Here I Go Again!

Another day, another essay! I am writing this one on youth, violence, gangs and deviance all from the symbolic interactionist perspective. I have my intro paragraph done, my map for my paper... now it's to get that flow going! On, I just picked up on something here that I forgot to include in my intro. Oops... back to the drawing board! After I read all the research that I've complied here, it's going to be a big paper, not so many pages (only 6) but it's deep and requires a lot of thought. OUCH! :-)

Thank God for computers, backspace, delete and insert!

"In Search if April Raintree"

I was up until 5a.m. last night reading this novel, it's one of those kind of books! This story is unreal, it's about the love shared between two Metis sisters, and where this love takes them. I don't want to give this book away but the one thing that really caught my attention is this passage, "there should be at least a little joy in living, and when there is no joy, then we become the living dead" (p. 207), how true this is.
I highly recommend this novel, it sure gave me tons of insight into not knowing one's true identity and learning lessons in life the hard way, something that I've had to do within my own life. I don't know if it's wise to say that the best lessons in life are learned the hard way, but I do know that one doesn't quickly forget the hard lessons.

Sink or Swim

I left work today and this is what I had to contend with, I was thinking of backing up and going out the other way but then reconsidered. I wanted to see if my car could float or not! lol

Sad thing about this, I just washed my car two days ago, you sure never could tell now but I'd much rather a bit of a dirty car and +6 then a clean car and -30!

City Life

Today I went straight to my chiropractor from school and I suppose that I could have walked the ten city blocks if time permitted but it didn't so I drove down to the heart of the city. Good luck with parking! I went around the block here a few times, the one parking lot that I spotted an empty space in was being blocked off by a big truck, then when I finally did get to park I headed over to the machine that gives me a slip of paper that says it's ok for me to be there. I couldn't believe it, $5.00 for one hour!

Yup, can't wait to get out of this concrete jungle and back to the country where there is free parking for miles and miles, and where dirt and water are free!

This Is It!

I found what I seen yesterday while we were doing an exercise in class! I am so excited to see this photo turned out like it did.

We were doing this exercise where we closed our eyes, our guest was talking to us in a very soothing, relaxing, meditative voice, my eyes were closed and I felt the negative energies leave my body! I also felt the positive energy come back into my body and this is what I envisioned while my eyes were closed!

It was suggested that we draw about whatever we seen, journal about it and connect with it, I have no idea if there is meaning to this, yet if I want to analyze this I can see it as being a dark hole, as one claws their way out of the dark hole, it becomes a tad bit hazy, then as one becomes healthier and emerges there is sunshine on the horizon. I can also view this as the center being the negative energy that I carry, once the negative energies leave, the positive takes completely over, this would be all of the yellows!

I am in shock that I actually found EXACTLY what I envisioned! Way too cool!!

The Crew

Today was a phenomenal day at school. We had a guest speaker in and he is fantastic, he came and shared some of his knowledge with us once again, he came a while back and I find this man to be amazing! He is so vibrant, full of positive energy and he makes learning so much fun!

Today we had a potluck dinner, I am a firm believer in feeding guests and that we did. I love it when we get together as a group and break bread. There is fifteen of us students here in this photo, I think that our class is down to about 25 students so not bad to catch over half of us at once!

Genogram - Family Tree sorta

We sure have one big family! This is my genogram not done yet, I've still got about two hours work to do on this and a two page paper to write about it, and I'm wiped after a very late night last night! Aaaahhhhh will this ever end? :-)

This was a really cool project to tackle, I found our great, great, great, grandparents on my Mothers side! Antoine Omeekisssewanu was our great, great, great grandfather and his wife was Suzette, Joseph Mustoos married Nancy Testawik, they were Mary Mustoos parents, Mary married Benjamin Sunshine, who was a son of Antoine Omeekisssewanu and Suzette. Benjamin and Mary had 5 girls one of which was our great grandmother, Julie Sunshine she married Moise Andrews who was Gramma Kunce's mother and father.
Now if you followed all of that you are doing fantastic, it had me baffled at first and I had to call in my sisters to help me figure all of this out. It really does make sense, honest! :-) Back to work on it now! Either that or I'm too tired and I'm making it make sense! lol

Blue skies, nothing but blue skies from now on!

Today the sky was so beautiful to see once again, robin egg blue! I got to thinking why does everything have to get so dirty before it's clean? I know that when I do a complete top to bottom clean that my house always gets so dirty, messy as I clean, it seems that I turn around and woah! Where did this mess come from? Then in no time at all, it all comes together and it's that ahhhhh feeling! Everything is neat and tidy and super clean. I guess that Mother Nature does the same thing in our great outdoors, first a mess then all of a sudden that ahhhh feeling!

