Facts - Things About Sham

Apparently, self knowledge is the only way to have the life you want.  So here goes:

10 Questions & Answers About Sham

Question One:  If you could do anything you want tomorrow, what would it be?

Honestly, I would just love to go for an extremely long, scenic drive.  I want to stop at completely random places and take pictures of things.  I want to sit under a tree in a completely unknown place and just... sit.  I want to listen to life pass me by as if I have no care to whatever happens from that moment on.

Question Two:  What are your core values?

Inspiration - without inspiration my life is incomplete: it's what drives me to do the things I do every day.

Family - my family has always been there for me and I believe I should always be there for them too.

Friends - no one truly lives without having a bunch of friends to keep them going.

Question Three:  What are your special talents?

For some weird and crazy reason I tend to befriend people rather quickly.  I also gain trust from these people just as quickly.  I don't know what it is about me but I think people find me at level with them, no matter what's going on, and a great person to listen to when they have something to say.

Question Four:  What do you do better than most people you know?

Compared to some people I know, I think I'm better at assessing a situation and picking the right way to dealing with it.  For example, when people get extremely irate, I automatically know not to fuel their anger by matching their mood.  If I stay calm and collect they eventually ease down from their peak of anger and get on a better playing field with me to deal with an issue.

Question Five:  What were your dreams as a child?

When I was a young child I dreamt about animals and helping them, or different jobs I wanted to grow up and do.  When I got older and was into my teenage years my dreams were dark and depressing at times.  I didn't really dream of my future but more dreamt of how to get out of my present.  I believe this is common in a lot of teenagers, however, who are struggling to figure out who they are and what they want to become.

Question Six:  What is the thing you are most proud of accomplishing in your life so far?

They say that it's the small things in life that add up to big things in the end.  I'm not proud of a 'single' accomplishment in my life.  I'm proud of many.  I'm proud of myself for graduating college so I could make a good career choice.  I'm proud of myself for never giving up drawing or reading.  I'm proud of myself for knowing whenever I needed help because I couldn't do something alone.  And I'm proud of myself for becoming the cheery person I've always wanted to be.

Question Seven:  What will you regret not doing in your life if you continue as you are now?

I will regret not living my life to my complete potential if I continue living it as I do now.  But that's currently in the works to be changed.

Question Eight:  What do you want people to say about you after you are no longer living?  What is your legacy?

When I'm dead I want one person to be able to say that I somehow changed their life for the positive.  I want to inspire someone, motivate someone, allow someone to dream and create new goals for themself because of something I have done.

Question Nine:  What do you want to do when you retire?

I want to visit every province in Canada.  I want to work more on my website and maybe when I do my tour of the country I can leave my mark wherever I go and inspire more people who get to see my site!

Question Ten:  Outside of parents who influenced your life more than anyone else; who had an impact on your life and what was it about that person that meant something to you?

My best friend of 23 years has had the greatest impact in my life, in everything I do.  She's always been there for me, despite the distant between us now.  She's been there to listen when I needed it, to give me advice if she had any... and she's taught me that despite the fact we're both in our late 20's there's nothing wrong with still interacting with the child inside us all.  Every time I receive a letter from her it brightens my entire day and the day after, just because I love hearing from her and seeing what she has to say.  She inspires my artwork, stories I write (I haven't written anything in a while but still), my everyday activities.  I'm not even sure if she really knows that either.  But when she reads this she'll certainly know then. :)

Market & Girly Stuffs

It is 7:42am when I (first) start typing this, I’ve been up since 7am. I am up early because on Saturdays I love going down to the Farmer’s Market downtown. Especially when I can go there early. When I can get there early (before 9am) there is noticeably smaller crowds (so you don’t feel like you’re constantly being herded like cattle), fresher coffee (Mmmm coffee), and you get the better picks of everything available by the vendors. It’s a brilliant atmosphere, everyone’s always friendly, and I’ve never had a bad experience there. I really recommend going to Farmers Markets if you can because the food is also fresher and generally cheaper than what you would find at a local grocery store. Rhem and I only like buying our vegetables at the market for this reason. We pay half the price we normally would at Sobeys or Superstore!

Onto more interesting things – girly things! *Gasp* OMG I said girly things! This, coming from a TomBoy. lol Today I’m venturing forth and doing something completely wild. I’m getting my hair trimmed. LOL That’s not the wild part though, that’s a normal part of my life when it comes to being a natural blonde and having exceptionally annoying hair that likes to tangle often (split ends are the devil LOL). This is also the first time I’m getting my hair trimmed since about a year ago, as I’ve been trying to grow it out long. But it’s due. The wild part, however, is that I’m getting my hair dyed (I’ve also not dyed my hair in over a year as I wanted it to grow out naturally and with its natural colour for once lol). But not just dyed. I’m also getting highlights!!

