Yes, I'm still here. I figured with all the nudging I should log in and update this thing. You'll usually find me skulking around facebook these days, but I'm still alive & busy as usual. How's everyone in livejournal land?

Where to start? I have an unbelievable story from yesterday and a bit of random updatey stuff, but I'll keep it short since I have a ton of stuff to do and a terrible headache. I'm still running both of my etsy shops onine, though now they're mainly in the background of my life and back to being more or less of a hobby. That'll temporarily change this week since I suddenly have a bunch of orders to fill, you know how it goes... when it rains it pours. In other news, I've agreed to be the publicity chair for the Manitoba Astrology Association. I'd provide a link but there is no website... yet, one of the things I plan to rectify very soon! So far I've got a facebook group up, and the website will likely be up in the Fall. As you can see, this'll keep me pretty well occupied for a while :)

With all this work keeping me on my ass, literally, it's good that I've found a way to keep active too. How? *laughs* playing video games. We bought a Wii in September, and shortly after I picked up Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party. I look hilarious playing it even though I'm pretty good at it, sorry, not posting the video, but I've actually dropped 4 sizes since I started playing almost every day during the week.

Which brings me to the craziness of yesterday. I was helping a friend with her brother's website when I got a call from my mom who was in shock, sitting in the car she just rolled into a ditch. She was coming back from a work trip to Peguis in a rental car and hit a patch of ice on the perimeter just coming in to the city, it managed to roll all the way over thankfully, so at least she wasn't upside down while she waited for help. She declined the ambulance and had a friend drive her over here, so I took her to the hospital. While we were waiting I stepped outside to call my sister with an update, but I got my niece.

I should mention, my sister had my mom's car since she was out of town, and I knew my sister had stepped out to take her friend, who, like my sister, is 8 months pregnant, to the doctors, but I figured she'd be back by then.

My niece told me her mom wasn't home yet, and asked if I'd talked to her. I told her I hadn't heard anything since I'm at the hospital with my mom and I actually turn OFF my cell phone in there *unlike 60% of the people in there* anyway, she tells me her mom was in an accident! I really didn't believe her though, I was pretty convinced she was confused, so when she finally handed the phone off (to someone who knows) I was quite sure she was giving the phone to my sister... but it was the neighbor! Sure enough, my very pregnant sister & her very pregnant friend along with my 8 year old niece were in a 3 car accident on Main Street and they were all at the hospital (obviously not the same one we were at).

Everyone is okay! Shaken and bruised but thankfully no one was seriously injured. Well, except the cars of course. My mom's car? Totaled. She took it pretty well actually, she was much more concerned about my sister and the girls and grateful they're alright. Probably a little baffled by the irony, as am I. I told her that today, the fates were just out to get her... and her little car too. She laughed.

And now the autopac nightmare begins...


Given that it's been months since I updated, this IS pretty short :p

Even in my world of chaos, crafter ADD, teenage drama, the endless incessant needs and energy of youth, irreconcilable differences, petty clashes, neighbors from hell, and just generally too much to do and not enough time to do it in, there are scattered moments of joy and light at the end of the tunnel.

Actually there are a lot of those :)

But today, I'm excited about butterflies. The butterflies I forgot to post about earlier, but meant to. Now they're all grown up and it's too late! Don't worry, I'm exaggerating a little ;)

The butterfly lady, who I built a website for a long time ago, *domain name issues prevent me from linking to the site* came by a few weeks ago to pick up an image I had scanned for her. She was on her way home from doing some workshops or something with schools. She noticed my hollyhocks had holes in the leaves and started looking for baby painted lady's underneath. We got talking a little and I mentioned my interest in one day getting a kit from her so we could try raising some butterflies (not that I need another hobby). As it turns out, butterfly lady had a car full of caterpillars and gave me 8 of them in a container filled with some kind of soy diet & a loaner screened cage for later on.

Just 3/4 short weeks later

There are still 6 more to be born, once they're all out and their wings dry we'll have a release ceremony. :)

The Legend:

If anyone desires a wish to come true they must first capture a butterfly and whisper their wish to it. Since a butterfly can make no sound, the butterfly can not reveal the wish to anyone but the Great Spirit who hears and sees all.

In gratitude for giving the beautiful butterfly its freedom, the Great Spirit always grants the wish. So, according to legend, by making a wish and giving the butterfly its freedom, the wish will be taken to the heavens and be granted.

I won't post much more than the pictures since there are so many stunning ones! I've only posted a tiny fraction of the ones we actually took on that Tuesday.

