Missing

Today's Blog Every Day in May challenge is to describe something that you miss.  I guess you shouldn't really miss a time in your life too much, because you are where you need to be in life.  I kind of miss University, but I don't still wish I was there.  Some days it would be great to be back but would I still like to be in school full time?  No. 

Do I miss high school?  Most definitely not. 

Do I miss when Ryan and I were dating or engaged?  No.  Being married is much better than that.

So I guess there isn't really a time that I miss. 

I still miss my dog, Opie.  It's been almost a year that he's been gone, so I feel silly saying that.  But there are still some days when I'm driving (so much to think about during an hour commute), when I just think to myself that I miss him so much. 

 He was just a dog, I know, but he was part of the family for 11 years.  He grew up with us, he got us through so much.  A dog is always there for you and he was there for me through high school and University, on my wedding day and during a lot of important stages in my life.  And he was a good dog. 

So that's that.  I don't know what else to say, except that I wish he was still around.  Maybe he could teach Oliver a thing or two about being a good dog and not playing on the road.

Literary Junkies #3

I'm linking up with Literary Junkies again this month. 

1. Which book could you read over and over? Why?
This is a tricky one.  I read books multiple times more often when I was younger.  This is actually kind of surprising since generally I read a book and then completely forget what happened in it, so I could probably just continuously read the same books.  I have probably read The Giver more than anything else though.

2. If you could be any character from any book you've read, who would you be?
Ginny Weasley.  I was gonna say Hermione but I feel like I need to stick to my ginger roots. Seriously though, who doesn't want to be a wizard?

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3.  Do you ever put a book down because you just can't get into it?  Or do you stick it out to the bitter end?
Absolutely I will put a book down.  My time is too valuable to read books that are terrible.  I usually try to give them a fair shot though.  I'm not really enjoying The Casual Vacancy but I'm convinced that I'm going to get through it.  So there's one that I'm going to stick it out to the bitter end for!

4. Show us your book shelves. 
I totally forgot to take a picture last night, but that's probably for the best.  My book shelf is currently in the office, and the entire office is just a catch all for all of our junk.  It's a mess.

I do have plans for making a little book nook in my basement.  And honestly, most of my books are in boxes at my parents house still.  Actually some of them might be at boxes in my house.  Everytime I go to their place they send me home with a box...  I had a teacher who said to never get rid of a book (the same teacher who told me I read crap books, so I guess she wasn't completely bad), but because of that I have never gotten rid of a single book.  I have them all somewhere!

I Read Crap Books

When I was in Elementary school, I was a pretty advanced reader.  I don't want to brag or anything, but apparently I was at a grade 5 level in grade 1.  And I loved to read.  But sometimes, you just want to read what you enjoy.  (Most times these days).  Every book that you read isn't about the challenge, it's about the content and how it makes you feel.  So in Grade 4, I was reading Sweet Valley High.  Yes, it was definitely a crap book.  And my teacher told me so.  "Kaileigh that's a crap book, you should be reading something more challenging."  I didn't appreciate that comment and it's something that has always stuck with me.  It didn't change my opinion of the teacher though because I didn't really like her anyways.

I'm still reading crap books sometimes, but I'm ok with that.  Reading is an escape, and if I want to escape to Sweet Valley High, I will!

So that leads me into this months Literary Junkies linkup with By the Porchlight. Here are this months questions:

1. What are you currently reading?  Tell us about it.
I'm still on my Harry Potter kick and am currently on The Prisoner of Azkaban.  It was originally my favourite book, so we will see if it still is.  I'm not going to tell you about it, because if you don't already know what Harry Potter is about, you obviously don't care to know!

2.  If you could choose any author in the world to write a story based on your life, who would you choose to be the author and why?
Let's get random, Bethenny Frankel, just because I want to meet her.  I don't know that I would want to hear her opinions on me though.  She's kinda brutally honest.

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3.Tell us about your favourite place to read.
The Beach.  Nothing is better than sitting on the beach all day reading a good book.  Unfortunately most of the time the beach isn't available.  The most common place I read is in bed.

4.  What books would you buy for lovers of:
a) Suspense/Mystery  - Anything by Mary Higgins Clark
b) Chicklit - Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
c) Literary Fiction - I'm not entirely sure what this means, I think it means a "non-crap" book.  I really enjoyed Stephen King's 11/22/63, let's go with that.
d) Nonfiction - I'm gonna throw a few out here.  Michael J Fox's books were great.  Columbine by Dave Cullen was fantastic.  It might be a difficult read for many at the moment given the current situation, but it is a very well done book.  I also read this book called The Accountant's Story by Roberto Escobar.  It's about the drug cartel that was run by Pablo Escobar in Columbia and it was really good.

e) Classics - I'm not really one for classics.  Anne of Green Gables is always a good one though.  Or watch the movie.