I will be dying my hair black (which, to most who know me, is quick a change in its own!!) and then I will be getting purple highlights (PURPLE!!! ^_^). And then, if they can do it, I’m getting a single strip of hair bleached white. I’m doing this because for those that don’t know, my mother has lung cancer. She’s having surgery to get the lobe removed at some point but out of remembrance for her and my Other Nanny (who also had lung cancer), I’m getting this done. “Pearl” is the ribbon colour for lung cancer. So it’s kind of a tribute to Mom & Other Nanny and their strength for dealing with this and still being awesome. ^_^

Please note – I have never had a hair colour that wasn’t considered a ‘natural’ colour (the only exception was when I bleached my hair to dye it back to blonde and my hair was a lovely bright orange colour lol)… so this is certainly going to be a wild change!!!


** Update ** The place I got my hair dyed at didn't have purple... at least not one they could guarantee would stay in and vibrant looking for longer than a week... so I went with a blue type highlight that, currently, doesn't show up much but she told me the colour will come through after the first or second washing.  Yay!! **

Frustration at Its Finest

I have come to find that I have a new pet peeve.  I don't like other people working in my kitchen.  Rhem's two sisters are down for the week.  One is 16 and the other is 18.  Last night they wanted to bake me a cake (a late birthday cake).  They got halfway through what they were making (I wasn't allowed out of the living room so as to not spoil the surprise that was the cake) and realized they needed a 'springform' pan.  Well, I don't own a springform pan.  And it was 10:30 at night.  So I called up my sister, Silver, and asked her.  Her roommate had one and was willing to lend it to me so long as I brought it back containing something. LOL
So I'm about to leave and then the oldest of the sisters tells me she needs more gelatine for the cake.  So out I go, get the pan, then run down to the grocery store (there's one in town that's open 24/7).  By the time I get there I get a text from Rhem stating she also needs more eggs.  So I ask if there's anything else.  Strawberries.  They need more strawberries.  So I get those too.
She finished the cake around 2am.  I wasn't very willing to eat cake at 2am.  No offense to her, but I was just half falling asleep in my chair in the living room and was more fascinated with sleeping than eating cake.  So she put it in the fridge and said I can't go in the fridge because she wants it to be a surprise for when we have supper Thursday.
This morning I get up and go out into the kitchen.  The counters are lined with dishes.  The washcloth is in a bowl of dirty baking-infested water (another pet peeve, washcloths left sopping wet in a sink).  And the dining room... oh god... well, they tidied up and brought everything into the kitchen from what they were baking with, however they failed to wash off the dining room table.  There was strawberry juice caked to the table... and as I spent half an hour washing it off this afternoon, I have come to realize that my lovely table is now stained pink in areas because it wasn't clean up right away. :(  This table I've had since I moved away from home.  This table I've known since I was a baby.  It was Mom & Dad's table when we lived on the PMQ when Dad was in the navy.  It's a perfect table.  It's been through everything and has been used for various things.  And now it's stained.
Bleh :(  I know I'm going to appreciate the cake they made but I'll miss my non-stained table.

Ramble - OCD

It's very obvious to my friends that I am OCD about things... lists, organization, and routine... I love routine... like, a scheduled routine.

My morning usually consists of waking up around 6am, getting up around 6:30am (lol) and taking a shower.  Then I go and find myself some breakfast, make my lunch, (lately) make myself something hot to drink, then sit in front of the laptop and eat, drink my hot beverage, and net surf until about 7:15am.  Then I put my coat on, go outside, start the car, clean it off (in the wintertime) and go to work.  Occasionally I will stop at the convenience store in order to purchase lotto tickets as I am the person in charge of it at work.  Rhem rarely breaks my routine because he's a lazy bum and sleeps until after I go to work (and probably straight up to about 20 min before he has to be at work himself lol).

This morning my routine was broken.  My roommate, Deadcell, was in the washroom from about 6am-6:45am.  Now, my routine never switches up.  I just can't muster myself to do it... so I lay in bed until about 6:40 and then get up and go to the laptop... he eventually gets out of the washroom and I go take my shower and then have breakfast and am back at the laptop to eat it... however, I feel out of sync... because my routine's been broken...  I didn't make lunch because I now don't have time for making lunch...  I barely have time to eat breakfast and I'm taking bites between typing... ugh.

