Regina. Saskatoon. North Battleford. Lamont. Edmonton.

GO.

401751_10151547759320375_510345374_23571744_1170109387_n.jpg

Saskatoon, SK – as much as we make fun of you, Saskatchewan, you are beautiful.

295244_10151547759185375_510345374_23571742_659172320_n.jpg

Saskatoon, SK – Vimy Memorial. And a grammar fail. May be, Saskatoon. May be.

394207_10151547668305375_510345374_23571392_1711220804_n.jpg

North Battleford, SK. Pretty if not for the litter beside the train track, there.

545592_10151547719230375_510345374_23571515_1104995184_n.jpg

In North Battleford we stayed at the “only full service hotel”. It had water slides. It was kind of creepy in the fact that at about 11 PM our deadbolt that we found previously not working clicked closed and we were half locked into our room so we could not use the pool.  Also the room was really hot and the thermostat didn’t work properly and they had to bring us a fan. Also I think there was us and one other family staying in the only hotel.

480915_10151547916340375_510345374_23572026_816751546_n.jpg

Lamont, AB. “Sitting in a city that will never let me go, what if I’m only satisfied when I’m at home? What’ll I do if you never find me again, sitting in a province a million miles from my friends?” –Edmonton, The Rural Alberta Advantage.

540489_10151547719605375_510345374_23571517_1497359210_n.jpg

If I look sleepy, it’s because I’m sure I just woke up here. One of many times.

525915_10151547719425375_510345374_23571516_463212843_n.jpg

Edmonton, AB. The Best Western is a great place. They flipping sanitize the remote!

533927_10151552135180375_510345374_23584022_92712149_n.jpg

563166_10151547916065375_510345374_23572025_1449930220_n.jpg

392393_10151551126440375_510345374_23581120_1015125370_n.jpg

Fuss Cupcakes on Whyte Avenue. Best cupcakes I’ve ever had. The top two are big ones, the purple one in my hand is a little one.

577460_10151547672935375_510345374_23571400_1704668797_n.jpg

527964_10151547674345375_510345374_23571402_606439684_n.jpg

I met Elisa at church in 2010. Since then she’s moved back to her hometown in BC and then to Edmonton. I was so stoked able to catch up with her for an hour or so over ice cream. I miss this lady, she is amazing and is such a beautiful person.

555698_10151547675085375_510345374_23571405_1031395945_n.jpg

The kinesiologist in me was greatly amused by this. And is also sure that this dude is on steroids. And not the good anti-inflammatory kind.

575966_10151551134875375_510345374_23581139_239736536_n.jpg

I BBM’ed my boss this picture and she has agreed that we need a sea lion for a pet at work.

156235_10151552153990375_510345374_23584099_422466928_n.jpg

Tonight we met my great aunt and uncle for dinner/drinks at The Rink Sports Bar/Grill in St. Albert, AB. Which we discovered is now only named after Randy Ferbey, the curler, and not actually owned by him anymore. We then went over to their house, where I spent a few days last year. They are awesome, and as frequently discovered, sport [hockey] was the great equalizer.

Tomorrow we’re off to Calgary bright and early . . . and Thursday I get to meet up with my long-time social media friend Danielle!

HAWMC_2012_dayprompt-17.png

I learned the hard way that . . .

-Starting papers prior to two days before they are do is a really good practice

-10 PM on a Saturday is not a good time to run out of medicine

-9:50 PM on any day is also not a good time to realize that the refill you need? Yeah, it’s still at the pharmacy.

-Group projects are either really good . . . or a train wreck.

-Even in health communities, unfortunately, not everyone is who they say they are.

-It sucks to get all the way to Chicago and realize that your deodorant is at home. And then Chicago’s Oak Brook area is very devoid of all unscented deodorant [at least Tara and I got to go for a really long unsupervised walk to find the non-existent Walgreens out of the deal though].

-Sometimes you have to fight The System hard to be fully healthy and thus fully alive.

