Listen to the love song

If you are a regular reader of Darren's blog, you'll know about that little song that won't get out of one's head - Snuggle Puppy. It's actually a book about a song so Alicia made up a tune for it. As far as kids songs go, I think this one is fabulous, and so fun to sing because it starts with an oooooo (I LOVE nonsense words) and ends with a kiss. What could be better than that?

If you want to hear the song, which comes from an imaginary musical entitled "Philadelphia Chickens," follow this link. But be warned: the tune my sister made up is much better!

Home...and runnin'!

Well, we're home safe and sound. What a terrific weekend this was. I enjoyed every minute of my time out west, from trouncing the non-Morris contingency in cards to being trounced by my 4-year-old niece at bowling. I learned that the very presence of young kids and multiple aunties turns even the simplest task into an adventure. But the adventure continued even on the
flight home (you can read about it here).

The worst part of going anywhere is having to catch up when you come home. Even in high school when my mom would have let me skip school at my own discretion, I went every day because it just wasn't worth the hassle of finding out what I missed and getting caught up on it. Besides, I hate feeling like I've missed out on something. Maybe that's why it's hard for me not to be the last one to go to bed ever.

So, for the next couple of days I'll be playing catch up with my work and a number of other things. But stay tuned for more "weekend in Edmonton" info in the near future!

Champagne birthday...part 2

Here's a little glimpse into our weekend in Edmonton.

I'm going to London to visit the Queen

Ok, so I'm not going to London to visit the Queen. I don't know why that little rhyme was in my head this morning. But I am doing something even better: going to Edmonton to visit my family!

It looks like the problems experienced Thursday at the airport have been taken care of and our flight should be on schedule. I forsee no problems if Darren's car steers clear of all ditches, suicidal mailboxes and snow drifts during the work day today.

So, have a great weekend everyone and I'll catch up with you all on Tuesday. By then I'll be 27 and Leona will be 2 days away from 16. Wow, we're getting old.
So long (and thanks for all the fish)!

I've lost my rhythm!

I always thought I had good rhythm - or at least decent rhythm. After all, the director of the little band I was in at Briercrest let me fool around in the percussion section for a few weeks until I decided that I was better suited for the wind section. However, I've begun to think I might be rhymically challenged lately. 2 main events have created this self doubt.

First, the last time I was at Chuck's place, we were playing his karaoke video game. It's like a karaoke machine but the game somehow analyzes your voice and scores you according to your pitch and I'm not sure what else. It also has a sample for the newest Dance Dance Revolution game. In Chile I used to watch the kids at the arcade in the mall jumping all round on the DDR platform thinking to myself "I don't think this will ever catch on at home. It's too taxing on lazy North Americans." I'm very pleased to be wrong. Anyway, Chuck's apartment is too small to use the DDR mat, so we tried to play using only the controller. The goal is to click on the appropriate arrow at precisely the moment it reaches the top of the screen which happens to be in time with the beat of the music. Well, I suck! I thought I was hitting the buttons in time with the music but since no points were being accumulated, I guess I was wrong.

Second, Julie Lewis introduced us to the Singing Horses. They are hilarious and so much fun to listen to...when Darren "tells" each of the horses when to begin. However, when I tried, I couldn't seem to get them started on the same beat. Do me a favor - try it out yourself. If you have similar timing issues, please let me know.

I'm going to claim that the problem is not with my inner metronome but rather my mind-hand coordination. I can hear that the horses are singing out of synch, but I can't seem to click at the right time to fix the problem. Yeah, that's it - it's a clicking problem. So maybe I'll be a rhythm critic, not a rhymician. :)

Goodbye, Hamilton water

It is a well known fact among regular readers of on my way that I love my apartment. One thing I don't love, however, is the water. I don't know if the problem lies in the pipes or if it's the water purification process, but what comes out of my taps is disgusting. It's definitely not fit to be drunk by any living creature. (Hey, come to think of it - I've been feeding it to my plants. I wonder if that's why they're dying!?!)

