Mood: Very sore feet. Stupid fishy shoes, why do you spurn me?!

I've been lazy with blogging over the last week or two, so I'll try to keep these all short and sweet!

• Edmonton Pride Parade

  Awesome! Went with Sister and friend and walked in the parade along with the Grant MacEwan GLBT group. I was originally assigned the task of enthusiastically giving out temporary tattoos to the crowd, but I'm too shy and am not a huge people person so that fell flat pretty quick; so instead I got to blow bubbles~ X3 Much more fun. By the end of that parade I had some proper bubble blowing technique down, I tell you. *Smug*

  It was a great turn out for both the parade parties and the crowds watching. This was the first time I've ever actually walked in the parade, and only the second time I'd ever been to it at all. Every year I mean to go, and then something always comes up and it's always the same old "okay, well maybe next year." I enjoy going out and showing my support, and I really love the atmosphere and watching all of the different people laughing and smiling and just being with each other -- some unfortunately whom I'm sure don't usually feel the same easy comfort in walking hand-in-hand down the street any other day as they probably do during pride day. I wish everyone could feel as confident, open, and happy all the time as some of the people I saw today. What a thought.

• Homeland by R. A. Salvatore

  A race of dark elves called the Drow live underground and are feared by all for their vicousness and single-minded drive for power no matter the cost, least of all when it comes to killing their own, which is practically encouraged. The newborn Drizzt is born and grows up to be not quite as malicious as his family and culture would prefer him to be...

  I don't know what to think about this book. I guess it was okay, I made it through to the end fast enough, but it was just too... evil? As in a complete over-abundance of. Usually I'm a sucker for the villain. I have a long, sordid history of always rooting for the bad guy, and almost every one of my favorite characters from any fandom has been the the villain; but my biff is that evil is not interesting unless it's dished out with some good alongside for the ride. All this story had was Evil Smiles and Evil Plotting and Evil Ambitions, where mothers kill sons and sisters kill mothers and brothers want to kill sisters and all it is is a giant clusterfuck of hate and assassination and EVIL. It made the villainous aspect of any potentially interesting character really boring and redundant. I think Homeland had potential, but fell flat.

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

  A boy with Asperger's finds his neighbor's dog dead, impaled with a garden fork in the yard; despite his father's demands otherwise, brilliant young Christopher begins his own super-sleuth story to discover who killed the dog and ends up finding out more than he bargained for.

  This one's been on my to-read list for a while, and I was more eager to read it after finishing off House Rules recently by Jodi Picoult. The Curious Incident (etc) itself was good and an interesting read. The thing that struck me the most between this book and Picoult's was how very different the first-person PoV narrative was. Picoult's character is very aware of his Asperger's and why and how it affects aspects of his life and those around him the way it does; yet his inner dialogue was for the most part precise, articulate, thought out and -- for lack of a better word -- "normal." Haddon's character, on the other hand, is a whirlwind of thoughts and stories and descriptions and feelings, served up by the way of simplified language, many run-on sentences and topic derailments. It made it a bit exhausting to follow what the character was thinking some times, but in a way I think that's the point. Different books with different takes, though both very interesting in separate ways.

• Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison

  This one was a light read with lots of laughs. Think Bridget Jones but for teens. Basically it chronicles diary-style a school year in the life of fourteen-year-old Georgia Nicolson, and predictably all manner of teenage girl drama and hyjinks ensue. There were some pretty funny bits, mostly because I remembered thinking some of the same things and using the same ridiculously silly logic at points back in my teenage days; and also because the narrator is British and uses lots of fabulously amusing English slang, terms like "nuddy-pants" and "jimjams" which are automatically hilarious to anyone who is not British.

• Sex and the City 2

  Awful. :c It started off well enough for the first half hour or so and geared up by introducing the new life hurdles that were going to be addressed for each character -- and then they all promptly jumped on a plane to Abu Dhabi and the remaining hour and half of the whole movie was a giant boring vacation slide show. Look, here we are on a camel! Look, here we are sipping cocktails by the pool! Look, here we are singing karaoke! What? Plot, where did you go? Did you accidentally miss the plane to the Middle East that your leading ladies were on? *Story plot sits sadly alone, abandoned completely in airport waiting lounge* So very very disappointing. My sad face was very sad indeed.

