promise it's worth it.  I really miss this show sometimes.

Pet Peeves

Today I want to share pet peeves.  A lot of things really grind my gears.  Not going to lie, I'm easily annoyed.  So here are a few of the things that bother me:

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• People who update their bbm to people who don't have bbm.  If they can't see it, why are you making your status to them?  
• When people put drinking ahead of other things.  I get it, it's fun.  But being present for family and friends is more important.  
• People who update vague statuses so that you ask questions.  Saying "What a terrible day" or "I'm so proud of my son"  I refuse to ask you.  If you want attention just say "I'm so proud of my son because...."
• Pregnancy Parking Spots  I guess when you are 8+ months then maybe you can use them, but when people who are 4 months pregnant need to park closer to the door, well you can probably use the extra walk.  (That may sound cold, but we do so little movement during our days that walking an extra hundred feet across the parking lot is good for everybody.)  
• When people mix up your and you're.  I have to correct it.  It drives me bonkers.
• When the outside of a house on a tv show doesn't match the inside.  I'm talking about you Full House.  (This is actually the case in the majority of TV shows I think.)
• People who are sick all the time.  Clearly something is wrong if you have had 5 colds in 3 months.  Do something about it.

And here is my biggest pet peeve/something I'm totally OCD about.  When the heads on the money don't face the same way.  I was trained at my first job to always ensure that the heads were at the same end in the cash register.  Well then Canada had to go and be ridiculous and make new money and the heads are on opposite sides of the bill.  So now I'm fine with that as long as all of the bills are right side up and the heads are facing the same way.  I can't stand it when a cashier puts them in the register wrong, when they are in my wallet wrong, but the one that really gets me is that the other day I took money out of a bank machine and they weren't all the same way.  What is the world coming to?

End rant.

The weekend I smushed my cat....twice

This past weekend was a rough one for the Pipperstink.  Here is what happened:

On Friday night, Ryan and I were watching TV in the living room.  I was sitting on the lazy boy, with my feet up and a quilt over my legs.  The quilt was hanging over the edge of the chair, and there is nothing that Pipsi likes more than a fort.  So apparently she was lying underneath the chair.  I did not know this. 

So I go to get up to get something, and put the leg thinger down, it didn't really click though, which I thought was weird.  All of a sudden I hear this scratching noise as the cat is trying to get out from behind the leg recliner.  She ran across the living room trying to get traction on the hardwood.  Then she sat on the other side of the room for the rest of the night just glaring at me and the chair.

The second incident happened on Sunday.  I was in the office and Ryan was lying in bed.  He called to me that the cat was stuck somewhere.  So I go into the bedroom and a dresser drawer is open (which happens a lot) so I automatically push it closed.  But it didn't close all the way.  So I try again.  Then I clue in that Ryan said the cat was stuck somewhere.  I look in behind the drawer and there is Pipsi's little eyes looking out at me.

She never made a sound, so I'm assuming I didn't hurt her, and it kind of serves her right for crawling in behind the drawer.  She clearly didn't learn her lesson because last night I heard her digging and she was in another one of our drawers trying to get behind it.  I told you she loved forts.

Saturday Night

Picture This. 

The ground covered in snow outside.  Candles lit.  Lying on the couch covered by a warm quilt.  Hot chocolate in hand.  And The Holiday on my TV.

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That my friends, was my Saturday night.  And it's right up there with the best nights of my entire life.

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Well thanks Jude Law.  But if these girls can go on two week vacations by themselves over Christmas, I'm pretty sure that I can kick my husband out of the house and watch a chick flick with myself.  (Ok I didn't kick him out of the house, he had a party to go to and I will always choose a night by myself over a party.)

Anyways, now that I have watched my first "Christmas" movie, I'm really feeling like Christmas.  So it may be time to decorate my house.  I told Ryan that I was going to decorate and he said no, because it's not December 1.  But it's November 24, so it's exactly one month until Christmas eve, so I would say that if you want to decorate now, that wouldn't be a holiday violation.

Random Wednesday Thoughts

After going to see About Time last night, I was going to write a post about time travel.  But I just have too many random thoughts in my head (mostly related to Rachel McAdams) and so I'm going to share those instead.  So happy random Wednesday.

Why does Rachel McAdams keep marrying time travelers?

Word on the street is that there is a chance that Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling are back together.  That would make my heart happy cause they are basically Canada's Couple. (In my opinion, I may be alone in that.)

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Did you know that Rachel and Ryan were born in the same London, Ontario hospital?

About Time stars Bill Weasley.  That's why he can time travel, cause he's a wizard, but nobody in the movie knows that.

The guy who plays Bill Weasley is the guy who plays Mad Eye Moody's son.

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I love coffee.  And clearly Rachel McAdams. (What else is new?)


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But in all honesty, About Time was really good.  It was actually way funnier than I was expecting, so you get a chick flick, you laugh, you cry.  It's a great movie to go see with the girls.  And it has lots of gingers in it and they make ginger jokes.  So I felt like it was full of my people.

I May Not Blog Frequently, But I'm Still Reading

I always have a book on the go.  I might only read a chapter (or a half a chapter if I fall asleep) a day, but I'm still always reading something.  And with that said, here is this month's Literary Junkies link up!

What are you currently reading?
Right now I'm reading The Third Victim by Lisa Gardner.  It's about a small town that is shaken by an elementary school shooting.  Specifically it is from the viewpoint of the detective involved and an FBI behavioural analyst.  I love Criminal Minds and so this is my kind of book.  I actually borrowed a grouping of 6 of these books from my library for my e-reader, but unfortunately I think I'm going to be doing well to get through one of them in my two week time limit.