To avoid certain death by water toxin ingestion, I have been importing water from Hamilton for about 9 months. I know how ironic that sounds...I am bringing water from the polluted steel city to the beautiful nature-filled Niagara Region, but believe it or not, Hamilton water is delicious! It tastes like...um...wet nothing - just as water should!

Since the beginning of March, every trip to Hamilton has involved bringing empty water bottles and coming home with full ones. A really good trip would see me home with the filtered water from Darren's parents' house. I learned to be good at rationing and calculating the number of bottles that needed to be filled in any given week. I only ran out a couple of times and had to purchase water at the grocery store.

Another well known fact among regular readers of on my way is that my birthday is coming up. Well, for my birthday, Darren took care of my water problem. The Culligan man came yesterday and delivered a cooler, 2 big jugs of water, and told me to just call when I needed more and it would be delivered to my door. Water at my beckoned call!

Now I understand what Alicia was so upset about when she reamed Darren out on the phone early last week. Her attempt to get birthday gift ideas from him ended with her being upset that he had found the perfect gift, one she claims she should have been able to figure out! (I wish you all knew Alicia!)

Yes, it really is the perfect gift and now I can retire my well-traveled 4L water jugs and hopefully make a single trip into my apartment when I return from a visit to the Steel City.

Here's to hoping I won't become a water snob!

Winter driving

The beautiful weather we experienced Saturday and Sunday make it easy to forget that we have already made it through the first treacherous driving days of the season, but not without trauma. My trauma is mostly emotional, but it is very real nonetheless.

Friday I got home from work just before 5:00 with very little to complain about road condition-wise. The plan was for me to drive to Hamilton to meet Darren and from there to proceed to Ancaster to partake in opening night of Harry Potter with a couple friends. I was reluctant to go, not because of the weather, but because I'm not into Harry Potter. I have not (and will not) read the books and while I did watch the first three movies, I didn't think they were anything to get all excited about. Anyway, I am a good girlfriend, so I went.

Everything was fine until I got off the QEW. The part of Centennial Parkway that passes over the highway (the overpass?!?) was a little icier than I anticipated. When I brakedto avoid hitting the car in front of me which was stopped at the red light, I swerved all over the bridge. That was enough to startle me and give me that "I almost had an accident" tingly feeling all through my body. But the fun was just beginning.

I continued up the Street and everything was fine until I passed the mall, where the stop and go traffic began. Well, it was more like "stop and maybe you'll get a chance to go" traffic. It wasn't until I got to the base of the mountain that I discovered the problem: the mountain access was closed. That's when mild panic set in. My immediate thought was "I DON'T KNOW ANY OTHER WAYS TO GET UP THE MOUNTAIN!" Fortunately, despite the fact that my emotions are working in superhero proportions lately (making up for all those years of suppression), I am still a logical being. I remembered that all the cars in front of me also had to get up the mountain, so I decided to follow the crowd - note to everyone who works with teens: this is not always bad advice! Part way to downtown Stoney Creek I remembered climbing the mountain from that area when I went to my optometrist. However, that is a very twisty, scary, windy, scary, narrow, scary mountain access! Here we go!

I made it to the top with much trepidation and prayer only to discover the longest line of inanimate traffic I've ever seen. But I maneuvered through the next set of "stop and go slightly" traffic and ended up turning right onto the road that comes before Mud St. This road requires me to turn left onto Centennial without the aid of magic lights that make all other traffic stop for me to proceed unhindered. I love those magic lights! This is where I really got scared. The car in the ditch to my right reminded me that the road was not dry, and the lineup of drivers ahead of me, who were not turning either, convinced me I was going to spend the night right there.

This entire time I was trying to call Darren to get some advice, comfort or distraction - depending on the moment of the venture, all to no avail. No matter what combination of numbers I tried, the voice on the other end annoyingly reminded me that my account was empty and requested that I top it up. Little did she know that's what I was trying to do!!!

