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Five Busy Blondes

November 22, 2007 By 2 Comments

Wow, not much going on as of late! Finals are coming up for those of us in school…naturally an important time of year. Micaela celebrated her birthday earlier this month with a new Lululemon sweater which I have yet to see, but am already very jealous of! Paisley – I love paisley! Kate and Scott are obviously back from their honeymoon, but seem to be having the same kind of difficulties that D and I are having getting telephone and internet service worked out at their new house. Who knew the real world would be this difficult? Leah’s birthday is coming up – always a party – and I hear that Lauren is getting snowed on in Ottawa and is planning to head to Tremblant soon?!? Luck-yyy!! By the way, Lo, I see that Allison Forsyth is sitting out the ski season – there’s a spot on the national team open for ya!

D and I went to Pier 1 Imports last weekend – I was there to browse, D was there to buy a coffee table (even though we have 2 already – long story) despite my insistence that we did not need a new one.  I was holding out just fine…until he pointed out a red and brown wood chest with inlaid flowers on the side…possibly the coffee table/storage unit of my dreams.  Browsing turned into buying and we now have 3 coffee tables (though one is destined for the woodpile at the farm).

Now all we need at the new apartment is a rug for in front of the gas fireplace! I love this design for a rug – in fact I would buy that one except it is a coconut fibre doormat. I guess I will continue my search!

I”m always looking for a creative output, and I love computers, so I’ve decided that my next ‘project’ (as in, the project I will take up when I no longer have to spend evenings at school!) will be a blogging project. Or, rather, a continuation of THIS blogging project. I want to use the WordPress CMS and design our own, unique theme for the site! This goes along with a side project that I can’t mention right now. ;) I am excited to get started on it and have found some great resources already, such as those on Lorelle’s blog. I know that there are many super cool free WordPress themes available on the net, but designing one myself will give me so much more satisfaction in the end, and also skills to build on.

Speaking of designing and skillz, we’ve not shared this photograph on the blog and I think we should because it is absolutely beautiful. These are our Oma’s hands as she works on Kate’s wedding dress – she hand-stitched thousands of beads, crystals, and sequins onto the dress over the summer! I like that the photo highlights her own wedding ring. She and Opa will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in January – and we’re having a big party to celebrate next summer!

Oma’s Hands

Filed Under: environment, erica, Family, furniture, internet, life, personal, photography, thoughts, university, writing

How To Say I Love You

November 12, 2007 By 2 Comments

Man.  Our posting frequency has seriously diminished since the wedding.  Of course, we have our reasons…life went back to ‘normal’ and we had to catch up on stuff we had abandoned for the sake of the wedding.  Case in point: I had to study for a midterm (I had a midterm on Halloween :p ), and prepare to move to a new apartment!  Also, Kate has been away on her honeymoon in Costa Rica this past week.   I can’t vouch for Micaela, Leah, or Lauren…WAIT, I take that back, Lauren DID post the ‘optical illusion’, so, way to go Lauren!

Today I’m posting a link to a touching, yet sometimes odd, essay entitled How To Say I Love You by Paul Ford. I feel it is important to note that it is written from a male point of view, simply because I found some of the suggestions to be confusing when I first considered them from my female POV.

Ford poses his “How-To’s” in many different ways.  Some are short, simple statements that cause you to think twice, such as (2) with freshly cut flowers, assuming she is not a flower; and (46) At Thanksgiving, to her twin sister, by accident.  Others are fun, inspiring, and applicable to real life: (47) In glow-in-the-dark-paint on the bedroom ceiling; and (82) Change your status to “interested in: just friends”.

Some suggestions spoke to me from my unique perspective on the world – especially (50) Branded onto her favorite pig; and (86) via the poetry of Pablo Neruda or Jorge Luis Borges that you have copied into a small black journal.  I also loved (100), but I’ll leave that one as a surprise.

Ford includes his wedding vows as ways to say I love you…awww!  He also spins multiple “I Love You’s” into fictional stories.  Truly, this article is about how small, seemingly inconsequential acts are really testaments of love!

