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D…D…D…Dentist!

25 Mar

I am not a huge fan of going to the dentist, is anybody? Having someone poke around in my mouth with sharp metal instruments is not my idea of a fun filled afternoon buuuuuuut eventually you’ve gotta go, right? Right…sad sigh…

dentist

I haven’t been to the dentist since 2008-ish and when I did go it was for a regular check-up and cleaning, no biggy. But since then I haven’t had dental coverage and wasn’t interested in paying out of pocket to have a sadist cause me pain and discomfort lol The job I currently have has excellent benefits though, that kicked in at the three month mark, since I’ve been with the company 2 years (oh dear god, has it really been two years?? *shock*) I figured I might as well take advantage of having such good benefits and ya know, use em. Since I have no idea how to pick a good dentist I asked a friend of mine who has kids, which means she must have a dentist lol, and I was right, she does have a dentist and she recommended them cause she doesn’t mind sharing. Turns out her dentist isn’t one specific dentist but a large dental office, it is like nothing I have ever seen. It’s massive, and has an unknown number of dentists, and dental assistants and hygienists. I’m used to going to a small dental office where the staff has a low turn over and they remember you from the previous years visit and ask how classes are going, or the job, or how the bf is, or did I go on that trip I was planning last time I was there…really personalized. But that is not this place, though the people were very friendly so that’s nice. 🙂

I went last week for what I thought would be a simple appointment, a regular check-up and cleaning, oh and that gross fluoride stuff, ugh. This super friendly hygienist started using those super pointy metal tools of torture to do her thing but she went slow so she didn’t actually finish before my appointment was up, weird huh? The dentist came in (fyi, very yummy, I momentarily lost the ability to get words forming in my brain and am fairly certain I came across as an idiot, sigh) he did his thing and informed me that a filling I have had since the dawn of time has a crack and needs to be taken out and replaced and that I had a small cavity forming on a different tooth that should be taken care of now before it gets bigger.

Just. Great.

This means that my one visit expanded to 4. Four!! I feel like I should just move in there lol I was there yesterday and the dentist took care of the small cavity that just started forming. I thought they’d do everything at once but he says he likes to take things slow, not have the person in the chair for any longer than an hour so they don’t get stressed. I told him to do as much as he can in one visit, I can take it, he wasn’t convinced and the appointments have stayed spread out. I have another tomorrow, that’s the regular cleaning, and then one next week for the removal of the cracked filling and the replacement.

It was funny yesterday, they used so much numbing stuff that from just under my eye to my jaw was frozen, including my nose! I kept poking at the right side of my face cause it simultaneously felt like it was huge and felt like nothing at all. I had to eat before the numbing had worn off because I had to go to dragon boat practice, let’s just say I am oh so very glad nobody was watching me eat! lol I had to put teeny tiny amounts of food in my mouth, keep it in the left side, tilt my head back, chew and swallow. The tilting of the head was very important in this process because I was unable to keep food or liquid in my mouth if my head wasn’t tilted back. Oh, and when I went to the washroom there was food on my lip that I wasn’t aware of cause ya know, the lip was numb. Oh! And you should have seen me trying to drink water when on the boat during practice, at one point I dribbled water down my chin cause I just couldn’t keep it in my mouth, well, on the right side anyways lol Thank goodness the left side of my mouth wasn’t frozen!

So all in all the dentist visit is turning out to be an ongoing saga that I’m not enjoying all that much, except for the cute dentist that is! 😉

Oh, and quick tip, don’t get told you need to have fillings then go home and YouTube videos about how they are done, it just amps up your anxiety level before your own appointment. Oh, and don’t watch videos titled “6 Things You Didn’t Know About Dentists” before your visit either cause that won’t make you feel aaaaaany better. Did you know that one of those drill head thingys came loose and got lodged in someones lungs one time? Yeah…these are the things I was learning before my cavity filling visit…not wise!

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Should You Exercise When Sick?

9 Mar

My work is swarming with germs lately…by lately I mean the past two weeks. There is some nasty bug that is making the rounds and whoever catches it basically is doomed. It’s nothing horrible like the noro-virus, it’s just a nasty cold. Whenever a resident is sick we request they call the front desk and have their meals delivered so as to not spread their illness to everybody else. It doesn’t seem that unreasonable of a request in my opinion but you’d be surprised at how many people come down, sneeze and cough their way through their meals, through the various fitness classes, through the movies, through all the different social activities we have going on and then are surprised to find a couple days later we have a huge increase in the number of sick people. sigh.

