it's been five long days...

and i love chocolate just the same.

it's actually only been since saturday. but it's the longest since the cleanse that i've gone without chocolate, i'm sure.

if i sound like an addict, it's probably because i am. i'm hoping to not binge once i'm back on the wagon. it's not like i meant to quit. i'm not cleansing (thank god); it just kind of happened by accident and now that the hard part is over i'm just going to go with it.

hey look! it's a baby.

okay, this is pretty much a terrible picture of me, but it's a good one of Benjamin.

he was very cute and sleepy. no crying, just cooing.

yesterday was a big feed at the stewart house. chosie and juliet were down for a visit and the whole family came over to take turns holding benjamin and to celebrate alicia, gabe and stephen's birthdays.

the frozen lemon mousse i brought was a hit.

the worst prize ever... except for death

our door prize is the worst prize ever.

the only thing i can say in its defense? i have not laughed this hard since being drunk and watching the IT crowd at New Year's.

allow me to list in order of goodness:

1. the basket (i'm not into baskets *at all* but it's something i can regift without shame
because there is a function... it's like a gift bag for me: not into them so i just reuse them)

2. two white votives

3. some swan table/cake toppers (whatever that is)

4. swan/lovebird picture holder

5. weird photo album

6. a magnet wrapped in cellophane

basically this is the worst prize in history. i did laugh my ass off (good) but now am at a loss as to what i should do with this dollar store stuff (bad). my suggestion? don't have a wedding until i get rid of this crap, cause you might be the next 'lucky' recipient. i might take some pictures.

a boy, a bunny

i forgot to mention what we saw last week going to our salsa class. so i will now.

we were walking through the bus loop to get to our class at the rec centre when what should cross in front of us? a boy on a skateboard carrying his bunny in a cage.

gerry and i looked at each other and voiced our wishes for a camera.

matilda's scarf

look at what i made! the scarf, not the girl. it looks a bit camo, but it's nice and soft and squishy. it matched matilda's new jacket so perfectly it was an obvious choice.

chips and salsa

gerry and i are doing salsa lessons with danielle and jordy.

it's fun. tonight we get our cds with the music on them so we can practice at home. i sweat last week. hmmm... maybe i should wax my pits to help with that 'issue'. and by referring to my sweaty pits as an 'issue' i mean that i have to wash my workout clothes more often if i'm really sweaty in them.

so far (after one lesson) we're pretty much experts. as long as the class stays at this level, there won't be any problems. my concern is that it won't.

wedding belles

hmm... maybe i should have a bit of a disclaimer here.

as usual, my current obsessions will be thoroughly and publicly discussed here. current obsessions include all things weddings. so, if that's going to bore you... you might want to practice your skimming skills for the next while. i'm sure there will be a couple of months where there is no wedding talk. it's just that to get to that point, we have to do a few things or else we'll be stuck on the one point for the next million years.

we're thinking of setting up a bit of a website and having a wedding section. this will allow for online rsvp-ing, and lots of info on local stuff (once we know what local is) like hotels, sights, maybe even some wedding info like: please don't wear a green dress, unless you want to look like a bridesmaid. :o)

i'll keep you posted in any case.

current *big* obsessions include: locations, my dress, the date and milking big stores for as much free stuff as possible. i really do plan to only get married once, so i'm hoping that i can remember all the stories about places offering upgrades and champagne and all that stuff that people have told me about in the past.

the dress is a big one because i've never dreamed about my wedding. i didn't even think i'd be doing this... i blame gerry, because it's my blog, and i can. i guess i'm one of those, 'if you're gonna bother doing it, you might as well do it right' type of people. so i am, and as such, i will have a lovely dress and maybe even a lovely veil. but i'm not really sold on that yet. we'll see.

just say no

well, i've now said no to two jobs. am i an idiot? only time will tell.

i struggled with the last one, but in the end, and after a lot of talking about it, it was decided that i should risk holding out for the government one. and go from there. in the meantime, i might be looking for something casual and very local. i would need to be able to bike/walk to wherever the money takes me. the government positions will probably be a while before we hear back.

the good news is that the other place that offered me a job said to let them know if the government one doesn't work out. which i thought was very kind. and lucky. and nice. (no i don't think they would read this, so i'm just sayin' it like it is.)

so that's me, unemployed and lovin' it. :o) the only part that sucks is that we only have 1 car, and the lack of money coming in means less that should be going out. booo urns!

