weekends are happy

I was right. That friday was amazing. I got my toes done by a little chinese man, it was entertaining making him attempt nail art :) We had Sushi Cushi lunch which was amazing, then cooked dinner at my place. YUM Dance parties were had and it was a good time. I unfortunately didn't take any pictures.
Last weekend was also very good. Mom and Dad came in on Friday, and Colin too. We had a family dinner, it was nice--just missing lindz. Saturday after a huge breakfast Colin and I headed off to Steinbach Mennonite Village to explore our heritage. It was really neat to read some of the information and take pics all over menno-ville.

Then we got lost trying to find New Bothwell, I wanted to go to the cheese factory. When we finally found it, it was closed. We met up with friends in the evening for the corn maze, which was sooooo fun. We almost got kicked out, the boys were throwing corn and nearly took out some children. They had to take off running to escape the "maze patrol". Overall a good weekend.
Works not too bad, I'm at a hall right by the apartment this week. It's nice waking up at 705 and being at work by 720.
peace out
ps. it's cold now.

I'm so excited to spend time with friends today. I love the people in my life!!! Details will follow, but I see cocktails, guacamole, and dance parties on the horizon. (after a sushi lunch and a mani/pedi...Good day!!)

I haven't had a moment

Aly and I in our new apartment...first morning (after finally getting all our stuff in at 11pm the night before)

I told you that I would suck at this! The last month has been rediculous. Packing up all my belongings and moving out of my lil firehouse....all the way approximately 5 blocks across town :) I no longer live alone, my little sister is my roomie and it's been great so far. A few moving days were slightly stressful, cleaning, throwing crap out, organizing...all that fun stuff that everyone loves. We're now basically settled in. We still need to get pictures up on the wall, which will happen after we paint over the previous tennants nail holes.
I can't tell you how much I love having my lil sis around. Even if we're not up to much, at least there's company. Like this afternoon she sat and did homework in the living room and I washed walls. We hit the gym for a half hour while our pizza dough rose, and now it's just come out of the oven. So I'm gonna go. I will not promise that I'll get better at this, but I will say that I'll make an effort to give updates a little more frequently.

Pump drill

Training at the academy the other day with Engine 101, Rescue 5, Ladder 2 and us Engine 26. It was nice to go over some pumping, although I'd already gone through the exact same day two months ago. So I took pictures--much to everyone's excitement.

Nothing else really exciting to report. Although I watched Nancy Drew the other night, was almost embarrassed to rent it, and then ended up getting pretty freaked out watching it--even more embarrassing!!

stick your face on my fridge

I love pictures. I love being surrounded by my friends and family. I love looking at their joyful faces and remembering what was so darn funny at that moment in time. It makes me happy. Last night Cecile and I went on a dollarama mission to find pineapple stuff, and balloons to make a pinata. I hate going to dollarama because I always end up buying stuff that I don't need, like yesterday's sleeping mask purchase. I guess I can justify it, cause I sleep during the day a lot and so I need it to keep the light out??. HAha but I tried it out last night and woke up this morning with it on the floor somewhere.
The dollarama purchase that I do not regret is a page of magnet. It's sticky on one side and it perfect for putting pictures on and cutting out. I stayed up until 2am picking pictures of the people I'm crazy about and trying to fit them onto one page. Yes it could have waited until this morning...but I had a surge of energy and just needed their faces on my fridge.

your mind says go but your body says no...that's muscular dystrophy

So it's apparent from my blog that when I go back to work I am too tired/busy to do much else. But since it's gross outside, looks like my four days off will actually be used for relaxing instead of gallivanting to the beach or something.
I volunteered for Muscular Dystrophy today. They have a drive at Safeway's across Winnipeg to raise money for research and equipment for people with MD. The fire department has always been a huge supporter of MD so I thought I'd do my part on this rainy Saturday. I was the first person there this morning and was on my own at the table for almost two hours. I find it super awkward to ask people for money. I also have "phantom shyness". haha, I have myself convinced that I'm shy or something. Then at some point my brain remembers that I'm definately not!! So once I started talking to customers and getting some of the employees to come check out the display I felt way more comfortable. A few ladies that have MD showed up to volunteer with their families. It was really interesting because I've never met anyone with muscular dystrophy before. The one woman is 40 and only found out she had it 4 years ago. I can't even imagine how devastating that would be. She said that she went through a period of anger, and that it was really frustrating through the diagnosis process. Today she is a happy woman, sitting in her wheelchair with her 13month old grandbaby in her arms. I give these people a lot of credit for the bravery and strength that they have to battle this disease.

