:D

I have been taking and posting pictures like whoa. So, wander over to my flickr site if you haven't been recently.

Today I was trying to catch salmon fry in a puddle (our creek overflowed, then receded). I didn't catch anything, but I got to see some water snails and some weird thing with a whippy tail that I need to post online and see if anyone can identify.

The beavers that live in our creek are still there even though there's been two days of city maintenance workers breaking up their dam. The creek has dropped a crazy amount!!

I saw a nifty neato little yellow bird today, but it flew off before I could get a picture.

School Work Can Be Fun!

There are SO MANY things I want to do someday...learn to scuba dive, various foreign languages, various art projects, various movement arts (dance, fencing, gymnastics etc). I want to be in a play someday. I want to learn aromatherapy to the point where I can blend scented relief for people quickly and easily. I have thousands of books I want to read. I have dozens of books I want to write, gardens I want to plant

Sometimes, life comes about and lets me fulfil a few of those ideas at once.

I've always been envious of scrapbookers, but I never started scrapbooking, even when I was working at Michaels. I've already got an insane stash of art and craft materials...how could I possibly justify a new (potentially extremely expensive) hobby, even if I have hundreds of printed photos from trips, special events, and so on. I would love to do a scrapbook for each year I have a class (since I have thousands of digital photos). I have always wanted to do a botany scrapbook with drawings, and pressed flowers and...ahhh... This ties in with my love of plants (I love them SO MUCH that I will cut them apart, squash them between heavy objects and keep them with me FOREVER!! A little creepy when one thinks about it...) and my love of order (not noticeable to anyone who's ever seen any place I've ever spent any time at all) which manifests itself in strange ways.

For school this summer, one of my assignments is a botany scrapbook. I've been spending the last several weeks collecting flowers and leaves, pressing them in a lovely microwave flower press I got at Lee Valley, and gluing them to bits of cardstock. Things are coming together quite nicely. Pictures of in progress are forthcoming, but I'm on vacation this week, (a post ALL for itself...I am under the impression that I would make a REALLY crappy homemaker, but I will allow you to judge for yourself when [if] I make that particular post. [seriously, horrible housekeeper. for realz.])

Meme!

One word answers only!

1. Where is your cell phone? counter
2. Your significant other? David
3. Your hair? varies
4. Your mother? teacher
5. Your father? tall
6. Your favorite thing? touch
7. Your dream last night? sick :(
8. Your favorite drink? cold
9. Your dream/goal? classroom
10. The room you’re in? diningroom
11.Your hobby? crafts
12. Your fear? spiders
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? WAHM
14. What you’re not? healthy
15. Muffins? cranberry!
16. One of your wish list items? laptop
17. Where you grew up? Coquitlam
18. The last thing you did? massage
19. What are you wearing? pedometer
20. Favorite gadget? iPod
21. Your pets? imaginary
22. Your computer? Vaio
23. Your mood? tired
24. Missing someone? David
25. Your car? Cavalier
26. Something you’re not wearing? (ear)rings
27. Favorite store? craft
28. Like someone? many
29. Your favorite color? purple
30. When is the last time you laughed? yesterday
31. Last time you cried? today (while I was throwing up)

Home!

And thankful. There was a bitch of a storm starting just before the Coquihalla toll booth and going until Abbotsford. What should have taken about two and a bit hours took me nearly four. It was hellishly scary. I had visibility of about 2 feet for a while there.

Pictures of stuff coming later. I'm waaaaaaaay too tired. Hooray for cool air! I think it averaged around 36 degrees Celsius when I was in Kelowna (105 or so Farenheit.)

To recap: driving=bad, home=good

Because I have absolutely ZERO sense of direction...

When reading yesterday's lightning post, please read "south" as "west" and "north" as "east". Thank you very much.

...

And weirdly, I do solo road trips, usually get where I'm going, and so far also get back home from them. (knock on wood, since I'm actually still in Kelowna for another day.

I can see my fingers reflected in the screen (mental note: laptop with matte screen, and one with a card reader) and, damn, it's weird seeing my fingers just...do stuff. Nifty. I want to keep typing and watching them. Lalalalala....I guess I could watch them do homework.

