Running from the dark but I just can't hide

title taken from 'Losing Sleep' by John Newman

Do you ever not want to go to bed, even though you're exhausted?

2 down, one more exam to go. It's stats, which I though I would be worried about, but I'm feeling pretty good about it. And then I can finally go home. For a week, then I'll be off to camp! I'm really excited about going back to camp, but I'm also freaking out inside because I have no idea how to my job. I know logically, of all the potential people to work in the kitchen, I have more knowledge than most because I worked there last summer. But that does not mean I have any idea what I'm doing. I'm going up to camp for a day to talk to the representative from our food supplier, so hopefully that will clue me in on how things go a little bit.

337. What's the worst place you've ever been to?
Wow, I don't know. I can't think of a place that's actually bad. There was one time I was disappointed about a place. There's an old house in Uptown Waterloo that's been converted into a book store. It's called Old Goat Books, and looked really cute and old in a kind of hipster kind of way. So I decided to go in, but it was just books on book shelves. There wasn't any of the charm that I was thinking would be inside. Not the worst place I've been to, but one of the disappointing ones.

338. Most attractive singer/s of your opposite gender?
I think Dan Smith of Bastille is pretty cute.

They're studying business, I study the floor

title taken from "A World Alone" by Lorde

Today I presented my mobile narrative about Knox Presbyterian Church in Stratford. It didn't go too well, because there was no one at the church and the doors were all locked, despite the fact that I told the church that we were going to be there and they had confirmed it with me. I heard back later from them and the lady said there was an emergency and she had to watch her grandson. So I understand; things happen, no biggie. But then she also said "I totally forgot". Which makes me a little less understanding. I'm a little disappointed that people couldn't experience the mobile narrative as it was supposed to be. But we still got compliments on it. I was really proud to have been chosen to be in the Student Showcase and have the opportunity to show it to a bunch of people. Hopefully it gets a good mark (it's worth 50% of my grade!).
And as of now, I'm basically coasting. I have three lectures left; one is a review session and one is just watching other groups present their projects. So not strenuous in any way. Three more days, then I'm headed home. Brief moment of true relaxation and then exams -_-  I got my stats midterm back: 95.2% baby! Highest mark in the class, and it's worth 30% of my final grade :)
I was complimented the other day on my writing. One of my group projects was to write up a case study report, so we were working in a google doc together. They said, "You have great vocabulary. It's like reading a real journal article!" It made me really happy :) I know my love language is acts of service, but more and more I feel like it's words of affirmation. I never thought I was a particularly great writer, but my university experience has taught me otherwise. Some of the things I read written by my classmates is appalling. I seriously wonder how they passed English in high school. I'm not saying I'm the best writer, but I'm definitely better than the apparent average of my program. I love it when you write a sentence, and you just want to bold it and underline it and read it out to everybody, because it's perfect - couldn't have been said better. That's my favourite :D

329. How do you vent your anger?
Through rants to people who are not involved in the cause of the anger and/or can relate to my anger.

330. Do you have a collection of anything?
Oh, do I ever.
- stamps
- coins
- mini books
- objects that are not their normal size (particularly in the stationary / office department)
- Lego Minifigures
I used to have a lot of other collections as well:
- small little rubber lizards that were in the goodie jar at the dentist
- mini keychain board games
- Kinder Egg surprise toys
- mini erasers
But in fits of rage about having too much junk, those ones have been disposed of. I used to pride myself on my collection of collections.

