Announcing...

The birth...
of a new blog!
My new blog! =)
So technically, it is also the death of this blog. I find this a bit sad, but waaaaaay more exciting, because I love my new blog. In a completely different way than I love this one. This one was an excellent place to grow up... but the new blog? It is going to be an excellent place to be grown up. (Cause I'm so close to 19, everybody.) I don't actually feel grown up yet... I feel very far from it, to be honest. I have been thinking about starting a new blog for months now... one where I post regularly, where I put more thought into my posts, and where I write "professionally" (meaning that all the capital letters and periods are there, and I do not use lol. I have a real problem with wanting to use lol. Thank you, hours and hours of emailing, for that. ;)). Although my goal is to be a better blogger, I am positive that I will still have the same writing voice, because that is the voice that is inside me, and a new blog cannot change that. Translation: I am still random. =) Random Mondays will happen, but they might happen on a more regular basis. In fact, you might start picking up on a pattern in my blogging.
The new blog is going to be better... I promise!
There is nothing there yet... it is completely blank, except for my picture and profile on the side, and the title and verse at the top, and a picture of my writing. I am planning on publishing my first post there on Thursday, which just happens to be Valentine's Day! That makes it so fitting that my first post is going to be all about love.
Yup.
I planned that.... the post about love happening on Valentine's Day.
Where can you find this new blog?
Right here: http://allthatmatters27.wordpress.com/
Rest in peace, Sweet Nothings. 

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Today just felt like a snow day. 

Right from the moment I got up, it just felt like that sort of day. Actually, to be completely honest, when I woke up, there was some confusion as to what kind of day it really was. This was because I accidentally fell asleep soon after supper last night (I think it was soon after seven that I drifted off...) and I proceeded to sleep veryvery soundly for the next seven hours. I woke up at two. (Insert moment of heart-stopping panic in here- I was sure that I had overslept and was late for work.) I was so relieved when I checked my phone and realized that I could sleep for another two hours yet. So I got all the way into bed, and slept until four. 

Sarah and I walked to work together, and it was already pretty snowy then. It was a nice walk though... I like walking with Sarah, cause Sarah is everything good and nice and sweet, and we always have interesting conversations that can be about things like our feelings on jury duty to her boyfriend to how my neighbour's dog is planning to eat me some day. 

So anyways... we tromped through the snow and were quite relieved when we got to work, cause it was kinda windy and snowy. Florence decided it wasn't worth hitching up her horse and coming through the storm, since Fridays in the winter at Hillcrest are usually not more than 8 hour days anyways. So Earla was back there with us today taking her place. And Amber was gone, because she took two weeks off work, because her husband has two weeks off work. As Florence put it.... "She married him, so she might as well be with him." So we were short one worker to begin with, and then Sarah left to go to a funeral, and it was just me and Earla back in the kitchen. And I realized that I am no longer afraid of Earla. And that I haven't been for awhile now. Earla and I can have nice conversations, and I can ask her questions, and we can laugh... it is a generally pleasant relationship, I would say. And today, she let me make the long john cream! Normally Florence does that... but she wasn't there, and someone had to do it... and I was the only one, I guess. =) But I must say... I felt very important as scooped out the 8 (heaping) cups of margarine. And corn starch? That is funny stuff, ya'll. And I inhaled a whole lot of icing sugar. Now I understand why Florence is always so happy and funny. It's because of all the icing sugar she breaths in while mixing the cream. 

So I got done, and looked out the window and saw this: 

and decided that I could totally handle walking home in that. After all, I walked through snow and wind to get there in the morning, so I could most certainly do it on the way home, right? (yes, that is a buggy shed. I do work at a very Mennonite store. And I love it. =))

This is poor Pansy's dog house. I don't think she was inside it. I hope she wasn't. Pansy is a great dog. Apparently, she is a biter. (I know... I was surprised too! But with a name like Pansy, I guess I should have figured it out.) But the thing is... me and Pansy love eachother, and she has never tried to bite me. Probably because this summer, I would stand and pet her and talk to her every single day before I left work. She has never been anything but gentle around me... I don't get why my neighbour's dog, Bruce, dislikes me so much. I just don't know what I did wrong. 

This is what the main street of Floradale looked like. It was at this point that I started doubting my decision to walk home. 

The sidewalk looked like this. And the other sidewalk looked like this:

So walking on them wasn't really an option. I just walked on the street.

I thought I would take a picture of myself to document this little adventure. 

I was going to smile! I really was! 