-Health professionals don’t know everything. Nor do they know what to do when they don’t know everything. . . they’re human after all.

-I am the only one in charge of my perspective and my feelings.

-The best friends pop up from the places you least expect it, and make a difference in ways you would never imagine. And sometimes you have to trip up in who you choose as friends to get there.

HAWMC_2012_dayprompt-16.png

As I’m done final exams, I’ve already managed to screw up the posting every day bit of #hawmc. But, here goes at catching up!

So I’m kind of “screw pinterest”. I have it, but I don’t get it. Therefore, I don’t use it. So here is the legit bulletin board in my room. Much more fun, I think.

Winnipeg-20120416-00815.jpg

Notes of encouragement, thank-yous, some Jesus stuff, guitar picks, a Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation lanyard, an appointment slip for asthma clinic, adorable barely visible lungs from several years ago. Post-it notes. Concert ticket stubs, To Write Love on Her Arms tag, buttons, a burn-fail CD that I drew on. MADMaking a Difference stickers from volunteer appreciation month at church last year, TallyGear information that came with my Tummietotes, movie ticket certificates . . .

And lots of guitar picks to accompany the guitar caught in the bottom of the picture.  There was also formerly a picture of the small group I lead, including my two girlies I do inclusion with, but I took that down for privacy reasons, obviously.

Essentially . . . pieces of my life in a nutshell, minus the physical activity part . . . maybe I need to change this! :]

My friend Mike posts Mirror Mantras to help him get through the week, and I’ve decided to join the positivity.

Two finals followed by culminating the week-part of this set of seven days with a seven-hour work day and the beginning of a road trip this week, piled with intention to get my physical activity on . . . I’d say this is fitting.

Winnipeg-20120416-00812.jpg

–my out of style is coming back, matthew good band

HAWMC_2012_dayprompt-15.png

 

 

I don’t proofread. I read it as I go along but I never give it the final read-over before I hit Send to Blog in MarsEdit. Planning is not my thing, and thus, #hawmc may be the death of me–or at least my BEDA mojo. Actually, I’ve already failed the BEDA bit, but fortunately #hawmc is a bit more liberal with the get-out-of-post-free day bit.  I am bad writing with prompts, because if I’m not feeling it, I procrastinate it, and then end up with posts like this one that I’m writing at 11:23 PM on a Sunday after spending the majority of the day studying, the majority of the evening studying, and the last hour reading Butch Walker’s book Drinking with Strangers.  The evidence of the lack of planning is right in that last sentence on the segway into Butch Walker.

I edit as I go, not after. For example, edit was just typed as “edi t”. My brain goes way too fast for my fingers, which I’m sure is sometimes evident in the lacking of cohesion within these posts.

Titles are sometimes my worst enemy or my best friend. They always come last. Half the time they’re quotes because that’s how much I suck at titles–I used to have a livejournal where every single effing entry was titled with a song lyric. It was ridiculous (also the journal itself sucked). When I use quotes in the beginning of an entry, I’m thinking of ’em before I even start writing, so that was there from the get-go. If they’re in the middle, they came about then, and if they’re at the end . . . well, you get it.  I’ve been told that I write how I talk, but I’m not sure about that. 90% of the posts in this blog, if not 98%, have been written at my kitchen table, probably, but my favourite place to blog is from a hotel room because I know I’ve been doing something cool and have stories to share.

I never simply “write a post”. I’m always doing more than one thing at a time. In the span of this writing about writing thing, I’ve checked Twitter, Facebook, the wegohealth blog, my BlackBerry, glanced at my notes on proteins, and been tapping my feet around. See, the cohesion thing, people. This is an overflow.  This is also the reason I have an issue getting any actual non-blog writing accomplished, because I’m just doing too much at once. I’ve been trying to write a book for six years–totally hasn’t happened. My creative process is just so scattered that I get distracted within a few sentences and it takes hours to get a page done. Of course, it’s still a goal.

So, like the above quote. . . I blog, and people read it, but it’s definitely not fully-dressed.

Except we call ski-caps toques.