I'm a Book Worm

I'm not gonna lie, I love to read.  I always have.  So when I saw this link-up for literary junkies, I knew it was a link-up for me!  I got the three questions off By The Porchlight, so here we go.

1) What book are you currently reading? Give us a little synopsis and your review.
Don't laugh. I'm reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone right now.  An oldie but a goodie!  I was given all seven Harry Potter books for my e-reader and thought it would be some nice easy reading that I would really enjoy!  And I am really enjoying it.  You want a synopsis?  It's about a boy, who finds out he's a wizard, goes to wizard school and is part of the three best friends that anyone could have.  It's fantastic!

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2) What are your 3 favourite books of all time?
This is a tough question.  I've read a lot of books in my day.  Sometimes it's hard to narrow down when you have favourite authors.  I love Nicholas Sparks.  My favourite book of his might be Safe Haven, and I'm so excited for that movie!  Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin is also probably up there.  And then I'm going to go with The Giver by Lois Lowry, because if you can read a book that many times, you know it's good!  I'm sure there are books I've liked more than those, but I just can't think of them right now.  I've been more of a fluff reader lately.  I just want to read a book that's easy to read.  I don't have time to get into books that are too deep I guess.

3) What is your "approach" upon entering a bookstore? Where do you immediately head after entering through the front door?
I'm a cheap accountant, so buying books is hard for me, because I usually read them pretty fast. If I go into a book store, I usually know what I'm looking for.  If I don't, I would go to the tables in the middle that have Heather's Picks (I think she owns the joint, or is the president or something).  Heather always knows what's good.

And I just ran out of photo storage.  See above where I said I'm a cheap accountant?  I need to figure out how to fix this problem without spending money.  Otherwise, blogger out.  (Just kidding, maybe.)

Friday's Letters

I'm whipping this post together because I feel a lot of guilt over the fact that I didn't post yesterday and I have nothing for today.  I shouldn't feel bad, but I do.

Dear Friday, Here you are again.  I like how you show up on a weekly basis.  The only thing that could make you better is if you were bi-weekly.  Imagine the possibilities.  Dear Weekend, Are you ready for us?  Ryan and I are planning on having a great one of you.  Dear Blog, I'm sorry that I have had some major bloggers block.  It happens to everyone I guess.  Good thing next week I have some big plans for this little blog!  Dear Ryan, Happy Anniversary weekend.  Let's celebrate! Dear Bachelor Canada, You have gotten better than that dreadful first episode, but your product placement is terrible (or is it good?)  I get it, you are sponsored by Soft Soap and Dentyne.  Why else would one of the girls have a pack of gum in her hand while waiting for Brad to show up for their date?  Dear Body, I would like it if you could lose a few pounds, only so that my pants would be comfortable again. Dear Mouth, It would be helpful to body if you would stop eating junk food.  Dear anyone reading this, have a fantastic Friday and an even better weekend!

A Little Piece of Our Wedding

          

I can't even believe that it's Pinterest Challenge time again!  This actually couldn't have come at a better time, because the day that I was planning on completing this little craft, Katie and Sherry announced the new challenge!

For those who don't know, the Pinterest Challenge is Katie Bower and Sherry Petersik's way of getting us to stop pinning and start doing!  I was supposed to take something that I have pinned and recreate it in my own way.  And so I did just that.

So here is the original:

Source: christyrobbins.blogspot.com via Kaileigh on Pinterest

 It's a tree ornament that has an wedding invitation inside.  It's a great way to do something with old wedding invitations!

I started by cutting up the invitations into strips.  I used a paper cutter to get straight lines.  I tried to make each strip have a line of words on it so that you can peep through the ornament and be able to see what some of them say!

Then I wrapped the strips around a pen and held them for a few seconds.  They curled fairly easily.  I did two ornaments, one with my own invitation and one with a friends.  One thing I did find is that it worked better with thinner strips.  This might be unavoidable though because basically your strip width depends on the font size on the invitation.

Rolling, rolling, rolling!

The whole project didn't even take that long!  I added some teal scrap booking paper to mine to add some colour.  Then I finished it off by tying some fancy ribbon so that you can hang them on the tree.

