Fish

I added some. Scroll down and feed them for me when I'm not around.

100 Books

I came to realize the other day that I'm not a well-read person. When people talk about certain classic novels, I've never read them, I don't recognize the author name, and sometimes I've never even heard of it. So I decided to do something about it. My brother "The Gambler" found some book lists online for me to choose from. Now I'm reading through the list. Some I've read before, but will read again (e.g. the chronicles of narnia), other's I never want to touch again (e.g. the handmaid's tale), other I haven't heard of. But I'll do my best over time!

Goal: finish list this year

Realistic goal: read 30 books from the list this year.

Book #1:

Here's the list if you want to know what I'm working with. I tried to

pick a list of books that I had mostly heard of so that when people said "oh, its like that novel ____" I would be able to say "Yeah, totally!" and actually mean it.

* Books I've read already

1. 1984 by George Orwell*
2. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee*
3. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen*
5. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
6. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
7. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
9. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
10. Animal Farm by George Orwell
11. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
12. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
13. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
14. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
15. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas*
16. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
17. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
18. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
19. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
20. Ulysses by James Joyce
21. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
22. Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling*
23. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
24. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
25. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
26. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
27. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
28. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
29. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
30. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien*
31. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
32. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
33. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
34. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis*
35. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
36. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
37. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
38. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
39. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
40. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
41. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
42. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
43. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
44. The Stranger by Albert Camus
45. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
46. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
47. Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
48. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad*
49. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
50. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
51. Watership Down by Richard Adams
52. His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
53. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
54. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
55. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger*
56. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
57. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
58. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
59. Dune by Frank Herbert
60. Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
61. Dracula by Bram Stoker
62. Life of Pi by Yann Martel*
63. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
64. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
65. The Stand by Stephen King
66. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
67. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
68. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
69. Middlemarch by George Eliot
70. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
71. Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
72. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
73. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
74. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
75. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden*
76. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
77. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
78. The Trial by Franz Kafka
79. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
80. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
81. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
82. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
83. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
84. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
85. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
86. Persuasion by Jane Austen*
87. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood*
88. The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer*
89. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
90. Emma by Jane Austen*
91. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
92. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
93. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
94. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver*
95. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon*
96. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
97. Siddharta by Hermann Hesse
98. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
99. Beloved by Toni Morrison
100. Atonement by Ian McEwan

Props to you if you made it this far down the post.

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

I don't really want a hippo, the song is just stuck in my head. Besides... I can't afford one even if I did want one, lol.

I've been getting some Christmas cards for Christmas from friends and family. It's been such a blessing. I love reading stories and messages from home. Makes me feel very loved and remembered even though I can't make it home for Christmas. I've been trying to do some things to get into the Christmas spirit although I can't make it home.

These include:

1) downloading the wonderful Vince Vance Christmas album. Family traditions will never die while I'm around! I just have to figure out how to get that old, non-stop rock n' roll Christmas album from my parents. I'm positive the boys aren't listening to it!

2) Baking. I made Christmas cookies obviously (see above), but I only had one hand so I couldn't do fancy cookie cutter shapes, but they tasted great! I also made a Lindi-sized batch of nuts and bolts for the pure deliciousness of it. Thanks mama for the recipe!

3) I didn't buy a Christmas tree, but I put lights on the balcony. Very festive.

4) I've been displaying all my Christmas cards and letters.

5) I bought Christmas presents!! I love buying gifts that I know people will like. Brings me joy. Wrapping and bagging them helps me get into the Christmas spirit most.

6) I'm watching made-for-tv Christmas movies, lol. They're all so lame, but it's one of my guilty pleasures. Don't judge me...

I love this time of year and despite the fact that I'm still working for a couple of days, I'm finding time to enjoy the holidays.

P.S. - only a hippopotamus will do. No croc-o-diles, no rhi-no-cer-os-es, I only want HIPPOPOTAMUSES!!