I stupidly thought I wouldn’t catch it because hey, I’m not a senior, my immune system is strong. Ha-bloody-ha! I got sneezed on, as in, directly sneezed on last Sunday and woke up this past Tuesday incredibly sick. This bug just flattens you. With how poorly I was feeling, and how hard it was for me to do anything, I can only imagine how much harder it is for the residents who get it.

I was so sick I missed both my dragon boat practices this past week, which sucks! 😦 …and is a true indication of just how sick I was/am.

When you’re sick, do you wonder how much, if any exercise you should be doing? I always do. I always think I should be pushing through, forcing myself to exercise, to go to my practices, to go for a hike, because exercise is good for you, right? But sometimes you are just sooooo sick that it feels like exercise just getting your butt up off the chair to get a glass of water.

So I went searching and I found this handy dandy visual aid to help me figure out if I should be exercising when sick, and if so, what types of exercises I should be doing. And of course I am sharing the visual aid with all of you because I am friendly like that. lol 🙂

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In case the words are too small to read just click here and it should open a new tab with all five pages in a larger size. *crosses fingers the link works* lol

Hopefully you all stay healthy and don’t need to know this for a while! 🙂

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A Teeny Tiny Fire

14 Feb

Bright ‘n early this morning I was on the water enjoying my dragon boat practice. It was cold, but I loved it, weird I know lol 😛

Then, I came home and proceeded to get ready for work. Part of my getting ready process was making lunch – to eat before going to work, not to take with me.

I wanted something substantial, and well really, I wanted something with eggs lol but I’d had two hard boiled eggs prior to practice and that is one egg more than my daily egg allowance sooooooo no egg dishes for moi. Instead I popped a Ricotta and Spinach stuffed chicken breast from M&M Meat Shops in to the oven and boiled some whole wheat pasta. I don’t know why I made pasta as the side dish instead of veggies, shrug, I just seemed to want pasta. Probably cause I had bought a jar of alfredo & garlic sauce and really wanted to try it lol.

Anyways! It was time to drain the pasta so I did what I’ve done countless times, I took a towel wrapped it around one side of the pot and used it to protect my hands from the handles since they had gotten hot. I have used a towel every time I’ve needed to pick up a pot with hot handles for years and never had a problem. Well, this time I had a minor incident…

See, the towel slipped and touched the burner, big deal right? Wrong! The towel touched the burner and all of a sudden…fire! Actual fire! Not just singed, there were flames, flames! So there I am, holding a towel around a pot full of cooked pasta and the towel is on fire, not exactly a situation I expected to be in lol I didn’t want to lose the cooked pasta so I ever so gently put the pot down (on a different burner) then put the on fire towel in to the sink and soaked it with water. Yay for water solving the problem of my towel being on fire! Boo for ruining my towel.

I’m kinda bummed, I really like that towel, it is part of a set that my sister bought me two Christmases ago. Now it looks like this…

My scorched towel.

My scorched towel.

You’d think the damage would look worse considering there were flames involved. Even though the damage doesn’t look that bad the towel is ruined, sigh. Is it weird I am more upset about the towel being ruined than causing a fire in my kitchen? I think this just proves my point that some people aren’t meant to be in the kitchen and I obviously should be wealthy so I can have a cook, it’d be safer for everybody! 😉

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An Unintended Hiatus

3 Jan

I didn’t mean to go offline for so long but life has a nasty habit of getting in the way of blog posting time lol Heck, it gets in the way of updating facebook and twitter also, which is vaguely impressive considering how quick it is to update those two sites.

sooooo busy

sooooo busy

Prior to Christmas I was busy making Christmas presents…yes, you read that right, making the presents. I chose to make the majority of my Christmas presents for family and friends this year in an effort to (1) give gifts that will mean more to the recipient and (2) would cost me less.

The people I gave the presents too seemed to really like them, so I think I succeeded in giving gifts that meant more than something store bought. I’m not so sure about the saving money part of my plan though…oops?