They said get back Honky Cat

title from "Honky Cat" by Elton John

I'm glad I got to spend the weekend at home. I don't have a ton of work right now (strange, I know) so I would've just been sitting around my apartment with nothing to do. And now it's only going to be a couple weeks before I'm back again. My last day of lectures is on April 6th, which also happens to be Easter Monday. I thought that I wouldn't be able to go home till the weekend after. But apparently instead of the 6th being our normal classes, they're just bumping the Friday that we have off for Good Friday to Monday. And on Friday the only thing I have is a lab, which my prof said isn't happening since it's the last week. So I can come home for Easter :) And then I don't have an exam till the 17th, so I'll stay at home for a week, then go back. But to be honest, I wish my exams were all a week earlier so that I could be completely done earlier. Oh well. I'm not really stressed right now. In one of my classes I just have to do a presentation and then the rest of the time I'm just watching other people's presentations. Another class is the same situation. I'm not really sure what we're doing in one class, but there's no exam for that class so I'm not really concerned. There's really only two classes that I still am doing work in. Ha. It's funny I should think about this now because just earlier today I was talking to a family friend who is a teacher and she was saying that one of the hardest things for grade 9's to get used to is doing work right up until the end (as apposed to slacking off during the last month). But this semester is weird in that way - the rest of my semesters have definitely not been like this.
One thing I did this weekend was play old records on my grandma's record player that she said I could have. She also gave us a bunch of records. I love it. I just love looking at it and knowing that somehow the needle is picking up the music and sending it through the speakers. One of the only artists that I'm familiar with that my grandma had a record of was Elton John, so we were listening to his greatest hits as of 1970. The one thing that's annoying is that you have to flip the record over half way through the album. I don't mind doing it, but you only get like 15mins of music before you have to get up again and flip it over. But that aside, I really like it and if anyone wants to buy me a record of a modern album I'd probably love you forever.
I can't wait for camp to start :)

323. Simple but extremely complex. Favourite band?
Band, being more than one person and not just a singer, would probably have to be Bastille.

324. What was the last lie you told?
I have to spend 20hrs with my international peer mentee, and for our last meeting we spent just over an hour together, but on the sheet I wrote down that we spent 1.5hrs together.

325. Do you believe in karma?
Not really. Simple put, karma is "what goes around comes around". I believe that God will judge you based on your actions, so if you've been bad, then He'll treat you badly. But that's kind of a broader scope than I think karma looks at. I don't think that because I do something good today that something good will happen to me next week.

A !#FFFFFF Christmas

I suppose I could take one of these depressingly-not-cold nights to write a blog post (my mother gives me looks when she checks my blog and there isn't a new post). I wish there was snow, to be completely honest. I miss needing to bundle up in scarves and gloves to go outside. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss shovelling snow. It was always a time that I could exercise, enjoy the outdoors and have quiet time to myself, all in one. So I'm a little disappointed there's no snow and it's been weeks since the temperature dropped below zero.
I was thinking that we shouldn't call it Christmas Day, but rather Christmas Hour(s). Because there's the Christmas celebration in the morning, but then the rest of the day is just any other day off (except for Christmas dinner). My grandma is visiting and we had my aunt and cousins over for a few days. It was god to be able to see them again, even if I didn't hang out with them that much :/ We had the classic turkey dinner with all the side dishes. My favourite is always the stuffing. My dad has started making the stuffing outside the turkey and while he thought he would never admit it, he likes it better that way. In no small part because now you can make so much more stuffing, which is good news for me :) Eating recently has been a bit of a struggle because I got my wisdom teeth out a week ago. I'm no longer in any pain, but I can't open my mouth all the way. Which I only notice when I'm eating, which has caused me to dwell on how I use my mouth. I never really thought that I took particularly large bites, but evidently I do. Nevertheless, eating takes me a while (bad news for securing seconds and thirds). There has also been an abundance of baked goods around which is bad news for my waist line.
The one big notable gift I got this year is a drawing tablet, which I've been wanting for a while. It let's me doodle and draw and have it show up on the computer (I thought this was common knowledge, but everyone I've told about it has asked me what it does). I also got a lot of tea and tea related merchandise. I asked for a temperature set kettle, and I got one, which I'm so happy about. My dad doesn't understand this, but if you make some teas with boiling water, you can burn the tea and give it a bitter taste. To prevent this, I usually wait for a while after the kettle boils before making my tea. But now, with my temperature set kettle (I don't know if that's what it's actually called, it's just a term I came up with) I can make my tea right away. My brother got me a earl grey tea sampler from The Tea Haus. Now, when I think sample, I think enough to make one or two cups. The box was a decent size, so I was expecting 10 or 12 different samples. Instead, it was 4 full sized bags of loose leaf tea. Like the bags that DavidsTea comes in, packed full. It's a lot of tea. I've only tried one so far, but I really like it. My sister got me a tea steeper that looks like a little man chilling on the edge of your mug. It's pretty cute.
I really want to see the movie The Imitation Game. My parents have also expressed an interest in seeing it, so I have high hopes that I'll be able to convince them to go see it in the near future. This evening we watched Grand Budapest Hotel. If I had to give a quote to promote the movie, I would choose "Visually intriguing". It was not what I expected (mind you, I didn't know much about the movie going in). The cinematography was very different that most movies today are; kind of indie? It actually kind of reminds me of 500 Days of Summer in that way. Not really what I was expecting, visually different than the status quo and generally a good movie (in my opinion, at least).
I just finished reading We Were Liars by E. Lockhart and wow. What. An. Ending. I think I mentioned it in an earlier post and gave the book description, which ends with "And if anyone ask you how it ends, just LIE." That was what got me interested in the book in the first place. And it lived up to it. The beginning of the book was a little slow, but worth it for the ending. (And no, I won't tell you the ending). Now I want to try and read one more book before the end of the year to complete my goal of reading 20 books this year. Something I want to do in the new year is read more often. Because this past year, reading was put on a back burner to school and surfing the internet. Less tumblr, more reading. And creativity. I was given some art inspiration for Christmas, and I want to make a real effort to try and be creative more often. I may also steal J's idea of getting rid of something everyday. It probably won't be everyday, and being away at university will make it hard, but I want to make a real effort to get rid of things I don't need. Because Lord knows I have way too much stuff. Kijiji, here I come.
I have a ton more stuff I want to write about (like Elliott's birthday party, Boxing Day shopping, how the break is almost over, and saying "saucy" in a British accent to my Grandma), but I want to go to bed before the sun comes up, so I'll draw this to a close.

