Getting 'er done.

There is nothing like denying yourself privileges in order to motivate the finishing of much procrastinated tasks. I was doing quite well with writing everything down on the to do list and actually doing it. But I've noticed in the last couple weeks that a certain couple things get conveniently circled time and time again.

I have no choice but to kick myself in the pants. I'm starting small, saying no to Pinterest and other internet addictions, but if this putting off continues, the list might have to get longer.

My newly founded morning Tim Hortons addiction? Heartland? Or *gasp* maybe even the Book of Faces?

How to plant an M&M tree.

All it takes is:

One M&M in your favourite colour.

One digging utensil.

One patch of suitable ground.

And one girl crazy enough to believe in magic.
I could have been still half asleep though, we'll blame it on that.

 I would suggest to all of you who might attempt this, to layer up a little more than I did.
Going outside in leggings and bare feet inside rubber boots, in a yard covered by a thick layer of snow could be a crazier idea than planting candy trees.

Plant your little treat in the ground, cover it up, and hope for green shoot in the spring.
Or...maybe it will be blue? :)

How I feel every week :).

Source: dumpaday.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Just some Thursday lovin'.

To be honest, today was more of a Things I Loathe day.
But in the spirit of happiness and positivity and all that fun stuff,  I went looking for the silver lining.

1. Clean hair. (As you can see I had to search real hard for the happy :)
2. Grapefruit juice.
3. The fact that the staff at the gym press a button so I never have to open the door to the changeroom.
4. Feeling a bit of calm after the storm.
5. Getting those things done that you have been putting off for months.
6. Having somebody notice the empty fruit gusher wrappers.
7. Ordering cheques for the first time. THEY HAVE SAILBOATS ON THEM!
8. Having an unread message.
9. Looking forward to happier things.
10. Counting down the days til my Big Momma returns to work. 27!
11. Crayons.
12. When somebody repins my stuff. I feel as if I might actually have a sense of style, or humour, or wit, or...etc.

The Birthday that went on and on and on.

If you know me, you know that I'm all about the little things.
Which means I don't need a huge birthday party, or a day dedicated to me.
I just need:

A birthday dinner on Monday with family.

A friend remembering and bringing me muffins in the morning.

The same friend making a card and getting people to sign it without me knowing.

A mama who brings me hot and steamy drinks during work.

A birthday evening that definitely tops last year :D

Butter tarts made without the raisins.

A Big Momma stopping by to visit me at work and giving me presents.

Road trip to Kelowna with the Bestie on Friday.

A Birthday dinner on Saturday with work friends.

A birthday lunch on Sunday.

The only sad part is, not being able to use the birthday excuse again for another 360 days.

Well...I still do have that free smoothie coupon...
THE BIRTHDAY WEEK LIVES ON

Things I love Thursday

Having a good enough reason to buy pink champagne to celebrate happy times.

We'll call it unique.

It seems like life has been going out of it's way to prove to me that I am unusual.

Conversations with people have led me to that conclusion.
And looking at myself has led me to the same conclusion.

Perhaps it is my massive love for lists.
Yes, I know there are many people who love the writing out and crossing off of lists.
But do all of these people plan out their entire week, complete with what they need to think(!) on certain days, and literally scheduling in when they can relax. Okay that last one may be true for more than a few people.

But as I was thinking(thinking? Uh oh, I didn't schedule that in.) over this fact this evening I figured something out. 1.I cannot live without a to do list or schedule. 2. This means all of my days are always planned. 3. Which means I never have an allotted time to rest or do nothing. 4. Which means when I do these things during the week or on the weekend I always feel guilty and not really relaxed. 5. And it also means that since I procrastinated the to do list, it doesn't ever get fully completed resulting in 6. Me feeling disappointed at the end of the week. But 7. Starting the list for the next week to start the cycle all over again.

Not totally like that..but very close. And I'm not sure what I gain from telling you this, because I am still very confused about the whole thing, but maybe you have suffered from a similar situation and can lend some advice my way.

Sad, funny 'oh.' moment.

I was saying something to my best friend about the pictures I had put up on Facebook earlier of my brothers wedding.

She texted me later, "There are no pictures."

What?

I checked the situation out.

Turns out the album that I have been putting pictures into the ENTIRE YEAR was set to an 'only I can view them' status so the lack of comments and likes weren't because people don't like me, just my own stupidity.

I don't know how this has been going on for an entire year and I didn't realize.