I made a couple different things but couldn’t mention any of them here because some of the people I was giving the presents to read this blog and I didn’t want them to know in advance what they might be getting. It’s hard to be sneaky when you blab about stuff online all the time lol

Let’s see if I can remember what I made, there were…bath salts, candles, coasters, port wine jelly, Christmas popcorn, granola with nuts and seeds, marble peppermint bark, vanilla extract, rum butter (technically my mom made that one for me so I wouldn’t have to transport it on the plane, same with the vanilla extract), spice rub, a pedicure themed mason jar and a dragon boat themed mason jar…I think that is everything…

I am not a naturally crafty person so to learn how to make all of these things I did a lot of research (which means I scoured Pintrest and googled a lot, oh and watched multiple youtube tutorials) lol Thank goodness other people are crafty! 😛

Luckily I had no craft fails with the presents I was making, phew!

Luckily I had no craft fails with the presents I was making, phew!

The item that caused me the most stress was the port wine jelly, that particular item was for my brother and the fear that it will taste horrible or that I might have screwed up when sterilizing or canning and food poison him was (and is) intense. I don’t know that he’ll tell me when he eventually opens one of the jars, so I may never know if it tastes ok, which means I just have to let it go…sigh…

Like a dummy I didn’t take pictures of the items I made sooooooo yeah, I have no filler for this post in the way of images lol The bath salts were white and green, as were the candles. The food was the colour of food, duh, um, the coasters I made used pictures I nabbed from people’s facebook accounts, or pictures that had been texted to me throughout the year or in one friend’s case pictures I got her daughter to email me lol The coasters are 4×4, so normal size, but a bit thicker and heavier than most coasters you’d buy in a store, mostly cause they are made with a 4×4 wall tile and those suckers are kinda heavy.

I’m happy with how things turned out. 🙂 It took a lot more time and organization than I had thought it would, which left me in a bit of a panic when it was only a couple days until I was getting on the plane and I had yet to make the majority of the items. Then again, I work best under pressure lol 🙂

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Fort Langley Cranberry Festival 2014

13 Oct

This past Saturday was the Cranberry Festival, yay! 🙂

It is a dragon boat festival that isn’t a dragon boat festival lol The teams competing are dragon boat teams but we race in canoes, with canoe paddles, the boats hold 10 people (instead of 20 paddlers, one caller and one steers person), the first bench has only one person on it instead of two, the steers person sits instead of stands, the boats purposefully collide with each other and the races are a lot longer (2km minimum instead of 500m).

These races are wicked fun and are a great way to end the season – no pressure, no worries, just go out and have fun with the team. There are no prizes, no medals, just bragging rights lol 😛

My team

My team!

At the Cranberry Festival it is all about the final race, it is an obstacle course and really, it’s the only race we care about on the day lol From the start line you head towards a bridge where people have dropped pumpkins, you have to scoop up a pumpkin, go under the bridge, do a figure 8, go back under the bridge, turn around, partially beach the boat while one paddler jumps out and does an on-land obstacle (they take their paddle, have a cup of cranberry juice balanced on the flat side, run down the beach without spilling any juice, collect a bag of cranberries), the paddler jumps back in the boat, we unbeach ourselves, turn to go in the opposite direction we are facing, go around a buoy, go under the bridge and get past the buoys that represent the finish line. Awesome huh?

Someone cheering for another team took video of part of the race so you can have a look and see a bit of what it was about. The boat that gets away from the beach first and gets an awesome breakaway lead, that’s my team *nonchalant shrug* Cause ya know, we’re awesome like that. 😉

After that turn (when the video cuts out) we headed straight, went under the bridge, passed the finish line and had time to turn around and watch the rest of the boats finish the race, it was a crazy long lead lol

We were especially happy with this win because our team had never won at this festival before, we broke our curse! wOOt! 😀

 

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Aquafit Tuesdays

7 Oct

Normally Tuesday and Thursday evenings I am in a dragon boat, training. I’m so used to that schedule that when training season ends and I have those evenings free I feel a little lost…what am I supposed to do now? Usually, for a month or so I just have fun doing whatever, either staying in or going out, doesn’t matter what I do I feel like I am in the wrong spot, like I’m cheating on the team lol

Training has been done for quite a while now and I’m trying to find something to replace it, I’m much more likely to not skip a workout if it is planned and I’m expected to be there. Gotta love accountability! 😛

A teammate suggested I join her at aquafit class on Tuesday evenings. Normally I would have begged off, uh, bathing suit? No thank you! But ever since my cliff jumping and subsequent swimming in the ocean I have been wanting to get back in the water. I had so much fun swimming in the ocean that I spent the rest of the summer wanting to repeat the experience. Every body of water I saw while on the rest of my vacation elicited the question “can we swim in that?” and the answer was always “no!”…makes you think about just how horrible humans are to the planet that there are so many different water sources and none of them are safe to swim in, what’s with that?