293. What was the last movie you watched?
The Grand Budapest Hotel

294. Favourite day of the year?
Christmas is one of them. But birthdays are also nice because their your own special day, and nobody else's.

295. Are you too shy to ask someone out?
You betcha,

296. Can you do a headstand (not using the wall)?
Is the pope atheist? (Hint: the answer is no).

297. Hugs or kisses?
Hugs. And then if I decide I like you, kisses.

In case you were wondering (which I know you are), #FFFFFF is the colour code for white, and "!" represents "opposite" or "not" in computer programming. 

Welcome to the World of Procrastination!

Welcome to the World of Procrastination! Here, you will enjoy the motivation to do anything but the the thing you need to be doing. And all without any guilt*! Watch as all the little tasks you've been avoiding for weeks finally get done as you avoid the more important tasks at hand. After you've enjoyed your time here, we suggest you go visit Cramming City, where they will provide you with the mindset to finally get stuff done! And once again, enjoy your visit in the World of Procrastination!
So yeah. I'm not really procrastinating (much) but I thought it would be funny to do a little blurb about it. And it got me thinking, if you procrastinate, but don't like seriously procrastinate, then you might actually be more productive than if you'd just done your work in the first place. I know this doesn't go for everyone, but if you procrastinate by doing other things that you've been avoiding, while not being such a big procrastinator that you leave yourself a decent amount of time to get the important things done, then clearly procrastinating is the way to get things done! This is totally me. But then you start procrastinating by going on Pinterest or tumblr, and let's be honest, once you've hit the Internet, there's no leaving, so you might as well just give up all hope of getting anything done.
I don't have much to do today, but it's all stuff I don't want to do. I have no idea what my TED talk is going to be about. It has to be about something in our "industry". Please, I don't even know what I want to do with my life yet. How will I know anything about my industry?

*this does not apply to everyone

270. Turn off.
- when people try to grow beards but they clearly do not have the ability to do so
- moustaches without beards (whether it be well grown or not)
- rudeness
- acting like he rules the world/he's the coolest

271. Where I want to be right now
At home. (I have been thinking about Christmas a lot over the past week. Like, a lot. A disturbing amount. I get 3 weeks off at Christmas and I'm super excited [47 days till I get to go home for Christmas!] Look, Google knows what I'm asking:

And all this thinking of Christmas and going home is making me miss home. Luckily I get to go home this coming weekend.)

Ehehehehehe

I frickin love Martin Freeman.

(In case any of you were wondering, (cleaning lady's name) came on Friday, a day after I was told she was coming :/ )

Also, only nine (?!) days till I go to camp!

152. Are you hungry right now?
Surprisingly, no.

153. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends?
No (I don't really have any tumblr friends?).