What little things do you do to say ‘I love you’?

Filed Under: erica, life, love, relationships, thoughts, writing Tagged With: , ,

Optical Illusion

November 8, 2007 By 1 Comment

pigsnout

My Psychology professor showed us this optical illusion today- he loves them, and i thought that it was appropriate for this, seeing as how we’re pig farmers.
Lauren

Today I was lying in my bed thinking about how I should have gone to Guelph. I just wanted to be closer to home.

Filed Under: photography, writing

I’m a Winner!

October 10, 2007 By 3 Comments

This morning mom called my office within the first five minutes of me getting at work.

Mom: “I checked my email this morning and there was an email from your prof Owen, want me to read it to you?”

Kate: “Sure, I guess” (thinking that this will be about a course that mom was interested in and wondering why she would want to read the email to me)

Mom reading the email: “I have some good news, and because I don’t have Katelyn’s email address I’m contacting you hoping you will pass this on to her. Katelyn’s
“Dairy Days” video won a bronze award ($100) in the Canadian Farm Writers Federation annual writing and broadcasting awards last weekend”

Kate: “Woo Hoo $100!”

Well I guess the rest of the conversation doesn’t matter because woo hoo I won!

The Canadian Farm Writers Federation (CFWF) is a group of ag journalists, which includes reporters, editors and broadcasters in business and government, specializing in agricultural communications. The CFWF represents over 350 members who belong to organizations all over Canada. In conjunction with their daily reporting, they put on a competition annually, which includes categories such as “television, radio, and daily, monthly and weekly press reporting; media release; press column; press editorial and press feature.”

I won the bronze award in Television News Reporting. I made the video in my Agricultural Communications course at Guelph in my last semester there, it was one of the assignments that we had to complete. The topic assigned to me was ‘Dairy Days’, which is a program put on for Oxford County students in grade 4 to get a first hand look at dairy farming. I did research before the event (there was not very much information!), contacted people to interview, attended the event with our production team who get footage of the event and edit the video, interviewed people at the event, put together a script, taped voice overs (my fave part!), and then got to watch the final video.

My prof entered a bunch of videos from the class and amazingly enough our classes work came in 1st 2nd and 3rd! The must make him feel good as the prof.

So I’m guessing you want to see the video now right? Ok no laughing, I do look kind of silly… but here you go! And feel free to take a look around at other videos on Youtube added by “AgriComm” that our class produced, I do have another video on the site, see if you can find my other one.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hNbBYT_Oig]

If that does not work please go here DAIRY DAYS

Filed Under: agriculture, farming, life, money, university, writing

My Ideal Job

August 17, 2007 By 2 Comments

Since graduating University and realizing that the job I now work in is not at all where I see myself in the future I find people asking me more and more what my ideal job is. So here’s the catch, I really don’t know. I have had various jobs in the past and basically loved them all.

Snowboarding instructor

Golf Course Maintenance worker

Farmers Hand (on the home farm)

Research and Development Student for a chemical company

I guess I was not thinking when I accepted a job where 1. I would be working by myself and 2. I’m in an office, all day. I was blinded by the fact that it was a full time job and I was coming out of University, what an opportunity! This job really isn’t bad at times, when it is busy it is actually quite entertaining. However very rarely is it busy and so I’m getting lazier. When I’m busy when I get a new task I get it done right away. But when there’s not much to do, I put it off because I have so much time to get it done later.

Heres what I think I need in a job:

1. Outdoors (either all outdoors or flexibility indoor/outdoor work)

2. People

3. Accomplishment (I need to feel like what I am doing is actually helping something)
I think that I’d like to try landscaping sometime (designing not cutting lawns all the time). You definately get accomplishment in that job!

Whats in your ideal job?

Filed Under: katelyn, life, personal, question, thoughts, Work, writing

What Is The Best Thing That’s Ever Happened To You?