Meh. :P

One more day of school!!

Sentient Weather

The lightning is mocking me.

And not only because when there's lightning I won't go swimming. I was trying to take pics of it when it was in the north, about three minutes ago, then I decided I should do work and anyway SCREW YOU CAMERA SHY LIGHTNING, so I went onto the porch where I'm facing south. Guess what? The lightning is suddenly in the south.

Stupid, sentient, mocking lightning.

It's nice and cool right now. YAY!!

Two more days of course...wow. That feels like a crazy lots amount of time, and it also feels like a crazy little amount of time.

There have been eight lightning flashes since I started this post.

Nine.

That's a lot, since I copy/pasted part of this from IM with (ten) my mom.

I think I'm going to stop liveblogging the flashes of lightning now. As awesome as they are (and they're seriously, really [eleven] freaking awesome), I really, really should get some stuff done (TWELVE! And that was a GOOOOOOOOOD one.)

Maybe I'll try takeing a couple (thirteen) south facing pics....

(edited to add: fourteen and fifteen hit just as I clicked post...sixteen...)

(edited again to add: YEAH! Southern lightning must less inhibited. I got three or four pics at the same time lightning struck, and two of them show the forks! I'm super stoked, and now I should go inside to get my WORK DONE!!! and not be distracted by a bunch of STATIC ELECTRICITY! Pictures will be posted when I get home, since I have no cord, and as far as I can tell, my mom's laptop doesn't have a card reader for my camera.)

Not sleeping outside tonight!!

Ok, holy crap...apparently there are BLACK WIDOW SPIDERS in Kelowna, and apparently there was one RIGHT BESIDE THE DOOR AT THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE today. Holy crap on a crap stick. I guess I'll just bake tonight.

Gahhhhhh....nnnnnnghhhhhuuuuuhhhh...

Before Day One

(from an email I sent my mom this morning. I currently feel much better, although very tired.)

I feel like death. :P I got to sleep around eleven upstairs after taking a shower and not drying off in an attempt to combat the HEAT. I woke up around two to spider nightmares, realized it was insanely hot and couldn't sleep, drank some water and splashed water all over my tank top and me. That didn't help, so I went downstairs to try since it was cooler down there...spiders were still on my brain, so THAT wasn't going to happen. So, after some deliberations and more attempts at falling asleep, I set up a mattress on the back porch with the chair cushions and watched a bit of lightning before I slept from around 4 until 530, when it was liiiiiight...waaaahhhhhh...

Managed to squeak out another hour or so of dozing between glaring at birds and the lit up clouds when my cell phone went off. Now, I'm feeling gross because I'm exhausted and still sick, nervous about class, and my mouth tastes ick from my antibiotics.

Random Mishmash of Otherness
The class was absolutely phenomenal. I'm so excited about teaching this stuff, it's awesome. This is totally the right path for me.

According to the scale here, I weigh about 171 lbs. I like this scale. The one at home says I'm 174 or so.

I'm debating another swim before I try and get some sleep (had one after dinner tonight). I'm also debating if I'm going to be sleeping on the back porch again, or if I should at least attempt an actual bed tonight. Decisions, decisions. I think part of it will depend on whether the drunk neighbours continue celebrating Canada Day in their backyard.

I love having use of a laptop. Last night, before attempting the aborted inside sleep attempt, I was hanging out by the pool fooling around online (which is exactly what I'm doing right now! Yay!), as I am wont to do. I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, and a cat was hanging out with me. Hee! Ironically, I'm doing a whack of hand written stuff because of class notes, and because some of the other notes I'm taking lend themselves better to hand written. Ooh, plane just flew overhead. Nifty.

PS, I also love having a pool. Kersplash! Swim tonight? Yes/no? I have to cover it still, so I might as well get another quick use out of it before I go inside to die a little bit of heat. Hrm...regardless, I'd better sign off, since I want to do a bit more work before bed. Good night, Lower Mainlanders!! Happy Canada Day!