154. Facebook or Twitter?
Ummmmmm....twitter?

155. Twitter or tumblr?
tumblr all the way.

Picking Things Up

Last night my mom said, "(cleaning lady's name) is coming tomorrow, so you need to be out of bed by 9:30 so that she can clean." I, of course, was none to happy with that. It's not even the getting up early part I have a problem with, its the having to make sure there's nothing on the floor so she can clean it. That's the annoying part. Especially since I still haven't finished putting everything away. Regardless, I was up at 9:30 and my floor was clear. Now, our cleaning lady is known to not always show up on time, so I wasn't surprised when she wasn't here at 10am. However, it is now after 1pm and she still hasn't shown up. So I'm guessing she's not coming. But then I realized, my mom hadn't left the cheque out for her like she usually does. So either, (cleaning lady's name) came so early I missed her or she's not coming today. I highly doubt she came earlier than usual, because I would've woken up from the vacuum running. So now I'm calling BS on (cleaning lady's name) coming today and my mom said that just to make me wake up at a decent time (which, contrary to popular belief, I do more often than not).

151. Tell us the story of your first kiss?
HAHAHAHA. Hahahaha. hahahaha.

I believe in yesterday

I swear our house only receives phone calls when I'm home all day and there is nobody else to answer it. Seriously. There have been 5 (update: 6) phone calls this afternoon. This is ridiculous. Also, I've been wasting a lot of time on sporcle.com recently. I did a quiz to see if I knew John's speech that he gave at Sherlock's grave (I do. I'm not sure if that's something to be happy about or if I should start crying...).
I'm just going to continue this post now, even though I started it yesterday. My hair appointment took longer than expected, and then I went to see Divergent with my BFFLAAT. It was so good! And it was so good to see my BFFLAAT again (I can't wait to be seeing you every day again!!!! CAMP!!!) I got some red highlights. It was a long process because the first time she did them, they didn't show up, so she had to put in some highlights and then put the red dye back in. But I'm happy with how it turned out. It's definitely going to take some getting used to.

150. Been arrested? For what?
You guys may be in for a shock here....I have not been arrested.

I never blog when I'm at home...

wooohooo! Home again, this time for good. Well, for three weeks at least. Then I'm off to camp (which I am so excited for!!!) I honestly did not think I had so much stuff, but the entire back of the van was stuffed full with all the stuff I had in my dorm room. It's a good thing only my mom came to pick me up, because otherwise somebody would've had to sit on the roof on the way home. But it's good to be back, even if it's only for a little while. We watched Monsters University this evening, which I hadn't seen before, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was pretty funny. And I loved the short film, The Blue Umbrella. I'm going to sewing tomorrow morning (9AM *sigh*) to hopefully get some more work done on a quilt I'm doing for someone. I haven't done any sewing in almost a year.

142. Favourite makeup brand?
I don't really have a lot of experience in this area, but I guess I'll say Mac?

143. Favourite store?
Well this is a very broad question and I don't like it. I like unique stores. Stores that sell unique things. There's this toy store in a mall in Ottawa that I really like. They have typical toys, but then they also have all the weird toys you always hear about but never see in person. So that's cool. I really like online stores too :3

144. Favourite blog?
obbsessionsareme.blogspot.ca, obviously.

145. Favourite colour?
Green.

146. Favourite food?
Lasagna.

QOTD #59

59. Take a vitamin daily?
When I'm at home, I take this adult gummy vitamin thing. I'm not actually sure what it gives me, basic vitamins, I guess. But I don't when I'm away at school.

Happy New Year!

To ring in the new year, I thought it would be cool to create a 2013 in review. Because if I'm honest, it all feels like so long ago and I've probably forgotten half of it. So here is my 2013 in review:

- submitted university applications
- got my G2
- took guitar lessons
- got accepted to 3 universities
- got rejected by one university
- went on a cruise
- bought a new lens for my camera
- graduated high school with honours 
- worked at FCC for the summer
- got a laptop
- started university
- saw Justin Bieber's star in Stratford
- turned 18
- became obsessed with tumblr
- folded 87 paper cranes
- improved my guitar skills
- got a new phone
- surprised my BFFLAAT at the train station
- made 3 new friends (and other acquaintances)
- created a gif for the first time
- took my fangirling to a whole new level
- visited my BFFLAAT in Toronto
- saw Catching Fire in ULTRAVAX
- made my first ever animation
- decorated my house for christmas all by myself
- finished term 1 of year 1 of university
- made 14 glitter jars
- started spontaneous dancing
- travelled to Ottawa
- made 226 blog posts
- made 2.5 quilts
- read 45 books
- baked 1500+ cookies (at camp while I was working in the kitchen, and at home. Technically I didn't bake each cookie at camp myself, but it sure felt like it.)


