One Week Count Down

Today is my one week countdown to my departure. Along with being super excited, I'm looking at a 'to-do' list which seems to grow every time I turn around. If I didn't know better, I'd think my cats are adding items to it when I'm not looking. But that's ridiculous because they don't have opposable thumbs; they can't hold a pen!

Just because she steals my place in bed doesn't mean she'd write on my 'to do' list, right?

Of course, sitting in a coffee shop so I can update my blog doesn't really help with getting things crossed off the list but it's all part of today's plan. No, seriously. The coffee shop is on the way to Michael's craft store which is on they way to my dad's. Part of the plan.

I will pop in again tomorrow for Friend Makin' Monday but that will probably be it for posts until I'm home. Still, I'll be around and creeping on other people's blogs because without them I have no social life I like to keep up with everyone else.

Just admit we're your only friends so we can go back to ignoring you.

If I do post at all while I'm away, it will be over here but don't hold your breath as I'm hoping I can just disappear from the online world for the three weeks I'm away. So I guess this is just a pre-emptive 'thanks for sticking around'.

Cheers!

It's a Good Sore, I Swear

I can't bend over today.

Putting on my pants was almost impossible.

In fact, if I didn't have a coffee date with a friend, I could very well still be pantless as I write this.

It's all because of dance last night.

Well, it's because of my inability to control my joy over dancing again that I went at it a little hard.

So hard, in fact, that when it came to the last dance through of the three moves we've learned so far, I just stopped. I do occasionally push myself harder than I should and end up marking moves (doing them without the jumps, hops, and energy I normally do them with) but I just full out stopped. Stood up with a big smile on my face and just watched everyone else.

I'm so happy that dance lesson season has started up again.

Except I'll make sure I don't push myself so hard next time.

Can't Keep Me Away! FMM

I purposely post to say I won't be posting much but of course I have to post for Friend Makin' Monday! So if I say I'm going to post tomorrow, it usually takes me about a week to do it. If I say I won't be posting, I do it in less than 24hours. Well played, self. Well played.

Anyway, if you're new to Friend Makin' Monday, you can find the guidelines here. If you're old hat at this, let's do this!

FMM: All About Me

1. What are your talents? I'm musically inclined (I play multiple instruments, dance, and thrive on musical theatre) and I have yet to meet a craft project I haven't enjoyed.

2. What is your best habit? Oh, good question. I honestly don't know. I'll have to think about this one... and never get back to you on it. [EDIT: I look for the positive in everything. I read this poem often and try to live by it. I have seen enough bad in this world that I do not want to add to it.]

3. If you had to be stuck with someone in an elevator for 8 hours, who would you want it to be? I've been working on a piece about Irish history recently so right now I'd want to be stuck in an elevator with John Hume. Ask again next week, my answer will change. There's so many interesting people in the world, it's hard to pick just one.

4. Share one odd fact about you that we’d never know to ask. You mean beside my fear of scarecrows on TV? Alright, I cut my pinky open on a meat slicer. I have a scar and a slight lack of feeling in that pinky.

5. What’s your latest project (work, home, whatever you care to share?) I have a couple of craft projects on the go. Namely, I have a rash of friends having babies and those blankets won't crochet themselves!

6. If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be? I have a couple of scars that I wouldn't mind seeing gone.

7. What do you do in your spare time? Read, craft, write, dance, daydream

8. What is your biggest pet peeve? When people lack respect for other people. I know that not everyone is going to like everyone, but that doesn't mean you can't treat them with decency and respect.

9. Why do you blog? I don't know. I enjoy writing and I enjoy being the centre of attention. Blogging just seemed like a natural move :)

10. Are you tidy or messy? I tend to be a mix of the two but I'm trying to work on being more consistent with the tidy.

11. What’s the last song that played on your iPod? Whiskey in the Jar (Trad. Irish song, this recording by Jimmy Sweeney). I'm just trying to get in the right mood for my trip!

12. Do you cook? If so, what’s for dinner tonight? I do cook, however, tonight I have plans to get together with my travel partner so there will be no cooking.

13. Do you like sports? If so, list your teams. Love sports! Favourite teams of favourite sports listed below but I also occasionally catch up on tennis, hurling, and cricket results.
Hockey: Vancouver Canucks, HC Davos, Belfast Giants
Soccer (or real football): SC Freiburg, Vancouver Whitecaps, Bolton Wanderers, Bern Youngboys
Rugby: Ireland National Team, Wales National Team

14. How often do you read and/or watch the news? Every day. I was about 12 before I realised the radio has more stations than just CBC so I'm a bit of a news junky.

15. Did you stick to your new Year’s resolution this year? If so, elaborate. Instead of resolutions, I set goals. I'm on target to hit some of them.

16. What are you looking forward to most in the remainder of 2011? I leave for Ireland in less than two weeks. I have a week there by myself to visit with my family and then my friend Al is joining me and we're going off to be tourists. This will be the first time I'll be a true tourist in Ireland and I'm beyond excited.

17. Shoes, sunglasses or handbags? Shoes. I tend to lose sunglasses and I hate having to switch everything between handbags.

18. How do you feel about sleeping on satin sheets? No me gusta. You can't curl up in satin sheets. I'm a cotton sheet girl all the way.

19. Do you sing in the shower? Surprisingly, given my willingness to sing everywhere else, I don't sing in the shower. I also try to keep my showers to 5 minutes so that doesn't leave much time for singing.

20. Describe yourself in one word. Oddball.

All Quiet on the Blogging Front

Just a head's up that things will probably be pretty quiet on here for the next little while. Between getting everything sorted for my trip in two weeks and then going on my trip for three weeks, I don't anticipate a lot of time for blogging on both blogs.

