An update from the Regster.

I would like to report that Reggie(better known as Fishy) is settling into camp life quite nicely.

He gets along great with everyone, a real crowd pleaser.

And he doesn't even seem to care that *sometimes* I forget that he needs food to survive.

Something I have noticed is this: He doesn't like being clean.

Whenever I clean his tank he stays depressed for a few days, and even adopts darker scales and fins.

He is definitely a sport. Although he is very nice to everybody, everybody is not very nice to him.

Joel has tried to burn him with a lighter, Kezi and Ben have forced him to be a cannibal and eat salmon, some people put some popcorn in his tank and just today Josh tried to snip him with scissors.

I would like to go on record and say that we have a very healthy relationship.

He brightens my day...and I feed him.

We do this cute thing sometimes where I trace my finger along the side of his tank and he follows me around.

I really do believe his IQ is considerably higher than the normal fish.

Our nine month anniversary is tomorrow.

I cannot believe that it has been so long.

Dance like it's the last night of your life.

Today was extraordinary.

Of course there was a few not so enjoyable moments(e.g.:My phone slipping down the side of my bed during the night so when the vibrating alarm went off it made the worst racket ever, and since my bed is solid wood and filled with stuff I couldn't move it for like 5 minutes, not a good way to start the morning. Or: Hearing a depressing song that made me eat a chocolate bar and sit in the cold rain for a while.). But that made the good moments that much better I'm sure.

p.s. the other day me and roomie googled this because we were confused as to which meant which.

i.e. means "that is"
it's from the latin "id est"
I like to eat vegetables (i.e. I enjoy their taste)


e.g. means "for example"
it's from the latin "exempli gratia"
I like to eat vegetables (e.g. carrots and broccoli)

I think people get them confused alot. But now we go around saying exempli gratia instead :).

Anyway, things that made this day great.
Roomie left for a week.
Now, to make this clear my heart is very saddened that we must be parted, but I do love having the place to myself for a while.

I went for a walk to take pictures this morning. But it started raining. And this might seem like a bad thing but in fact it was good. Because that forced me to put the camera away and I started enjoying creation without my eye being pressed to the view finder.
It was gorgeous.
I encourage you all to come to Homewood at some time or another. Every day I go outside I am thankful that I am here.

I played music with Jolene.
And I played music with Josh.

There is just a ton of music going on everywhere.

And then we had a dance party.
:)
Not usually something I like to be a part of, but I'm trying to break out of my shell here.

k, night.

Friday, January 19th.

I missed a very important anniversary, everybody.
Although I have been waiting for this day for a couple of month now, the busyness of the past couple weeks overtook me and the date slipped my mind.

I would like you all to take a moment and celebrate a very Happy 4th Birthday to my blog!

Four years? Seriously.
Who knew I could keep up with it for that long.
Of course looking at what I have posted on occasion shows that I didn't really put much thought into it. But this blogging this is for me, so I'm not going to apologize.

Some people feel obliged to post, and even guilty if they haven't.
But that's just nonsense.
At least, in my case it is.
I don't really have anything to tell the world.
Most of what I write is silly ramblings or trivial things about my day that in actuality nobody really wants to read about =D.

Although I do sometimes have secret hopes that I am gathering a huge fan base out there, and it's not just the crowd of my mothers friends that have recently taken up following my blog.
Haha, don't worry, I really don't mind.

Anyway. Happy Birthday to haelle.blogspot.com.

A blog-worthy day.

I could do it in story format.
But I'm really tired.
So point form will have to do.
(not in any order)

1. Had the most amazing carrot cake ever.
2. Started kitchen duty.
3.Put a red hoodie in a wash with 3 white shirts. 1/3 of me forgot, 1/3 didn't really believe and 1/3 thought that since I've washed that hoodie several times already that all the red dye that would come out..had already come out. So..yeah. Little rattled by that. But the next one is even better.
4.A pen started leaking on my bed. Black ink on my favorite green blanket. I was so mad at myself. But I put spray'n'wash on it and most of came out, so hopefully the rest will come off in the wash.
5.My ears seem to be permanently plugged. So annoying. The left one sometimes clears up, but never for long. It's been wayyy too long!
6. I found a perfect spot. I can't wait to go tomorrow and see if it is just as cool in the day time.
7. The weather just cannot make up its mind. One day it's like spring and everything is green. The next day its snowing and freezing cold. And back and forth.
8. It's Friday night and I am going to bed at ten thirty. What is the world coming too?

Pick-me-up.

I had forgotten how much music makes me complete.

Today was not such a good day.
I am slowly getting over this stupid cold but just a combination of things had me in a pretty bad mood by dinner time.

So I decided to have some alone time, something I haven't really done since I got here.
I took my ipod and went out walking in the woods.
I blasted the music so I could sing/yell and not be able to hear myself.
Such an amazing feeling.