• Splice

  I have no words for this movie. We all left the theatre exchanging equal WTF expressions of "Ngggwha...?" Seriously. Here's the movie: Scientist couple create crazy human/mult-animal hybrid creature. Man wants to kill it, woman wants to raise it like a adorable monster-like puppy. Man is weary, woman loves it as a daughter. Man loves it like a daughter, woman preforms crazy mutilating experiments on it in the name of science. Man mates with it, woman is horrified and hates man. Man confronts woman. Woman loves creature! Woman hates creature! Man hates creature! Man loves creature! Man and woman go to kill creature! Creature dies, man and woman love creature, cry over loss of creature! Creature rises from the dead and swaps gender, so now she's a he who kills everything! Man and woman hate creature! Creature rapes woman and kills man! Creature is killed and woman is left impregnated with creature's own incesty, double-hybrid spawn.

  Potential sequel...? I hope not. o_O

In other news, I'm a horrible kitty mother and I forgot that everything including pet stores close freakishly early on Saturdays and now I have no breakfast for Iroh tomorrow morning. Bugger. I fear much drama and kitty woe (of the loud, especially obnoxious variety) shall occur when he notices the complete lack of tasty kibble in his bowl. :x

Mood: Crazy going slowly am I 6-5-4-3-2-1 switch!

...is not as good as I remember it.

I swear I remember it being really tasty when I used to bake it all the time years ago. Same recipe... new taste buds maybe? In any event, shamed by the idea of wastefully tossing an entire loaf into the garbage, I'm instead utilizing the left over buttercream frosting I made for a batch of cupcakes a couple of weeks ago and slathering a slice of unappetizing mocha loaf in confectionery sugar to make it remarkably more yummy. This is part of my effort in cutting back on the excess money I usually spend on fulfilling my daily chocolate fix, which reminds me that I should probably use some of my excessive, unemployed free time in the next couple of days to bake some more cookies before we go camping this weekend.

I can't wait to get in our first camping trip of the year~ Other than the fact that I really enjoy camping (which really in essence makes no sense if you know me at all) and we got the chance to do so very little of it last year, I'm looking forward to this weekend in particular as I feel it will be a nice "break" from what has begun to feel like my never ending period of sitting around on my unemployed ass. Job search. Send out resumes and cover letters. Hear nothing. This has become my average day and it's becoming discouraging. I realize there is in fact little difference from sitting around a campfire for hours doing nothing but reading and eating junk food, than sitting on my couch and just reading and eating; but I feel at the very least the switch in scenery might be a refreshing change. Plus it will force me to upgrade from pajamas to grubby camping clothes.

Speaking of clothes, my god nothing makes you want to shop more than being unemployed with no growing income. I blame all of the episodes of What Not to Wear I've had the chance to watch recently. Luckily I've been stockpiling a small amount of guilt-free clothing funds for a while now in the form of mall gift cards from my birthday as well as two Winners gift cards I have on order from cashing in our left over Save-On More points, and when they come in I'm going to do some very light, feel good splurging~ X3

In the mean time I still have our monthly Value Village excursions, which despite the looks I still get from some people for shopping at, I adore wholeheartedly. I have brought home some amazing, practically brand new finds from that place for pocket change. My recent Value Village highlights have been a really cute black pencil skirt that'll look saucy with a pair of heels (good for any interviews *crosses fingers* I may get), several very pretty tops, and a sweet blueish white plaid fedora that I think I sort of pull off but I'm still trying to figure out what to wear it with. All pieces that I had to thumb through tirelessly through racks of crap to find, but that I believe my little Stacy London shoulder angel is happy with.

It has just only occurred to me that what with the way my allergies have been spasming out on me lately, this upcoming weekend of fresh air and the great outdoors may not be as refreshing as I'm hoping it to be and may in fact kill me. How many extra strength Reactine can you take per day while fueled on a diet of nothing but campfire hot dogs and nacho cheese Doritos?

