Mexanese Mumbo Jumbo

About 8 months, I bought an Ikea Lack shelf to put up in my bedroom. Being 5' nothing, a good place to store stuff is up. I also needed it to be high enough the cat couldn't reach it (though it didn't stop him from trying).

The sis' boyfriend was willing to help me put the shelf up, I just needed to go get the hardware. Procrastination got the better of me, of course, so 8 months went by and I finally made it to Homedepot. I found a lovely lady to help me and the first question she asked - how many screws do you need? Uh.... I had no idea! I hadn't bothered to look! I took a random guess and said 8. Next question - do you need drywall or stud screws? Crap, 0 for 2. Again, I winged it, and decided 4 of each, just in case.

By this time my sister & her bf had moved into a place in Richmond, so I enlisted Wayne's help to put the shelf up. First thing he says when he looks at the # of screws I bought and the instructions for putting up the shelf - soooo...you didn't buy enough screws. Then he started to drill the holes into the wall - none of them hit a stud.

Not only did I not buy enough screws, I also didn't buy enough of the right type of screws.

Note to self: Before going to Homedepot, check how many screws you actually need and check to see if the screws will actually hit studs or not.

Although, turns out I wasn't the only one to struggle with this mini project. Wayne's math was a bit off so he ended up having to put the shelf up twice, and it still not centered.

Ever have those days you stay in your pajamas all day? Don't leave your house, be lazy, watch tv, read, whatever?

Those days are a necessity in my family. Over the years, my sister and I have developed a Christmas tradition around this concept. We call them LoTR days. We spend the entire day, in pajamas, eating whatever we feel like, no cleaning, no chores, no work. Just watching Lord of The Rings, the extended version, from beginning to end.

At the end of day, you just crawl back into bed and go right to sleep. You'd think that after a day spent doing absolutely nothing we couldn't fall asleep. You'd be wrong. The amount of sleep my sister and I require is akin to that of a cat.

Yes it might sound ridiculous, but it keeps us sane. Otherwise you'll have us standing in a Dollar store having a meltdown because they're out of stars for the top of the Christmas tree. (This time, it was my sister.)

Oops, sorry to the less than 5 ppl reading my blog. Thought I had scheduled my photo of the week to go out on Thursday but apparently I don't know how to use technology sometimes. A little late but better than never as they say.

This past weekend, my mom hosted a birthday lunch for my sister and I. Since our birthdays are in December (me) and January (sis), it's easier given our busy schedules to combine the event.

My mom always makes a mexican meal for our birthdays, and this year was no different, nor did she disappoint. A few of my sister's friends joined us for the traditional meal, and Sanjay & Joslee (sp?) even brought me a beautiful orchid as a birthday gift.

Knowing my family's history with plants, Sanjay gave me permission to kill "him" and he wouldn't take offense. Since it was already decided that the plant was a boy, I was going to name him Bob, but decided that a Pat the Plant rhymed better. Fingers crossed I keep Pat the Plant alive, and that I find a way to keep Jack away from him too.

For the past few weeks, I've been trying to think of a decent, mildly entertaining, theme for a blog series. It's been a challenge because let's face it, I'm not all that interesting sometimes. But the other day, I was telling someone a story and at the end of the story, I said "Note to self, Self: blah blah blah".

Ok, I didn't actually say blah blah blah, but you know what I mean. I happened to be telling a story about the silly, random, not so smart things I do. That's when it hit me. I should document all my Note to Selfs.

So, I'm going to start with Note to Self Sundays, every other week for now, and see how many stories I can remember. Hopefully you stay tuned and get a laugh out of my silly, random, not so smart moments.

It was one of those hangovers. You know, the type where you feel like if you move too fast or stand for too long you're going to throw up? This was how I started my Sunday last week. I felt bad because I had plans to go take photos with Sev, something we've been trying to do since our photography outing

Once I managed to stand on 2 feet without waves of nausea overwhelming me, I met up with Sev and Frank and we headed out to UBC to take some photos. By the way, a good hangover cure - freeze cold weather. It was insanely cold out. I could barely take a picture before my fingers froze.

Sorry it's a bit dark & blurry, was being sneaky

The light was amazing. We couldn't have timed it better was we caught the golden hour. We putzed about there for a bit, then we headed over to Spanish Banks to see how the light was there. It was starting to get a bit dark, but just as we were about to call it a day, we saw this gent getting a bit of exercise before the sun fully set.

For more photos from that day, you can check them out on my photography site: Fortune Hill Photography

Well it's been an interesting evening so far. It started off with a run after work with the girls, and while it was kinda chilly out, it felt good to get out and run again after the holidays.

I came home and found this in my mail box.

First paycheque for a photography gig! This was the high point of my evening.

This excitement hit a prompt low the moment I walked into my bedroom where I found some "treats" the felines left for me. Or more likely, Ellie did. I won't go into details, but I'm sure any pet owner can image what I walked into. Good times.

Well another year has come and gone, and though I was planning on staying home last night, I ended up going out with Bailey. To Sandbar. And it was bad. Like really bad.

The only saving grace was that I had a few glasses of bubbly throughout the evening which did a fantastic job of causing me to forget parts of the evening. Of course this morning I was singing a different tune. But nothing some greasy greasy, a caesar and an Irish car bomb couldn't fix.

After brunch I went home and lounged on the couch with the felines, watching TV and surfing. As I perused FB, I came across a post by a friend I used to work with, and he explained that his 2011 resolution is to always have his camera with him and to post a picture a day. It got me thinking about photography, of course, and of my own resolutions, which I haven't made in a number of years because, let's face it, my laziness gets the better of me and they never last more than a couple of weeks.

Inspired by his post, I've decided to set certain challenges instead of resolutions for 2011, in hopes that they'll stick. So...drum roll please...here are my 2011 challenges:

1) Take more photos and post once a week. I was going to try the daily posting of photos but again, the depths of my laziness will undoubtedly get the better of me. I also decided that photos taken with my phone are acceptable since during the week I will likely not have my big camera with me, but that shouldn't prevent me from taking a great shot.

2) Cook a proper dinner at home once a week instead of my usual breakfast for dinner. This one might be the harder challenge to meet since cooking dinner for one usually sucks balls. But we'll see what happens.

So there you have it. I've put it in writing, out there in the series of tubes for the world to hold me to it. Fingers crossed I do.