When I got back from vacation I thought I’d hit up the pool near me but it was under construction and wouldn’t be usable for a couple months, sucky timing that. I have been waiting for the pool to re-open when KR texted me about going to aquafit with her at a different community centre and I figured, yes, go for it! Forget about the whole people-seeing-me-in-a-swimsuit-thing and go, swim, enjoy!

This has been my third Tuesday in a row going to aquafit and I’m really liking it. I always thought of aquafit as something old ladies did lol but this class is an intermediate to advance and has a wide variety of ages, oh, and there are guys there also, not cute guys, old guys, but whatev.

The class is an hour long with 40-45 minutes of cardio, the rest uses these dumbbell foam things to do resistance work in the water. It works the muscles surprisingly well! 🙂

the foam dumbbells

the foam dumbbells

This evening I messed up on the time and was an hour early, oops! Last week I purposefully went early to use the fitness room in the community centre, I hopped on a treadmill and went for a run before meeting my friend for the aquafit class. Apparently my brain is easily confused because when I was getting ready this evening I was remembering being there for 7pm but thought that was for the class, not for the run then the class *rolls eyes* I didn’t take my running clothes because I wasn’t planning on running before the class, and I didn’t realize my error until I was in the hot tub waiting for what I thought were the last ten minutes before class started. I wasn’t about to go get dried off and try to find something to occupy myself for a little under an hour just so I could come back and get dressed in a wet swimsuit lol So I sat in the hot tub for an hour, oh the hardships! lol I actually spent most of that time sitting with my legs dangling in the hot tub, but close enough lol 😛

I know some people scoff at working out in the water, everyone knows it is easier on the joints but somehow working out in the water, in a lot of people’s minds, equates to a less effective workout. Perhaps because you can’t see the sweat? Here are some facts about water workouts that may surprise you…

– Working out in water means your muscles are forced to work harder, burning more fat and toning them up faster than land-based exercises. This is because they are fighting the water every time they move.

– Jogging on dry land will only burn up approximately six calories per minute. But aqua jogging can burn over 11 calories a minute, giving you a better workout.

– The extra pressure of the water on your legs also pushes more blood back up into the top half of your body. This makes your heart work harder, raising your heartbeat and burning even more calories during your water workout.

– Aqua-exercises also have a cooling effect on the body. Because you are working out in the water, your body is not sweating as much to cool the muscles down. This means there is less chance of you becoming dehydrated during your workout.

– People with lower back problems can benefit from aqua-exercises as the water supports them, taking pressure off the spine.

So there ya have it! Don’t mock those of use that work out in the water, we’re getting in shape faster than you are! 😉 lol

I bought a ten visit pass and plan to go to aquafit every Tuesday, most Tuesdays I will go for a run first, might as well utilize as many of the community centre’s resources as I can. 😉

Now to find something to do the rest of my evenings…

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Victoria Dragon Boat Festival

19 Aug

Alrighty, so two things…

(1) Sorry for the inconsistency of my posts, I have been having internet difficulties and have been going for days with NO internet! None! It is quite annoying, sigh.  Shaw has replaced the modem so theoretically I should have internet access again without disruptions…we shall see *glances with suspicion towards Shaw*

(2) This post is not going to be about my vacation (no, I’m not done with those posts), I just want to let you know what happened this past weekend, then I’ll get back to my vacation posts – hopefully with a bit more speed than I was posting them before because of ya know, actually having internet access again lol.