So, if you are my Facebook friend, go check out a collection of 103 pictures that I took in the year 2012.

I guess it's nice for a little happy surprise.

A Crazy Photographer.

Lately my picture taking has slowed to a stop.

Mostly because my week is a write off. I come home after work and crawl into bed almost right away.
No, I don't go to sleep, but I spend what's left of the evening catching up on my cyber life or reading.

And when the weekend comes, I am so busy doing all the things I couldn't do in the week, that I don't have extra time for things like hobbies.

But today as I was driving into town at sunset, the view was spectacular. The sun was almost down and it was creating this wonderful silhouette thing with the mountains and the buildings in the distance.
Fortunately I had my camera with me.

Unfortunately I driving when I had this inspiration and I couldn't find parking anywhere, and I was getting more hurried and frustrated as the seconds ticked by, knowing that with each second I was losing the sun.

I finally found a parking spot at our park downtown, and I ran, literally booted it, across the park to the riverside so I would have an open view. The scene that I had been wanting to take was now gone, but the one I saw was almost as good, so I took a test picture....and I had forgotten to put the memory card back in the last time.

DARN.

But I had one in the car.

Ran back.
Somebody had been in the car beside mine and asked me if I lost something.
Nope, just being a crazy photographer.

So, here it is. Definitely not the greatest, I haven't been trained in night shooting yet.
But I wanted to have something to show for my half an hour of craziness.

Stress is best.

I have figured out my problem.

Since I went for so long not blogging, but updating my Twitter, I am now perfect at coming up with witting starters or perfect titles, but then the actual content is non existent, or lame.

So, this time I didn't focus at all on those first things, and I will try and write something decent enough for you to read.

Hi!
Let me tell you about the crazy fun time I just had today.
Crazy fun...or most painful experience I'd encountered in my life so far.

I have been wanting to try a specific diet out for months now, and I thought that the week leading up to Thanksgiving would be a perfect time for it because I can reward myself at the end of the  headache.

Headache...because it has been so far.

I don't know if you have ever done anything like a cleanse or diet, but let me tell you, it's not all fun and games. Well, it was never supposed to be, but so far (I'm on day 1 :D) it's been a nightmare.

Day 1 consists of Fruit. Just lots and lots of fruit. Oh, and gallons of water. That might be a reason my headache  migraine has been so bad. My water intake was a little lacking today...I'll know for the future.

Hannah is never a happy camper when she is eating healthy stuff, but when she is subjected to healthy stuff and healthy stuff alone? Moods and tempers and walking around with a sour face is definitely involved. I apologize for all the men that had to put up with me today, but they are pretty used to it by now anyway.

Fast forward/ rewind a bit.
I was asked to be a volunteer model for the Pregnancy Care Centre's Fundraiser Fashion Show.
I could insert a photo of me in my everyday clothes and we could all laugh hysterically at the idea of me pretending to be fashionable at all..but..no.

Let's just say, I didn't let myself have any part in the decision making of anything from hair, to outfits, to make up and jewelry. I just put on what I was told, and it worked for me.

The actual show was a wee bit fun, I have to admit that. But the headache, gnawing hunger ache in my stomach, and the temptation of all the fabulous desserts put a damper on things.

Not the greatest look, or lighting but you get the picture, eh? (pun SO intended!)

   

It was helpful that I had some great friends along to help make it a lighter, happier occasion.  

Stay tuned for updates on the 'DIE't coming up later this week.           

P.s. It looks like the blog wants to add to the already massive headache, so I'm sorry for the quirks that might be showing up for you, but I don't have the patience to fix it right now...or ever, probably.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

Just Can't Get Enough.

One of my latest hobbies is watching Youtube clips.

I found this girl and I can't get enough of her singing this song.

I don't even want to try and count how many times I've watching this video.

Hope you enjoy as much as I did.

If you want to just listen to the song, skip to 1:10.

Things I love Thursday.

Here it is, folks!
The return of your favourite segment.

1. My Job.
  -Payday
  -Getting off early
  -Bob Scott bringing me fishy crackers yesterday
  -JR bringing me fruit roll ups today
2. The events in my life at this point in time. Like honestly, I'm very blessed, and I can't really find a reason to complain about anything.
3. GETTING MY CAR BACK TOMORROW! I think I have purposely not blogged about this string of events just because I wanted to talk about it all together when the whole ordeal is finished, so stay tuned.
4. My brother is a married man!
5. I sometimes forget about Reggie and he goes probably days without feedings, but he's still kicking..love that kid.
6. And last, but most exciting, My new baby Blake!

