Happy Trails To You

My Dear Page Turner, 

Do you remember that one time where we...

... Painted Christmas Pottery when it was after Christmas?

... or that time we were caterers at a recycled wedding?

... or to add a little sunshine to our day we had a Hawaiian shirt Thursday?

... what about that time 2009 when Michael Jackson died and we gave him a one glove salute?

... remember when the goose was the CP mascot, then it got held for ransom and adopted to the CSA's? 

... or when we had bookclub in your town on that patio at the mansion?

Because I do. I remember all these fun times we've had and all the ones that don't have pictures to caption.

I've tried very hard to remember back to when we first met and became friends. I guess it's kind of cool that I don't remember, that must mean it just came so natural. I'm sure OL took me over to the street one day and I just kept coming back for more. You guys made it look so cool to be a CP (man was I fooled)

I know you won't be far away but I'm sure going to miss you. I'm going to miss the sarcastic IM conversations, who is going to keep my chair warm now during the stand ups?! Who will I go to if there are executor paperwork questions? I'm honestly too young to be going through the retirement of a good pal and I fear your partner in crime won't be far behind, then what will I do? How do you even begin to explain the awesomeness of the two Alice's? How would you even begin to tell that story?

We've shared so many laughs, most of the time at other's expenses, you got me to pick up books again, given solid advice pulled from your wise years, got me started on my blog and you know what? You are irreplaceable. I'm going to miss you. 

I hope you had a great last day, I wish Skinny and I's plans to keep you here would have worked a little better. But you've inspired us all that it's never to late to take a chance on happiness and follow your dreams. Good Luck Page Turner and I hope all your sweet dreams come true! 

This is going to be hard to look at for a while though, every time I walk by I'll make a bird call in your honor. It'll be hard to fill your seat.... no really, they have to talk to like several people and get corporate to agree that there is a business need to replace you, then it will have to go to a committee to be approved, then there will have to be a posting (with lackluster applicants) and then they will have to interview and take their pulse and make sure they have one before they put in a job offer..... I mean literally, it's going to be hard for them to replace you.

As you ride into your last sunset away from the Farm... Happy Trails Page Turner and best of luck! I'll see ya real soon.

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.
Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again.

Some trails are happy ones,
Others are blue.
It's the way you ride the trail that counts,
Here's a happy one for you.

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.

Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again.

10 Things: Think Positive Thoughts

I'll be completely honest with you, the above picture is my life 7 hours and 45 minutes everyday, 5 days a week, and it's blah. Add to this already depressing gray world the fact that the Page Turner is abandoning us in just 2 days time and off to play Willy Wonka in her small town and it becomes difficult to find anything to be positive about. But here I give you (scraping from the bottle of the barrel) 10 things: Think Positive.

- I got new pens! They write in different color inks and I had a $1 off coupon hooray! 

- I finally beat the stupid Candy Crush level that I had been stuck on for weeks

- Mom and Dad brought me a strawberry pie from McD and an iced tea! :D

- Vacation days renewed on the 1st and I haven't used one yet! 

- I get to sleep with the windows open tonight (a nice break from the rain!)

- I have finally recovered from the 'Red Wedding' on Game of Thrones

- My brothers stupid videos on Vine are hilarious.

- I have a jar full of starburst's on my desk. (favorite flavor is Pina Colada)

- OL is going to take me gambling sometime this summer :)

- Tomorrow is food day at work.

Weekend Rewind: Back in Time to WWII

Is anyone else tired of all the stormy storms and constant rain? I'd expect this from April but not May into June, it's almost official summer time which means we should have bountiful sunshine, what the H?! But sometimes rain and storms lead to some beautiful skies. After A.Drama and I spent our Saturday evening at Walmart and had a lovely Arby's dinner, we got stuck in a downpour but managed to see a lovely double rainbow and caught a lovely sunset.

Today we took a muddy trip back in time, where history came alive! We traveled a few cities over to visit a living history reenactment and veterans tribute. Later in the day there were different battle reenactments but dad just wanted to check out the vehicles.