It has definitely put me in a much better mood, so I will be remembering to do that every couple of days from now on so I do not get as down from now on.

The songs that most spoke to me tonight were these:

Day four of the sniffles.

Imagine this:
Hannah in her bed, sleeping peacefully.

Look again.
She's not actually sleeping peacefully, she has been lying in bed for several hours cursing the cold that is preventing her from getting sleep.

Like actually, its been the worst.
Something about this cold is making me unable to sleep.
Which really sucks since pretty much the only way to get better is to sleep.

So, I'm still sick. And exhausted all the time.
I'm going to try nyquil tonight, maybe that will help me a bit. I would like to get a little bit of energy back.

This weekend we had a group of 60 girl guides.
That was painful :).
I think it's going to take me a while to get back into kid mode.
And when I say that I obviously mean dealing with kids not being a kid myself, I would like to stay very far away from that.

Anyway, I have had so much to blog about, but since my brain is temporarily filled with cotton I am having a hard time remembering everything.

Bleah.

I woke up today feeling sick.
Not totally sick, just the beginnings of it.
But over the day I have steadily gotten worse.
And now I just feel bad.
Like headache, fever-ish, nasty feeling in the throat and nose area and extreme tiredness.

Honey, I'm home!

I'm here.
At Camp Homewood.
End of story.


Okay, fine. I'll tell you a little bit of a story.

We started our great road trip adventure on Friday morning.
The first part was pretty scary since we were still in snow country.
It was extremely slippery and apparantly just after we went through the bear cave it got shut down due to an avalanch? or something like that.

I'm never one for long trips in the car. I get bored straight away and usually sleep to pass time, but for some reason this time I was very attentive and not very sleep at all, which is strange since I had been 'burning the candle on both ends' lately in order to get everything done and everybody visited before I left.

It took us quite a while to actually get to the ferry and get across so by the time we got to Victoria it was late-ish and dark. So we ate dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory(so good.) and then went back to the hotel and just chilled.

Saturday we woke up pretty late. Well, most of the family did. Little known fact about my father: he likes exploring new towns? Haha. He woke up really early and went out around the town by himself. And he was so pumped about these little places he found. Where as everybody else slept in and ate breakfast at the hotel restaurant because it was convenient.

We went to the bug museum first. Wow, that was definitely the highlight of my weekend! Haha. Maybe a touch of sarcasm there.
It was sort of neat to learn some stuff about stick bugs and have a Millipede crawl on my hand.

We visited the undersea gardens, walked around, took in an imax movie about Tahitian surfing, ate some fish and chips at the Sticky Wicket and finally we were ready to go.

MORE DRIVING!
Again I couldn't sleep, but maybe that was a good thing because the scenery was AWESOME! And when I say that I mean it literally. Awe-some.
We stopped in Nanaimo to pick up some groceries.
That was hard. I didn't know what kind of food I was supposed to bring and canned soup just makes me gag. And I am a girl who need tons of meat in her diet. The thought of going vegetarian scares me real bad.

More driving.
By this time tensions were getting high and all I wanted was to get to camp, and get there as soon as possible. But of course we didn't arrive in enough time for the 6:15 ferry so we were going to have to wait for the 7:30 which in the end turned out to be good since we kind of got lost in Campbell River.

But then we were on the ferry, and we were going across, and we got across, and we drove to the camp with only a little bit of confusion.

And we made it!

So I'm here, guys.

It's been okay so far. At first it was really awkward(of course). But now it is only a little bit. I've learned some of what I have to do, and I've gotten to know the girls I'm staying with so everything is A-OK.
It's actually pretty cool. The girls have a little apartment with a kitchen, living room, bathroom and two bedrooms. So it's like I moved out and am living on my own.
I'm sharing a room. And it's pretty much the first time I have ever done that. So it's going to take a little to get used to.

But other than that I'm doing fine. In a couple of weeks I'll be into the swing of things and then not be able to believe that I didn't know anything at the beginning.

Too good.

So, I know I have blogged this story before...
But for all of you new readers who didn't bother to go back and read every single one of my posts I give you THE WORLD'S SHORTEST FAIRY TALE:

Once upon a time, a girl asked a guy "Will you marry me?"
The guy said, "No"
and the girl lived happily ever after and went shopping, dancing,
always had a clean house, never had to cook and farted whenever she wanted.
The end.

This is how I feel on the subject.

In other news, I'm still procrastinating finishing off the packing and the hour of departure approaches at an alarmingly fast pace.

TILF.

I forgot yesterday okay?
And as I am cleaning my room today I found so many things I love. It puts me in a good mood.

1. Green. I have so much green. I delight in it.
2. Sharpie markers. Of all shapes, colours and sizes.
3. Black ink pens.
4. Mulled cider, of the non-alcoholic variety.
5. Hanging out at home. The closer I get to leaving the more I just want to be at home.