On to the fun part! This past weekend I was in Victoria BC dragon boat racing, it is a two day festival, August 16th-17th. I didn’t go with my team (The Twisted Hips), instead I went as a filler for a team called Dragon Hearts Attack. They were short some paddlers and my coach works with that team so she asked if I was interested in racing with them. I had already booked the time off work assuming I would be racing that weekend and since I didn’t have another team I was racing with I said yes. I love the festivals, the competition, the fun of it all and I was bummed that I didn’t have a team to go with so I was really glad this worked out. 🙂

Three of my Twisted Hips teammates were also going to be competing at that festival but for one of the sister teams of the team I was on, they were with Dragon Hearts Burn. Three of us went over on the ferry together Friday night and spent almost all of the weekend together. 🙂

This picture was in the bathroom at the ferry terminal, because apparently people need to be told to not stand on the seats *rolls eyes*

Seriously?

Seriously?

There are two races per team a day at this festival and once you are done your second race on the Saturday you are basically free to do whatever you want…within reason! lol You still have to be able to paddle the next day! 😛

It was our coaches birthday on the Sunday so we all went out for dinner on the Saturday to a Greek restaurant, it was yummy, nothing amazing but not horrible either. Ray got this appetizer that they light on fire, it is cheese, he ordered it because it gets lit on fire which I think is a perfectly valid reason lol

That's the waiter, not my teammate lol

That’s the waiter, not my teammate lol

Here’s what it looks like when it isn’t on fire…

Cheeeeeeese!

Cheeeeeeese!

The restaurant had a belly dancer…

2014-08-16 19.41.04

Who then came over and tried to teach some of our guys how to belly dance…not gonna lie, they weren’t very good lol

It was a funny lesson!

It was a funny lesson!

They then had a dance off which I was too busy laughing through to take pics of, there is a video but I can’t figure out how to get it off facebook and on here so you’ll have to take my word for it that it was freakin hilarious!

Coach got a birthday dessert of baklava, hey c’mon, it’s a Greek restaurant, what did you expect?

A candle in a piece of baklava, classic? ;)

A candle in a piece of baklava, classic? 😉

After the dinner some of the team spent the rest of the night partying and having fun, nothing too wild since we had to be up and in the lobby by 6:30am the next day, ugh.

Races went exceptionally well on the Sunday for my team and we ended winning gold in our division, yay!

Gold! Gold! Gold!

Gold! Gold! Gold!

One of the main sponsors for the festival was Denny’s, hence the name Denny’s on the one side of the medal, I feel I should now get free pancakes for life from them as a congrats lol 😛

The three of us that came over on the ferry together spent the next chunk of time wandering around a small piece of Victoria. We couldn’t go far cause one of us, Kathryn, rolled her ankle coming down The Chief prior to the festival so she was gimped. She was thankfully off the crutches but still limping quite a lot and she had to sit often to rest it. Sucky. She was supposed to race that weekend but wasn’t able to cause of the ankle. 😦

Some of the sights we saw included…

A whale made out of a bush.

A whale made out of a bush.

A fancy hotel covered in ivy.

A fancy hotel covered in ivy.

A woman being a statue, I'm surprised she didn't melt.

A woman being a statue, I’m surprised she didn’t melt.

A statue of Emily Carr that makes her look like an unattractive man...that is a monkey on her shoulder.

A statue of Emily Carr that makes her look like an unattractive man…that is a monkey on her shoulder.

The Netherlands Carillon

The Netherlands Carillon

The Netherlands Carillon was a gift from BC’s Dutch community to honour Canada’s 100th birthday in 1967. Her Majesty Queen Juliana of the Netherlands unveiled the cornerstone of the tower on May 23, 1967. A carillon is a musical instrument with a set of 23 or more bronze bells. This carillon, the largest in Canada, has 62 bells. It is housed at the top of this tower, which stands 27 meters (89 feet) tall. The largest bell in this carillon weighs 1500 kgs. To play the Netherlands Carillon, a musician climbs the 75 steps of the spiral staircase and then a 10-step ladder. There, the carillonneur depresses the keys and pedals of a clavier to play a song on the bells. Carillon bells do not swing like church bells; they ring when struck by clappers connected with wires to the clavier.

We happened to be there when the carillonneur was up there playing, at first it sounded like a song, then it sounded like a child hitting bells at random, then it sounded a bit like a song again lol it is an interesting sound.

Memorial to our courageous dead.

Memorial to our courageous dead.

Parliament building and a pretty fountain.

Parliament building and a pretty fountain.

The harbour - those tent tops and the crowds of people are the dragon boat festival.

The harbour – those tent tops and the crowds of people are the dragon boat festival.

hitchBOT!

hitchBOT!