Welcome!

It's been a little while, hasn't it?

The thing is...I can't promise you anything substantial in the next little while. 

I guess I have the blogging blues. No motivation, no inspiration.

Although, I did start a draft of my School Post..but that's one of the reasons I am feeling so procrastinatey about blogging. So, I'm sorry to all you lovely people, but if it comes down to it, I would rather skip on ahead in life than let you in on all the adventures of my 10 weeks in Europe.

But on another note, I noticed lately that I have quite a few followers (read: I check daily to see if the count has gone up.), and I though it might be a good idea to do a reintroduction of myself to those who have joined in the last little while. You could just read all 700 of my posts and probably know more about me than I even know, but who would ever want to do that.


Hi! My name is Hannah.(I did a quick search on my blog to see if I had mentioned my name already. It's not that I'm totally scared of all those creepy stalkers out there who collect all the information about you and use it to find where you live, well, maybe I am a lot. But I started mentioning it over three year ago so if they were gonna find me, they would have by now.)

I live in a nice little city called Kamloops. (Also searched that. Stalkers, how clueless are you?)

My favourite past times include baking, reading, playing my guitar and taking pictures.
I have a large family with five brothers and a newly included sister-in-law. I love them all to bits. Probably my biggest joy in life.

I work on a construction site, building a hotel.
Best. Job. Ever.
I never really realized you could love your job so much.

I have a slightly crazy nature, which might show through a little bit on here. I can act mature..but I prefer not to and I get along fine.

I blog for the fun of it, and to update people on my life, so if you were looking for a blog with some sort of theme or purpose...you won't find it here. But I'm always happy to find out there are people reading and enjoying it, so leave me a little bit of comment love from time to time.

It's getting late and I can't think of anything else off the top of my head, so I'll leave it at that.

Class.

Let's just all try and be classy like Audrey Hepburn.

Meet the team.

The daunting task of blogging about my trip is still...daunting. But I thought I would approach it in a round about way and introduce you to the players of the story first. (In no particular order)

Marianna.
This delightful woman was our cook. She came from Romania especially for this job and at the time she got to Greece, about two weeks before we arrived, she didn't know any English, and was pretty shy about it. But over the course we got to know her and were able to bring her out of her shell.
She made AMAZING food. Every day it was something new and delicious, partly the reason why I ended up gaining 10+ lbs.

Elyse.
This crazy girl is all the way from Australia. Such a funny character. She was the eldest of the group, and it showed a lot of the time. It was great to learn from her and to be inspired by HER learning.

Steffan.
The deck hand.
A lovely man from Germany who has moved to Greece to be a missionary.
He definitely gets a prize for being able to keep up with all of us and dealing with less than fun chores. I won't go into some of the things that he had to do, but they were disgusting.

H.C.
My Hannah squared.
This girl is so sweet! And sweet meaning nice, kind, considerate, happy etc.
Always encouraging and positive. I'll try not to hold her american citizenship against her :).

Marinna.
This crazy girl didn't wash her hair for the entire 7 weeks of the trip, experimenting to see if her hair would start cleaning itself. It never got too gross, but it never did very clean either :).  The youngest of the group, she challenged me with her question asking and wise beyond her years comments and thoughts.

Oh hey. It's me.

Natey Pot Pie.
I can't even begin to tell you how much I like this boy. In the strictly friendship way (in case you were wondering.) Always making me smile. Always singing me Nat King Cole. He's the best kind of sensitive and funny all wrapped up into one great package.

Tara.
The artist of the group.
She missed her flight and wasn't able to make it one time, but inspite being several days of training behind the rest, she managed to pick everything up at an amazing speed and had no trouble fitting into the group. In the airport on her way home, her boyfriend proposed to her, which made us all very happy since we had been hearing about their amazing relationship the whole trip.

The Z man.
This guy is WEIRD! But in a great way. Having his own theme song, and creating commercials for cookies that we found in one of the towns. One of the few that had previous sailboat experience.

Taylor Brown.
And unlumpable boy from Saskatchewan.
This boy was great to get to know. We had some nice one on one chats, and he was good at calling me out things. He joined Marinna in her no-hair-washing challenge. 