We hiked around all day; first through Goldstream park to see all the huge (and I mean HUGE) trees that came down in the prior weeks storm, then to the top of Mount Malahat (okay, we actually drove up humback road to get to the top of the mountain, not hiked, a road so narrow, steep and windy you actually have to roll down your window to listen and honk to let people know you're coming), and then we took a crazy hike down to a little waterfall cove that was amazing. Going down wasn't too bad, but coming back up! There was no way I was wimping out, but my god I'm out of shape, ouch! The hot tub later that night was very much deserved, and oh so welcome.
( Pictures cut to save your pages! )

Day one was kind of low key, only a 4 kilometer hike down The Spit



It was a nice walk, lots of interesting driftwood & we got to see their dog go a little nuts talking to the rocks. They were just trying to break us in easy :) After the walk in the park we sat back to enjoy much of the fruit wine they make & a nice fire on the deck.

Somewhere near Sicamous, BC

( The trip out )

Here's a teaser, because I'm tired of going through them all for tonight. It's cut because it's pretty big!

( What do you see in the clouds? )

How do you use this thing again?

I wonder who's still reading this journal, not that there's been anything to read in the last 4 months. I still have my Christmas icon up as default! So to the few, the loyal, the non-paranoid-becauseIhaven'tcommentedonanythingin4months LJ friends still kicking around; I promise I will try to catch up on your lives in the next little while, and I'll even post an update or two :)

Life has been very good overall, hence not needing to vent about stuff here. I've poured a lot of hours into establishing my etsy shop finally started working full time at my real job, and I just got back from a 10 day road trip to the west coast that I need a vacation from! Once I filter through the 1600 pictures we took on our spring break BC vacation I'll post the good ones for you all.

Since we rolled in at about 5 am this morning I'm a bit tired, but I'll update again soon!

I got a Christmas card from girlbox, Thank you!

I've been so neglectful of my LJ, sorry to all. I'm missing all kinds of things, and I'm certain I'll never catch up! If I missed something, let me know here please :)

So.

This year we actually got a real Christmas tree. We went on to the lot and asked for the ugliest, most unloveable tree they had and bought it. It's awesome! All the decorations are staying in storage, and we made popcorn strings and paper chains to decorate our charlie brown tree, that's all it will hold! The kids LOVE it.

My icon is made out of our usual tree, but I still need to take a picture of this years...

I'm so behind in everything! We haven't really done any Christmas shopping yet, except for all the stuff I got online at Etsy which I still have to go through and wrap. I have some gift boxes to make up too. Gah shopping is going to be a nightmare.

Are you all ready for Christmas?

Remember my last entry? Granted it was awhile ago, so in case you forgot (it's here)

My neices, 7 & 10 were booted out of the lunch program and into the snow because of a $90 bill that my sister couldn't afford to pay. Her story ran in The Times today.

click on the picture for the story, until next Thursday...

<td width="210"> Photo by Elisha Cumbers Toriea and Aurora Harry were told to eat outside because their mother couldn’t pay the lunch program fee. </td>
The story has generated a lot of response, it's good, but my poor little sister is overwhelmed! She was called by global & cjob today at work, did a short 2 minute interview on the radio, found here, sound starts right away (not sure how long this link will work) and she'll be going there tomorrow morning to do a radio interview on their morning show.

Global did an interview at her place this evening, which should air tomorrow. She was really nervous but I'm sure she did fine. Apparently the woman was pretty rude to her, or at least she percieved it that way. Asking her if she was just looking for a free ride or something, or if she expected the woman who put the girls outside to be fired. I don't know if she was looking down on my sister's situation (renting a couple of rooms in a small house), or if my sister just felt bad bringing her in right after she got off work, and completely unprepared... probably a bit of both. I'm proud of her anyway, by speaking out she may be able to help change things, with a little help from an awesome reporter of course ;)

Also anonymous people have been showing their support and generosity by taking money to the school to pay her bill. She's going to use any excess to help others in the same situation. So cool. Hopefully things will change for them.

I've gone and overloaded myself with projects again! I'm drowning in supplies and stuff, have a billion projects on the go, and I have more to start. Why do I do these things?! I think I should make a list and prioritize what I have to get done by when... that's the one. Otherwise no doubt I'll be up all night before every deadline coming up - the 24th, the 1st, 2ond and of course Christmas is around the corner. holy crap!

Anyway, on to ranting...