We came across hitchBOT lounging on the sidewalk! When I first heard about his journey across Canada I so badly wanted to come across him and yay! I actually did! He managed to hitchhike from Halifax to Victoria in three weeks. 🙂 People had written happy messages on him and attached cute little magnets to his chest, magnets of Canadian flags etc, to show where he had been. I’m so glad he made it lol I was kinda worried for him. Here is his website link if you are interested in learning more about him http://www.hitchbot.me

This statue is called The Homecoming and commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Navy

This statue is called The Homecoming and commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Canadian Navy

This random building that I like the look of lol

This random building that I like the look of lol

So there we go, that is my weekend in a nutshell. 🙂 I would like to go back for 2-3 days as a mini vacation and actually have lots of time to wander and do things. It’s great travelling places when racing but you don’t have a lot of time to play tourist ya know? So I’m thinking maybe next summer going over on my days off and seeing what I can see as well as go off and have some adventures.

Had an awesome time, lots of fun memories and I am so glad I was able to go. 😀

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Nanaimo Weekend

9 Jul

This past weekend (July 5-6) was the Nanaimo Dragon Boat Festival. Last season there was drama! drama! drama! And since you probably don’t memorize my blog posts if you would like to refresh yourself on what happened click here.

We had a goal, win a medal to redeem ourselves from last year.

Well…we didn’t quite make that goal a reality. We did redeem ourselves by having a strong presence at the festival, by racing hard, by having new jerseys the other teams were envious of and by moving up a division to the highest division at the festival, yup, that’s right, highest division! Awesomeness! The only part of our plan that didn’t quite come to fruition was the whole winning a medal thing but hey, we tried and we were close and having close times with the teams we were racing against, teams that consistently rank in the highest division, well, that is nothing to sneeze at.

Overall we ended up ranking 8th place out of 80 teams, not so bad, right?

My team The Twisted Hips

My team The Twisted Hips

The people there are still the friendliest people ever, it is a beautiful location for a dragon boat festival, the water is warm and clean, even with the rain the temperatures are still high. There are so many great things associated with this festival! 🙂

Overall the weekend rocked, we all got there Friday night, I didn’t get motion sickness while on the ferry going over to the island (yay!), the three teammates I was bunking with were hilarious, the food was tasty, there was lots of walking and racing and just in general physical activity. There was free paddle boarding both days, two of my teammates and I gave that a try on the Saturday. It was ok, I was paranoid about falling in to water while wearing my racing clothes so I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I might have if I didn’t have the worry of spending the rest of my day in soaking wet clothes lol Having said that, even if I had been in a swimsuit and not worried about getting wet I don’t think it’s an activity I’d do for an extended period of time, it’s not that interesting lol 😛 There were all kinds of food trucks but our team pools money and we have a little buffet of food at our tent (as do most teams) so I didn’t get anything from the food trucks, I did hit up Tim Horton’s for tea multiple times but tea is a whole different story, I can’t survive without tea lol

There were also lots of booths set up with people selling everything from home made jewellery, to official festival clothing, to dragon boat gear to scarves…the list goes on and on. There are also booths set up to educate people on things like drinking tap water or recycling as well as booths representing banks and other boring  things lol.

I bought two bracelets as thank you gifts for the daughters of my friend, they came and checked on my cat while I was gone and I thought they’d get a kick out of some jewellery, shrug. I also bought myself a festival t-shirt. I buy a shirt not from every festival but from a lot of them, I like having a memento that is also functional lol

One of my teammates and I are taking part in a plank challenge, on the Saturday we decided to plank while in the middle of partying (cause isn’t that how everyone planks? lol) and the teammates that were present decided to get in on the action lol Planking is now a team sport!

The plank challenge!

The plank challenge!