Much later than I was supposed to, I arrived at Darren's. Fortunately, there was no one parked in front of the house because were that the case I would have pulled into the driveway (his landlord's spot), handed Darren the keys and told him that the only way that car was ever going to be moved was if he moved it himself. Instead, I pulled up in front, got out, walked into his apartment and said "Don't say a word." Immediately following those words, the tears started to flow...and didn't stop for 5 minutes. It was a big confusing combination of relief, frustration, fear and exhaustion, and it all came out. Until that moment, I didn't really understand what it meant to "kiss away someone's tears." It's very comforting.

In the car, once I had gained my composure, I was able to go into a 2-minute rant (stopping only to breathe) about the trauma of my evening. And we did make it to the movie and had a good visit afterward, all without incident.

I gave up driving that day. Of course, that's impractical, but I meant it! I'm so thankful that God gave me a few days of nice weather to help the pain of that experience die down before the next onslaught of treachery. --shudder--

Champagne Birthday

Next Sunday is my champagne birthday (sometimes called Golden Birthday) - that is, I'm turning 27 on the 27th.

Unfortunately, the Internet has very little to say about where this idea came from. I always thought my cousin Pauline had made up this phrase, but I was talking with my boss the other day and she confirmed it. She said that one of her friends made a big deal about it when she turned 20 on the 20th. If only she could remember which friend it was so we could determine her cultural background. Then we could narrow down the search a bit!

Anyway, real or made up, to celebrate Darren and I are going to Edmonton for the weekend to hang out with all of my sisters (yup, you read that right - all of them! That's 4 in one city - unbelievable!) and Ben, Alex and Levi.

But tonight a few local friends gathered at my wonderul apartment for a little card playing, cake eating and champagne drinking - in other words, to celebrate with me. Even a few out-of town visitors joined in the festivities: Thorold, Welland and Hamilton were all represented.

It was an interesting night - Darren and I barely got the shopping and tidying done by the time my friends arrived, Lorraine got lost, Amy is underage, Lyla made it for about 20 minutes between work and the time they had to leave, the Virginia "bathroom candle" was used for the cake, Kari wrote on the great article about the ongoing missing sock phenomenon that my present was wrapped in, and I think I woke Jean D'Or up and forced him to come. It was fun to visit a little, play a little, laugh a little and eat a little. If you're lucky maybe I'll even show you the bizarro (and fabulous) ppt story "Larissa's Dream" Chrissy made for me.

Thanks everyone for joining with me in this celebration! At Michelle's request, here are a few pictures. Be warned; a couple are fuzzy - we had some issues with the flash. Enjoy!

Surviving

What!?! It's Thursday already?!? I have no idea where this week went and how it got there so fast...and without my noticing!

I spent 6 hours at church today. Yup, that's right, 6 hours at church on a Thursday. And I don't even work there anymore!

We have just recently completed building an expansion and the new space has been designated for Christian Education activities. Well, as the Kidz Church Coordinator (officially known as Sunday School Superintendent but we don't technically have Sunday School so that doesn't seem to fit), that was fabulous and terrible at the same time. There were weeks, no, months of weeks when the upstairs was not ready to be used and the downstairs was under renovations as well. I'm so thankful that's over.

But the cleanup continues. Slowly we've been transitioning from doing all activities and storing all materials (and boy do churches know how to store!!) in the gym to the new wing which is 3 flights of stairs up. There really is no problem with this fact except when things are being carried. But a couple of good men, whose work will forever be overlooked, took care of most of that.

So what did I do for 6 hours tonight? Well, there's a new educational quarter starting, so some administrative work - setting up the winter Kidz Church schedule, organizing craft supplies, selecting an appropriate drama for the kids to perform for Christmas, etc. Then Kari helped me to do the final sorting of the basement leftovers, which turned out to be not as painful as I had anticipated. Everything is nicer with company! All that was done by 8ish, and the rest of the time was spent in deep discussion among the remains of walls and incredibly-designed chair holders. I sure wish I had a picture of those to share with you! All in all, it was a good day but I'm exhausted.

