Mood: A little less pathetic.

Well, sort of. Kinda. Not really.

My cast came off a couple of weeks ago, so I'm significantly less gimpy than I was last time I posted, but not 100% gimp free yet. While it's great that I can finally do things like write and type properly again, and use two hands for tasks like washing dishes and cooking, my wrist still has a ways to go. I have about half the movement and strength in my right wrist as I used to so it can only do so much still, and some times I accidentally put too much weight on it or jar it in some awkward way and that causes all kinds of not pleasant sensations. Currently I'm going to physio twice a week and it's definitely helped, but I was hoping to have had better progress by now. We'll see how it goes.

So we're half way through January now and I'm starting to take the time to do yet another revision of my resume and cover letter to format it for non-library related inquiries. These past months have been incredibly disappointing on the library job front. I suppose I was naive to think that it would be easy to eventually get in as an entry level page, but I never thought it would be this discouraging. Where I used to be optimistic and excited any time I applied for a new position, I'm now frustrated and anxious, and it's hard to keep a positive attitude now while I'm expanding my search into other areas and fields of work once more. Depending on our financial situation after the wedding, I may need to bite the bullet and enroll in some more schooling. The priority now though is to find something at least temporary until then.

On a more upbeat note, I was thrilled to read last week that the family-owned Paradise Pets store in St. Albert has taken a giant leap forward and made the decision to stop selling dogs and cats from breeders. Instead they're partnering with various rescue organizations in the Edmonton area to use their storefront to adopt out animals in need. It is such a positive step in the right direction and I'm immensely proud of them for taking the initiative to do so. I can only hope that some of the bigger pet store chains will see the value in this move and make the same change. It's positive media attention for the pet stores, it helps ease the burden of the rescue organizations, and it makes healthy adoptable animals more accessible and promoted to prospective pet owners. Everyone wins. (Well, except the breeders but I don't much care about them.)

Also, I've never been so excited for movie documentaries! National Geographic's The Last Lions is coming out in February and it looks beautiful. PLUS, it's narrated by Jeremy Irons! My brain just exploded with awesome! XD In addition to National Geographic's production, there's also Kevin Richardson's project, White Lion: Love is a Journey I want to see; as well as DisneyNature's African Cats. It's a good year for lions~

Mood: Content

Survived camping in bear country, hurrah! \o/ Next week I'm off again for our biennial Road Trip of Sisterly Win to visit equally awesome Brother of Awesome and Sister-In-Law of Rad over in B.C. This involves our traditional 12 hour drive through the mountains, the same ones I just returned from this past weekend; the only difference being that if we encounter bears, I will already be safely in our car traveling at 130 km/h on the highway. Ha HA! How do ya like them apples, bears?! *Smug*

Still no interviews. *Sad face* In the mean time I've begun taking on contract work again to at least bring in some sort of income aside from my EI. Last week through word of mouth I managed to pick up a couple new web projects, so that's keeping me nice and busy during the day when I was formerly just laying around watching episodes of Secret Diary of a Call Girl and napping.

In addition to contract work, I've started volunteering at the St. Albert Public Library! :3 (I've also put in an application at the EPL, but they haven't contacted me back yet.) It's great because it'll finally give me a little experience to put on my sad, library-lacking resume; plus, I'm really enjoying it. The people there are super nice and I find the shelving work very relaxing. They have me for a couple evening hours each week, though I'm hoping that I can eventually increase my hours -- then the next time they have a part-time page position open for hire they'll be all "Hey, that Brenna girl sure is a hard-working, enthusiastic volunteer! She's just the lady we're looking for, yes sir!" and BAM! Hired. That's my brilliant plan anyhow.

Over the past week, Mason and I have paid a couple of trips to various home hardware stores in an attempt to start planning out a tentative budget to remodel our very sad, ugly kitchen. No huge construction renos or anything, mostly just aesthetics -- painting the cupboards, new countertops, hardware, light fixtures, getting rid of ugly apple-print drapes, maybe a fancy shmancy new faucet~ I would love a new dishwasher as well (because it's getting to the point that our cat could lick clean our plates and utensils better than this silly machine) but that's a whole different time and budget all together. We've also picked out some paint swatches and have wonderful plans for when we eventually want to spruce up the upstairs walls. Very excited. (For the work to be finally done and finished, that is -- I am not looking forward to the actual physical labor of remodeling at all.)