Even though it was slightly overcast most of the time, and raining for chunks of both days I managed to get sunburned, a special talent of mine lol Oh, and I also managed to get injured, another special talent of mine lol

While planking someone leaned on me and somehow I ended up hurting my lower back, I don’t mean a twinge I mean I was in massive pain and had trouble standing up straight. Luckily one of my roomies has a mothering instinct and she helped me out, she got me a microwavable gel pack thing from the hotel office and walked me through some yoga that she thought might help the back get better. A combination of some sort of cream a friend had, plus pain pills, plus yoga, plus the heating pack led to me being ok to race on the Sunday. To be honest, it wouldn’t have mattered what level of pain I was in on the Sunday I would have still raced but it was nice to race and not be thinking I was screwing my back up even more lol 😛

The other injury is just stupid *rolls eyes* when I was paddle boarding sand got in my shoes, didn’t matter how much I rinsed them out some sand stayed in them and while I could feel the sand rubbing against my feet it didn’t seem like that big of a deal, I was wrong. By Sunday I had 5 open and quite nasty wounds on my feet, ugh. Couldn’t do much about them till I got home and really all I could do once home was wash the feet, put some polysporin on the wounds and wrap with bandaids. The feet are healing well, slower than I would like but meh, whatcha gonna do? I wash, reapply the polysporin and bandaids daily and am basically waiting for them to finish getting better. I’m down to three bandaids instead of five now so that’s a nice improvement! 🙂

The trip home went smoothly, once again I managed to not get sea sick on the ferry, this is a big deal for me in case you were wondering lol I had an unpleasant surprise waiting for me though, a spider apparently decided the best place ever to have her eggs mature was in my bathroom, ick! ick! ick! I came home to this…

Baby spiders. Lots of baby spiders. *shudder*

Baby spiders. Lots of baby spiders. *shudder*

I went on the offensive asap, obviously, and became a mass murderer. Thought the situation was taken care of but the next day when I got home from work I had a smaller web with fewer inhabitants in the exact same spot. wtf?? So they died also. I then sprayed the entire area with Mr. Clean all surfaces cleaner, and I don’t mean a gentle spray, I mean I drenched the area, it was dripping off the ceiling! Chemical warfare at its finest lol Since then I’ve seen an occasional baby spider but no big webs and en masse gatherings so I’m hoping they have moved on or died. 😛

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Filming and Medals and All Around Fun

25 Jun

I soooooo wanted to write about this yesterday but my internet crapped out, bad timing that!

Yesterday I was, get ready for this!…filming an episode of a tv show! *squeal of excitement* Awesome huh?! 😀

I can’t give a lot of specifics due to signing a loooong confidentiality agreement but here is what I can say:

– I was a principle character in the episode (that means a main character)

– the show is docudrama/soap opera genre

– the show is international

– my character was a nurse so I was in scrubs which (1) are super comfy and (2) made me look humongous *rolls eyes*

– each episode has completely different cast so there is no potential for reprising the role

– I was up at 5am so I could be on set for 7am

– the make-up and hair ladies loved my hair and cheekbones lol

– crafty (that is the catered food) provided pretty decent food

– we filmed at an abandoned psych hospital and the crew had some super creepy stories about the place

– I wrapped (that means finished) a bit after 6pm so I was able to get to my dragon boat practice on time, which was a pleasant surprise

Oh, and fair warning, once the episode is aired if I can find a link to an episode online I will be posting it on my blog so you can all have the option of watching it or not lol 😛

Here are some pics of parts of the psych hospital, outside only…

One of the buildings

One of the buildings

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I didn't get to go in this building, it looked more ominous than the others.

I didn’t get to go in this building, up close it looked more ominous than the others.

Spooky stairs all over the place leading to who knows where...

Spooky stairs all over the place leading to who knows where…

Than, as if filming wasn’t enough to make the day amazing when I got to dragon boat practice I got given my medal from the weekend! I thought I would get a medal since I raced Saturday but was worried that since I missed the Sunday due to being sick I miiiiight not get a medal, ya know, cause of not being there for the final race. But I was worried for nuthin, phew! lol It is so purdy!

My medal!

My medal!

I was coughing all day, doing my best to cough between takes of course lol I was doing really well until the last scene where I started losing control of the cough, the hot tea I’d be sipping all day to soothe my throat was no longer helping and I thought I’d have to ask for some cough drops (which I had brought, along with cough syrup and throat lozenges lol) but I managed to tough it out. On the way to practice I was sucking on cherry halls, the type with the cough syrup in the middle, to try to get the cough to stop. I was sorta ok during practice, I coughed all the way through it but was still able to paddle. I did notice that I had less stamina than normal, not sure if that was cause of the long day or the trouble breathing cause of the cough and congestion…I’m leaning to it being more because of the cough since the filming left me all energetic and psyched lol. However, by the time I got home from practice my voice was shot, totally 100% shot! I was a croaking frog, not pretty! *wrinkled nose* I spent today not talking lol I just stayed in and chilled in the hopes that would help my voice recover faster, I don’t think it will help much though cause I am coughing even more than before and the cough is what is causing the most damage to my throat – in my non medical opinion lol 😛 Hopefully it goes away soon, if not for me than for the cat, every time he tries to cuddle with me I cough and it disturbs him, he’s been glaring at me a lot lol

