I just finished reading Blue Sword by Robin Mckinley. It took me awhile to finish this one, 2 months, but it wasn’t exactly because it was a bad story. Here’s what I said on my books app in facebook.

I thought it was a well written book. I especially enjoyed that the characters were “normal”.. often they would say or think things that I had just thought about what happened. The overall plot was kinda cliche, I could picture the “training montage” or major problems get solved in a sudden fantastic way, but it wasn’t corny. It was more like a diary, you only write about the major stuff that happens.

Now Reading: Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart

April 2 (Wednesday)
So I didn’t end up getting to sleep till around 8:30am. I skipped my dentist appointment because I ended up having to take my inhaler and was feeling so crappy and tired. Highlight of the day was Ken dropping a large bottle of Worcestershire sauce and it ran under the fridge so we had to move it and sweep and mop up everything, including several old cat toys that had been MIA. Also dusted and wiped down the back of the fridge and discovered why it was making so much noise! There was a christmas tree shaped cake pan stuck between the coils. *smile* I’ve never owned a tree shaped cake pan!

Later on, Melar and I played some Guild Wars. We completed the D’Alessio Seaboard Mission, explored The Black Curtain and Kessex Peak. After she went to bed, I did some more quests in the Eye of the North campaign and picked up a new hero, Gwen! The little girl who followed me around in Pre-Searing (noob land).

April 3 (Thursday)
Happy Birthday Andrea! Again I get to sleep at 8am.. woke up at 2pm.. Washed the dishes and later played Guild Wars with Miuu, who just started playing a ranger. We did his quests, answered his questions about the game.. then watched some shows with Ken.

April 4 (Friday)
Woke up, did some chores.. Did spring cleaning in the bathroom, not much in there so it was easy. Sorted out the medicine cabinet and wiped it clean, sorted out the sink cabinet and wiped it down.. Organized all the bottles of stuff and tossed expired stuff.. Wiped the walls and shower ceiling.. Then I had Ken seal some cracks in the wall corners.

While waiting for Melar or Miuu to log in I explored the Talmark Wilderness trying to level my warrior hero, Koss. Once Miuu logged in I joined him for more questing with his ranger.

April 5 (Saturday)
This was a big day, Ken and I spring cleaned the bedroom. I was dying with allergies pretty immediately and used almost a full box of tissues with my runny nose and sneezing. But it’s done! And it really needed it.. Before, there was maybe a foot of room between Ken’s side of the bed and the “computer graveyard”.. but after sorting and rearranging and 3 trips to the dumpster with 2 carts, there’s now tons of room!

Afterwards we treated ourselves to a Teppanyaki dinner, then went grocery shopping and washed all our blankets

April 6 (Sunday)
Happy Birthday Keri-Lynn! As expected I had trouble sleeping and breathing from all the dust kicked up on Saturday. It was pretty severe though. I didn’t get to sleep till around 12:30pm and woke up at 5:30pm. I spent the morning sorting out my old bookmarks that were lumped together.

More Guild Wars! Melar and I explored the Tears of the Fallen and half of Twin Serpent Lakes. She wasn’t feeling well so I made her go rest for a bit. While she was away I finished exploring and found the Mission Outposts: Riverside Province & Sanctum Cay. When I explored Stingray Strand, I found an armorer npc that had better stuff available for Melar, so I called her up and made her come back in and get it! *laugh* It looks nice though, she chose a mix of the druid armor and the studded. After she was all suited up and happy, we completed the Divinity Coast mission and attempted the Riverside Province Mission twice (cleared 4/9 towers the first time and 8/9 the second) so we called it a night.

April 7 (Monday)
Happy Birthday Sosena! I slept from about 1:30am to 5:30am.. Played Guild Wars for awhile, explored Majesty’s Rest, my last unexplored area in the Kryta region but I couldn’t kill Rotscale, one of the most powerful mobs in the game. He’s got an entourage of about 12 including 2 clerics. Since the max level for players is 20, I will have to figure out a strategy to kill it. Seems to have a nice bow that my friends could use.

I was able to get back to sleep around 6:30am and woke back up at 11am. Washed the dishes, and cut up my Red, Yellow and Orange peppers for my salads and snacks. Chris was over but Andrea couldn’t make it because her husband was getting some tests done.

I spent most of the day discussing my up-coming trip to Sausalito with my friend who lives there, made plans with Sos for dinner on Tuesday for her birthday and discussed some sleep-over plans for when Ken is away.

When Melar finally got home, she and I helped Miuu through the first two missions post-searing: The Great Northern Wall and Fort Ranik. Then Miuu went to lay down and Melar went to watch a movie with her daughter. I made some cream of tomato soup for dinner and played on my new ranger for awhile. When Melar came back we retried and completed the Riverside Province mission and we only have 1 more mission left in the Kryta region, Sanctum Cay.

While I was playing, I was on the phone with Reina for about half an hour.. that girl can talk! Then later that night I learned about Adventures by Disney trips and that my friend in Cali is going to Peru in October! I want to go!!!

April 8 (Tuesday)
Another really bad sleepless night, sneezing and runny nose & eyes. I played my new Guild Wars ranger some more. A stargate shaped mirror that Ken ordered arrived.. it’s way smaller than I thought it would be. Andrea came and we talked about her birthday with her family and she was very happy with the spring cleaning we did.