Deer

Apparently wild animals just roam the streets of Grande Prairie! Saw this little guy this morning. Note the proximity to my car!! (he's just having breakfast, but look close, he's a little camouflaged). This guy was just on the road, about a block from the hospital I was at. I know these guys are everywhere, but I've never been this close to a deer that wasn't fenced in somewhere!

Link

Here's the link if you couldn't see the video in the previous post!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8mh_9SyyNs

No Family for Christmas

Something made me think of this song tonight. My brother Matt use to play/sing it all the time around Christmas.

The lyrics and the memories make me sad that I won't be home to celebrate Christmas with my family. I'm sure I'll have a great time with other relatives, but it's not the same as being with my parents and brothers. It's the first time that I've felt sad about the idea of not being home, but the good memories will stay with me! Love my family :)

5 Difficult Things When You're Gimpy

Here are some things I hate doing right now...

1. Putting a bra on (the devil invented bras)

2. Opening jars (this is why God made men - I don't even like olives... who needs them)

3. Eating meat (I can't cut at all!)

4. Showering/bathing (I wish I could just take this off for like 5 minutes)

5. Typing. s-l-o-w.

Stupid arm. Ouch. That is all.

Snowboarding Fiasco

So, yesterday I got all geared up to snowboard. It was SUPER fun and I'm a pretty quick learner so it was going really well. The only problem was that I got a bit over confident.... I started going to fast and trying things and getting a little reckless. Winnipeg (friend nickname) and I were still only on the baby hills, but I was still able to be a little crazy somehow.

BEFORE: happy and innocent

AFTER: sad and defeated

I was in emerge for 5 hours waiting for everything. Oblique break in two spots of my ulna. Weak bones. Literally. I'm starting calcium supplements soon. Thankfully Winnipeg stayed with me. I'm sooo grateful for that! I don't think I could've gotten through the long long afternoon without her.

The craziest thing is that I'm totally going to go again! I'm just going to look into wrist guards, and better falling methods, haha. Winnipeg will take me whether she likes it or not! (I hope you read this Winnipeg, lol).

ps - this was a difficult and long typing process. stupid broken wrist.

5 things I love

Here's a list of 5 things I love in my life right now*:

1. nuts and bolts

2. skype

3. harry potter books

4. buying Christmas presents that I know people will like

5. Joopie jumping around like a fool for no reason (I laugh every time)

Many more lists to come.

* in no particular order

Joopje, where's the poop??

Sooo.... winter in grande prairie is COLD! FYI.

This week it reached a low of -30 and -36 with wind chill. Also, it's going to get colder.... Although I don't mind the cold, little Joopers didn't seem to like it very much. Here's a pic of little Joop with his paws up in the air cause his little feets were too cold. Poor dog. Our walks started turning into 5 minutes or less pee breaks. He didn't poop for 3 days!! He wouldn't stay outside long enough, so obviously I was starting to get concerned for the little puppy.

So I talked to some native grande prairians to learn that dog booties were pretty standard around here. I was generally against any kind of boot, sweater, clothing, etc. combination on principle. But my poor little dog couldn't walk in the snow, so I caved in.....

Here are the booties I bought him. (20% off I might add!)

Then I had him put them on.

And here's his first attempt at wearing them.... (Note: he kicks two of them off within about ten seconds.

But eventually he figured it out. Here he is wearing all four of them!

He still doesn't love them, and usually kicks a couple off by the end of the walk. But he's getting use to them. And we had the longest walk today! Well, the longest walk in a few weeks anyway.

What makes a great conversation?

This questions was posed to me after I expressed that I "love great conversations". I thought it was a valid question. Why do we sometimes walk away from conversations lingering with thoughts and feeling elated? Why do we forget some conversations moments after they happen.

So I started thinking of places and people I've had great conversations with:

• pink flamingos in the fireplace room
• mom in the williams coffee pub
• boyfriends (often during walks)
• new small group
• my bestie on skype

There are not a lot of common denominators in this group. The ones I found are:

1) honesty

2) intimacy

3) openness

4) meaningful

That's it. Some of the people I didn't know well or have a great history with, others I did. Some people I didn't have a warm setting, with others I did. Some knew my history, others didn't. All the great conversations revolved around something deeper. Great love. Meaning in life. Spirituality. Conflict. The conversations were meaningful. They were open and honest. They all transcended that superficial conversation level.