The point of this post was not to describe the renovations or my evening. I really want to explain the absence of content over the past little while. It seems as though busy-ness comes in waves and just when it looks like everything is under control, stuff gets turned on its head again. This is one of those times. I feel as though I'm barely keeping my head above water. Perhaps it's partly that this time of year is very busy for Morris'...all the women in the family are born in the fall (and we are all women except dad) and partly due to the weather and partly the result of pressure to make major decisions and partly because I'm depressed.

I know that everything will be fine - classes get taught, essays get marked, friends get visited, meals get prepared, laundry gets done, plans get made - but it can all seem so overwhelming when you're in the midst of it all. I am so very thankful to have a God who is faithful and trustworthy, friends who are understanding and supportive (that's you, Kari) and a boyfriend who is patient enough to talk me through the same thing again (that's you, baby.)

That's it. Nothing profound or entertaining today; I'm too busy surviving. But survive I will!

The many benefits of my apartment

I live in a basement apartment. To get into my place, you have to walk around to the back of the house and climb down into what looks like a root cellar. Then you must duck your head as you enter the hallway that leads to my "front door."

There are many benefits to living in a basement, especially this basement. Let me share a few of them:

1. The grown-up ball-room experience. Do you remember playing in a tub full of balls at McDonald's Playland? In the fall, leaving and entering my apartment becomes such an adventure! I get to walk through stockpiled leaves that have blown into the stairwell and hear the fabulous crunching noise - which incidently happens to be one of my favourite sounds - first thing in the morning! (The same thing happens in the winter but it's not quite so fun!)


2. The disco lighting. My apartment is well-lit with small pot lights embedded in the ceiling tiles. They are bright and really do light up the place well. Some of them, however, are equipped with an important feature: they turn off when they've gotten too hot. As you can guess, I've never had a fire due to overheated ceiling lights! (The only time I mind is when the light above the sink goes out. It has led to more than a couple dish-rewashing episodes.)


3. The sliding doors. My bedroom and bathroom are each separated from the main living area by a sliding door. Don't be getting any ideas of patio doors! I'm talking about the fold-up kind that roll on a track. The pure joy of this is having first-time visitors. Some ask for music to be played, others flush before using the facility and still others break the awkwardness by talking through the bathroom-using experience. I love learning new things about my friends and how they handle my sliding door situation is just as fascinating as anything else!


4. The increase in love. My landlords who live upstairs have a rocky relationship -- with each other. The woman is kinder to me than just about anyone I know, but she seems to have a "Larissa voice" and a "husband voice". I have witnessed more fighting matches than I care to remember, but they always end well...with me calling Darren and telling him how much I love him. In fact, the other day his response to my "I love you" email was: "What made you decide to write that? Were they fighting upstairs? :)" While it was not, it did make me smile.


5. The cut-flower advantage. I used to be a plant person. In fact, I was so much of a plant person that I would scorn cut flowers. Who wants them? They die! Their entire purpose is to die! A plant lives on, giving eternal happiness and joy. But this apartment has helped me to see the light through lack of natural light! When I moved in I bought a number of plants to brighten up the place. The only one that is still alive is the one that came with me from my apartment in London (Hanako) and the remains of the asparagus fern in my only little window. But this is good news for any relevant boyfriends…I now love cut flowers! I don’t kill them - they’re supposed to die! It’s a breath of fresh air!

The list could go on and on (I haven't even mentioned my pre-Darren connection to utility meter readers - a.k.a. the trap door) but that’s enough for now. The bottom line is this: I love my apartment. Really. I love it so much I've decided to stay longer than my 1 year lease. I don't think I've ever done that before. It must be due to all the endearing quirks!

New photos

As usual, Darren and I gave Chuck a chance to practice his photography skills this weekend. Here are my favourites.

