Formal

As I walked home from work this afternoon, I noticed a group of 10-12 teens gathering near a fountain for their formal picture. It made me smile. It reminded me of my formal night, almost exactly 12 years ago.

Tonight, parents were swarming around taking pics while others were standing on the periphery just taking it all in. It was great. It made me smile that all these kids were totally excited about their formal night. They were laughing and being loud. Cracking jokes. All sorts of stuff. The excitement was palpable. Who knows who might get lucky? Who knows who might get totally hammered? Who knows who's night will live up to the expectation of being 'one of the most important nights of your life'?

Not only all of that, but most of these kids are probably off to university this coming September. That's super exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

Formal, prom, whatever you call it can be a multitude of things to people.

For me it was an exciting evening to spend with friends. It was an evening to show the other people I went to school with that I could look really nice. For god knows what reason, I felt the need to display that to people. Still do, actually...

So the evening started with me being picked up by a guy friend of mine (F) that I had met through my boyfriend. I had asked him to accompany me to my formal because my boyfriend at the time was in the army reserves and was otherwise engaged. Nothing like being stood up at your high school formal by your boyfriend!!! As an aside, we were supposed to go to his formal as a consolation prize, but he ended up lying to me about it being cancelled and thus ended the official part of our relationship. But that's an entirely other story...

So the evening started with F picking me up. We then went to one of my high school buddies places for some appetizers before we all scooted off to a nice place for dinner. Most of us ended up getting food poisoning by the end of the night, but I don't feel too bad about that because the place wasn't my suggestion... My place was overruled.

Moving on! Sheesh...

The formal itself was pretty fun. I wore my hair up in a French roll, the corsage that F brought me and a navy blue dress that had navy blue lace over top and buttons down the front. I'm definitely not a lace person, but it was subtle enough that I went for it. Even then I had a hard time finding stuff to fit my body, so I settled. I ended up having the same dress as another person at the formal, but she wore the little jacket that came with it, so that's fine.

There's a nice little picture of me and my disembodied hand. Doesn't it kind of look like it's attacking me? Anyhow, this is the only picture of formal that I could snag quickly. I clipped it from a photo posted on a high school buddy's Facebook profile. Yay Facebook for reliving that fateful evening.

So yeah, the actual formal evening was fun. Dancing... some nibbles... a lame plastic champagne glass.

I do regret not spending some of it with my good friend L, but at that time, we were with different friend groups. She was an ultra popular gal who was on all the sports teams and friends with all the hot guys... and I was... well... too much of a nerd to give a shit about what people thought of me. I was invited out a few times with L and the 'popular kids', but I always thought they really disliked me. They were probably indifferent, but that's irrelevant at this point. I do wish I had a pic of me and L on that night though. That would be a nice keepsake.

So after formal we went bowling. Yes, bowling... in our formal wear. It was fun! There's a good picture of all of my buddies and I standing in front of the lanes. Terribly classy.

Then we went back to someone's house, had a drink or two and went to bed. By this point some of my buddies were puking as a result of the evening's dinner. "An evening to remember!"

So the long and the short of it is that formal was a fairly good time but it certainly didn't live up to the hype for me. I didn't get hammered and forget where I was. It wasn't the BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE (up to that point). I didn't lose my virginity. That had happened years before. Hell, my boyfriend didn't even go with me! Mind you, F did propose a "friends with benefits" kind of thing that night. Something along the lines of casual sex among friends. Yeah, I didn't go for it. He wasn't really my type. In hind sight, he was a good guy and well.... let's move on, shall we?

Actually, no, let's not move on. The crazy thing is... my boyfriend at the time? Yeah, he ended up marrying F's fiancée from that time. Figure that one out! Yeah, should have gone for it... ;)

OK, back to friends and stuff.

The thing is, while L and I were kind of on the outs around that time in our lives, she's the only one I still talk to from high school. Facebook has put me in touch with a few folks from that night and that time in my life, but there's nothing there. Casual hellos, we should get togethers and well intentioned, but lacking in emotion, happy birthdays... are the extent of our friendships. Isn't that funny? Hell, one of them won't even acknowledge me via Facebook. God knows what I did to her, but it was obviously HORRIBLE!

So what was your formal evening like? Did you even go? Did it live up to it's expectation? What did you wear? Who did you spend it with? Do you still talk to them?

Share with me! Come on, reliving high school is fun!!!

Bit of an update

Well, my posts lately have been a little lackluster, but I'm not going to apologize. It's just the way things have been. You know, busy...

House: Things with the house have hit a bit of a plateau. I think we actually burnt ourselves a bit there with all the work we were doing. We haven't done much in a couple weeks, and honestly, I think that's OK.