How do you handle your morning routine?  What happens when yours is 'broken'?

Sunday Spasms

Our kitchen has this uncanny habit of continuously filling up with unclean dishes that never seem to ever get completely done... When we first moved in here they were done almost daily, if not every other day... but lately things seems to have slacked... well... tremendously, in the way of washing dishes.  It always seems that we must wash our dishes in order to cook supper or eat or anything, really.  I'm constantly washing my own cups just to grab a drink.

So, I started marking dates on the calendar.  Each day has a name beside it.  Rhem's and mine.  Rhem's got Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  I've got Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.  Right now he doesn't seem to have an issue with this.  I also made the statement that whoever's doing dishes that day is also the one that cooks supper.  This way it's not a constant battle after work as to who's making supper, what's being made for supper, and no longer can he make the excuse for supper being late as "Well I have to do some dishes first".

I don't want to be sick anymore.  The doctor said I'm eating too late in the evening.  He said no eating past 7pm.  I think I can push it to 8pm considering the times I usually go to bed.  But I don't believe supper should ever be at 8pm.  Even when I get done work at 6pm I could still get home and be able to have a meal cooked and on the table by 7.  It just takes planning.

Today I also got tired of seeing the huge pile of laundry in the bedroom and on Rhem's side of the bed (seriously... there's a hamper right beside the bedroom door... 5 feet away... put your clothes in it dude lol).  So I opted for going to the laundromat instead of getting laundry done for free downstairs (because we never seem to get it all done).  Rhem argued and said downstairs was cheaper (free).  Turns out the tools we need for the washers & dryers (so they're free) were not available and the resident managers were out visiting relatives and wouldn't say when they'd be home.  So.. in the end... laundromat.  We brought a shit ton of laundry, including our blankets.. because I *really* wanted my blanket washed after having been sick the other week with a cold.

At least things are starting to get straightened away.  It'll be nice.  I need a little organization in this place otherwise I'm soon going to go insane.  I need *everyone* to help me out, it's just a matter of getting them up off their asses to do it...

Rant - Responsibility

Rhem and I are assistant resident managers of two apartment buildings (one of which we live in, the other is next door).  By taking on this position we were given $300/month off rent and free utilities.  Our responsibilities include doing a little cleaning work inside our building (mopping stairs & entranceways), snow removal at the entranceways, and taking the cell phone every other weekend from the resident managers (who are also a couple).

I've started questioning the managing capabilities of the female resident manager.  When we first started living here in December she told us the things we needed to do.  We did them, and then she would mention other things we didn't know about and complained to the company about us.  This happens every couple of weeks and I don't understand why she does it.  Apparently they've only been resident managers since October... so a grand 2 months before us.

Anyways, on to an issue that happened today.  I left from work early due to the huge snowstorm we had and when I got home and tried to get into the parking lot, one of the tenants was stuck in the parking lot trying to get out.  So I hop out of my car and help her shovel around the wheels and try to push her.  She doesn't budge.  She called the resident managers asking if the snowplow would be around soon and if they had any salt or sand so she could try to get out of the parking lot.  The female manager told her that they don't have that kind of stuff here and the snowplow has been called and will get there when he gets there.

So I go over to the building entrance and get a container full of salt and bring it out to her, explained that I'm the assistant manager and we have salt.  Now... what I don't understand is that this girl was frantically trying to get out of the driveway and couldn't.  The resident manager had no thought to come out and see if she could help us get her out.  She basically blew her off entirely!  Now she's on the phone with Rhem talking about it saying she didn't have to do anything and complaining because the girl called in a complaint about her.

On to other things, she told me Sunday that when we wash the floors & steps that we're now to use vinegar & water instead of soap & water.  However, there's no vinegar here.  So I emailed her asking about it and she hasn't gotten around to getting any vinegar yet.  I mentioned the snowbank that's in front of the entrance around our side of the building and they were supposed to have someone come out and remove the snowbank.  After today's storm it's now blocked in the entrance as well as a tenant's car.  Now, the snow in front of the entranceway is now considered a fire hazard because no one can get in or out of that door.  And she said someone will eventually come, they have a request in.  Wow... Simply wow...

Being a resident manager is a huge responsibility.  And requires you to be a responsible person and make responsible decisions.  They get free rent, free utilities, and are paid weekly for what they do.  And they do nothing.  *sigh*

Rant - Snow

I am a Canadian and I hate snow.  In fact, I think most Canadians hate snow.  I don't know anyone who actually looks forward to more than the first snowfall of the year. lol

Either way, I hate it.

And not so much the cold part of it all, that I could deal with.  But it's the annoyances that come with snow that I can't handle.