Admission

Ok, so I'm weird. I admit it. I have more quirks than the averge person but that's part of what makes me so intersting. :)

At least it's possible to learn to understand me, and Darren is proof of that. Here's an example. I don't think I would have laughed so hard were it not soooooo true.

Chrissy, my gateway to the S&T Complex

My friend Chrissy is now a blogger. She's always been a writer and she's not new to online writing. Her stories have been gracing fan-fiction websites for um...months. But now she's blogging!

It's so fun to introduce people to things I know they'll love. Her blog's subtitle (byline?) is "Blogging is apparently contagious! Larissa got me addicted and excited and so here it is! I think this is going to be a lot of fun!" While I think that's fabulous, the worst part is that I fear I may be beginning to understand the show and tell complex. Grrr!

One of my greatest frustrations with Darren is his show and tell complex. I don't know when it started - junior high? - but I feel like there is no end in sight! The idea is that when he and his friends get together they show one another the “cool” things they have discovered since the previous gathering – music, videos, websites, you name it. Now I do love some of it - hearing stories prompted by old photos, etc. - it's just the pervasiveness of the S&T complex that bothers me.

I mostly hate it when we're driving somewhere. There's something about having someone else in the car with him that makes the show and tell gene kick in. As soon as seatbelts are buckled, out come the CDs and the flipping begins. […that is flipping between songs, not Larissa flipping out…that comes later :) ]

I think the biggest problem is that Darren and I listen to music differently. I don't want a sampling of 400 different songs, cool or not, and I also don't want to give my commentary on everything I hear. I listen to music for background/distraction, not for matter for discussion. Darren's the opposite.

I will say this: he's getting really good at respecting my show and tell quota. It might be a forced respect, but I'm ok with that.

So when I showed Chrissy my blog, knowing she'd be a blogger convert, I risked becoming a shower and teller myself. But I think as long as I keep it under control, I'll be alright. I have seen first hand, after all, the effects of S&T overload.

Postlogue: Kari is theoretically also a blogger now, too, but you'll have to judge for yourself the truth of that statement. :)

Memories of a smelly kind

Despite the fact that I am a woman, the gender which is well-known for its ability to multitask, I think I probably should be more careful what I do while I'm on the phone.

This evening I was making dinner and talking to Darren and just barely avoided certain disaster! Tonight's dinner was an experimental BBQ Chicken pizza made on a tortilla. Only part way through this experiament, however, did I decide to include chicken (yes, I was considering making just a BBQ Pizza - I don't know what got into me.) Anyway, I grabbed the bag of frozen chicken and took out one of the 2 remaining pieces. It went into the microwave to be defrosted and I turned my attention back to the bacon that was being fried.

Soon the pizza was ready and my conversation was winding up when all of a sudden I freaked out! There it was, my worst nightmare: I had left a piece of chicken on the freezer!!

If that sounds like a ridiculous thing to get freaked out about, then you clearly don't know about my history with chicken. Let me fill you in:

My third year at Briercrest, I was living in an apartment-style dormitory with 3 other girls. One of them, my roommate, was my friend and the other 2 were randomly chosen by the powers that be. That is a rather insignificant fact but it makes the impact of the event even greater, I think.

My roommate and I did our cooking and grocery shopping together. Since I was the first one to return to school after the Christmas break, I took it upon myself to stock up on some of the staple foods to get the semester started. One of those purchases was a box of frozen chicken breasts, a really big box. On a side note, I've never found such a good deal on chicken as that box of frozen breasts. Anyway, of course it wouldn't fit in our freezer so I was individually packaging the chicken and organizing them in a way that would allow for the other frozen food. Sometime during the rearranging, a rogue piece of chicken breast sealed tightly in a ziplock bag found its way onto the top of the freezer. Over the days and weeks that followed, papers got placed on top of that chicken and it was forgotten.

