In case you were wondering

I could probably count how many times I've thought to myself:  "dang self, I love winter" on the unicorn or narwhal like bony protrusion on my forehead. 

Zero times.

This was on the inside of our rental cabin window at -30ish

some thoughts lately

I haven't written in forever. But I have been thinking and doing a lot! Here are a few things that have nothing to do with each other:

1.
I started running a few weeks ago using the Runner's World 8 Week Beginner Program recommended by my best friend. She is on the last legs of the program and I am super impressed with her. I am having some trouble finding my groove, but her success is spurning me forward. I did the first few weeks without a jogging stroller (Bigfoot came with me pushing the regular stroller and I would run off ahead of him when the running intervals started and then walk back to him. He was really supportive, even when I whined on the first day of week 2 when "those bastards doubled the running and halved my walking!" I bought a chariot (used) and am super stoked with it but am getting used to running with it for week 3. Also, the deeper I get into the program the more ground I cover which means I've ventured out past our 1.5km driveway and down along the highway on a quad trail frequented by linx and etc so I feel a bit bearanoid and bring the bear spray. The dog comes along and I noticed the baby watches him running beside her. Fun for all.

2.
Why are people selling baby clothes on kijiji? I mean come on! First off, I don't think any mother should spend a cent on baby clothes when it is so readily available in the form of hand-me-downs and gifts from relatives. A friend of mine on facebook linked to a listing on kijiji where the lady was selling a bunch of 0-3 month sleepers for $25 with this lengthy diatribe on how "you NEED these sleepers because you are not going to have time to do laundry and blah blah blah." Most people thought this was funny but it just angered me. In my opinion, baby clothes should be used as a currency of goodwill between mothers. Sure, sell the outgrown crib or stroller on kijiji, but don't use it as your own personal ongoing garage sale for every little item you can possibly think of. And don't tell impressionable new moms that they NEED something just because you want to make a few bucks. I looked into the kijiji thing some more and there are people listing stuff like shirts and pants and some for as low as $1. Come on people. Give that shit away. Create some good karma. Having a baby does not automatically turn your life into a business! On the other hand, I am lucky I was given so much baby stuff for free. Maybe others are not so lucky? I plan to change that for as many new mothers as possible as I will be handing down all of my used baby items (and I'm pretty sure Joon's stuff could populate the wardrobes of about 10 babies).

3.
I'm copying the number bullet post thing from a new blog I've been reading and enjoying. Sorry Caitlin who doesn't know me and who lives far away in a land where there are dangerous sharp objects known as cacti everywhere. Um I'm also not sure if the link highlighty thing works or if it is proper etiquette to just randomly link someone's blog in a random post. Sorry, again. Am I being cliche Canadian for saying that? Sorry. oh frig. The reason why I mention another blog is that I am wondering if reading other blogs is kinda stultifying my own blogging voice and maybe i shouldn't be reading as many as i am? I'm not talking about the blog I just mentioned, that one I love, but some of the others on my reader do not apply to me or they just make me want to vom and i just hastily followed them for no good reason except that they were there.

4. 
Non-conformity. Is there really such a thing? Does it not disqualify itself simply by existing? The internet has connected so many niche communities and ideas that people who used to feel badass for being so unique no longer feel special anymore. Wah. When subversion becomes the norm it eats its own tail. The internet did this. Not sure if it is a bad thing. Maybe society needs the kick in the ass to let them know they aren't special and if they want to be special in this internet age they better start doing something amazing like curing cancer or something else we can't even fathom...

5.
House-sitting at a place that has a hot tub soon. Holla!

post planting poundage

huge slashpile somewhere in alberta 

I'm not one to exercise. I like sports and doing fun activities in nature, but exercising for the sake of exercise or to reduce or to get muscles has never really been my thing.

For a bunch of years in my twenties I spent 4 months of the year running a marathon for 6 days a week. A marathon called tree planting. Ok, yes, when you are planting trees you aren't running (unless you count the few times you run from bears, not recommended, but when the bear is just as scared as you and is running in the opposite direction it is fine). You aren't running, but you are strapping 200-400 saplings to your waist (50 poundsish) and then trudging (all day long) through some drunken logger's massive impression of pick-up-sticks (the term clear cut is insulting to me, that shit ain't clear). 