Today the Circus!

Today I went with Michelle, Brittney and Cheryl to the Shrine circus. It had been years since I'd been there and seeings I bought the tickets about a month ago, before I knew how loaded down with work I would be, I figured I wasn't going to waste a ticket!

The circus had some awesome acts, one of the horses from "Shanghi Noon" was there, Mustang, and what a horse! He is so smart, well trained and very entertaining. The only complaint I have about the circus, the tickets said that it started at 1:00pm and it didn't get going until just about 2, then the intermission was insanely long so we didn't get out of there until just about 5, other than that like I said there were a few good acts so it wasn't a total waste of time plus I got to spend some time my beautiful daughter who keeps about as busy as her mother does!

A Fond Memory

I seen this old wood stove tonight while I was out to dinner with Herb, it brought back memories of canning with Mom on her wood stove. It was in 2001 that I spent two weeks with Mom, we would get out of bed at 6am and spend our days canning not seeing our beds until at least midnight. One would have thought we canned for an entire army! The laughs, sharing of recipes and quality time with my Mom are all fond memories I will treasure forever.

One day I too shall have a wood stove in my kitchen, there's nothing like a home cooked meal prepared on one of these stoves!

My Ambassador Duties Are Fulfilled

This morning I gave my final speech for this school year, I am hanging up the Ambassador name tag and contemplating if I will do this again next year. If I feel I have the time to commit to this again next year, I will gladly represent the college I attend. The public speaking has been a bit nerve wracking yet I find that it is getting a bit easier with every speech I deliver. I also have had some awesome perks through the Ambassador program: the ballet, the mac and cheese lunch to raise money for the homeless, some wonderful meals, a bit of a break from some classes as well as meeting some fantastic people. I sure do hope that I can fit this into my busy schedule next year, I think that I just talked myself right into it! :-)

Help for the Homeless

One might wonder what the heck this mac & cheese has to do with the homeless here in Edmonton, well today I was honored to be present at the 14th annual mac & cheese luncheon. This luncheon is quite the event, it's designed to help the homeless through raising dollars which helps the homeless directly.

There were some very influential people present, Patrick LaForge (President and CEO of the Edmonton Oilers Hockey Club) was the keynote speaker, this man is unbelievable! This is the second time I have heard him speak and he sure delivers a powerful message! The mayor of Edmonton and premiere of Alberta were also present, and Marni Kuhlmann from CTV was the master of ceremonies. I am still in awe of this event, it sure touches my heart to know that so many care and reach deep into their pockets to help those who are less fortunate.

I Have the Power

Thanks to Edmonton Power, and many lines of cables (wires) or whatever you call them, I am able to sit here tonight and see what I am doing. Can you imagine where we would be without our power lines criss-crossing all throught the city? I know that I love the old fashioned kerosene lamps but no internet? Ouch that would hurt now that I am so used to it!

On that note, it's off to do homework here, another all nighter it appears to be ahead of me! Good night everyone and don't forget to turn all the lights off!

Tea Time

About a month or two ago I seen this tea mug with a warmer that goes with it and thought to myself "what a great idea, no more cold tea for me!" So I bought the mug and forgot about it until tonight. Talk about hot tea, there's a lid that goes on top of the tea cup, I had to take that off to let the air cool it down a tad. It's been sitting here by my side for about a half hour now and it's still almost to hot to drink! Now that's hot tea and I'm happy.

Sometimes it sure doesn't take much to make me happy!

Cheryl's sewing again!

I took Cheryl down to WalMart tonight to pick out a pattern for her sewing class, I'm really excited to see how she does with the dress pattern we picked out. I'll post a picture of the finished product once she gets it done!

An Extremely Fun Day!

This is me and my three wonderful children, today we were celebrating Derek's (to the right of me) 25th birthday. I absolutely love it when the kids come over, we had tons of laughs and I thouroughly enjoyed myself!

Thanks Michelle, Derek, Shayne and Sandy for the wonderful afternoon, I'm already looking forward to our next get together!

Derek's Birthday Cake

This year it's a chocolate truffle ice cream cake, it's like Turtles apparently.

Tomorrow I will be having my three children, Sandy and possibly Herb, over to celebrate Derek's 25 birthday! I love it when we all come together and spend some time visting, we generally eat too much and have tons of laughs! Fun, fun, fun...... I can't wait 'til they all get here!

Metis Nation Office

Today I stopped into the Metis office to try to get a copy of our family history, I was kind of surprised to learn that I have no access to this, apparently the way that I received my Metis card was through Shayne's file. I was under the distinct impression that I had filed my application under Cathy's file and the history that she had managed to submit to the Metis office.