I'm sure I've forgotten lots of things. But this is a lot!

Gingerbread (QOTD #45 & 46)

I finally got around to loading my pictures onto my laptop. Well, I was trying some stuff out and I ran out of room on my memory card, so I was forced to, but it's all the same to you. If the other thing I'm working on turns out, I'll show you that too. But now, gingerbread!

Might I say, the best gingerbread house we've ever had. And it was made from scratch completely by me :)

45. If you could, would you take back your last kiss?
.....I wish I had a last kiss to begin with...

46. Did you talk to someone until you fell asleep last night?
If the thoughts in my head count as "someone", then yes.

Home Again, Home Again (QOTD #27)

I came home last night. It is good to be back. I have an exam on the 19th (which sucks) but other than that, I'm done! I can't believe the first term is over! Only 7 more to go :$  I put up our Christmas tree today (all by myself, might I add). I'm going to decorate it tomorrow. My hands are all scratched up from spreading apart all of the branches of the tree. I feel like my family has so many Christmas decorations that never get used. I guess it's because it's all kind of a mis-mash of different things we've collected over the years. We really should just get rid of some stuff. But it's good to be back regardless.

27. Would you be able to date someone who doesn't make you laugh?
I guess if I didn't know that fact about them, I would date them. But then once I found out that I didn't find them funny, it would be hard to keep dating them. I definitely wouldn't marry someone who couldn't make me laugh.

QOTD #9 and Webkinz!

9. Is confidence cute?
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is that I think that you can also have too much confidence. For example, if you have so much confidence that you can do something when you really can't, then it becomes more of a concern for those around you...

And Webkinz! My mom was buying things for the Operation Christmas Child boxes, and so she bought some webkinz. Because they are sold at the dollar store now (never go into business in a fad). Anyways, she assumed that the children receiving the boxes wouldn't have use for the codes, so she took them off the animals and left them on the dining room table. When I was home for the weekend, I saw them and was curious if my account was still active. Cause remember how you had to add a new webkinz every year or something? However, what surprised me the most, was that on the first try, I correctly remembered both my username and password to my Wenkinz account. This coming from the girl who sometimes has to think of what me email password is. Anyways, my account was still up and running.  I added one of the codes anyways, a tie dye frog (I named him Jeremy Fisher). Now you can open an account without having to buy the stuffed animal with the code, you can get a dog or a cat for free. I imagine (well, know, really) they did that to try and get more users as their inevitable fall came upon them. Anyways, I might go on again and check things out, relive some of my childhood, because as mentioned before, I am not ready for life

Late Night Driving

I went home for Thanksgiving weekend. It was great to be able to see my family again. I got a four day weekend, because I don't have classes on Tuesdays. It was one of those times when it seems like the world should still be on pause because you are, but it's actually not. Other people had to go to work and school. Not me! :)  I had the chance to see 3 of my friends this weekend, which was awesome. It's hard to believe it had been over a month since I last saw them! It was great to just hang out with them. My dad very kindly drove me home tonight, so I didn't have to take the bus. At one point when we were on the highway, there was this old blue Ford pickup truck. (Might I mention that it is dark out). It didn't have it's lights on. None. Zilch. Nada. At one point they had their 4 way flashers on but then they turned them off again. It was then that the importance of lights really sunk in for me. We had passed it, and looking in the mirror, you could not see it at all. It's as if it wasn't even there. A little after that, they were trying to pass somebody, so they put their 4 way flashers on again. Then they made the bone-head move of going into the merging lane. Yeah, I don't have any lights, but I'm gonna go into the lane where there are incoming cars. Great idea. Not. Then just as we were turning off the highway, they had their normal lights on! And its like, Where were those for the past 15mins?! People these days. But other than that, it was a great weekend. Thing is, I'll be back home on Friday. FCC is having a Fall Banquet on saturday and it's just easier if I go home for the weekend to get to the banquet. So I'll be away from home for a whole 2 days! I don't think I'll make it. I really don't.
Also MIDTERMS. Those bastards snuck up on me, big time. I need to start studying! But you know that I'll still blog because I procrastinate. Well, not really procrastinate, but more just not studying as hard as I should be. Is that procrastinating? Either way, I'll likely still blog. Mostly about my panic, though.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately...