August 14, 2007 By Leave a Comment

DNTO

Lately my refuge from the street sounds on my bike rides to and from work has been CBC radio podcasts. I would say that my favorite podcast is “The Best of DNTO” – that’s Definitely Not The Opera for all you non-CBC listeners. Recent podcast topics have included your mom ‘friending you’ on Facebook (A Facebook Only a Mother Could Love – June 17) – we can relate (in a good way)!

This afternoon I listened to “Respecting our elders with Leslie Nielson, Sarah Polley, and more” (March 22 2007). In the podcast, Sook-Yin Lee visited a retirement home to chat with some seniors living there. One of the questions she asked really got me thinking.

What is the best thing that’s happened to you?

I had to think for a block or two until I could decide on what my ‘best thing’ is. Then, just before I started writing, I came up with another best thing.

Best Thing #1: Getting (re)hired at The Fox. This event, although it interrupted a family brunch, was fantastic because it led up to many other great events, most notably meeting my boyfriend.

Best Thing #2: Learning how to ski. I’m sure there are some people reading this thinking, doesn’t she mean snowboard? Truthfully, no. I do mean skiing – because if I had hadn’t learned how to ski, I likely wouldn’t have learned how to snowboard. I also wouldn’t have many of the great friends I have now, and I never would have traveled out west and had a great time working in Banff.

So, it seems as though my ‘best things’ were the initial events in chains of events. Is that fair? Yes. It’s fair because I say it is.

Do you have a ‘Best Thing’ in your life?

Filed Under: blogging, erica, life, personal, random, review, technology, thoughts, writing

Googling Five Blondes

August 14, 2007 By 3 Comments

Find us in Google!Although choosing Five Blondes as our blog title was a fairly quick and painless decision, there was definitely a lot of thought put into it. Thought, research, and Googling. If we tell someone about our blog and they Google us, what comes up? Are there any other blogs or websites with like names? Could the results be embarrassing?

After a month (and not-too-many posts), the results are in.

Google: “fiveblondes”

We are first! Not surprising. We are also second, third, fourth…of the two pages of results, only the last two links are not us. The last link is, unfortunately, a porn film titled “5 blondes”. Seeing that makes me very happy that we didn’t use “5 Blondes” as our blog name (it was in the running).

Google: “five blondes”

We are…third. Second link is the aforementioned adult film’s listing on IMDB (here titled “Five Blondes” – but I know that’s wrong, I saw the cover of the DVD). The film apparently sucks – that may be the wrong word to use – let’s go with ‘is not very good.’ The film is apparently not very good, judging by the 3.5/10 rating.

The first link is a blonde joke on someone’s Geocities page that was added over seven years ago. Nothing dies on the internet! The webmaster’s page hasn’t been updated in over a year, as far as I can tell. I haven’t visited a Geocities page in years.

What about those inferior links under us? Well, they’re mostly blonde jokes, as well as a few links about that, um, film. So, in honor of those blonde jokes and in good humour (we like to laugh!), I am adding a blonde joke to this post.

In fact, I’ve found a blonde joke titled “The Blonde’s Sister.”

A blonde goes into work one morning crying her eyes out. Her boss, concerned about all his employees’ well being, asked sympathetically, “What’s the matter?”

 

To which the blonde replies…..”Early this morning I got a phone call saying that my mother had passed away.”

 

The boss, feeling very sorry at this point, explains to the young girl, “Why don’t you go home for the day…..we aren’t terribly busy. Just take the day off to relax and rest.”

 

The blonde very calmly states……”No, I’d be better off here. I need to keep my mind off it and I have the best chance of doing that here.”

 

The boss agrees and allows the blonde to work as usual, saying “If you need anything, just let me know.”

 

Well, a few hours pass and the boss decides to check on the blonde. He looks out over his office and sees the blonde hysterically crying!! He rushes out to her, asking, “Are you gonna be ok??”

 

“No,” exclaims the blonde. “I just got a call from my sister. She told me that HER mom died too!!”

BA-DUMP-BUMP!

Umm…love you, Mom! Link love you too!

A final note: If you google all of our names at once (“erica micaela katelyn leah lauren“), we are first…of 48,000!

Filed Under: blogging, erica, google, life, random, SEO, technology, thoughts, writing