Jen left? What do you mean Jen left? Where did she go? But I love her! She better come back soon or I am going to get mad!

Jen and Desoto playing in the snow. 

This picture is from Christmas in Turner Valley - it is Jen's dog Kash saying hello to Alex's parrot Vern. 

There's a tear in my beer

My sister, Jennifer, left today to go back to Turner Valley and I am sad. Desoto and I are sulking because we miss her already and she has only been gone for 6 hours. She doesn't come back until June. This sucks. Time to move home, Jen. You can live with me in my new house!

This post is about Liane

This post is about my friend Liane, who feels she is being neglected by not getting enough mentions on my blog lately. Liane has been my friend since 5th grade, when she moved in down the street and we bonded over Charlie's Angels. We did everything and went everywhere together after that. She has a great husband who picks on me, and 3 brillant children who refuse to stop growing, and now 2 of the 3 are taller than me. What did they used to say would stunt your growth when we were kids? Coffee? Anyway, she is one of the kindest, smartest, coolest women that I know, although she does have a weakness for Clay Aiken that I just don't understand. We hate the same people, for all the same reasons, have the same addictions to television, Sironella, and Starbucks, and are obsessed with our hair, although she changes hers all the time and I don't. I make her take yoga and she makes me learn to curl. We used to make each other go to the gym, and soon we will again. She will tell me honestly if I look good in something and I will tell her that I love when her hair is short and red, although I like the blond too. We can not see each other for weeks due to our crazy schedules and pick up the conversation like it was five minutes ago. We know each other's embarassing secrets, like the time we got drunk and made our poor friend Paul listen to us make all the beer slosh around in our bellies. Seriously, it sounded pretty cool. Shut up, it did.

She will listen to me obsess about myself and my dramas, real or imagined, and only after several hours (days) of my whining will she mention that she didn't have the greatest week. I spill everything I am thinking and feeling, she holds mostly everything in. She goes back to school and makes 99 in everthing, I go back to school and spend my time getting crushes on boys. She has a great family and I have a dog. I love to travel and have adventures, she loves to be home with her kids. She is neat and organized to the point of compulsiveness (lines on the carpet) while I am very untidy (she likes to say that her messy daughter takes after me). She has been happily married since the age of 19, I avoid long-term committement like the plague. She is a good cook, I think popcorn and an apple make a great supper. She is crafty, I made a pot holder in Brownies once. We are exactly the same and we are completely different. I like to think that we complement each other nicely.

Colour Blind

I have a new hobby. The new hobby does not replace the old hobby of surfing from blog to blog on the internet, reading all about people I don't know, while trying to kill as much time as possible so as to avoid doing anything constructive (not that I do this at work or anything, that would be wrong). Oh no, the new hobby is in addition to the old hobby. I should have majored in time-wasting instead of public drunkenness in university. The new hobby is paint. I go to different paint websites and pick out paint colours for MY NEW HOUSE. That I officially become the owner of on February 15. I pick out colours that I think would look lovely in MY NEW HOUSE. That I officially own in 19 days. Currently the entire upstairs of my new house is beige. I don't like beige. I am more of a green, blue, grey person than a beige person. I would actually rather white than beige. So I am trying to pick out paint colours. Oh, and I don't like pink. My parents have a room the colour of Barney, of which I am also not a fan.

My dining room is currently yellow, and I am trying to decide if I should leave it that way. The living room and hallway are grey, which is ok, maybe a little dark, but not bad. I am painting the kitchen navy blue, because I saw a navy blue room one time and always promised myself that I would have a room painted just like it. Dark navy and white - so pretty.

I cannot believe that I own a house. And I get to paint it whatever colours I want.

Over it

I am so tired of snow! When is summer?

Now I've done it

That's right, I did it! (no, not that, get your mind out of the gutter) I am buying a house. Back in November, I put an offer on a house and then had a huge panic attack about it and backed out. I really liked the house, I could see myself and Desoto living there, but obviously had some committment issues to work out. The house went off the market and I decided to put off looking for a house until after I came home from Alberta. I had found a cute little house and put an offer in (they accepted another offer that came in just before mine), and just happened to drive by the original house that I liked. Well, the for sale sign was back up so I took this as a sign that this house was meant to be mine and I am buying it. I just signed the Agreement of Purchase and Sale, and conditional upon a house inspection, I am going to be a home owner. Um, excuse me (runs to bathroom to throw up, again). The closing date is February 15th! In a month from tomorrow, I will be living in my very own house (puts head between knees to keep from fainting, again)!

The thought of having all my own stuff around me is very exciting. Everything I own has been in storage since last year and I miss my stuff. I have a lot of stuff. I inherited my mother's inability to throw anything away.

Now, I get to do lots of shopping for all the stuff I need. Yay, shopping. And I also get to throw a big house-warming party. Consider yourself invited.

Things I screamed at the television during Lost tonight

"Yay, Lost"
"Yay, Sawyer. Oh, not naked, shit."
"Yay, Hurley."
"Gross, Hurley."
"Skank"
"Holy shit!"
"DUDE! That is your sister! Gross"
"OH, cold."
"Is this a dream? This is a dream. This better be a dream. Is it a dream?"
"Holy fuck! Holy fuck!"
"DEAD? Is she dead?"
"WHAT? WHAT!"
"Holy fuck!"
"Free, free, you felt free!"
"No, no, no, no, no. Don't be over. Shit."