How many of you knew that they plants were potatoes?
I keep imagining you guys laughing at me as you read my post, thinking that you don't know what the plants are when you actually do. So if you could just let me know...that'd be great. 

That's It. I'm Offically Done.

High school, that is. Well, I was done yesterday. But same thing. It all seems so surreal. I am going up to camp tomorrow and staying up there until the end of week one, which isn't until July 5th! SO long.  But it is going to be so much fun! Just got back from having sushi with some friends, some of which I will probably not see in a very long time. It's hard not to think of this time as the end of everything
It is the end of
1. High School
2. Seeing most of my friends every day at school
3. Youth Group
4 Sewing (kind of...at least regularly)
5. Scrapbooking (I'm taking a SMASH journal with me to university, so that's kind of scrapbooking....)
6. Living at Home
7. I suppose #6 also means no more allowance...
8. Seeing my family everyday
9. Having my laundry done for me (that's a big one... Shout out to my mom for all the years she has been doing my laundry and hardly ever complaining)
10. Parents paying for sushi
It's going to be a tough life.
And I know, "I should be thinking of all the beginnings!" Yeah well here's what I think:
It's the beginning of
1. Living with a stranger
2. Going to a brand new school knowing nobody
3. Living away from home for good
4. Eating cafeteria food every stinking meal
5. Realizing how much everything actually costs
6. Not having a vehicle to drive (or be driven around in)
7. Having a room half the size of what I'm used to
8. Did I mention living with a stranger?
9. Having to share a bathroom with the entire dorm floor
10. Having to pay for textbooks
This doesn't seem all too bright. I don't know what you guys are thinking with all this "new beginnings" crap.
Nah, I'm just joking (kind of). I know that it's a big change but change is good. And I'm so blessed to have my parents supporting me along the way. But you also have to see how there are some down sides to all this.

Photo Shoot!

Sometimes I will think to myself, that would make a good picture. But then the next thought is usually I'm too lazy to go get my camera.  Luckily for you, today was not one of those days! However, once I do actually manage to get my camera out, I figure I might as well take a ton of pictures because it's probably going to be a while before my camera is out again. So I take lots of pictures.  And it's a whole other story to actually getting around to posting them. Or even getting them onto the computer.  But today is your extra lucky day, because I have gotten out my camera, taken (lots of) pictures, put them on the computer, AND I'm going to post them. All within the hour. I almost can't handle it. Hopefully you can.  :) Now, in my recent abundance of free time, I have taken to attempting some of the DIYs I repin on Pinterest.  (That's another surprising thing for today: who actually attemps the things they repin? Mostly when I repin DIYs it's like, wow, this looks cool! I'll repin it. But I have no intention of actually attempting it.)  Anyways, I did this yesterday:

I also started another one of an owl. I do the hammering outside and this little guy was keeping me company:

(After I took that last picture there, he fell off the edge...).  Funny story about this guy: he was hanging around out garden a couple weeks ago and at that point he couldn't fly. (And he can still only fly very short distances).  But his mom was hanging around and looking for food for him. But he would be squawking and squawking demanding food. His mom would feed him and then go get some more. But as soon as he couldn't see his mom, he would stop chirping. As soon as he could see his mom again, the squawking would start again. Talk about knowing when to use your energy and when it's a lost cause.  :) Baby bird with an attitude.  Anyways, when I went outside today to do some hammering, I was happy to see that he was still alive (because often/sometimes baby birds don't make it) and he kept me entertained.  He was hanging out in the veggie garden. Well, I say hanging out. More like running away from me while I used him for a photo shoot. Hence the falling off the ledge.  (No animals were harmed in the making of this blog post). And since I was taking lots of pictures, I decided I would give you a little challenge. Can you guess what plant this is?