I'm so confused! So anybody that has any information on our family, dates of birth/death, marriages, divorces, new spouses, children born and any other information please send it to me. I am doing what is called a genogram for one of my Social Work classes. Thanks.

9:10 pm

Between the time change and the lights of the city, this is now what it looks like outside my front door tonight. It's warmer than it has been in many moons, about -4 right now and I love it! There is hope hovering in the air that the S word just might be on it's way! :-)

My View

When I get a break from classes this is what I can walk down the hall and take a look at... on my way downstairs to have a quick puff!

I know nasty habit, one that I am slowly, ever so slowly, attempting to let go of. I guess that no smoking sign reflection is a sign, one that I really should take heed to.

My Baby Girl Has Her Drivers License!

Michelle went for her road test today and she passed with flying colors, she scored 100%, no points whatsoever against her! I'm so very proud of you Michelle, way to go!!

Oh ya, and then there was the matter of getting her home to pick up her driving lessons certificate, they need to put some sort of a code on her drivers that shows she's had training, and there we were at Northtown mall and it was 5:30, the registries close at 6 so it was a very quick trip to Michelle's house to pick up this certificate and get to the registries on time.

It's a good thing that I didn't get stopped while trying to get Michelle there on time, I would have gotten my license taken away!

Hopes of Spring

I was in Safeway and seen the tulips so I know that it's warm enough somewhere to grow tulips this time of year, maybe I'll figure out where that somewhere is and skip the rest of winter here or I'll look at the small bundle of white tulips sitting on my kitchen table and continue to keep believing that spring will arrive.

For tonight and tomorrow, bundle up folks! It's going to be a freezing -30, I'm going to check out the long term forecast, yup that's what I'm going to do and then crawl underneath my goose-down (when in doubt hyphenate) duvet with my "required readings" for tomorrow!

Terry, Tea, and Jacob

I had the pleasure this weekend of meeting Terry's girlfriend Tea and her son Jacob, he is so cute! It's hard to believe that he's only just turned six years old not because of his size but he is so intelligent. Quite the charmer that young man is!

Tea it was a real pleasure to meet you and Jacob, you make sure you come back to visit again one day!

I love the story that Terry and Tea share about how they got back together after 17 years, they hooked up on facebook after all this time and this brought Tea down from Ontario to come for a visit. The rest is their story and I'll let them tell it. :-)

Have a safe trip home Tea and Jabob and I'm sure that we will chat again one of these fine days, welcome to our family!

One of my Guardian Angels

"If angels rarely appear, it's because we all too often mistake the medium for the Message."

Shayne and Sandy gave me this beautiful angel some time ago now, it was after I was on my road to recovery and so far this angel has been doing a fantastic job! I think that my guardian angels are pretty happy these days, they don't have to work quite so hard lately! :-)

My Beautiful Daughter

Still very beautiful Michelle even if you stick your tongue out at me when I try to take your picture! lol

Today I went to pick Michelle up from work, she wanted to practice driving for her road test on Tuesday! I am very impressed with her driving and I'm sure that she's going to pass the road test without a problem at all!

Snow, Snow and More Snow!

This is getting to the point of being enough already! I got up to this mess outside, it's hard to believe it's March already and the snow still hasn't settled down any. What's harder to believe is that the day before it was melting! I want to stay in my house and hibernate until there is no more snow out there!

Yup, think that I'm gonna be a bear!

Hampster or Mouse?

I don't care what the pet store told Herb, I still think that this critter is a mouse, they told him it's a miniature Russian hampster.

Herb stopped in long enough tonight to have a cup of tea and a piece of pie, he was in town picking up some parts so I got to spend at least a half hour this week with him! Next time he buys a mouse, I'm thinking that he can just leave it in the truck!

Old Houses

There's something about these old houses side by side, near the River Valley, that caught my eye. I love the quaintness about these houses. I've lived in one of the war time houses in the city, I would imagine that this would have been where some of the "elite" of our city would have lived back in the day.

Best Frying Pan in the World

I can't even begin to guess how long I've had this cast iron frying pan, it's that old! I absolutely swear by this pan, it cooks better than any frying pan I've ever come across, those new non stick ones you can keep, the ones that come with the expensive sets, no thank you, this is my tried and true frying pan and it's cooked many, many things. I simmer sauces in this pan, I fry eggs, make omlettes that turn out golden brown, I saute, I do so much with this pan I don't know what I'd do without it!

Sweet Dreams

I was out browsing today with Cathy, and this particular bedroom suite caught my eye! Go figure, champagne taste on a beer budget! :-)

I spent a few hours with my sister and it was great, we just don't get enough time together but when we do I really enjoy myself, thanks for the afternoon Cat!