One day we noticed a smell in our apartment. We couldn't figure out what it was. It got worse and worse. We cleaned the carpet, disinfected the kitchen, used air fresheners...all to no avail. I still remember my roommate covering her nose, running into our room, getting her clothes for the day and running out to get dressed elsewhere. Within a few days, the entire hall was complaining of the smell.

It got so bad that the floor leadership called in the big guys - facilites management - to see about our request to knock out the wall that we were sure was hiding the dead mouse. It seemed like the only logical solution. Annoyingly, they didn't want to try that until they were sure that there were no other possibilities. They asked me to climb up on the counter and check that none of the jars we had canned the summer before had exploded and was causing the stench. So I complied, making my way from the far end of the cupboards, checking each jar and ending up at the refrigerator. There, I straightened up a few papers and discovered...the chicken, white and foamy. Just to be sure that was the cause of the problem, the f.m. guy opened and smelled it. Upon his confirmation, it was discarded and the humiliation began. I couldn't look a janitor in the eye for months!

I had a similar flashback a few months after Darren and I got together, but that's a story for another time. You know, it's good that things like this happen so I can remember the mantra by which I lived for years: never put anything on the fridge!

Beware of the funny girl

Darren and I read a Maclean's article this morning entitled "Fears of a Clown" by Lianne George. It starts by introducing a comedy show now playing in Toronto that is comprised completely of women – Women Fully Clothed. But the article is very little about the women’s act and much more about the phenomenon that their audiences are pretty much void of men. George proposes that the reason for this occurrence is not chauvinism, but rather, biology.

A McMaster University study found that a sense of humor is vital to both men and women when selecting a partner but what that means varies considerably. While to women it means "the ability to generate high quality humour", to men it means the "ability to appreciate his particular brand of humour." In other words, women want their men funny and men want their women to think they're funny - and show it.

So it seems men aren't interested in funny women; in fact, they're a risky bet. Not only is there the potential for her to “out-funny” him, but according to Psychologist Geoffrey Miller of the University of New Mexico, "one problem with an extremely confident, witty woman is that she may have a higher 'mate value' than him.” That’s right comedic ladies, he’s afraid you’ll leave him for someone better.

It reminds me of the Jimmy Soul song that says:

A pretty woman makes her husband look small
And very often causes his downfall
As soon as he marries her then she starts
To do the things that will break his heart

But if you make an ugly woman your wife
you'll be happy for the rest of your life
An ugly woman cooks meals on time
And she'll always give you peace of mind

So it seems we’ve known since the 60s that physical beauty is an area of potential problem, but the new warning is out: beware of the funny girl, too.

Immediately after reading the article, I doubted its veracity. We hear so much about women and insecurity – fashion magazines and TV shows set unrealistic standards of beauty and success. But what about men? Are they really insecure, too?

As the day progressed, however, I noticed a peculiar thing:

Whenever I said something funny, Darren got a nervous look on his face and started scanning the area for any guys who might have overheard the comment. Then, when he was sure the coast was clear, he would utter a chuckle.

Hmmmmm…insecure?

Woes of gluttony

I am a glutton. That means:
1. I love to eat.
2. I have no self-control.

There must be lots of gluttons out there because our society is catering to us. Last night, after calling a number of restaurants to find out what their nightly special was (that's good stewardship, not being cheap), Darren and I decided to head to East Side Mario's for dinner. It seemed so irresistible: all you can eat soup or salad, home-style garlic loaf, pasta, tea or coffee and dessert for $10.95. That is, until you realize that there really is a limit to what you can eat...or at least there should be!

It's not that great a deal if you think about it. The soup/salad and bread are always unlimited and who really eats more than one big bowl of pasta? And of course they have selected 4 meat-free pasta dishes which would cost about $10 on any other night as well. The draw is simply the magic words: all you can eat.

I don't know what it is about our society but A.Y.C.E. buffets are everywhere. That is a nightmare for people like me (namely gluttons). It's like a child walking into a toy store just before Christmas. Of course I'm going to fill my plate to overflowing, sampling all the delicious-looking items that are lined up under the sneeze guard so temptingly (note the sarcasm in my...uh...voice), paying no heed to the cries of my already-filled stomach. It makes me wonder, "What are we doing to ourselves?"

