are you serious?*

Just because I like to use cliches (and don't like to figure out how to use accents): it is hard to believe it has been three years already. It seems like yesterday but at the same time, feels like a long time ago. Not a bad three years at all (quite good in fact)...here's to many more than three more.

*because apparently that is how i answer important questions

i'm not the only one

Well, since I have a sister, clearly I'm not the only one, but you know what I mean:

Sadly, the only person who got to see the result of all my hard work was my own mother who by law is required to follow up any compliment with, "Is that a pimple on your forehead? Here, let me touch it."

Seriously though, I thought that my mother was the only one that felt the need to poke (and point out) every zit I have ever had.

(coincidentally, my mother is currently visiting...and it is very nice to have her here. extra good news: i currently have no zits)

i know, two in less than an hour

But it is valentines day and it just seems fitting.


"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

dear michael phelps,

I kind of feel sorry for you. You're a 23 year old who lives in the pool and when you finally come out for some air (should that actually be "air"?) someone goes and sells their party picture to the tabloids. Just months ago, you could do no wrong in the eyes of the American people, now they've got their nickers in a twist over a bong hit. Sure, it isn't something you really want your kids to see- a role model doing drugs, but I've heard about how much you eat. Those 8,000-10,000 calorie hunger pangs don't just come naturally- you need a little help.

Anyway, my point is, here in Canada we had a Prime Minister who claimed that during his retirement he'd be found with a joint in one hand and the money to pay the fine in the other. And our swim team is in dire need of some star power. So the logical step for you is to come north. You'd fit right in -we do love our pot-smoking Olympians.

(and seriously...why are people far more upset about this pot smoking than they seemed to be when you were busted for drunk driving in 2004? THAT my friend is behaviour worth getting upset about. so if you do come to canada, please leave the DUIs behind.)

just in case you didn't already know

...being sick sucks.

for kirsten

Well, this is the fourth picture in the fourth folder...it was taken on May 31st 2008 I believe. Heather and I had just gotten in the car (this is about 2 blocks from my place) and were headed to Vermont to do the Covered Bridges Half Marathon.
That was a fun road trip. Hopefully we can do something similar again soon.

why i run

because even on the treadmill, after a crappy day (that seems to have followed just too many crappy days), i found myself smiling...then i cranked the speed up because i clearly wasn't going fast enough.

confession

I have a confession to make: just like my sister, I too have morphed into a teenage girl over the Twilight series.

I didn't want to do it, I swear. But one thing lead to another and all of a sudden I've read the first three books in the last three weeks (ok, two and a half weeks...and the third book took me less than two days) and I'm wondering when I'll get the fourth (likely tomorrow or the next day...from my "dealer" at work). I now want to see the movie and am wondering how on earth I can find people born in 1992 and 1986 suddenly attractive just because they play characters in a movie (although I did find out that Robert Pattison also played Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter movies-and I did always like Cedric. and YES, I do think his hair is terrible). I've imdb'd it and have already determined that Elizabeth Reaser is all wrong for the character of Esme and...and...it is terrible. Terrible. And they aren't even really well written.

I should have expected it really. I tore my way through the Anne Rice vampire chronicles back before people associated Kirsten Dunst with strange drunk pictures and the go fug yourself girls (it is really too bad that Tom Cruise had to go and ruin the character of Lestat for so many) and I even wrote a few mini-stories about vampires in high school (I wonder where those are...if this Twilight chick can start with a dream about two people in the forest and 6 months later end up with a lucrative publishing contract, who knows where my likely plagarized stories could bring me?)

So, now that it is off my chest, I feel a little better. I admit it: I love the escapist fiction that is the story of Edward, Bella, Jacob and all the rest. It isn't prize-winning literature, but the 13 year old girl in me has never been happier. Now- let us never speak of this again.

(seriously though...how on earth do i like an entire series of books in which the main character irritates the crap out of me?)

greener chocolate?

According to these two stories, for $13, you can get a high end chocolate bar AND save the planet. For every chocolate you buy, a tree is planted in the rain forest from which the bar's ingredients came. In fact, it looks like you can go to the Original Beans website, punch in the number of your chocolate bar, and it will tell you where (and maybe even what kind) the tree was planted.

My brain is having trouble with this. You see, I love chocolate. Especially really good dark chocolate (which this stuff looks to be). So far, I've looked a the higher end bars (and when I say that I mean that so far I've seen $9 chocolate bars) and have done only that: look. I can't really justify spending more than $5 on a chocolate bar. Even if I do enjoy every last crumb. But this one ALSO plants trees. And one of my goals this year is to be greener.

Who am I kidding. I'm not buying a $13 chocolate bar. I don't make a tonne of money and my husband is a grad student. I can barely justify buying the chocolate I already do buy.

Regardless, it is an interesting product, an interesting company, and a really pretty logo design.