A life lived.....

I came across this on Christine's blog


Things you’ve already done: bold
Things you want to do: italicize
Things you haven’t done and don’t want to - leave in plain font

1. started your own blog
2. slept under the stars
3. played in a band
4. visited Hawaii
5. watched a meteor shower
6. given more than you can afford to charity
7. been to Disneyworld
8. climbed a mountain (it was a little mountain, but still...)
9. held a praying mantis
10. sang a solo
11. bungee jumped
12. visited Paris
13. watched a lightning storm at sea
14. taught yourself an art from scratch
15. adopted a child
16. had food poisoning
17. walked to the top of the Statue of liberty
18. grown your own vegetables
19. seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. slept on an overnight train (I took a train trip through Eastern Europe a couple of years ago)
21. had a pillow fight
22. hitch hiked
23. taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. built a snow fort
25. held a lamb
26. gone skinny dipping
27. run a marathon
28. ridden a gondola in Venice
29. seen a total eclipse
30. watched a sunrise or sunset
31. hit a home run
32. been on a cruise
33. seen Niagara Falls in person
34. visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. seen an Amish community
36. taught yourself a new language
37. had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. seen the leaning tower of Pisa in person
39. gone rock climbing
40. seen Michelangelo’s David in person
41. sung karaoke
42. seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant
44. visited Africa
45. walked on a beach by moonlight
46. been transported in an ambulance
47. had your portrait painted
48. gone deep sea fishing
49. seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. been to the top of the Eiffel tower in Paris
51. gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. kissed in the rain
53. played in the mud
54. gone to a drive-in theater
55. been in a movie
56. visited the Great Wall of China
57. started a business
58. taken a martial arts class
59. visited Russia
60. served at a soup kitchen
61. sold girl scout cookies
62. gone whale watching
63. gotten flowers for no reason
64. donated blood
65. gone sky diving
66. visited a Nazi concentration camp
67. bounced a check
68. flown in a helicopter
69. saved a favorite childhood toy
70. visited the Lincoln memorial
71. eaten caviar
72. pieced a quilt
73. stood in Times Square
74. toured the Everglades
75. been fired from a job
76. seen the changing of the guard in London
77. broken a bone
78. been on a speeding motorcycle
79. seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. published a book
81. visited the Vatican
82. bought a brand new car
83. walked in Jerusalem
84. had your picture in the newspaper
85. read the entire bible
86. visited the White House
87. killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. had chickenpox
89. saved someone’s life
90. sat on a jury
91. met someone famous
92. joined a book club
93. lost a loved one
94. had a baby
95. seen the Alamo in person.
96. taken a road trip
97. been involved in a lawsuit
98. owned a cell phone
99. been stung by a bee
100. met the love of your life

A tag

I was tagged by Kirsten, who I'm glad to see is back posting, as she's one of the most true to life writers out there. Kirsten was tagged by Patti, who's blog I also enjoy reading.

Where were you 10 years ago? I was either in Europe, or just about preparing to go. It was World Cup - France 1998, and as a North American, I had no idea that this whole soccer/football thing consumed as many people with as much passion as it did. It was a lot of fun - we'd go to bars at night and watch the football game, and try and talk with the locals. It was a birthday trip, as I celebrated my birthday in a Parisian bistro while drinking Cuban rum and watching the football game.

Five things on your to do list for today.
(1) Finish Spanish homework (sort of complete)
(2) Go to Spanish class (Done)
(3) Make a sandwich for lunch and soup for tomorrow's lunch (Done)
(4) Attempt to appease the cat. Since there is now no second cat in the house, the first cat has decided that the human's only job is to entertain her, and tries to foil my attempt to do anything but. When there was a second cat, the entertainment job was at least split between the other cat and myself, so it wasn't quite as much grief (Done, although not nearly as well as the cat would like)
(5) Mail package (Done)

Snack foods I like.
Cupcakes.
Peanut Butter.
Ice Cream.
If I'm being good, healthy snacks are snap peas and strawberries

If I were a billionaire.
If I had enough money, I'd get a nice flat in New York, and invite all of my friends to stay. And then figure out what good I could do with the rest of the money.