i am not creative at all

I am super jealous of my friend Cecile. She is creative. I am not. Cecile spent hours painting her dining room ceiling with an intricate design, I made up a lame card game once. Cecile buys ugly furniture and puts hours of sweat and love into it and turns it into something beautiful, I....spray paint things black. haha. BUT times are changing! I decided that I wanted a nine-drawer dresser to for my bedroom. I've been hunting for weeks wherever I go. Cecile even took me out to smelly second hand stores, couldn't find anything that caught my eye. I came home to Brandon this week to hang out with my family and I stopped in at a used furniture store downtown and found this beautiful behemoth of a dresser. 9 drawers just like i wanted. I didn't get a "before" picture unfortunately because we poured paint stripper on it the moment it got into the garage. It was painted white over some grey-ish stain. I've been in the garage all week with paint stripper and a heat gun...and plenty of fumes which make for interesting thought patterns. I've mostly finished the drawers, they're sanded down and just have the sides and the parts between the drawers to sand on the actual dresser.
I can't believe I've had the patience to work on this all week. It feels pretty good to look at something and know that you've made it good. I'd like to thank Cecile for inspiring me to find my creative side, and my dad for all his tools and stuff. haha

bleached blonde

My little sister and I have decided that we can't afford to get our hair done in the salon anymore so we are leaving the hair dying to ourselves. A couple weeks ago we bought a kit and she highlighted my hair. It was the kind with a cap and it actually turned out pretty good. SO, yesterday we got ambitious and we decided we would do her hair with foils. The hairdressers make it look so easy!! --It's not!!!! It's nearly impossible to get close to the roots and how do you guess how long to leave it on to match the blonde hair that's already there. Taking the foils out I think my sis was laughing so she wouldn't cry!! WE put the remaining dye all over her head and hoped for the best...but it didn't get any better. Her entire head is a mishmash of super bleached pieces and random darker ones that survived. haha. maybe we'll just have to bite the bullet and pay for the people that know what they're doing to take care of our mops.

driving with my eyes closed

Today at 1230 am, halfway between winnipeg and brandon i decided for some reason that i wanted to have a blog. knowing me, i will probably find it interesting for a week or maybe two and then ditch it for something else. that's what i do when i get bored, i bail. BUT right this instant i'm making a decision to stick with it....I'll give it a month of honest effort. Here goes:

Half of my drive was occupied with much needed phone conversations. Leaving the city at 11pm is not a good idea, especially if you're exhausted. So I let my friends entertain me for about an hour, and then with my phone battery about to die i turned to my thoughts to keep me awake. I think by now i can do the winnipeg/brandon drive on autopilot...so my mind can wander wherever it wants to, I'm pretty sure I'd still be able to make a quick decision if a deer jumped out or a crazy hitch-hiker came running onto the road :) ....ok back to where i was going with this. I was thinking back to this past weekend. It was an amazing weekend spent at a friend's cabin in Minaki. We had such a great time. The picture is of our "rip tear" aka an after dinner boat ride tradition at the Meyer's family cabin...it always includes a group of great people and a chinese fire drill where you have to swim around the boat twice and ride back shivering and huddling for warmth with your friends/family. I loved our three days spent laughing, joking, swimming, sunning and taking rediculous family photos with the random cabin clothing we dug out of the closets. Looking back though i feel super sad about one thing. Last weekend a man who i don't even know, drowned in the very same lake where i boated, swam and laughed. when we were up there the police were still searching for the body. one afternoon on our boatride we saw a dock with three officers standing on it and i got a really eerie feeling. When i got home from the lake i googled "minaki body search" and i came up with the winnipeg free press article telling me that the body had been found. I read on, and kept jumped to "related articles"...reading more about this man only two years older than me who's life was now over. I can't even imagine what his family and friends are going through right now. i sat and cried while reading loving words spoken by his parents. driving home today it really hit me, this life is short. I bet Dave Christopher Pundyk didn't leave a great evening with his friends that night thinking about this devastating boat crash that was about to happen. I think that the best way we can honor and remember Dave and other young lives lost way too soon, is to live life with no regrets. To let our best selves out, to be kind and selfless and live each day to it's fullest potential. My heart goes out to the Pundyk family. I will not forget this man i never knew.