PS. I'm excited for so many movies being released over the next couple of months, holy cow. Iron Man 2, Sex and the City 2, Robin Hood, The Last Airbender... typically I don't even know what's ever playing at the box office. Very exciting, and I still have movie money stockpiled from Christmas to boot! *Glee!*

Mood: Full of garlic cheese buns!

Thanks, April, for once more conspiring with Mother Nature to shit all over my birthday weekend. *Looks at snow and cries*

No luck yet on the job front. I'm hoping that before the end of the month I find something I would really like, because I don't want to have to resort to the alternative of getting an easy-to-find-but-I'll-hate job. ;_;

On the upside, I haven't had so much free time in years. With that in mind, I'm trying not to become a complete bum -- I'm making sure to still wake up at a reasonable time each morning (usually 8 a.m.) and every day I try to strike off some items from my ever expanding to-do list of stuff, because it keeps up the feeling that I'm being productive and not wasting all of this extra time I suddenly have. There are errands to run and appointments to make and chores around the house to do, among my copious baking of home made garlic cheese buns and slow but steady work through Mists of Avalon.

Since I have time to fill, I've also been working out a lot more again finally. I've gone for a couple of good walks during the afternoons and I've restarted my Wii EA Sports Active exercise regiment again four times a week. My latest one yesterday introduced the horrible, evil concept of crunches that practically killed me, my abdomen is super sore this morning; there's also another one where you have to reach your arms straight out behind you while stretching the resistance band is also really surprisingly hard. T-T And then it goes and makes me sprint and run right as I'm already already wheezing and cramping, and I end up flopping around and flailing there in agony screaming profanities at my television.

On the topic of my sporadic attempts to be healthier, we're probably going to start up a curling team in the fall. I went and watched Mason and a couple of the guys play in their first bonspiel the other week and, much like golf, it looked like a very Brenna-friendly sport. There's no running involved or scary objects being thrown at me. WIN. \o/

Mood: Mondays suck.

I joined in on the fun and signed up for a Formspring account and will probably check it regularly until the novelty wears off. Until then, ask me anything!

A new season of America's Next Top Model has begun, full of high-pitched screaming girls, cat fights, crazy clothes, crazier hair, and of course some makeover tears. Bring it on! For reasons I can't fully explain I just love ANTM. It's my guilty pleasure show, best when combined with tasty chocolate cake. Apart from just loving to see the finished photos, I'm ashamed to say that I think one of the draws is being witness to the insane all-girl drama that erupts in the Top Model house each season from the safety of my living room. You'd have to pay me a helluva lot of money to lock myself in a penthouse with twelve spastic young women under the eyes of nation-wide television cameras for three months.

Three books checked off my to-read list over the last month: Part of the Pride by Kevin Richardson and Born Free by Joy Adamson, both about human-animal bonds with wild lions in particular. The stories and the people in them and how they're able to form relationships with big game predators like this are fascinating to me~ I also finished The Pact by Jodi Picoult, about two families torn apart by the apparent suicide pact of their two children. It was more or less the classic Picoult child angst/parental grievances/courtroom drama plot that I've come to know (and love) her for, which I still end up enjoying no matter how many time she does it. My only complaint with this one is that the ending and outcome of the trial itself was, in my opinion, completely unrealistic. }:P Her newest novel, House Rules, about a boy with Asperger's syndrome accused of murder sounds like another typical Picoult book, but like always I'm eager to read it anyway.

I went out the other day and made (what is for me) a rare venture to purchase some new cosmetics. I bought some new sheer foundation, some mascara, a couple new swatches of eyeshadow (which according to my Google researching should be ginger-flattering), and two new facial moisturizers (the sales associate that helped me was scandalized that I used Vaseline lotion on my face as it is apparently a big no-no and does more harm than good.) This is why I hate shopping for cosmetics -- I have no earthly idea what I'm doing or what I'm looking for, which leads to me inevitably having to ask a makeup associate for help, which in turn almost always ends up making me feel exceptionally stupid and embarrassed. I walk through the beauty section aisles paranoid that every other woman is staring and judging me on my complete lack of innate female prowess with makeup.