Places I've lived.
Very few - Calgary, a small town in New Brunswick for school and the Cayman Islands.

People I want to know more about
Glenda , who has one of the most interesting jobs I can think of
Monique, who's got a drool worthy shop on Etsy
Christine who doesn't live all that far away and who I hope to meet someday
Dani who has done some inspiring photography lately
Sara - I love the title of her blog, and hope to hear more from her

I've been tagged.....

I've been tagged a couple of times to participate in a meme, so the results are below.

I was also asked by Stitchingranny what a "Pay-It-Forward" is. A Pay-It-Forward is something nice you do for someone else, in the expectation that they pay the favour forward to another person. The "Pay-It-Forward" offer that many people had on their blogs earlier in the year involved making something hand-made for 5 people. If someone wanted to receive one of the hand-made gifts, they would volunteer, but had to make an offer of 5 hand-made things to other people. I have sent 3 of my 5 items out, but haven't yet completed the other two items. They are spoken for, and I have picked the item and the colour scheme for each of the two remaining items.

On to the meme - I've been tagged by at least 4 people - Suz, Susan, Missy Ann and Sara

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves
2. People who are tagged write a blog post about their own 8 random things and post these rules
3. At the end of your blog you need to tag 8 people and post their names
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

My random 8 things:

1) I just discoved that Haagen-Daas makes a Sticky Toffee Pudding flavour ice-cream, and have inhaled a carton this week. Sticky Toffee Pudding is one of my favorite deserts.
2) I hate carnations - they look like something has been shredded to me.
3) My favorite colour is blue, although I wear more black.
4) I am exceptionally picky about stationery supplies - if the office doesn't have what I like, I'll buy my own.
5) I love the smell of fabric softener, especially Bounce
6) I used to work at a bead store, which may explain how I got so many.
7) I haven't had breakfast yet, but I'm craving perogies, which appear to be a uniquely Western Canadian breakfast food.
8)I have 2 packages in the mail to me, and two to send out.

I'm going to skip tagging people, as I think everyone out there has been tagged already.

5 Questions Answered

It's been a long day - I made some changes in my life a couple of months ago, and I got word tonight that a couple of people aren't very happy with it. It's tough, because I heard this through a third person, and neither of the people who I suspect aren't very happy have discussed this with me. It's a volunteer thing, and although I have made a commitment to the volunteer group, I need to balance volunteer things with a full time job, a ton of extra stuff, and having a life. I'll fully admit I made the decision in the best interest of me, but since the volunteer gig is only really paid in personal satisfaction, I think I get the right to do that. So I'm here, with some great music and a glass of wine, trying to think about other things.

On to the other things.... The 5 questions were:

1) How did you get into beadmaking? In a round about way, it started with a trip to China a couple of years ago. There was a lady in our group who was really into hand-made beads, and spent a lot of time showing people her jewellery. After I got back, I decided I was taking a class at the local college of art. At the time, it was supposed to be a glass blowing class, but the glass beadmaking class and the glass bead making class were next to each other in the catalogue, so I took the beadmaking class. From moment one I was hooked - I knew that this was something that I would persue for a long time.

2) Post a picture of your most favourite bead? This is my all time favorite bead. I've tried this technique since, and it's never quite turned out the same since. (Kudos go to Larry Brickman for teaching me the technique)

3) What supplies do you need to make beads? The beads are glass, and the glass comes in pre-coloured rods, so you need the colours you're going to work with. You also need steel rods which have been dipped in a clay-like substance (called bead release), and a torch to melt glass. If you're getting fancy, there's all sorts of add ons - ground glass pre-mixed in different colours (frit), sparkly glass (goldstone or adventurine), small slices of cane (murini) and other bits to make the glass look good.

4)Dream project relating to beads? I'd love to be as good as any one of the people I admire - (Melanie Moertel, Anastasia, Leah Fairbanks, and a select couple of others).

5) If I could be anywhere right now, where would I be? I fell in love with the idea of owning a winery in New Zealand a couple of years ago - if the stars aligned, I'd own a bead studio/winery there.