Today the roofers were supposed to put a good effort into making our flat roof not so flat anymore, but alas, they screwed up and now they can't start until Monday. Let's just say that I'm VERY HAPPY that we happened to come home today at lunch and notice that things were not going as they were supposed to. I can't wait until I no longer panic about rain. That'll be a nice treat.

We've spoken with some contractors about insulating our house via foam or cellulose insulation, blown through holes in the walls. Currently we have no insulation and for a house in Canada, this is a bit of a problem. So anyhow, we have a rough idea of what the insulation will cost, and I am quite happy that the government of Canada is quite supportive of this kind of endeavor. A friend of ours did their place a few years ago and had approximately 80% of the cost covered. Sweet! So anyhow, we have a bit of work to do and a bit of cash to shell out. Fortunately we would have done this work anyway, and it's simply a bonus to get a refund!

My favorite part about all this? Once the insulation is done with, we can FINALLY paint the walls. Other than the bathroom, the house is in the same state as it was when we moved in; only the wallpaper has been removed. It's a tiny bit ghetto chic. Ha, hardly, but I can't wait to paint!

On the positive side, our garden is coming up nicely. We have chosen to leave everything alone this year so that we can see what comes up. So far we have: tulips, daffodils, lilies, one rose, Solomon's seal, lily-of-the-valley, peonies, bunch of different hostas, irises, hollyhocks (far too many if you ask me), etc. On the food side we have rhubarb (WOOHOO! Can't wait to eat it!), a currant bush (I think) and mint. It really is a nice bunch of gardens. It'll be great to put our own mark on it next year. I think I'll add some delphiniums, more irises and more peonies. It'll be great. Plus, we intend to turn the piece of grass in our front yard into garden, as our neighbours have done. It'll look so much better. The grass is crap anyway and I think it would be hard to mow with our new push mower.

So essentially, although we haven't done much since we moved in, the house still dominates our time. Strange. I guess it's something we'll have to get used to!

Moving on!

Work: Work is going OK, but I recently took on a whole new responsibility. It's fine, but adding a bunch more work. Plus we have a big project that's about to get going and that's going to add a whole other layer of craziness. Good times. Enough about work. Work's work.

THE CLEANSE!: Things are going fine. I'm still quite hungry, but tomorrow is the last day, so I'll be done soon enough! I have lost 5lbs since Sunday though. That's a nice side effect... a good start on the 15 lbs I want to lose by Christmas. Sure I'll gain some of the 5 back, but it's motivation.

Summer plans: Well, the summer is going to be ultra busy. Thom and I decided to finally do a 5 day canoe trip in Algonquin (for the unaware, Algonquin is a sizeable park - click Map to see the boundary) that we've been planning for years. It includes two shuttles across Lake Opeongo and 5km portage on the last day. Fabulous! Actually, I'm looking very forward to it. After the hiking trips we've taken the past two summers, a wee 5km portage doesn't frighten me. I'll probably eat my words, but right now I'm confident.

We will also be spending a few weekends at the cottage. In fact, we're going for Victoria Day weekend next week. It'll be buggy, but great. It's nice to have everything so "close" again.

And, after waiting in line last weekend, we will be going to a music festival with some friends. I'm looking very forward to it. It's always a good time and this year we have some company!

My goals: I haven't made much headway on these. I really need to get cracking. My next workshop with everyone is during the first week of June. I should probably have something to say about it.

I can't think of anything else to write. I'm sure there is plenty left unsaid, but this is already a longish post.

Cleansing... Day 4

OK, so Day 2 was easier than Day 1, Day 3 was easier than Day 2 and Day 4 was certainly better than Day 3.

So why is it I'm completely starving? Ugh.

Only 3 days to go...

I have to say, however, that I've gained an appreciation for what you can do with a tight food list. I think I'll keep making these recipes once I'm done with all of this.

For example, last night's dinner was:

1 sm onion (I can have unlimited onions!) fried in 1 tablespoon of butter
then I added 1 sliced up chicken thigh
then I added 1/2c tomato
then I added 1/2c wild rice (pre cooked), 1/2c cooked swiss chard and oregano

All cooked together. It was yummy!

Cleansing... day 1

OK, so I got the bright idea to do a cleanse. You know, one of those digestive tract numbers.

It's a seven day process, and I have to say that Day 1 has been kind of rough.

The box coyly puts it that some people feel a sense of "lightness". Me? I just feel ultra hungry, kind crabby and a bit stoned... let's hope this ends soon. Otherwise it's going to be a long 7 days.