If I do blog while I'm in Ireland (which I don't plan on doing which is why I'm pre-writing a bunch of posts!), it will be over at Writings from a Nobody so if you want to keep up on how many pints of beer I've been drinking with my cousins, check out that blog. (Recaps of my trip will be over there as well.)

Not to say that I won't be posting over here at all, just that I'm removing any sort of blogging schedule until Oct 17. There may very well be a post on here, say, this Thursday about the joy of West African Dance. Or there may not. I'm schedule-less!

Hello Fall! Sort of!

September arrived and so did Victoria's fall weather. Don't get me wrong, the days are still gloriously sunny and hot. But the evenings are cooling off and my jackets have been pulled from the dark cobwebbed corner of my closet.

My apologies to any arachnophobes who may be reading this.

Okay, there weren't really cobwebs but I hadn't been back there for a while.

It's that awkward time of year when you either suffer through being cold in the morning, or you wear a jacket only to have to carry it around after 9:00am. For the record, I suffer through being chilly. I have an aversion to carrying jackets when I don't have to (like putting up with being a tad cold for my 20 minute walk into work so the rest of the day is gloriously jacket-free).

Of course, I'm not really that sad about the arrival of fall for two reasons.

1. I'm going to visit the famdamily.

Any excuse to post ridiculously embarrassing cute photos of my cousins/brother.

2. West African Dance classes start up again!! (Yes, I just shamelessly linked to the best dance school in Victoria/Shawnigan!)

The instructors getting down during our Pub Night at last year's Denbaya*.

I still have a week to go before classes actually start (in fact, I have exactly one week) but I've been running through the dances I do know in anticipation for the first class. And do I ever plan to 'bring it' to that class. I'll show those newbies how to move their T&A! *snap*

I was feeling like a bit of an impostor in the beginners class by mid-way through last year. Not only was I decidedly not a beginner after a year of classes, but I also come from a dance background which many of the other students don't. In a strange-backwards move, I started hiding at the sides of the classes and stop helping other students when they were confused about moves. I had a fear of becoming 'that girl', the know-it-all who thought she could teach the class.

But then three different newbies I've run into over the summer (it's Victoria, running into people is what we do) expressed how appreciative they were to have me and the other not-really-a-beginner in the class because a) they couldn't always see our teacher and they knew that standing near either of us meant they'd have someone else to watch and b) we've gotten over that new-student fear so we hoot and holler during cross floor and performances like the Guineans do and it always makes everyone feel good to hear people positively yell while they dance.

So I'm looking forward to my Wednesday night classes with a renewed excitement that was missing last May when I opted not to do the summer session.

*Denbaya means 'family' in Susu, the language of the coastal people of Guinea. It's also the name MoonDance gave to their weekend 'mini-Guinea' they host every two years-ish. It's a long weekend of drum and dance lessons with various Guinean teachers. In short: it's a lot of fun!

Friend Makin' Monday: Happy Labour Day!

Quick pop in for Friend Makin' Monday. That Labour Day sun isn't going to enjoy itself! And sadly, my apartment isn't going to clean itself either.

Guidelines found here!

FMM: Favourite Things

1) What is your favorite food? BBQ'd BC salmon gets me every time. I love BC salmon. Outside of BC/the Pacific Northwest, salmon just isn't as good.

2) What is your favorite childhood memory? There's so many of them! Ireland beating Romania is one I've talked about on here. Making Kahlua with my stepmom and her grandma. Making Christmas cookies with my mom following great-grandma's recipe. Camping on Gabriola Island and building sand castles with a swimming pool (large clam shell filled with water) for the princess to have a morning swim in. I honestly can't limit it to just one favourite, but I think the Italia '90 has had the biggest long-term affect on me, so we'll go with that one.

3) What is your favorite way to burn calories? Dance. Specifically right now, West African Dance. Love, love, love it.

4) What is your favorite mode of technological communication? Phone? Text? E-mail? Tweets? Texting or e-mail.

5) Who is your favorite actor/actress? I don't really have one. I tend to rotate through actors that I like and there's plenty that I have great respect for and will watch pretty much anything they put out, but I can't say "I like this one the best".

6) What is your favorite lip color? If I wore lipstick more often, I'd know off the top of my head. I had to root around in my purse to find the one colour I currently own to see that it's called "Classic Wine". I don't know if I'd say it's my favourite but I do like it and wouldn't hesitate to buy it again. (Generally, I prefer to play with my eyes and then just throw on some lip gloss.)

7) Who is your favorite historical figure? Only one? Then I guess I'd go with Dr. David Livingstone. (This is an impossible question for a history nerd to answer, by the way. I will be debating my answer with myself for weeks to come.)

8)Who is your favorite athlete? Trevor Linden. I even named my cat after him.

9) What is your favorite TV network? I used to spend a lot of time watching Space, Discovery, History or the Comedy Network but I didn't really have a favourite. Now I'm cable-less so I just really like any channel which streams for free.

10) What is your favorite site on the web? My google reader! I also like news sites (CBC being my main one) and social media (hello, facebook). Lately, I've become a good friend with Bus Eireann and we're pretty much on a daily-chat basis.

Taking the Weekend Off

It wasn't my intention to totally slack on both the writing and the working out this weekend, but THR is in town from Vancouver, I'm going to my mom's to be all crafty, and the weather is fabulous. Yeah, just call me 'slacker'!

Plus, THR and I discovered that Al has never seen Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz.

Obviously this has to be rectified... preferably over a bottle of wine (or two).

John Cleese and I hope you have a fabulous long weekend.

See you on the flip side.