Great questions - thanks for asking!

I've been tagged

I was tagged by Karen to complete this. The rules on her blog are explained as follows.

Five Questions.. and Five Things...

For the first part, 5 Questions - my dear readers can ask me five questions--either in comments or feel free to email them if you'd prefer. I'll answer them in the blog as soon as time allows.

For the second, Five Things About Me:

Here are the rules:
1. Get tagged.
2. List five things that have not been revealed on your blog.
3. Tag five others.

Five things that haven't been revealed on the blog:

1) I was born about 500 metres from where I now live - literally. If I lived on the other side of the block, I could see the hospital.
2) I lived for a couple of years in the Caribbean. I think quite a few people know this, but I don't think I ever blogged about it.
3) I'm half way through making the beads for the commission that I'm currently working on.
4) I drive a Jetta, which I spent about 18 months shopping for.
5) I celebrated Chinese New Year on Saturday with friends at a chinese restaurant - we all ordered a dish and had a wonderful feast. (It's something I was meaning to blog about, but hadn't got around to yet).

I think I'm going to pass on tagging other people (it's the benefit of being the blog owner!), but if you're interested in using the meme, please go ahead.

Movie List

I shamelessly stole this from WhizGidget: I guess I do have a life (or maybe not) as I've only seen 66 of the movies. Of the movies that I have seen, I do own a remarkable number of them (anything in a capital X).

It's been said that allegedly if you've seen over 85 movies you have no life. I have my own opinion about that, but now is not the time. Mark the ones you've seen. There are 239 films on this list. Copy this list, go to your own blog, paste it in and put x's by the ones that you have seen. Add them up, change the header adding your number, and post it.