Shovelling - now that I'm an assistant resident manager of my 2 buildings of apartments, I have to shovel the entranceways.  That's no big deal except the resident managers don't help.  Rhem requested that they take care of their building and we'll take care of ours but I haven't seen it happen yet.  We're still shovelling all 5 entranceways.  Bleck.

Snowplows - the city snowplows are pretty sucky.  They don't put the blade all the way down so as to not ruin the roads... However this leaves a couple inches thick of snow & ice build up.  Ice build up = sliding = accidents = more money in insurance brokers' pockets.  That and the fact that where I'm in an apartment building the road plow will go by and plow the road decently but our apartment plow guy won't come until shortly before 8am, not caring for the fact that maybe some people work at 8am and have to *get* to work.  Twice I've shovelled from my car to the road.  This is no small task, I assure you. And my back is paying the price for it!

Bad Drivers - our city is well known for their bad drivers.  However, it seems that in the wintertime it doubles.  People don't know how to slow down, how to start braking early, how to inch their way out of roads where the banks are too high and you can't see... I'm constantly jamming on my brakes and swerving to avoid bad drivers and some day I'm worried that I won't think fast enough and end up in an accident -_-

Wet Feet - in order to get to the kitchen from the living room I have to pass the entranceway for my apartment.  And vice versa to go to the living room.  I think I'm the only one that knows how to use the shoe rack so that if my shoes drip from melting snow, it will drip onto the floor underneath the shoe rack.  But everyone else leaves their shoes right in front of the shoe rack.  Right in the path I need to walk through to get anywhere.  Which normally wouldn't be a problem except snow on shoes melt and then I end up walking through it and getting my feet wet and dirty.  I've mopped the area countless times but it never seems to stop more snow water from showing up.

Bleck.  Winter.  Go away for a few months, eh?

Birthday Post - Part 2

My 2:00 plan didn't happen. LOL  Actually, to be honest, not once have I picked up my book to read yet.  However, I did have a good afternoon and evening.

Roommate woke up late so it was only around 1:00 that I started my cake.  Then had to wait for it to cool.  THEN realized "I have no frosting!!"  But that was quickly fixed because I had a bag of icing sugar in the cupboard so made that.  Which was awesome because I made a very colourful cake!  Green icing with blue trim and purple letters!  It was a lemon cake.  And it was good. ^_^

Started supper around 4:30.  Rhem came home while I was still getting it prepared.  I asked him if he could do up some dishes while supper cooked.  He said he felt kinda bad since I had to bake my own cake and make my own supper.  I have no problem with this, though, because it gave me the opportunity to make a pretty epically coloured cake!  We had brocolli & cauliflower chicken casserole that turned out very yummy and there was even enough left over for me to bring to work tomorrow for lunch! Yay me!

Rest of the evening has been spent in front of the laptop playing WoW.  I honestly haven't played much since the expansion came out... Well, to be honest, I haven't played much since we moved to the new apartment.  So I was happy I could get a few hours in to the game and have some fun. :)

And now, it's 11pm and I think I'm going to turn in for the night and try to get a full night's sleep.

Night!

Birthday Post - Part 1

This is Part 1 because I'm sure I'll have more to say later this evening when my birthday is finally coming to a close.
So far it's a good day.  I woke up around 11am and laid in bed for about 30 minutes reading facebook posts to my wall on my phone :)  I actually find facebook funny when it comes to birthdays.  There's a lot of people added to my facebook that I don't talk to often, if at all.  But when my birthday comes up it seems to completely light up with posts from various aunts & uncles, cousins, best friends, regular friends, online friends, and then the people that are on my facebook only due to the fact that when I remove them they keep re-adding me LOL  Let me summarize this a bit, because I'm a math geek and I love math and I want to show exactly what I have for 'friends' on my Facebook page:

I have 157 'friends'.
Boyfriend - 1
Immediate Family - 2

Aunts & Uncles - 18

Cousins - 38

Future Inlaws - 4

College Friends - 3

Old High School/Cadet Friends - 17

Parents of Above - 4

Coworkers & Ex Coworkers - 12
Cadets - 6
Rhem's Friends - 14
Online Best Friends - 4
Online Regular Friends - 4
Real Life Best Friends - 4
Real Life Regular Friends - 6
Real Life Acquaintances - 4
WoW Best Friends - 3
WoW Regular Friends - 13

As you can see, the percentages are as follows:
Family - 40.1%
School & Cadets - 16.5%
Regular Friends - 14.6%
Not Really Friends - 11.4%
Work - 7.6%
Best Friends - 7.0%

I kinda like the fact that my percentage of best friends is the lowest.  There really are only a few people that I allow to be close enough for me to consider them as a 'best friend'.  It involves me knowing them for years, staying in contact with them throughout that entire time, them being there for me when I need it the most (and vice versa), etc. These are the people I would take a bullet for without so much as a second thought.