I forgot to tell you that my ass fell asleep

I forgot to mention that while I was in Turner Valley, my brother and I watched Napoleon Dynamite. I had seen an ad for it and it looked really funny. It was the most boring movie I have ever seen. I usually like kind of quirky, low budget, off-beat movies so I was ready to enjoy this one, but after what seemed like a hundred hours of watching, and after my arm, foot and ass all went to sleep, I gave up. I just read a post on someone's blog about how they watched it over the holidays and it was now their group of friends' new favorite movie and they were all going around quoting it and laughing hysterically. WHAT? HOW? WHAT DID I MISS? Sometime between my foot and ass going to sleep, I seem to have missed all the funny parts of the movie because all I can remember is the mind-numbing, unrelenting boredom. In my own defense, I asked Mike if he had watched the rest of the movie, and he replied, "Fuck no. I went to sleep. That was a shitty movie." Maybe the Farmers just don't get subtle humour.

Movie Night

I have actually gone out to the theatre and seen a couple of movies lately as well as renting a bunch while in Turner Valley (TV with no tv) and I thought I would pass along my thoughts on them.

Alexander - quite possibly one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Oliver Stone has been all over the press lately talking about how gay people say his movie is not gay enough, and straight people say it is too gay. Well, I am saying, gay or not, that is not the reason thIS movie SUCKED. I was really excited to see it because I am a history freak and love the story of Alexander the Great. Not to mention the fact that there is all that gorgeousness - Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Jared Leto, Val Kilmer to add a little wierdness, so I was totally prepared to love this move. Holy crap, what a 3 hour pile of shit. Overlooking the fact that a whole bunch of his Greek/Macedonian troop has scottish/irish/english accents, the out of focus camera work, the war scenes that only showed swirling dust, the whole half-hour long bit where everything was pink, the dialogue was stupid, Rosario Dawson cannot do an accent to save her life, although her grunting was okay, the storyline was confusing with unnecessary flashbacks and a whole mother/son strange vibe that didn't really do anything, just one long, bad, waste of time.

The Aviator - really, really good movie. I loved it, although some of Howard Hughes OCD moments hit a little too close to home. I think Leonardo di Caprio deserves to be nominated for an oscar for this one. I loved Cate Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn, which surprised me since I was prepared to hate her. At first she seems a little over the top, but she does a great job. Kate Beckinsale didn't suck either, which is always a surprise to me, since she is not one of my favorites. Alex Baldwin is very good, and John C Reilly is always terrific in his roles. I really enjoyed this movie.

Spanglish - another very good movie. I am not usually an Adam Sandler fan (unlike my sister) but he does a really good job in this movie. He has a couple of screamy moments that I thought he could have toned down, but he is still excellent. Tea Leoni is always good and funny - she does such a great job of playing a high-strung neurotic, and that woman is in some shape. It almost made me want to excerise more. But then I ate more popcorn. Paz Vega (I think that is her name) is excellent as well and very beautiful. Kind of like Penelope Cruz, but better. Cloris Leachman is very funny and the two girls who play the daughters are excellent. I would be an Adam Sandler fan if he made more movies like this.

The Terminal - a pretty good film. I was fully prepared to hate this movie and be bored, but it is surprisingly catchy. I don't like Catherine Zeta Jones, but she is pretty lowkey and good. I do like Tom Hanks, but hate actors doing accents, but he is always convincing. A fairly contrived story, but sucks you in a little bit.

Collateral - another movie that I liked a lot. I love Tom Cruise and I really like when he is being a little dark and not all SuperTom Cruise the movie star. Jamie Foxx is really good as well. I didn't really know this actor from any of his movies, but after hearing all his buzz for Ray, thought he must be pretty good. Jada Pinkett Smith was ggod as well in a small role that could have been played well by almost anyone.

Van Helsing - horrible, horrible. Don't waste your time. Kate Beckinsale doing some kind of stupid accent, in a leather outfit, and Hugh Jackman being all quippy and heroic. Dumb and boring.

king Arthur - pretty good, considering. Clive Owen is hot. Kiera Knightly is fairly inoffensive. Lots of fighting and arrow shooting. Worth renting, I think, although I am a sucker for historical movies.

Wimbledon - not great but not too horrible. I watched this on the plane because I finished my book. I like that they showed a lot of tennis. I like that they made Kirsten Dunst kind of skanky. It could have ended about a half hour before it did, and the plot held no surprises, and I don't really find Paul Bettany very attractive.

Those are my thoughts.

My baby

I just got an updated website from the breeder, Paula Grant, who sold me my baby Desoto. Guess who's picture is on the front page? That's right, Desoto! He is soooo good looking! Go here and look at his picture so you can see how gorgeous he is.

Home again

So I am back home after my holidays in Alberta. It was really hard to leave my nephews, they are so adorable and sweet, and my brother and sister-in-law, who fed us and let us take over their house. And let me stay at night and watch tv while they went to bed. It wasn't that hard to leave my sister because she is coming home tomorrow for 3 weeks! I have to say that my sister and her boyfriend Andy were great hosts, putting up with my bossy, big-sister ways and my spoiling of their puppy very well. Thanks guys. If I ever have a house, you can come and stay with me anytime.

My puppy was very happy to have me back home, although when he smelled Jen's dog on my clothes, he had a bit of a snit and proceeded to give me the guilt look for about an hour. But then we went for a walk and all was forgiven. Thanks Christine for checking on him and making me worry less.

So its back into the old routine now that I am back home and back at work.