(x) Rocky Horror Picture Show
(X) Grease
(X) Pirates of the Caribbean
(X) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest
( ) Boondock Saints
( ) Fight Club
( ) Starsky and Hutch
(x) Neverending Story
( ) Blazing Saddles
( ) Airplane
(X) The Princess Bride
( ) AnchorMan
(x) Napoleon Dynamite
( ) Labyrinth
( ) Saw
( ) Saw II
( ) White Noise
( ) White Oleander
( ) Anger Management
( ) 50 First Dates
( ) The Princess Diaries
( ) The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
( ) Scream
( ) Scream 2
( ) Scream 3
( ) Scary Movie
( ) Scary Movie 2
( ) Scary Movie 3
( ) Scary Movie 4
(X) American Pie
(x) American Pie 2
(x) American Wedding
( ) American Pie Band Camp
(X) Harry Potter 1
(X) Harry Potter 2
(X) Harry Potter 3
(X) Harry Potter 4
( ) Resident Evil 1
( ) Resident Evil 2
(x) The Wedding Singer
( ) Little Black Book
( ) The Village
( ) Lilo & Stitch
(x) Finding Nemo
(x) Finding Neverland
( ) Signs
( ) The Grinch
( ) Texas Chainsaw Massacre
( ) Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
( ) White Chicks
( ) Butterfly Effect
( ) 13 Going on 30
( ) I, Robot
( ) Robots
(x) Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
( ) Universal Soldier
( ) Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
(x) Along Came Polly
( ) Deep Impact
( ) KingPin
(X) Never Been Kissed
( ) Meet The Parents
( ) Meet the Fockers
( ) Eight Crazy Nights
( ) Joe Dirt
(x) King Kong
( ) A Cinderella Story
( ) The Terminal
( ) The Lizzie McGuire Movie
( ) Passport to Paris
( ) Dumb & Dumber
( ) Dumber & Dumberer
( ) Final Destination
( ) Final Destination 2
( ) Final Destination 3
( ) Halloween
( ) The Ring
( ) The Ring 2
( ) Surviving Christmas
( ) Flubber
( ) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
( ) Practical Magic
(X) Chicago
( ) Ghost Ship
( ) From Hell
( ) Hellboy
( ) Secret Window
(x) I Am Sam
( ) The Whole Nine Yards
( ) The Whole Ten Yards
( ) The Day After Tomorrow
( ) Child's Play
( ) Seed of Chucky
( ) Bride of Chucky
( ) Ten Things I Hate About You
(x) Just Married
( ) Gothika
( ) Nightmare on Elm Street
(x) Sixteen Candles
( ) Remember the Titans
( ) Coach Carter
( ) The Grudge
( ) The Grudge 2
(x) The Mask
( ) Son Of The Mask
(x) Bad Boys
(x) Bad Boys 2
( ) Joy Ride
( ) Lucky Number Sleven
(X) Ocean's Eleven
(x) Ocean's Twelve
(x) Bourne Identity
( ) Bourne Supremecy
( ) Lone Star
( ) Bedazzled
( ) Predator I
( ) Predator II
( ) The Fog
( ) Ice Age
( ) Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
( ) Curious George
(x) Independence Day
( ) Cujo
( ) A Bronx Tale
( ) Darkness Falls
( ) Christine
( ) E.T.
( ) Children of the Corn
( ) My Bosses Daughter
(x) Maid in Manhattan
( ) War of the Worlds
( ) Rush Hour
( ) Rush Hour 2
( ) Best Bet
( ) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
( ) She's All That
( ) Calendar Girls
(x) Sideways
(x) Mars Attacks
( ) Event Horizon
(X) Ever After
(x) Wizard of Oz
(X) Forrest Gump
( ) Big Trouble in Little China
( ) The Terminator
( ) The Terminator 2
( ) The Terminator 3
(x) X-Men
(x) X-2
( ) X3
(x) Spider-Man
( ) Spider-Man 2
( ) Sky High
( ) Jeepers Creepers
( ) Jeepers Creepers 2
( ) Catch Me If You Can
(x) The Little Mermaid
( ) Freaky Friday
( ) Reign of Fire
( ) The Skulls
( ) Cruel Intentions
( ) Cruel Intentions 2
( ) The Hot Chick
(X) Shrek
(X) Shrek 2
( ) Swimfan
(x) Miracle on 34th street
( ) Old School
( ) The Notebook
( ) K-Pax
( ) Krippendorf's Tribe
( ) A Walk to Remember
( ) Ice Castles
( ) Boogeyman
(x) The 40-year-old Virgin
(X) Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
(X) Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
(X) Lord of the Rings: Return Of the King
(x) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
(x) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
(x) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
( ) Base-ketball
( ) Hostel
( ) Waiting for Guffman
( ) House of 1000 Corpses
( ) Devils Rejects
( ) Elf
( ) Highlander
( ) Mothman Prophecies
(x) American History X
( ) Three
( ) The Jacket
( ) Kung Fu Hustle
( ) Shaolin Soccer
( ) Night Watch
(X) Monsters Inc.
(x) Titanic
(x) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
( ) Shaun Of the Dead
( ) Willard
( ) High Tension
( ) Club Dread
( ) Hulk
( ) Dawn Of the Dead
( ) Hook
(X) Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
( ) 28 days later
( ) Orgazmo
( ) Phantasm
( ) Waterworld
( ) Kill Bill Vol. 1
( ) Kill Bill Vol. 2
( ) Mortal Kombat
( ) Wolf Creek
( ) Kingdom of Heaven
( ) the Hills Have Eyes
( ) I Spit on Your Grave
( ) The Last House on the Left
( ) Re-Animator
( ) Army of Darkness
(x) Star Wars Ep. I The Phantom Menace
( ) Star Wars Ep. II Attack of the Clones
( ) Star Wars Ep. III Revenge of the Sith
(x) Star Wars Ep. IV A New Hope
(x) Star Wars Ep. V The Empire Strikes Back
(x) Star Wars Ep. VI Return of the Jedi
( ) Ewoks: Caravan Of Courage
( ) Ewoks: The Battle For Endor
(X) The Matrix
(X) The Matrix: Reloaded
(X) The Matrix: Revolutions
( ) Animatrix
( ) Evil Dead
( ) Evil Dead 2
(x) Team America: World Police
( ) Red Dragon
( ) Silence of the Lambs
( ) Hannibal