The Allied forces vehicles

The German Camp

The Allied Camps

Dad and NiBo in the tall grass

Something here does not belong

very very muddy

You always kind of think you have a general idea of what it was like.... yeah no way. It was very cool too see German soldiers riding their motorcycles through the mud up to their camp, it gives you a small small glimpse into what it may have been like.

And while we were in the big big city, we stopped at Bass Pro Shops Hooray!

Books

I love reading books. It's so easy to get lost in another world when it comes to books, but I don't actually read all that many. Last night I opened this month's book club book, my pick, The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood and I couldn't put it down and read the whole thing, it was excellent! I won't go into detail about the book, I'll save that for after our meeting on Thursday, but I'm glad I picked this book, you should read it. How did I come across this book you may ask yourself, well Oprah told me I think, and I liked the cover. I'm pretty sure it was maybe on one of the must reads for a month or something.

But back to books in general. Books take up time to read, I appear to only like to read books at night, no clue why, but I always end up staying up way too late, just one more chapter I constantly negotiate with myself, then when I get to the end of that chapter, well, you just can't stop there either. I'm pretty sure it was like 1:30am before I went to bed last night. 

Since I've had my Nook, there have only been a handful of books where I've actually read the physical book. I do feel bad that I'm contributing to the demise of book stores and libraries, but I just love my Nook. I like having several books to choose from, they are usually cheaper and I don't have books collecting dust on book shelves. I think if I really really liked a book I would buy it to have a physical copy too, that should save the bookstores right? 

Anywho, books. I like to read. Anyone read anything good lately that they would like to share with the group?

Opossum Mama

I said I would blog more, I didn't say they'd all be golden.

But on my way to work this morning I saw a waddley looking cat waddle its way across the road. As I approached this "cat" I realized it wasn't a cat at all but a big 'ol mama possum with a litter of little oppossi (plural of opossum?!) bummin a ride on her back. While I totally agree that giant hissing opossums are really the last thing you want to run into in a dark alley or late at night on your back porch, but baby opossum are adorable and even cuter when hitchin' a ride on mama's back. Kudos to mom for haulin like 6 or 7 of your children on your back. They are like the minivans of the animal kingdom. They are kind of hard to see here but please beg my pardon as I literally stopped in the middle of the road rolled down my window and snapped this shot. But google baby opossum they are adorbs. 

actual photo

More, Less and Stop

More: 
- Blogging! I've been slacking, I'm ahead of last year but still need more! :)
- Live in the moment. Be in the now.
- Reading. Seriously, books are fun why don't I already read more.
- Exercise. I've been riding my bicycle, need to start walking/running.
- Focus. 
- Adventure.
- Outside the comfort zone.

Less: 
- Worrying (this could be difficult)
- Facebook- useless to just stare waiting for updates or something to occupy my time isn't it?
- TV. Summer TV isn't that great anyway. I'll save it for the weekends.
- Daydreaming at work, which would help with the more focus.
- Sugar. Having a sister who decorates cakes can be challenging at times. I LOVE CAKE!
- Full Throttles. They've become my crutch for sleeping mornings.
- Clutter. Need to get rid of some clothing taking up space and other general cluttering items.

Stop: 
- Biting my nails. I relapsed and now the urge is back :(
- Texting while driving. I know horrible bad habit, that's why it's a stop!
- Being scared. I freak myself out about trying new things because I'm chicken.
- Trying to convince gma that we need to adopt one of my Uncle's rescue kittens.
- self hate. I need to talk myself up not down.
- Over-analyzing. Like everything, just stop.
- Being lazy. It's so much easier but it needs to stop.

Annoyances

I cannot watch/hear that stupid lifestyle lift commercial one more time... as soon as that " Youuuuu light up my liiiife." comes on MUTE followed by a disgruntled "I HATE THIS COMMERCIAL!" SHUT UP DEBBY BOONE!

... just thought I'd let you know. I'm still working on my Stop, Less, More list, I didn't have time to be distracted today. But guess what!? The new carpet at work finally got to my desk! Yippee!!

Isn't that purty. Makes me want to rush right into work every morning. On the bright side, at least now I know the carpet is semi-clean and it's super cushy since it's new, so I have no problem crawling under my desk and taking a nap. If you see one of those Shhhh! golf signs up, just know it's nap time in the cul-de-sac and you best use your indoor voice.