I'm going to snow camp for the weekend.
So my resolutions are going to be delayed for a while.
Have a great new years celebration and I'll be back on Sunday night.

Betcha can't figure out this one.

So.
Itiwptetiawstydakhifat. Cstow/mcomattiabtijdrwithrniwtatyhifbaikisfwttbtasmpohtikfdta.

Believe it or not that is the shortened version of what I feeling right now. But trust me I say you will never figure it out. I have even forgotten.

But let's talk about me anyway. Since I'm pretty sure that why you guys read this thing. Not much else on it.

I don't like chocolate. And people are always shocked when they here this. I mean why? It's just another food. Normal people don't like other normal food so why do I get such special treatment on this.
It's not like I hate the taste. Well, okay sometimes I do. But for the most part I can tolerate it, even crave it. It's just not really on my top..300 foods.

I don't like Christmas either.
I find it stressful and awkward(oh so very awkward). I don't enjoy it and it seems like too much of a big deal for me. Now before you start arguing, I'm not saying I don't like the idea of the Biblical Christmas. But in actuality Jesus was not born on December 25th. And we should celebrate Jesus' birth every day not just one made up day in December that we also have to share with the crazy stress of gift giving and food.

This isn't really what I came on here to talk about :).
Despite my lack of excitement for this particular holiday I did really enjoy it. I was surprised.
Maybe cause the kids are getting older now so it's not so much about the presents but more about hanging out with each other.

So Hannah was happy.

Now, Hannah is not so happy.
Cause she realized that she leaves her hometown in less that two weeks.
This is a big deal, guys.
I have never been anywhere for more then a month. And that is with the reassurance that I could return home on any given weekend.

I don't really have that assurance this time.
I am going to a place where I have never been, to work with people I don't know.
And although this whole time I have been getting excited to go now the panic is setting in and it's all I can do not to cancel.

I know it will be so good for me. I will learn so much and become a better person(well, this is my hope. After seeing what Josh has turned into I'm not so sure :D). But for now I'm just scared. And very amazed that I am even sharing this with you.

I'm working on my 2011 resolutions right now, so I'm sure I'll have those up by the end of the week.
p.s. 2011..it sounds pretty lame. Hopefully it will prove me wrong.

Cliche Christmas Post? Heck yes!

We Lefebvre's do it right.
Family bonding over a board game or puzzle? That is a thing of the past.

Here is three great things to make your Christmas eve special and awesome like ours.

1. A little last minute wrapping.

2. This just in:the new way to bond with your family would have to be watching Star Wars on your new 42" television.
We never have been good at leave the opening of presents until Christmas morning.

3. Adding a little spring to our step, the old fashioned way.


Have a happy Christmas. Don't too caught up in the presents and food though...

*pause* I just remembered that I get to eat Turkey and mashed potatoes tomorrow.
This just made me really excited. I had forgotten about Christmas dinner. *unpause*


Anyway..where was I? Be happy. Make memories, remember memories.
Talk about your old job that you haven't worked at in four months but it still seems to be dragged back in every family conversation you have(haha, yeah we are weird).

Ch

Just another crazy fact...

I get major food cravings.

Like I will do anything and everything in my power to get my hand on the desired food or drink.
But I have started to notice a trend in these cravings.
I start craving what I read about in a book or watch in a show.
And contrary to popular television belief it isn't ever the food commercials advertising 99 cent big macs or the new Tim Hortons oatmeal.

Like the real reason for my curried rice obsession? In the episode of heroes I was watching that day they went to an east indian restaurant for lunch.
And today I watched a man drink a strawberry milkshake.
I. Need. A. Strawberry. Milkshake. Now.

The stupid things I do.

One of those things would be..
Running across my back yard in bare feet.
So, not only was there like a foot of snow everywhere but it was that hard snow that practically cuts your feet when you walk on it so imagine the pain been ten times worse because I was running.

I now have a blood blister on the side of my pinkie toe and the most of that area hurts like heck. I'm hoping I didn't do any permanent damage.

At least there was no frost bite...

A cooking adventure.

I have been spending so much time in the kitchen.
It amazes me, really.

I made a pork loin with rice the other day.
It didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. But it didn't taste bad.
And it was my first experience making rice(crazy, I know). And I ended making way to much.


But that is okay because when it got to be supper time today I had a craving for curried rice. So bad a craving I almost drove into town just to get some butter chicken from the Wok Box. But I went to the kitchen instead and told my mother of the craving. She had been planning on using the left over rice for dinner anyway so she left me to it and I made curried rice.
It wasn't totally what I had in mind. But I don't think I could have accomplished what I had pictured so this was good enough for me.