Thoughts?? I'm waiting for my next GREAT conversation to see if this still stands up.

Over-Achievers: Friend or Foe?

Starting a new job, especially a first job, can be very stressful! Not only am I starting a new job, but I'm following behind the footsteps of a Speech-Language Pathologist that I've heard described as "amazing", "sooo good", "the best", etc., etc. Obviously no one is saying this to make me feel uncomfortable, but how am I suppose to follow after those rave reviews!!

I've never been a huge fan of over-achievers to begin with, but I especially don't like them now! There's not a lot of room for creativity for most speech paths working with school-age children either - who knows how she got to the point where she was deemed "amazing". But the great thing about this job is that we have a TON of freedom to do or start whatever we want. Now, I'm using my new-found freedom to start things that I haven't done before, such as a fluency group for school-age boys that stutter (EEK!). The combination trying to prove myself and having the freedom to be flexible is apparently all the motivating I need to try something completely new, requiring days, evenings, and money to be sacrificed on my behalf to start up!

I feel pretty good about the idea, even if I hate the stress that comes along with it. Am I the over-achiever that I always hated? Maybe someone will be swearing when they take over from me too.... I guess I'd rather that than the alternative!

Growing up is hard to do

Well, this is it folks. My new home in Grande Prairie. It’s the outside of my brand-spanking new apartment building! If someone had asked me two months ago where I would be now, this is not what I would have predicted (except for maybe the 'having a job' part). I live in a one bedroom with my puppy (who’s not really a puppy anymore). There’s loads of room for one person. Underground parking. On-site gym. Balcony. 3rd floor. Heaven. My favourite thing to do it decorate. I’m slowly picking out the right furniture pieces (at good Dutch prices of course) and picture frames and decorations. I’ve really seen the place take form in the couple of months that I’ve been here. I’m excited to finally share it with everyone! More photos of the actual apartment to come!

I can't believe how fast I'm growing up *tear*... But in all seriousness, in the span of one month, I've started a new job, in a new town 1000s of kilometers from my old home. I'm now getting paychecks, and buying furniture, and paying all my own bills (no more help from dad...). I knew that I had to grow up some day, but who knew it would all happen so fast.

I guess that looking back, I did gradually gain independence, it wasn't all at once. But still, it feels like it did. I now feel that weight of all my responsibilities. That's the scariest part of it! I'm on my own folks. I've grown up. No more hand-outs.

Turns out, a lot can change in two months....

What's in a blog name??

Hi friends!

I'm glad you decided to read my first blog entry! I've been thinking about starting a blog for a while now. The reasons are three-fold:

1) I move around a lot and it can help people (i.e. friends and family) keep up with me

2) It gives me an un-biased medium to rant on

3) Makes me feel like I have an ounce of artistic expression

So decision made: bloggified. Then I had to come up with a blog title, which seems easy, but in reality was not. I didn't want a common name like "journey of a girl in her life/adventures/travels" or "just a girl and her dog" or something equally lame*. I also couldn't narrow down my blog to one particular topic (i.e. as a speech path, or a dog owner, or a traveller), because I want to talk about everything! So I was looking for originality and diversity at the same time. It was hopeless. Until, I saw HIMYM http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1723669/ (season 6, episode 3 - great show!), and they ask "where's the poop?". Once upon a time, when I came home my dog would give me a look... and that look would mean that he had pooped somewhere in the house. They used the line "where's the poop?" to get at whatever the characters were hiding. I chose to make it my blog title because:

1) It's hilarious

2) It's unexpected

3) I have a dog, and I get it

4) I want my blog to be a way of expressing all of those things I may not say outloud. I want to feel like everyday someone is asking me "where's the poop, Lindi?"

That is all. Enjoy!

* Sorry if those are your blog names... I still like you...