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My Rio Tinto Alcan Weekend

23 Jun

This past weekend was the biiiiiig dragon boat festival! We spend all season gearing up for this festival, training! training! training! Rio Tinto is the largest dragon boat festival in North America, teams comes from all over the world to compete, it is a big thing in the dragon boat world.

I absolutely love this festival! Not only are there 160 dragon boat teams competing against each other for coveted medals there are food vendors, booths set up with free samples, coupons, random information about all sorts of topics, live performances, this festival has it all! It is one of things I look forward to all year.

All us dragon boaters will be the first to admit that unless you know someone in a race watching dragon boat racing can be a bit, um, boring…I know! It sounds horrible to say but it’s true. Each race heat can take what seems like forever to get set up because you can’t tell from the shore how much the tide has moved the boats as they try to line up or any of the other random things that can happen that make the start of the race be delayed. That’s why having all the on shore entertainment helps, it keeps people entertained when they stop being quite so entertained by the races lol

The weather on Saturday was perfect! Sunny, warm but not boiling hot, abso beautiful! 🙂 I’ve competed at this festival when the weather is cold and pouring rain so the warmth and sun was much appreciated lol. I of course was coating my exposed skin in 110spf sunscreen and wearing long sleeves and pants, oh and a hat! lol I look like I hate the sun, and I kinda do because of how easily I burn, but I also don’t, I just hate the UV rays that try to not-so-slowly turn me in to a lobster, shrug.

Our race times on Saturday were strong, 2:06 then 2:05. They put us in a nice solid position for day two of racing which (obviously) is important.

Sadly I can’t tell you much about Sunday, sigh. By the time I went to bed Saturday I had a fever, no voice and an upset stomach. I kept telling myself “you are not sick, you’re just tired” but no matter how many times I said that to myself I really was sick, not just tired, sigh. I woke up in the morning after a night of crappy sleep to the realization I was too sick to paddle, heck, I was too sick to get out of bed. 😦 I debated still going, pushing myself, I was hoping maybe I would feel better once I was up and moving and there but I know better than that, if I can’t manage to get to the sink to get a glass of water no way I can keep up in a race piece and no way in hell am I going to risk my team winning a race because I insist on being on the boat. Damn self-sacrificing instincts, sigh.

I got text updates from teammates during the day and I was glad to hear how much fun they were having even though I was curled up miserable on my living room chair. Then the best news of all came, they won Silver in B Division! I’m so proud of them! I don’t know what the actual finish time was but I know it had to have been awesome lol 🙂

One of my teammates posted this to our facebook wall:

“Of the SIXTEEN teams that raced above us in both A Rec Consolation, and A Rec Championship, there were only THREE times faster than ours — 1 in Consolation, and 2 in Championship. Our time bested 13 of the 16 teams in A Division”

How amazing is it that our time was only beat by three other teams! *shock face*

I didn’t take any pictures of the festival on the Saturday because I was planning on taking them all on the Sunday, a decision I now greatly regret, sigh. So here are some pictures I stole from facebook and the media images that were used in papers and websites…that’s right! We made it in to media footage!

one of my teammates medals resting on his jersey

one of my teammates medal resting on his jersey

that's our caller and the first two rows of the boat (left side) in the final race

that’s our caller and the first two rows of the boat (left side) in the final race

Normally I sit second bench left side but since I wasn’t there on the Sunday I am not in this picture, my good friend KR is though and she looks awesome! 🙂

we are the team with the white sleeves

we are the team with the white sleeves

So there we have it, it was an awesome weekend, the parts of it I got to experience and the parts of it I missed. I’m really bummed I wasn’t there with my team to win the medal but I’m so so so happy for them and proud of how great they did! 🙂

Only 362 days until the start of next years Rio Tinto dragon boat festival…not that I’m counting or anything… 😉

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