Sierra.
An incredibly talented girl. She speaks French and Spanish fluently, and has recorded an album.
I feel a special bond with this one. Okay, I feel as special bond with every single person on that boat, but this one feels a little different. She was the first one I met, and it was nice having the hour  of getting to know her before everybody else starting showing up. 

Theo!
Our skipper.
I learned so much this man. Some from lessons, some not. I respect him greatly, and am really glad I got the chance to know him, and learn from him. Dealing with a boatfull of people who don't know what they are doing must have been difficult at times, but he didn't let it show, and after 7 weeks he had trained us all up to be competent crewmen.

Vanessa.
Rocking the pants. Could be always be counted on to have a good time, looking great in snorkel gear, petting the cats. Just an overall nice girl. I don't think I could ever say anything bad about this girl.

Things I Love Thursday

1. Getting a package in the mail.
2. Laughing and laughing and laughing with one of your best friends.
3. When something goes wrong, but I'm okay with it.
4. Reading books. It has been too long.
5. Wearing dresses all the time, cause you can do that in the summer.
6. Living without my phone for a day. Puts thing in perspective.
7. T Swift in the morning.
8. Having weekends so that I can actually enjoy this heat that kills me everyday at work.
9. http://www.rainymood.com/

The 4 stages of happiness.

Happiness has four stages. You'll eke out the most happiness from an experience when you...

1. anticipate it with pleasure,

2. savour it as it unfolds.

3. express happiness to yourself or others, and

4. recall a happy memory.

Ahead of my country, I guess.

On my list of 'Top Ten Delicious Foods(for now)', this one is very close to the top. Let me tell you a few stories about this delectable treat.

One time I was shopping around in MTF Price Matters. Not something I do frequently, usually only when I need to kill some time in the Valleyview area. And I saw a stack of these coconut M&M's.

I like M&M's. I like coconut. It was really a no brainer, and at such a good price!

But...like when you are buying food on sale at the grocery store, you wonder if there is a reason for the great deal especially when it seems like no one else has been scooping them up. So rather than buying the 20 packages I had originally intended, I got one as a sample.

Why did I doubt?

They were GREAT!

But unfortunately the rest of them were gone the next time I stopped in at MTF.

Fast forward to my Europe trip.
Grocery stores really are my favourite place to be. So, naturally I had to go into as many as possible in every town and city we went to. I rarely actually NEEDED something but that didn't stop me.

Then in Venice(I think), we were walking out of a grocery store and the coconut caught my eye. They are European and they are EXPENSIVE! It was something like 2 euro for a package. I couldn't make myself pay that much money even they are quite yummy. Very yummy, actually.

Goes to show that I was hard wired to live in Europe where they love the coconut chocolate and do not try to sell it cheap at the local discount store.

If anyone finds a store that sells this product, please alert me immediately. I have not been able to find it since.

Thought of the day.

"I wish everybody read my blog so they would know not to do the things that make me mad."

Locked out of life.

What happens when you try and sign in to your Youtube account in Rome and forget the password?
Answer: They think you are a hacker and lock up your account.

Okay, that is fine. But wait, my blog and email are attached in this deal since it is all run by Google now.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

I'll paint you the scenario.

Doing my usual routine of logging onto my blog to see if any of my friends have posted anything, I get a error message, but it's in french so I can't understand what it says. I copy and paste unto my ipod's translate application and the translation comes across as something like, "Your blog has been deleted."
WHAT?

I didn't even know what to think, or say, or do. So I checked my email again. It gets a little confusing here. But I have my hotmail account, but it's linked to my gmail account so I get all my emails together and I hadn't checked the side folder so I missed the email that said there has been suspicious activity and they are locking my account.

Let me tell you, you don't realize how important your blog is to you until it is gone. I, like most bloggers (I assume), sometimes get the doubts of whether or not it's time to shut the blog down and have the freedom to not worry about having to put up a post for all those who wait patiently. Well the writers block hasn't hit me hard enough yet. I cannot count the times I have gone to blog over the last weeks and groaned because I can't. The count for how many times I wanted to blog about this situation is high enough alone.

Long story short, I started the process of getting everything sorted as soon as I got home and a couple days later I got to sign in again, and it felt so good.

So there is my excuse for internet silence for the last little while.
Terrible events like these always have to happen at the most inopportune time, so I'm sorry you didn't get to hear about the rest of my trip as I went, but I will be describing it soon.