I think that gluttony may be contagious. Or maybe the "misery loves company" principle comes into play here. Either way, Darren and I have on more than one occasion ordered more than we could eat, although I hold myself less responsible than him. :) We thought we had found the golden solution: share an appetizer and personal size BBQ Chicken pizza, but that only worked until Kelsey's started making the sauce a little too spicy for our fragile tongues.

It's hard not to fall into the "but it's free" mentality. After working so hard to dissuade Darren from getting a second plate of pasta (I failed - luckily the second one is smaller than the first), I admit I did take home some dessert simply because it came with the meal. And was I ever glad this morning that I had! Secretly I was also glad that he got the fettuccini the second time around so I could sample it, too. That's the glutton side of me kicking in.

Maybe deals like the Wednesday night East Side Special are really blessings in disguise in that they teach us to learn our own limits and practice self control. Then again, the lesson to be learned could be this: pace yourself. But that's a glutton speaking.

Secrets

Do you have a secret that you're dying to tell but can't risk the consequences it might bring? If you do, you're not alone!

As I was preparing an in-class listening assignment for tomorrow using CNN videos, I came across something interesting. One of the Jeanne Moos' reports was about a guy who collects secrets.

This project, begun by Frank Warren in November 2004, gives people an opportunity to share things they could never say. The premise is simple: he invites people to anonymously send him their secrets. Here's the invitation:

You are invited to anonymously contribute your secrets to PostSecret. Each secret can be a regret, hope, funny experience, unseen kindness, fantasy, belief, fear, betrayal, erotic desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.

Create your 4-by-6-inch postcards out of any mailable material. If you want to share two or more secrets, use multiple postcards. Put your complete secret and image on one side of the postcard. Please do not email your secrets.

Tips:
Be brief - the fewer words used the better.
Be legible - use big, clear and bold lettering.
Be creative - let the postcard be your canvas.
Mail your secrets to:

PostSecret
13345 Copper Ridge Rd
Germantown, Maryland
USA 20874-3454

New secrets are posted on Sundays on his blog. There is no archive on his site; rather, museums and art galleries display the actual postcards in traveling-exhibit style. He also does fundraisers for the National Hopeline Network. The connection to this twenty-four-hour hotline for suicidal people or friends of suicidal people came as a result of receiving secrets.

For more information, especially about his motives and thoughts on the project, check out the The Observer's online article. There's also or his book entitled PostSecret : Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives.

And if you have a deep, dark secret that you need to get out, maybe you should consider joining the other 3000 people who have found this to be helpful.

Here's a glimpse of the magic

Chuck to the rescue!

I feel a little like Lorelai Gilmore last season. Do you remember when she and snow were on the outs? The episode starts with her so excited about the first snow, a day she looks forward to every year. She is anoyingly giddy about this white stuff but after it causes damage to her business and vehicle, she changes her tune. But Luke builds her an ice rink to help her and snow make up.

Well, a similar thing happened to me this weekend. As I've alluded to in a previous rant, fall and I have not been the best of friends lately. The problem is what fall represents: looming winter. It brings me one step closer to the days of bundling up and walking around with cold, wet feet because I leave for work before my landlord gets around to cleaning the step. Days when I enter my workplace and leave my workplace without ever having seen the sun (there are very, very few windows at the College). Days in which the only reasonable thing to do is stay home and make a big pot of homemade soup, but obligation requires us to drive the 30 km to work at 40 km/hr. It makes me shiver just to think about it.

But good ol' Chuck came to my rescue! He took some incredible pictures of Darren and I hiking somewhere (Webster's Falls? Someone's Peak?) in Hamilton Sunday afternoon that have renewed my love for this season. He reminded me that I can enjoy fall for fall and deal with winter when it arrives. - This is my ice rink. -