On a related note, holy jeeze I had no idea there were so many shades of black mascara. Classic black, very black, emerald black, black brown, soft black, and what I'm sure is the king of all black -- blackest black. o_O How different can one black mascara look from another? I'm glad I opted for the much harder to find (yet with a much less intimating range of selection) brown mascara. Among all of the leagues of various blacks, there is just... brown. Straight, safe, simple brown. Much less work in my opinion.

Mood: Mysteriously absent from her blog

Am I the only one who's glad the Olympics are finally over and no longer have to wade through all of the sport play-by-plays on my Twitter and Facebook feeds? I swear, I think my Twitter feed doubled while 80% of the rest of the country was watching the Canada/U.S. gold game.

These last few weeks while everyone else in Canada has been glued to their winter sports (and thus, as I'm been told, are apparently more "truly Canadian" than myself), I have had a lot more exciting wedding planning going on~ I've bought my dress *check!*; have a meeting set up next week to book our photographer *check!*; and both ceremony and reception venues should be chosen and booked by the end of the month *check!*. Here that, To-Do list? That's the sound of me kicking your ass! *Flex*

Also, exciting news -- as their wedding gift to us, Mason's parents are paying for us to go along on one of their family vacations next year, another cruise! Honeymoon + family vacation = double the cruising for 2011! XD (The two of us are going down a day early to check out the new Harry Potter world at Universal as well, it's going to be geektastic.) We're going to have to start saving up our vacation days.

We had the not-so-fun task of dealing with water leaking into our furnace room downstairs this week. D: The drainage we neglected to fix before winter came back and gave us a little nip in the ass to remind us, "Hey guys, I'm still here!"; turns out the majority of snowmelt from the roof was draining down one side of the house so much that it was flooding out from the "weeping tile" (which I learned, despite the name, is not actually tile shaped in any way. How very misleading.) We spent a couple days repeatedly mopping up water and running fans to dry up new spills we found until we could make a run to Home Depot to pick up some stuff to redirect the drainage temporarily. Ta da! No more leaking! YAY, disaster averted! We'll have to do a proper job with fixing our drainage in the spring after the snow's gone.

Speaking of... wow, next month is April and I'll be turning 25 and will officially be a quarter-century old. Craziness. Half the time I still don't even feel like an adult yet, and the other half of the time -- well I know it's too early to say I'm over the hill or even approaching something remotely hilltop-ish, but I feel old. I don't know, maybe it's because I work in the same building as a high school and work on a site filled with teenagers all day who wear skinny jeans so tight you can't breath in them and plastic aviator sunglasses you can't actually see out of. Seriously? WTF is wrong with this generation? (Look, I'm becoming a crotchety old lady already. The big 2-5 will do that do you.)

Mood: Happy dance! GO!

So last weekend Mason had to make a run to Value Village, and in the twenty minutes we were there I ended up walking away with five (new?) beautiful sweaters. Suffice to say that I was, you can only call it, elated. Literally dancing the happy dance of happy sweater joy in the change room. With my five sweaters (some still with the original price tag on them) and Mason's two new shirts, we spent all of $42. (I got a practically brand new cashmere cardigan for $8.00! The rest of my sweater finds were $3 - $5.00!) I don't think many people I've told really understand how exciting that is to someone as frugal, but also very clothes-loving, as I.

Nevertheless, after witnessing my apparently hilarious celebratory flailing, Mason came up with the brilliant proposition that henceforth we shall embark on a single Value Village excursion once a month. The trick -- I have a maximum of only fifteen minutes once we set foot in the store to race up and down the isle(s) of my choice (change room time not included), thus preventing me from very quickly turning a cheap, monthly shopping trip into a wild money-spending extravaganza. I have it marked on my calendar and I am pumped. Pretty clothes each month for me without breaking our money-saving budget! *Hearts* X3 I figure my best strategy to keep from running around and flailing wildly all over the store is to pick one section per trip. So next up... jackets! (Or shoes... I can't decide!)

I have a very busy weekend coming up. Dinner/gaming tonight, we're going bowling for Mason's birthday tomorrow, and then bridal fair number two is up this Sunday! We got the DJ down, maybe this time we'll win some cheap photography or maybe even *shiny* a dress~? *Prepares to wade back into the bridal fair fray!*