And while you are maneuvering through this maze of nature, chewed up and spit out for your specific inconvenience, you are expected, every few steps, to slam a shovel into the ground, crack open Canada, bend over and feed her a tree, a few thousand times. 


Let's not forget how you get to this slash laden workplace. You walk. You walk for maybe an hour, maybe more maybe less, with all of your gear, sometimes carrying full bags of trees, always carrying the shit ton of water you need to consume so you don’t die. HeeHaw. And always along some path where trucks don't go, where trucks don't go for a reason, because, before you put one tree into the ground, you are expected to complete some seemingly impossible feat. Something like swimming the English Channel, or tightrope walking across Niagara Falls. Something like crossing a raging river in a dingy, or walking for 7 miles over muskeg, MUSKEG, you know, the kind of mossy watery spongy swampy expanse that probably swallowed all of Dinotopia. 

One plus to tree planting is you are basically being paid to go to fat camp. You start the season soft and you end it hard. You end it athlete hard. The trade off is a few months of hell and some really bad tan lines. 


And another thing, while you are there you can eat as much crap as you want. I'm talking  archipelagos of French fries swimming in seas of cheese and gravy. I’m talking Andes of pasta. Rivers of powdered sugar “juice.” Entire Saskatchewans of bread. If you wake up early enough and your camp cook lets her guard down for mere seconds, you may experience that magic moment where you eat your own weight in bacon.

Because of this I haven’t really had a problem with weight or body image or anything like that for a long time. And if I did, I would just wait a few months and it would be spring again, time to mash a lifetime’s worth of working out (and eating) into a few months.

But I just had a baby. And for the last bit of my pregnancy I was on bed rest. I was a beached whale (ya I said it) kept alive with the splashes of food Squanch brought me and my own faith that one day soon the tide would come high enough to reach me and I would be able to swim once again.

And so now I am feeling a bit soft. The organs that used to be tucked behind my abs are flopping out over my pants. I have a belly reminiscent of a 5 month pregnant person and pre-preggers clothes is not fitting me. The baby is 4 months old. I am not going treeplanting, but I am going to kick life up a notch and renew my teen obsession with cross-country running. My awesome red running shoes are in the mail and as soon as they get here I’m gonna be out the door!

random

spent the entire day trying not to barf. so over school and everything about it. too (whats the word for i just dont care anymore)

came home and slept for hours and

i dreamt there was a tree on fire in peterborough in a backyard where we used to have keg parties and i rushed to try and put it out but it happened all on its own

hangin on with a thread sister

Bad Kelly and I smoked some rez darts in her car before Radiography study group and all we did was talk about how stressed we are right now and how this is the last chance for us to do something with our lives and how freaking hard it is to keep up with the workload even when all you do is school work. failure is not an option haha but something else is...

I dropped an f-bomb in my med lab the other day right as i was handing in a botched assignment, right in the teachers ear. She said I was the last person she would expect it from. I guess I blew my cover, like I forgot to shower and the stink of this nasty mouthed dart hacking, squat pissing, tree-planter came out. oops. sometimes I forget that i kinda look civilized and refined in the real world.

there are many ways you can acquire the status of pissing me off, read:
You are fat and disgusting
you talk too much too loud about asinine things (that's what blogs are for, get one)
you are arrogant
you wear retarded t-shirts that say things like "this is what awesome looks like"
you are a teenager
you drive a rental bmw suv
you wear tights as pants and really shouldn't
you still live with your parents and think life is oh so hard
you go on facebook and play games during lecture

ok this is a lot of negativity all at once, I know, I am working on it... just had to get it out of my system

Zen and the Art of too many bitches

Being in a program with 150 other chicks is infuriating on a daily basis for so many different reasons. The passive-aggressive, nonchalant alpha female, panties in a wad, I know everything and I am not getting my way wah wah wahing has to stop or I am going to go insane.

There is a reason I went into the veterinary field and it's not my love of people.

Yoga is the only thing keeping me from flipping out on these twats.

Ohm muthafucker Ohm