How many books have you read this year?  Do you set reading goals for yourself?
According to my Goodreads page, I have read 27 books this year.  I set a goal of 50 books when I signed up for Goodreads.  50 books is almost a book a week though, and to be honest, I rarely get through a book a week so I think I'm doing pretty well.  Next year though once I'm done all of my courses, I really want to set some solid goals and push myself to read more and watch TV less.  (And Ryan I know you just laughed at that).

What do you think are the best an worst book-to-movie/TV show adaptations?
My first thought Harry Potter.  But also, The Notebook.  How can you not love that movie?  

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As for the worst, I recently read Silver Linings Playbook and then watched the movie.  I couldn't decide if I liked either of them.  I think the movie on it's own was fine.  But as a book adaptation, it was terrible.  They completely changed it and removed everything that was relevant in the book.  

I always have a book on the go.  I might only read a chapter (or a half a chapter if I fall asleep) a day, but I'm still always reading something.  And with that said, here is this month's Literary Junkies link up!

This question could be a whole blog post on it's own....maybe someday it will be!

What is the first line of your favourite book?
“Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways.”
But believe it or not that's not the first line from the first book.  My favourite Harry Potter book (and movie) has always been The Prisoner of Azkaban.

What's your favourite quote from a book?


There were a few quotes that I could have chosen from The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  But I decided to go somewhat positive with this one.  

Savouring Life

I worked with this girl in University who was a Rec & Leisure major, focusing on therapeutic recreation.  One time when I was eating chocolate she said that I should try just sucking on it, letting it melt in my mouth and enjoying the taste, rather than eating it quickly and having the experience be over immediately.  So I did it.  And it was wonderful.

It seems like such an odd concept, but it's something that I still do every once in awhile.  So often in life, we rush though moments or seasons, wishing that the next stage of life was here or that things would change.  Why do we do that?  Why don't we enjoy the moments that we are in as much as we possibly can? It can be as small as a piece of chocolate or as big as a life stage. 

So today I challenge you to do this.  Start with a piece of chocolate.  Enjoy it as if chocolate wasn't going to exist tomorrow.  And then try to live your life that way.  I'm not saying that this is something I'm good at.  Being happy in the moment is something that I struggle with often.  But every now and then I remind myself that this is the only life that we get, and I don't want to rush through it and be 80 years old and wonder where my life went.

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Christmas Shopping

I've been a little MIA lately.  I'm not really sure what happened, but I'm also not going to apologize for it.  

Did you know that there are 41 days until Christmas?  When I went on the Christmas Countdown website, I was expecting it to say 60.  Not so much.  Good thing I got my Christmas shopping started this past weekend.

Unfortunately I have no pictures to document this, but I promise it happened.  Every year, my mom, sister, aunt, cousin and myself travel across the border to Buffalo to do some shopping.  Usually we go the weekend before black Friday, but this year that didn't work.  It was a bit early to Christmas shop I thought, and that's probably why I bought more for myself than I usually do, and fewer Christmas gifts.  But part of the reason that we do this is because it's just a fun girls weekend.  We shop, we eat out, we hang out in the hot tub.  It's just one of those traditions.

Despite my lack of motivation, I still got a pretty good start on my shopping, so I'm happy about that.  Which is good, because we all know how busy the Christmas season can get, and sometimes shopping seems to be difficult. But I love this season, and despite my hatred of the snow that we have on the ground right now, I'm really excited that Christmas is coming!  (But for those of you like my neighbour who put your tree up on November 1, that's too early!)

So true

A Dress That May or May Not Fit

So I tried to start a tradition last year that I would try my wedding dress on every year on our anniversary.  So I obviously couldn't give up on it already by our second anniversary.  My mother in law had her dress on at their 25th anniversary party, so that's my goal!  I didn't actually make Ryan do it up this year, so it probably could have fit better than it did.  But I also didn't really want to find out if we couldn't get it done up.  It was just better for everyone this way.  It did fit over my hips, so that's something, right?

Pipsi liked the dress even more this year than she did last year because of the tie up string.  She thought that was tons of fun!

Looking at last year's post, I had mentioned that I should maybe get it cleaned.  Can you still get a wedding dress cleaned after 2 years?  It's not that bad, just the bottom is a bit dirty from dragging around on the ground all day.  I didn't do it right away because I had wanted to do a trash the dress photoshoot, but that didn't happen. 

It looks like I photoshopped her in to make her look like a giant, but she's actually right in front of me

2 Years

2 years ago today was one of the best days of my life.  I know that in the grand scheme of things, 2 years is nothing, but it kind of feels like we have been doing this forever and yet part of me feels like it was just yesterday.

It still amazes me how little we fight.  It's pretty much smooth sailing (as long as you don't steal food off my plate).

As much as our marriage is just about the two of us, it's about our families too.  They make us who we are.  I'm lucky that Ryan gets along so well with my family.  I'm lucky that Ryan's family has always been so welcoming to me.  We're both lucky that our parents have given us fantastic examples of marriage. 

But mostly I'm lucky that Ryan chose me.  I'm lucky that he takes care of me, and does blue jobs and does the gardening because I hate it.  I'm lucky that he's so handy and can do pretty much any household task that I can think up.  I'm lucky that he doesn't take away my TV because I know that the Real Housewives drive him crazy.  I'm lucky that he knows how to cook.  I'm lucky that he likes to travel with me and that we always have a good time together and never get sick of each other.  I'm lucky that he was raised to be respectful and that he treats me well.  I'm just lucky.

Happy 2nd Anniversary Fella.