Anyways, back to birthday now that I've had my math fun and realized how pathetic my friends list on facebook really is LOL

After my roommate gets up and heads off to work I'll be baking my cake.  Yes, you heard it right, I'm baking my own cake. I had opened my mom's birthday gift last night (technically I opened it on my bday as it was 12:30am lol) and it was a mixmaster and I joked to Rhem saying "I can use this tomorrow for my bday cake!" and he was all "Yeah!" and then I made mention of needing to find batter and he commented with "There's 2 boxes in the cupboard..." -_- Which made the sudden realization that I was, in fact, going to end up baking my birthday cake.  Bleh.  But that's alright because I'm also making supper today because he's at work and I'm home.  But it's going to be a very yummy supper, I'm making brocolli, cauliflower & chicken casserole.

*** Off Note ***  I can hear my resident managers arguing in the office beside my apartment... ugh.

But yes, this is so far what's happened today.  My next plan is to play a little WoW and around 2:00 I'm going to start reading my book from cover to cover :)

Reference - Names

I've decided to try my best to keep the names of my friends, family, etc. anonymous to a certain extent.  So I am using aliases (or ones I think best describes them).  To help everyone further understand who is who:

Sham = Me
Rhem = My Boyfriend
Deadcell = Rhem's Friend / our Ex Roommate


I will be updating this as I use names.

:)

Ramble - My Birthday

I booked off 2 days so I could have a long weekend to celebrate my birthday and actually *do* something.

The original plan was to go to Halifax Friday the 21st and come home on Sunday the 23rd.  While in Halifax we were going to visit some of my relatives, visit my sister, and find a way in past the fence in Shannon Park so I could take a picture of my old apartment before the park gets bulldozed in the spring.  This ended up not happening because I realized 3 weeks earlier that we were not going to be able to afford it plus the fact that we had the on-call phone for our apartment this weekend.

So I thought "Hey, maybe we'll hit up a movie!"  But again, idea shot down because we had the on-call phone for our apartment.  So no movie.

Now, I've been getting used to this birthday plan disappointment.  Last year plans involved going out for dinner and watching a movie.  Of which I mentioned to Rhem a week or more before.  However, the morning of my birthday and through the day I didn't get so much as a mention of it being my birthday.  So I thought he forgot.  The day of my birthday I went to the grocery store and bought my own cake mix, icing, etc. and baked myself a cake.  I was not having a birthday that didn't involve cake.  Turned out... Rhem *did* know it was my birthday and had gone and bought me a really pretty cake with rainbow icing.  I felt so bad! :(  Dinner plans got pushed to later because he was running late so the movie idea got cancelled.  Then my friend wanted us to stop by and say hi to him and his girlfriend (before she headed back home, 4 hrs away) and give them cake.  So we stopped in there before going for supper.  Then my friend wanted me to drive his girlfriend to the gas station her friend was meeting her at to pick her up.  So, with much frustration, I agree and then he hops in the car too.  He wants to see her off, and then get a ride home.  I drove them both down and then drove him to a bus stop and gave him $2 to take the bus home.  I had a very bad birthday last year and I cried about it... but not in front of anyone.

This year, it's pretty much looking the same way.  I picked out what I want for supper.  Rhem and I are trying to do the 'stay home and don't eat out so much' thing so I decided that I want to have chicken brocolli casserole.  Which I will be making myself because Rhem will be at work.  And that's honestly all that I have planned.  Because if I don't plan anything, I can't get disappointed when plans fall through... right?

These 2 extra days off were so I could be home and relax for once.  Already for Monday I have a huge list of things to do.  I have to drive Rhem to work, I have to get groceries, I have to get supper ready, I have to bring the work cell phone to work so my supervisor will have it for the week.  I have cadets at 6pm.  And I intend to do laundry because none has been done yet.

Tuesday?  Rhem will again be at work.  I will be making supper.  And I intend to read, front to back, "Paper Towns" by John Green.  I'm already 8 chapters into it and I do not intend to do anything except read for the day and make supper in the evening.

Happy Birthday, Sham, Happy Birthday.

First Post!

I wonder how many people actually type "First Post!" as their first post?  Hmmm

So this is my first blogspot thing and I think it's going to take me a little while to get used to it lol