FYI, the sexy Old Spice guy has managed to somehow defy the laws of awesome and become EVEN MORE AWESOME. They're putting out new spots (some of which that are quite hilarious) on their YouTube channel in which he personally responds to comments and questions from fans. This man is so awesome, in fact, that I have added him to my Hug Bucket. I bet hugging him would be like hugging every awesome person in the world at the same time, while listening to Journey, while standing in the the most beautiful sunny and grassy panorama, among the grand scenic backdrop of looming mountains made entirely of chocolate, immediately after being rescued single-handedly from a hoard of ravenous bears. Ooh. Not to mention my Hug Bucket would forever carry the wonderfully manly fragrance of Old Spice scented body wash.

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: Should probably be feeling more down than I actually am.

Such was the popular phrase around the office today. (Everything bad always happens on Tuesdays!)

As of today I officially no longer work for Nexopia. :c It didn't come as a huge surprise at all -- I've pretty much been in a constant state of anxious paranoia about being laid off for the last year, so I think a part of me was actually a little relieved I wouldn't have to go into the office again and just sit there fretting all day. The team at work has slowly been getting smaller and smaller so it was pretty obvious that there wasn't really going to much of a place for me soon -- a few other coworkers also received the same news; a couple of people who I wasn't surprised about, and a couple I was.

Overall, I'm in pretty positive spirits to tell the truth (though I'm not going to lie, between lunch and dinner I've had a couple of very tasty pornstar cocktails, so who's to say.) The timing sort of sucked considering starting today Mason is back in school for a couple months, but (currently) our money situation is not a huge issue. I'd already begun the search for a new job a while ago for a variety of reasons, so I've got the jump on that already as well. I haven't been happy working in the web development field for some time now. I realized that I had to get out of a career that was just making me unhappy (and I knew back in school would eventually make me unhappy), so I've been zeroing in on a career path I've long believed I'd be more suited to and in fact enjoy: library technologies~ :B

We don't have the money for me to go back to school right now, so I'm trying to at least get my foot in the door as a library page. Even getting a part time position at a library in some fashion would be great, and then I could just get another part time job to fill the rest of my 40 work hours (my backup job choices at this point include things like administrative work, data entry, or -- if I was lucky enough -- a position at the Humane Society or helping out at a vet clinic.) The deadline for one of the page positions I applied for and am really excited about is up tomorrow, so I'm crossing my fingers that I receive a phone call over the next week for an interview. Anyone who's not crossing their fingers for me, COMMENCE FINGER CROSSING NOW. Thx.

So for the mean time I'm a lazy, jobless bum. On my to-do list for tomorrow: a whole lot of nothing. Gonna mail in my ROE for some possible EI monies, do some laundry, the grocery shopping, read some of my overly giant copy of Mists of Avalon... and oh yeah, continue the scary job hunt.

At least I get to sleep in, eh?

Mood: Tired

Dear angry teens:

If you would like me to post your anti-Twilight rants in the front page article section -- which I'd be more than happy to do simply for the uproar and fangirly angst that it would stir -- please try to make a half-decent submission that doesn't break every spelling and grammar rule in existence. (Despite what you may think, netspeak is not an acceptable form of English.) Also preferably a submission that is more than two sentences long. (Extra exclamation points do not count towards your word count.) I am always up for spreading more LULz at the expense of Stephanie Meyer and the Twilight series, but I can't do so when you don't put in any effort!

On the related note of Twilight fuckwittage: If Twilight Were 10 Times Shorter and 100 Times More Honest

So I've been badgered into taking a trip on the Twitter bandwagon. I made a deal that I'd use it for a week and I'm on my fifth day and am still not quite sure what the whole point of Twitter is. I'm trying, I really am. *Squints* Wait, is that... Nope. Sorry. Don't see it.

I don't understand why people are flocking towards this awkward and somewhat useless middle ground between blogging and Facebooky social networking. I particularly dislike the part of this week-long deal where I'm being forced in turn to follow every Tom, Dick, and Sally that randomly decides to follow me. I don't understand. I don't know these people. I don't care what they're thinking, doing, or saying through out the day. Why are strangers following my Twitter feed in the first place? D:

The only Twitterism that I've grown fond of is the handy ability to immediately update my Facebook status straight from the Twitter app on my desktop. That's cool. I also like the idea of being able to include a widget on the side of my blog that shows my recent updates. Basically I like and will probably continue using anything involving it that directly relates to updating or displaying my Facebook status, which essentially is all Twitter really is. Starting Friday though, I'm cleaning out my spammed-to-hell Twitter friend list.

I didn't get to play any Guild Wars tonight, which I'm very sad about. :c I really need to buy a cheap computer headset. Playing in a party that I can't talk outloud to directly is really hard; I don't know where people are, or what they're doing, or what I'm supposed to be doing! There's not exactly a lot of time to spare to type out game plans while you're being mauled by a fucking gang bang of vicious skale monsters, you know?