Today was sort of an up and down emotional-wise day.
But my mood was brightened when I started baking at 8 Pm. At the same time someone started talking to me on facebook. Someone I *never* would have expected to have a really good conversation with. But we did. And it was enjoyable.

I wasn't in the spirit of Christmas baking before. But I guess hanging out with my friends who were baking yesterday sort of got me in the mood, and I was looking through recipe books all afternoon.

I made Cranberry Bliss Bar.



And Gingersnaps.



And that is all I got for tonight.

Hap Hap HAPPY!

I set out willing myself to have a good night. And for the first hour it was a terrible night full of disappointments, hard to understand asians and getting lost on the north shore(OMG).
But after the storm there is a rainbow and it was quite a beautiful one.

Complete with:
Hanging with the brothers and adopted brothers.
Getting some delishish Timmies and catching up with one of my boys.
Rocking out on the way home to some bass thudding party songs.
On the way INTO town going super slow cause I had nowhere to be and it was fun.
Stalking some guy with UGLY jeans.
And the best part...

BUYING A CANON DSLR CAMERA!


It quite made my day ..week..month.

It's so beautiful.

It's going to take forever to figure out how to work it but Matthew tootsie gave me one of his uni books from his photography class so that should help me to understand aperture , exposure and all that junk.

A good day.




P.s. my heater broke though. And my room is freezing. Momma, can you buy me a new one?

I'm a meat and potatoes kind of girl.

There are so many things that I have never made.
And when I say this I mostly meaning in the cooking world.

My mother put a chicken and potatoes in the oven this afternoon.
Just how they were.
Just a plain chicken and potatoes.

I can't stand to see *plain*.
So I added some stuff to the chicken, you know, the usual.
Garlic, onion, some green flaky stuff, salt and pepper.

And the potatoes I turned into twice baked potatoes, which I have heard a lot about but never made them.
And they didn't turn out bad according to sources. I didn't have one..haha I don't trust my own cooking.

Nothing special about them really. Just butter, salt and pepper, cheddar cheese and a little bit of garlic. Okay, maybe some italian seasoning too.
They were delish though.

I have a habit of making amazing food =D.

P.s.
One of my friends wrote this as her status today, and I thought it was so hilarious I wanted to share it somewhere. And since my twitter only lets me do 140 characters I will have to copy and paste here.

"Soo... I was sitting at a coffee shop with my bff's aaand... This girl walks up and says to me, 'My friends thinks your cute!' I turn around to see a 40 year old man waving at me, and smiling. I have nothing else to say...."


I'll leave you with that.
Night!

FACT!

1. I can go for periods of surviving on less than five hours of sleep a night without feeling bad. Or periods of sleeping for more than ten hours of sleep without feeling bad.
But I cannot mix the two together.

2.I am very complex. Like seriously. I confuse myself.
And I have many different moods. Which makes being my friend very hard.

3.I am quite the amazing cook when I put my mind to it. But I don't like to put my mind to it very often.

4.I painted my room lime green and black when I first moved into the new house(new=4 years ago) and now that I'm older and 'more mature' I keep thinking i should repaint it a more subtle color. But every time I try..I can't. Cause I love it so very much.

5.On a similar note, when I was younger I used to wonder what age do you have to be in order to look cool when you use kids stuff rather than just looking dorky and childish.
And just recently I had a realization. It's not that there is a certain age. It's the age when you stop caring that people will think you are cool or not. Fortunately I reached that age several years ago. Which is why I am totally comfortable hauling around my disney fairy water bottle and my Super awesome umbrella that looks like a frogs head.

6.I am very much an organizer of my brothers. I don't think its very normal. Which is where I pause to wonder if it's cause I'm so OCD or because they are disorganized..a little of both? Especially my older brothers.I clean their house. Do their laundry, go through their mail and make sure they are paying the bills. But I love doing it. It's going to be a little bit sad when they up and marry women who can do that all for them.

7.Sometimes when I'm in a bad mood, having a drink of carbonated beverage can make me feel better. But this isn't a sure fire thing.

8.I have smokin' bass skills apparently. It makes me laugh when non musical people think you sound good even though they are not a proper judge at all. It is a nice little ego boost though.

Things I luurrve Thursday.

1. Cheese. And we are talking about legit cheese here. Not corny humour.
2.Green Tea w/ Lemon
3. Zooey Deschanel
4. Finding something I'm good at, and actually enjoying it.
5.112
6.Nachos and sour cream.
7.Playing my favorites list from youtube over and over and over.
8.Cleaning.
9.My pseudo parents. They think I'm stylish even when I just throw on a pair of leggings and an old tshirt.
10.Not having to. (no, not going to explain this.)
11.Hockey.
12.A donkey wearing a John Deere hat.
13. Taylor Swift.(i thought it was appropriate since her favorite number is 13)
14. Budda Boomers :D