Do you see what I see?  

Oh look, she likes them too!

I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.  I could have used a smaller ornament, but when I was buying the ornaments I had no idea how full the invitation would make them.  It's a nice memory ornament for our tree.  And I gave the other one to Michaela for her tree.  The whole thing cost me less than $14 (well that was my total receipt at Michael's), and I have 2 ornaments and lots of ribbon left for future creations!  Next person to give me a wedding invitation that can be cut into strips gets a free ornament.  Challenge complete.

Christmas is Coming!

So after yesterday's post about Halloween, I feel the need to move on to the next holiday.  That's right, Christmas is coming people!  It may be 2 months away (exactly 2 months tomorrow by the way), but it's still getting pretty close.  As I was driving home from work yesterday, I wanted to switch up my music from my usual ipod playlist.  I chose a random playlist and it was all Christmas music!  So I embraced it and listened to some of my favourite festive tunes, and now I'm in the spirit!

So I figured, why not do a Christmas themed Oh How Pinteresting?  Because really, if I want to make any of these awesome Christmas creations, I'm going to have to start thinking about them now.

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 Someday I will have a home with a staircase to do this with



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Oh Hey There Friday

Dear Friday: Thanks for coming around every week.  I appreciate it.  Dear Ryan: Sorry that Pipsi bothered you in the morning for once.  Oh wait, no I'm not.  Dear Weekend: I have a lot to do during you, a wedding, a baby shower, cleaning, studying, working out, plus I would like to just have some downtime.  So if you could throw in some extra hours for me, that would be great.  Dear House:  I love you, but there are some things I would like to change.  Like could you make the entryway a bit bigger so that I can fit the table that I'm craving.  And can you learn how to hang pictures without our help?  Cause clearly we just don't get it done.  Dear Christmas: I'm excited for you already.  Dear Kaileigh:  You are going to be late for work because you are blogging instead of getting dressed.  Like usual.

 

Oh How Pinteresting!

Here is a link up I've never done before.  But I do love Pinterest.  So here are some of my favourite things lately.

These little DIY Halloween monsters.

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Smore Dip.  Need I say more?

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Pizza Dip.  Yes please.

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Engagement pictures as a wedding guest book.  I wish I had thought of this sooner.

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Friday's Letters

Today I'm linking up with Ashley at Adventures of Newlyweds for Friday's Letters.

Dear Husband:  Thank you for the delicious dinner that you made me last night.  I loved it.  Dear Oliver: I will miss having you around.  I'm sorry that Ryan doesn't feel the same.  I'm sure Pipsi will be lonely without you too.  Dear body: Not appreciating your weight gain.  And don't blame it on my eating habits.  I expect you to be used to those and find ways to burn those extra calories.  Plus I gave you a month without ice cream and cheese.  Come on!  Dear Friday: I love you.  That is all.  Dear spin class: I will see you bright and early tomorrow morning.  When I tell you I hate you, I don't mean it.  Really I love you, I just hate the pain.  Dear Husband: Think of all the activities you can get done while I'm away this weekend.  Try not to miss me too much.

For the Love of Coffee

So I came across this link-up at Lattes and Love about coffee.  And as I believe that I love coffee more than any other person on the planet, I felt like I needed to participate.  I have talked about coffee before on this blog, back on an angry day when McDonald's didn't fill up my cup enough, when I gave up coffee, and when I updated everyone on the dangers to yourself and others of giving up coffee.  I am back on the coffee now.  I couldn't go on without it.


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Back in the day, I used to not be able to pass a Starbucks without stopping for a coffee.  Lucky for me and my bank account, this isn't an issue anymore, because I pass a Starbucks every day on my way to work. 

On the 99% of mornings when I don't stop at Starbucks (usually it is an after work treat), I make my own coffee.  And no, none of this fancy pancy Tassimo stuff, (I'm an accountant people, I like my coffee cheap, even if that contradicts what I just said about Starbucks), I make it the old fashioned way.  In a coffee maker.  That has a fancy timer, so that it's ready in the morning.  Whoever decided to put a timer on a coffee maker is a genuis I say!  What about on weekends when I don't know what time I will be waking, you say?  Well Ryan is my timer.  I send him out before I get out of bed and he makes a whole pot full.  It's ready when I crawl out of bed and I drink it all morning until the coffee is gone.

And this is why I get withdrawal headaches.

There you have it, a ramble about my love for coffee.