V803, how I love thee!

The dog at the top is named Daisy. She is a 5 year old Golden Retriever who belongs to my Uncle Ron and Auntie Dee. I love her even when she smells disgusting. She came over for dinner tonight because yesterday was Sarah's 19th birthday and my Auntie Brenda is here so we were all gathering for various festive celebrations. Isn't she gorgeous? Can't pose for a picture to save her life, though.
The next picture is of my Auntie Brenda and my mom. They're sisters, and sometimes the likeness is astounding. Though not right now.
The third picture is of Maggie, my Uncle Jim's Golden Retriever. She's 9 months old and is lucky enough to live in Nanaimo, BC, where she can chill by the ocean and find all sorts of interesting ocean debris on the beach to play with, including but not limited to: dead things, seaweed, garbage, driftwood, rocks, and other interesting and semi-disgusting stuff. This summer I'm going to meet her, by hook or by crook.
The last picture is an artistic one of my cat Emily, perched on my windowsill on a bright winter day. She's very small and can contort her body into all sorts of strange shapes. Sometimes she looks very striking, as she does now. She usually doesn't photograph very well because she's so solidly dark, but this time I caught her eyes at just the right moment. Scary, but beautiful.
Can you tell how much fun I'm having with my new camera?

-Laur

Welcome welcome welcome

I need to learn more discipline. The funny thing is I'm a pretty disciplined person; I almost always go to class, I do my homework, I go to work and do my job, I keep my room clean and pitch in around the house, and I very rarely slack off. But when it comes to food and cosmetics, I'm just plain terrible.
I love food. That's part of the reason why I'm as large as I am. There are other factors, like height and bone structure, and unhappiness (I'm working on it) that contribute to the luciously large Laura, but it really boils down to my love of food. And not crap, either. I've been taking stock of what I eat and it's very rarely junk food (with the small exception of chocolate, which I cannot and WILL not ever say no to), so I figure I just have to practise more discipline.
And cosmetics, don't even get me started. I have a stockpile of body cream, a mountain of makeup, and I don't think I'll run out of deoderant for a while. The makeup part is a process, though, as I'm replacing all my cheap drugstore brands with high end, quality makeup that's better for my skin and better for the environment, but the madness has got to stop. So I'm keeping all my receipts and tallying them at the end of the month to see just how bad my habit is. Hopefully I can rein it in before it gets too out of hand.
Here's something amusing, though; I tried out a pilates DVD today and it was HYSTERICAL. I don't think I've laughed at myself so hard in a long time. I know I have to keep at it but while all those cracked out gymnasts on the screen were contorting themselves into pretzel shapes I was huffing and puffing and trying my best to emulate their otherworldly exercises and finally I kind of collapsed on the floor in the basement and just watched the rest of the workout. It was 20 minutes and I'm proud to say I got through 15 of them, but I want to call up that Mari Winsor and tell her that my bubble butt does NOT rest flat on the ground the way those women's flat asses do so she can forget about my "powerhouse" taking the brunt of the impact.

2008 is going to be an interesting year, kids.

-Laur

New Years Resolutions

Did you know that my face is heart-shaped? I actually have a pointy chin. I couldn't cut ice, like some chins I've seen, but it definitely comes to a point, like the bottom of a heart.

Only you can't tell because of the roly-poly-olyness that's underneath my chin. Which brings us to New Years Resolution (NYR) number 1: to find my pointy face. Instead of making some vow to myself to drop 60 pounds by the end of next year, I would rather have a more tangible goal, one that I can see myself actually working to attain. So I will reach for my pointy face, and hopefully get it (because I've never really had it).

This is the only one I'm going to give you right now. I'm going to think of 5 resolutions for this year, and that's it. Any more than that is unrealistic and hard to follow, and any less is too easy, which means easier to get off track with. I'll think of 4 more between now and New Years. Any suggestions would be helpful.

So anyways, since it's been a really long time since I last posted, I'll get you hep to what's been going on since then:

On the 4th I got a gorgeous new haircut, which I am totally loving, and then ran to campus to hand in my last assignment of the year. After that I proceeded to totally veg out, do some housecleaning, organize some stuff, and plan my holiday baking.

I brought home a pretty little Christmas tree, which my sister and I decorated, and we're having a really nice Christmas dinner on Sunday night before my mom goes to Ottawa for a few days to visit my Auntie Jule.

I prepared a presentation on the human face of Fair Trade for my mentor, Ms. Morris's, grade 12 World Issues class, and then got sick the day before I was supposed to present it, but trucked ahead and did it anyways, despite the roads being a mess from the "storm of the century" that graced us with its wrath on Sunday (the 16th). On Monday (the 17th and the day I did the presentation) we had a few new windows installed, 3 in my mom's bed and bathroom and the main window in the living room. They're gorgeous and an energy efficient. Woohoo!

Anyways, that basically brings us to today, when I baked gingerbread cutout cookies and the pieces for 2 gingerbread houses all day. It was fun.

Here are some pictures to enjoy. Enjoy!

-Laur

Snow, ice, and all things winter

I failed my second shot at my G2. I have to start back at the beginning now. Awesome.
Anyways, the weather in Toronto is literally frightful. This morning I came out of my house thinking that yes, of course the salt trucks have been by, didn't they know that it freezing rained on top of the plowed sidewalks yesterday and now they're all a solid sheet of ice?
It was not so.
25 minutes and a whole new world of swearwords later, I arrived at the bus stop at Clark and New Westminster. 30 seconds after that, the bus came. At least I didn't have to wait in the cold for very long.
But you know what? The horrendously boring classes I had to endure once arriving at school, even the painful trip home with my friend Lia to bake Toblerone shortbread cookies was all worth it because this evening I had the LOVELIEST dinner with my friends. We went to the Pickle Barrel Grand at Yorkdale and just sat and drank pina coladas and ate delicious food and shmoozed for 2 and a half hours, and it was wonderful. This is why I like being a grown up. And this is why I'm thankful that I have such fantastic friends.
I hope December is full of fun surprises this year. Tea dates with friends, baking bonanzas, latkes and Christmas dinner all promise to make this month quite memorable, and I can't wait.
Cheers!

-Laur

The Adventures of Laura in Edmonton

I'm doing a presentation on blogging and travel in my Studies in Popular Culture class in a while. I don't have a travel blog but I think this summer I'll start a separate bit to this one about my experiences in Edmonton and the surrounding areas. Yay! Folk Festival here I come!
-Laur

The bitter taste of...

So, as you may or may not have gleaned from my internet silence, I bombed my G2. I won't go into the petty details, so let's just say I did it to myself and will not be making that one fatal mistake ever again. I have another date set up on the 27th, and hopefully I will come to school triumphant that day.
It's funny how quickly things happen; the other day it got cold, and I mean COLD. Like bone-chilling, finger-numbing, lung-stinging cold. And you know what happened? All the leaves fell off the trees like a scene out of a cartoon season montage. I could almost imagine the "whumph!" noise as I watched them steadily cover my neighbour's car in a sea of brilliant yellow. I wish I had taken a picture.
We're past the midpoint, the point of no return, and I can't wait for December to get here.

We've started answering the phone with "Season's greetings" at work. It is upon us.

-Laur

On the road

Tomorrow morning I go for my G1 exit test, which means that if I pass I will have my Ontario G2 licence. That's a pretty big deal, because for a while there nobody, including me, thought I would ever get my G2. I was pretty scared of driving for reasons that now amuse me, but no more. Thanks to an awesome instructor, I'm more comfortable than ever.
Wish me luck, and watch the streets!

-Laur