But my face was just too cold. And it was too windy! And there were too many snowflakes flying around. 

So I made this face instead. This is my "I don't know if I'm going to make it" face. If you ever see me making it, you must take me somewhere warm. Fast. 

And then I got to the hill. My house is all the way at the top of it. And it just looked like a big hill. It always does. But today, it looked bigger. 

This is the picture that I took when I turned around to walk backwards for awhile, because my neck and face were just too cold. Walking backwards is a perfectly acceptable thing to do in extreme weather conditions such as this. 

 So I had a tiny little niggling feeling inside me that my first self-portrait was not the most attractive one that has ever been taken. I decided it would be wise to take a second one, just to be on the safe side. And the above picture is what I ended up with. I can't decide if it is better or worse than the first one. All I know is... when my face is that cold, it apparently doesn't smile.

This is my dear, sweet, wonderful, cozy house! I was so excited to get there! First of all because I had a dozen donuts in my backpack, and it was two o'clock and I hadn't stopped to eat lunch at work. And second of all because my siblings had a snow day, and it's just fun to come home from work and see them. Also because I'm pretty sure that my face was close to being permanently stuck in that grimace forever, and for the sake of the world... I did not want that to happen. 

(Side note: How many donuts did I eat today? Three, okay? I ate three donuts in one day. I ate one for breakfast, one for lunch, and one for supper. I should at least get credit for spacing them evenly. I don't really have a problem with craving the food that make at Hillcrest, mainly cause we work with it so regularly that it kind of loses its appeal. But the donuts? They are an ongoing issue for me. I don't like donuts from anywhere else very much... but homemade donuts, right after they have been fried and glazed? There is almost nothing better. And I also had two cups of hot chocolate today. It was just that kind of day.)

My footprints in my driveway. 

Me, once I was warm and had blankets and hot chocolate and and my face was capable of making semi-normal expressions again. It was quite pleasant. Quite a lovely day, actually. Even without Amber and Florence. I was actually very disappointed that Florence couldn't make it, because our motto for the day was going to be "Think clean". But there will be another Friday for that, I am sure. ;) 

Anyways... I am going to go find some wonderful cozy way to entertain myself this evening, since our social was canceled, due to the snow. 

The snow is pretty, I tell you what.  

A Moment of Silence

Soooooo.....
Remember that time I said that Oscar's problem was mental, and not physical? And then I went on to say that he really just wanted to be a dolphin?
Well, I was wrong about that.
Cause Oscar?
He deeeeeaaaaaad.
It happened last Thursday evening, when I went to feed him. A dead fish is not a nice thing to have in your room. Dad so kindly took care of him for me. He didn't flush him though. I was a little disappointed about that. He just put him in the garbage in the garage. I'm really not complaining though, because I was just so grateful that I didn't have to be the one to deal with it, because I apparently can't handle dead things. I think it was worse because fish just generally disgust me, and so a dead fish would just be too much for me to deal with.
I really did love Oscar though.
He was a good fish.
A pretty fish. The prettiest one, if I do say so myself.
I had the greatest customer experience of my life on Friday because of him. I was telling my people at Hillcrest about how he died, and just as I was at the part of the story where I left my room and said "Dad... Oscar is dead!" a customer stuck his head into the kitchen and says "Can I have one long john?". Good timing, customer. The other ladies were already laughing, because they apparently found Oscar's death amusing? And so this customer, he says "My, my. I think I'd like to join you ladies in here for awhile. It sounds like you're having a good time!" And so Amber says "Oscar is a fish." And then I said, "My fish. Oscar. He died!" And this customer just jumps right into the conversation and says "Did you flush him?" and I'm like "No! Dad wouldn't let me!" and then the customer made a joke about something fishy going on with my septic system, and I was laughing reallyreally hard at that point, and was like "I'm sorry... was that one long john that you wanted?" and he was like "yeah" and I was pretty much crying at that point, and it did not help that the others were all sitting at the counter laughing just as hard as me. So the customer goes on his way, but a few moments later (when we are somehow laughing even harder), he came back and said "A moment of silence... for Oscar." and we couldn't stop laughing, and he left, and it was just a really great moment where Sarah was holding onto the counter because she couldn't stand up by herself because she was laughing so hard. I laugh a lot at Hillcrest... but that was definitely the hardest. I think it was one of those things that you actually had to witness yourself though. lol.
So anyways...
Oscar is dead.
There is an empty space on my desk where he used to be.
And in my heart.