As many of you know my little sister moved out of my house with her two kids. She also managed to get a full time job, not great pay, but still, full time and a little above minimum wage. She's in another temporary living situation, renting some rooms in a house. Moving from here wasn't really a step up, but it helped relieve some of the strain on us, and it did motivate her to find a full time job.

The schools out there are terrible though! And I thought I had problems out here (ok, well I did, but different problems) They're making her pay $40 a month for a ten year old to take the school bus, which she has to take as she's almost 2 miles from the school. Out here we don't have to pay until the kids are in grade 7, which makes sense because the kids are usually 12 by then and legally able to stay home alone. They're also making her pay for the girls to eat their own lunch in the school, since obviously they can't go home for lunch. I had to pay for my oldest when she was in elementary because she was only a few blocks from the school and could have eaisly come home. My other two eat lunch at the school with no charge because they can't come home.

So my sister is of course devastated, she doesn't have the money to pay it, appealing to the school board did no good, and her kids have to be in school legally! Worse yet, since she wasn't able to pay the lunch fee they actually made the girls eat lunch outside in the snow. This is a public school, the kids have no choice but to attend. I can't believe they can do this :S It's extortion!

One more reason to despise the public school system.

I don't know how I did it, maybe it was the coffee grind/vanilla absolute candle I was burning all night, but I had a huge creative burst that lasted from 8:00 friday morning and didn't end until 6:00 Saturday morning. 22 hours straight! Afterward I jumped in the shower, took an hour long nap, and headed out to a church basement craft sale that my grandmother drags me to every year. We never make any money at this thing so I figured it wouldn't matter if I was out of it, but I wasn't. Surprisingly I managed to sell a whole bunch of stuff, and I was on top of things all day. Weird. I'm going to have to make some more of those candles :)

( pictures of the mess )

But it can't be helped. So many amazing treasures to buy there, like my newest find. It's too compelling for me to resist, but I can't put my finger on why. I can't wait for it to come!

A Carribean Cruise!

All we have to do is get ourselves to Florida & we have an all expense paid trip for 4 people worth almost $6000! WOW! We got a call from the Promotional Directer at Ramada Plaza Resorts, Orlando/Ft. Lauderdale herself! It only cost us a nominal $698 for the promotional fee, and there will be a small port and departure fee, and we'll be responsible for airport surcharges obviously. But this is a prize that I was specially selected to win based on my demographics! All because I did a quick survey and was entered into the contest! This was not a hardsell discounted promotional travel package that they're trying to swindle us into. This is gold key luxury accomadations! Gold Key! The only thing we have to do for it is take a few hours out of our trip to go on an all expense paid tour! No strings attached. And best of all we get two more trips just thrown in as a gift, completely transferable, and we have up to 18 months to take them!

hahahaha! Yeah.

Aren't we special. *rolls eyes*

Ok, I really did win something though *grin* We went to a social on Saturday night and I won the most coveted silent auction prize.

The Naughty and Nice baskets ;)

The nice basket was well... nice. Creams, and lotions, and scrubbies, and a fortune cookie making kit, and slippers and foot gel packs, wine glasses, and a bunch of other little goodies.

The naughty basket came with batteries.

lol

All kinds of toys, some very interesting soap on a rope, flavoured stuff, warming stuff, lacy stuff, and a plush bunny mask?! lmao ~ the thing is super creepy. I should take a picture of me wearing it and make an icon hahaha!

Good times.

Now I need to go buy myself a lottery ticket for my birthday. Quick, everybody concentrate your energies into me winning the lottery! Pleeeeease :D

We have some interesting conversations in this house, especially when my neices are over. That makes five kids from 5 - 14... I wish I could remember half of the things that come out of their mouths.

There are a few I'll never forget.

My 10 year old Niece (T) asks: Who's Jack the Ripper
response: A serial killer who killed prostitutes.
T: Oh, so he's a hero then.
response: WHAT?! O_O ?!
T: You know, cleaning up our streets.

Oh my. Sometimes she scares me :S

Just so wrong.

sacramentalist pointed me to it. I don't know about you, but if someone fed me a pudding made with breastmilk without telling me I'd be pissed. I think if you're going to use any kind of obscure alternative in a recipie you should be warning people about it.

I think they should start a breast milk farm, pump it, get it FDA approved and sell it as a healthy alternative to cows milk. If they don't think it'd sell they should think about what they're doing to people. It's wrong.

A week from today...

Etsy Sellers who make custom jewelery for me!

I also got This a while ago and it's gorgeous.