register your guns

as you probably know (since i just blogged it) gerry and i are now registered at the bay and home outfitters. please don't rush out to look at the lists. they are random and all over the place. and to be honest neither of us were up for it at the time. maybe in another 6 months. or maybe even AFTER we have sent out save the date cards. for now, we only have like 5 items on each list.

we don't have a date or a location for our wedding. but we're registered (how amazing is that?). some stuff we want, some stuff (a good amount, actually) is there for winning other stuff. i felt we should approach the registry in the manner of supermarket sweep. get all of the 'bonus items' and then focus on a couple of things we do want/need. we've registered for a kitchenaid mixer, food processor, and blender, all of which we already have, but in a few months i might be blogging that i won new kitchen appliances from this.

the most tempting item that almost got put on the list as a joke, but in the end didn't? the sauna for 2.

the best comment? gerry's suggestion for a password for our online account, 'divorce'. i'm pretty sure the lady didn't think it was as funny as we thought.

suggestion to the bay and home outfitters? make the lists available for editing online.

you win!

yesterday we got two phone calls. one about 'winning' two nights free hotel if we go to this presentation (i said yes initially because what's 90 mins if we get free hotel to use for a weekend away?). then i googled it, and decided that a 90 minute presentation on expensive pots and pans from Table Charms wouldn't be so bad, but all of the reviews of the gift certificate you get said it's really hard to book the time. oh, and that they want you to put your deposit on the booking and they may cancel it at any time blah blah blah. so we're not going to go.

when the phone rang later, and i was making dinner, i thought it was danielle calling because gerry was being quite familiar. when he said: oh, we won something? i just figured it was danielle calling to joke around so i said, what did we win, a baby? (aren't i clever?) anyway, it was the bay in langley and apparently we won some prize from them but they won't tell us what it is. i had a hard time sleeping last night. gerry's doing his nerds stuff today and maybe tomorrow, so it might not be until sunday that i find out what it is. it hasn't stopped me from dreaming that it's a vacation or a HUGE gift certificate though (but i think it was this basket with a bra in it).

i don't mind. i'm excited to have won.

some breasts with my salad

gerry and i went to langley on wednesday. when i went to the wedding show in vancouver with danielle and erin, as part of the trauma, there was a stall from the bay. *so* i entered their contest and then they were like if you register with us we'll enter you in this draw and this one, and you'll get two $25 gift cards, one from the bay and one from home outfitters. at first, i was like: forget it, we're not registering. but the gift cards tempted me, and the pressure from erin and danielle convinced me.

anyway, we were going to activate the two cards in langley and bring our recycling to the bottle depot (our apartment recycling doesn't take milk cartons, so it's easier to just do them all at once there). while registering at the bay the lady was like, OH! are you staying for our wedding show? and i expected gerry to be like: hells no! but he didn't. and there were prizes to be won, so we were like: okay. weddings are serious business, and there were more things to be won!

we decided to just head to home outfitters, do our thing there and then have dinner and go back for the bridal show. after some discussion (i'd been to the olive garden with my *other* boyfriend earlier in the week) we ended up at earls.

they should call the place breasts. maybe even t & a. when we walked in, this stick figure with a black scrap of material greeted us at the door. to her credit, she was friendly. seriously, i think her dress came from fredrick's of hollywood or else it was left over from her days as an exotic dancer/porn star/hooker. or maybe it was 'detailed' at home because it would have been a normal, if scandalously short, black dress, except for the massive hole in the chest that her boobs were falling out of. her highly 'blushed' boobs. someone's been reading too many magazines with pam anderson.

the lady's dress beside her had a slit so high in the back, if she bent over i probably would have had to tip her a fiver in her g string.

oh, and speaking of underwear... our waitress was the most modestly dressed character there. the top part of her dress was completely non-offensive. it's too bad the skirt part was greyhound (chasing the hare) and tight enough for me to see the texture on her thong.

gerry will be returning there, but probably with the rest of the guys from his stag party.

i will stick to the old people earls in white rock and surrey.

fancy seeing you around here

yeah, it's been a while. but i don't think my love affair with blogging has dwindled, and when fun/writable things happen, i try to remember so i can entertain my reading masses. then i forget. boo urns.

so, i have some stuff to write about, and to make it more fun, and mess up people's feedy things i will write them separately. mwah hah hah.

oh, and p.s. they won't necessarily be in order. i'm just gonna let people binge randomly.