Any ideas? Any at all? How about now:

Do you think you have it? I'll give you another photo:

That one's an aerial.  Can you tell now? OK, one more picture:

This is the ideal angle and zoom for trying to figure out what this is. Anybody got it? Well, hopefully you did, because I'm not going to tell you what it is. Hahaha. This is about as mean as I get.
We also have a non-veggie garden. Well, multiple non-veggie gardens, including a window box. And I am loving the flowers my dad/mom chose this year for the flower box:

 (And every picture hereafter was taken on manual focus. This may not seem like a big acomplishment to the more practiced photographers out there, but this is the first time I've ever tried manual focus and I think I did pretty well)

So pretty. I especially love the pink and purple together.
(When I say non-veggie garden, I mean a flower bed (obviously) but I just realized that calling it a non-veggie garden wasn't exactly normal...)
This is our fence, where it has been continually beat and banged by the lawn mower. I thought it made for a cool picture:

And this knot is pretty cool. It's almost a neon colour. At least in person it is. 
More pretty flowers!

At first I didn't think the focusing was going so well with these itty bitty flowers, but now I like the way it just focuses on a little group of them.  It forces you to look closer at the photo and appreciate them more. 

 

This plant is my favourite non-veggie plant (I will now and forever more refer them as non-veggie plants) that we have:

 It almost looks like seaweed! (it's not). (Seaweed, that is).

I was going to play another game with you, but you're brain might still be too exhausted from the first one, so I thought I would give you a break. And also, I wouldn't be able to tell you what this plant is called whether I wanted to or not.  The reason I like it so much is because it's so soft and fuzzy.  :)
This is just me trying out the manual focus:

And my last set of photos for today:

This is my other little friend who is constantly hanging out around our chives. 
Ok.
That's it.
That's all the photos.
Haha, and the award for longest blog post ever goes to...
And this is probably where you thought I would tell you what that plant was.  You were wrong.  :) Turns out I can be even more mean.

This is where I'm going to tell you what that plant is.

JK. Man, I am SO mean.
(I just realized that what if you do know what the plant is and now I'm just making myself look like a fool going on like this?)

Blue Skies and Sunshine, Another Beautiful Day in Paradise!

The sun is finally shining here in London, ON. And you can't help but be happy because of it.  The funny thing today though was the number of people walking around with sunburns at school today.  I was shocked! Day one of sunshine and already people are being burnt. Talk about starting off on the wrong foot.  The title of this post was inspired by Monopoly Tropical Tycoon, the board game with a DVD component.  When there is a period of time that you are not using the DVD, it will say the weather. But it keeps saying it. And saying it. And so now it's kind of a thing with our family, we say Blue Skies and Sunshine, Another Beautiful Day in Paradise! when it's sunny out.  I mowed the lawn when I got home today...I'm trying to do something outside each day, bonus points if it's physical activity.  One of the reasons I love mowing the lawn....Hold up. I need to reword that so it doesn't sound like I actually enjoy it. It's a chore, and I would prefer not to do it, but since I have to do it, might as well look for the positives, right? Well, one of the things I love is seeing the cut grass right beside the grass that has yet to be cut. It's kind of like the feeling you get when you've had to white something out and then when you start writing over the white-out. You know, the kind of excited feeling? Right...I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who gets those feelings...Anyways, here's a picture I took:

The people living behind us are getting their roof redone and the workers were probably thinking, "What the heck is that girl doing? First she was mowing the lawn, then she suddenly stops, gets her camera, is on her knees taking pictures of grass and now she's mowing again!"  Ah well. Annnnnd since I'm lazy about loading pictures onto my computer, here are some other photos I had intended to post but then never got around to it:

What do you think this is? Icing? Nope. It's cake batter. Well, actually it was cupcake batter. I made them for youth group, but I was just really surprised at how thick it was. They weren't great cupcakes, in case you were wondering.

And this is a tunnel/trail that either a vole or mouse has created leading to various places around the yard. It's mainly in one section, going between the deck and shed, where they undoubtedly have a nest.  However there is one trail that ventures off into the great unknown that is out backyard. Any guesses as to where it leads to?

If you guessed THE FRICKIN BIRD SEED THAT THE BIRDS KEPT DROPPING(!!!!!!), then you are correct.  It's probably what attracted the mice/voles in the first place.  And also this is a bush/tree hybrid: (I may have posted this one before...)

THE EYES. LOOK AT THE EYES.

Just sayin'.