Is It Wrong?

Is it wrong to want to stick your head in the freezer and just stand there?! Perfectly normal, ok good.

For realz y'all it's hot in here! I'm not ready for summer just yet, well I mean summer can come but could Spring not say goodbye so fast? But alas, it's that  time of year again. The time of year when I feel like an ass complaining about not having central air, total first world problems I know. It seems too soon to get the window units put in, I like to enjoy the fresh breeze through the open windows with the small town sounds coming through the window. Every year I ask myself how did the prairie people survive the summer in their long dresses? I like to think that global warming has made the summers hotter therefore making me slightly less of a whiny wimp for sweating so much. But all of these brings us to the summer bucket list time....

So my dad sometimes, ok almost daily, sends me interesting articles, most of the time I just forward them to my home email "dad" folder and read them later but this once kind of stuck out, and it was short so that's always a plus. Who is Josh Linkner, no clue, he sounds fancy judging from his website. But his blog post was called More, Less, Stop basically the short premise of this blog was we have an limited amount of time in each day and to help us prioritize we can make a list 1. More- what do we want more of? 2. Less- what are some things we could do with less of and 3. What are some things that we need to stop doing altogether. He challenges us to think of seven things for each list and try to do them for 30 days. I think this shall be tomorrow's daily distraction. I'll get back to you with my list and I'll keep thinking about my summer bucket list.

Maybe I could enlist your help for one of my summer bucket list items. I'm looking to take a solo adventure/vacation to someplace with a good mix of things to do/relaxing down time, I was thinking possibly Savannah, or just a straight up beach trip and maybe to go to Hilton Head Island in SC, I'm still brainstorming. Do you have any ideas? 

How is Canada Cooler than the US?

Commander Hadfield, that's how.

Chris Hadfield is a Canadian born astronaut whom I've been slightly stalking for months now on Twitter {@Cmdr_Hadfield} He was the first Canadian in space and has called the International Space Station home for the past five months. He's been tweeting some of the most amazing pictures from space and has been very active on social media... you may have seen his latest YouTube video in which he covers 'Space Oddity' by David Bowie, kind of crazy to listen to the lyrics and see the breathtaking images, that are real, like totally legit, no computer fancy tricks, real space. Definitely check it out if you haven't...

Adding to the list of why I'm obsessed with Commander Hadfield is this quote, that was brought to my attention by a coworker... When asked if he had any advise for a young person looking to get into the astronaut field he replied with this quote.

"Decide in your heart of hearts what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction. Every decision you make, from what you eat to what you do with your time tonight, turns you into who you are tomorrow, and the day after that. Look at who you want to be, and start sculpting yourself into that person. You may not get exactly where you thought you’d be, but you will be doing things that suit you in a profession you believe in. Don’t let life randomly kick you into the adult you don’t want to become." - Chris Hadfield

The part that stood out to me in this somewhat lengthy quote was the last line..

"Don’t let life randomly kick you into the adult you don’t want to become."

Please do yourself a favor and check out his twitter and Facebook for the amazing/breathtaking pictures Chris took from space. It will give you a moment of awe I promise....and you're welcome, you will now have space oddity stuck in your head for a few days! :)  Love, Heather!

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow

Last week I said goodbye to a good friend. We have known each other for these past six years and have had some good times. 144 thousand miles later I said goodbye to Simon, it was a bittersweet moment. My first new car, first grown up purchase. We had some good times, now Simon is off to make some memories with a new family. Goodbye friend.... parting is such sweet sorrow...

Until the new car smell hits your nose and you slide into the drivers seat of a 2013 Ford Escape and get a big ol' car hug from the comfy cloth seats. Simon who?! (I'm just kidding Simon, I do miss you, sorta)

Meet Edgar, my fancy new car. More space and more tech, so much tech I'm still trying to figure it all out. It's nice to treat yourself to something new every once in awhile. I even talked the salesman into giving me the price I wanted for my monthly payments. Holy moly is car shopping exhausting, we ended up being at the dealer for like 3.5 hours, my tummy was rumbling by the end!  So far I'm absolutely loving the new car!