Ken and I left around 6:30pm to get a car wash and gas, then picked up Sosena in Brampton for her birthday dinner at Iron Chef with Clint, Erika.. Lots of laughing, making fun of Clint’s chinese cough syrup, Ken and Clint catching up on the goings on at Datawire. I had beef terriyaki, Ken had steak.. Clint had bolgogi and Erika had a veggie tempura dinner w/ veggie roll on side, Sos had several rolls of sushi, Geisha Roll, something else and a Spicy tuna sushi pizza or something.. She loved the bracelet set I made her and finally managed to remember to bring to her and she loved the birthday bracelet I made her too. After dinner Sos and Ken went to Tim Hortons and got coffee, donuts and ice capp.. Then we took Sos to work for 10:30.

On the way home, Ken and I stopped at the grocery store, finally got home around 11:30pm. I tried to sleep at 4am but got back up, finally got to sleep at 6:43am.

April 9 (Wednesday)
I woke up at 3:50pm, Chris had arrived around 11:30am for their work upgrade. I talked Melar into being added as an author to this blog. She asked me what she’d write about so I suggested she write about things like: being a mom, living in georgia, working at a daycare, playing guild wars, tv & movies you watch, stuff on the news, food & restaurants you like or make, or she could write short stories like she used to.

Chris didn’t end up leaving till around 9pm and he missed his kung fu class and Ken missed his Japanese immersion language school meeting. After Chris left, we watched some shows, then Ken went to sleep and I browsed the Fire Mountain Gems website and filled the online shopping cart. I asked my friend in Cali if I could send it to her because I’ll be visiting her in 2 weeks. She said that would be fine but I know I’ll have a fight to wrestle the shiney’s away from her Again I had a hard time sleeping.

April 10 (Thursday)
I had a really bad night, I couldn’t sleep, I felt like I was breathing through water. So I installed a free trial of Bento and started filling it out, to see if it will help me with my jewelry project lists or not. I finally got to sleep at 12:30pm but had to cancel dinner plans with Andrea. I slept forever.. Ken thinks it was all the medicine I took, plus the lack of sleep all week since the Saturday spring cleaning and a lack of drinking much on Wednesday.

April 11 (Friday)
We had some rain yesterday and today, so that may be why I was able to sleep again, but I slept till 5pm. I did the horrible amounts of laundry that I’d been putting off all week due to feeling like shit. But it was good to get done. When I came up from switching the wash to the dryer I was sniffly, Ken was on a call and I heard him say “no she’s not always sick, she has allergies”.. Yeah.. everytime he’s on a call is when I sneeze and cough and get sniffly.. they must think of me as Tissue Girl..

I didn’t play much Guild Wars, helped Melar with some quests with her new Necro and then took a nap from midnight to 2am. Ken and I watched some tv shows till around 5am then he went to bed. I chatted with his cousin in IM a bit and we made plans for our sleep-over. She reminded me that I wanted to go to the farmer’s market which is only open on Saturdays so I quickly told Ken that I’d be waking him up around 10:30am to go. He said ok, he loves it there.

Considering how much I slept between Thursday and yesterday, I shouldn’t have much trouble staying up, but I’m still really tired for some reason. No choice though, we also have to go shopping for some clothes for Ken before he leaves for Chicago on Sunday. Maybe staying up will reset my “clock” too. We’ll see.. Gonna play some Guild Wars then take a shower and have breakfast.

This was a very comprehensive quiz.. I’m not surprised by the results but other than trying to add some more exercise and vitamins there’s not much that I would change on the “older” side right now.

My Calendar age is 28.8
My RealAge came out to be 31

Factors that make me younger:
Good sleep levels
Good oral hygiene
Limited or no secondhand smoke exposure
Parents relationship
Medication use
Happy marriage
Vitamin C intake
No ovarian cancer in family
Calcium intake
Healthy resting heart rate
Safety belt or airbag usage
No drinking and driving
Social network and stress
Daily vitamin
Breast cancer history
Cell phone use

Factors that make me older:
Low unsaturated fat
Flossing habits
Low vegetable intake
Folic acid intake
Lack of flexibility exercises
Workout schedule
Potassium levels
Low grain intake
Low omega-3 intake
Low fruit servings
High BMI
Driving speeds
Vehicle size
High red meat intake
Lack of daily breakfast
Blood pressure control
Lack of diversity in diet
Vitamin E intake
Have cholesterol level measured
Strength training level

March 15 (Saturday)
Ken took me to the airport at 7am for my 9am flight to my parents place. All I’ll say it that it was a really long day, followed by some drama and errands. Ended up ok though with some nice real info for once.

March 16 (Sunday) to March 21 (Friday)
We took Mom and Gary to the airport pretty early for their trip to Reno and spent the rest of the week running errands and letting Dad rest from his eye surgery. He really played out the eye-patch pirate thing though :p I had to play him some Pirate themed Metal that my friend, Nick, sent me. He loved it.

I love my puppies but being woken up at 8am every morning after only going to sleep around 2 or 3am is really tiring. Dad and I worked out a schedule for his eye-drops, 2am, 8am, 2pm, 8pm. The puppies get fed at 8am as well and Vashti got her morning medicines, then we tried to get Vashti to finish her food at 8pm and gave her the night medicines. She seems to be doing ok with her cancer. She got really loopy some nights though, I think it was her medicine. We also tried several things to get her to eat her pills easier. She’s very picky. She used to gobble them down with just bread, but the first night I tried it with bread and she didn’t want it. So I put some butter on it, it took forever to get her to eat it. Then we tried mixing alpo canned dog food into her food to get her to eat that, so I dipped the bread in the gravy and she loved it. But it was messy and the bread fell apart sometimes. Then we tried some beef ravioli thinking that at least the pills would stay tucked in. But she really didn’t want it. She chewed it and spit it out when I dipped it in the alpo gravy, and broke open one of the pills which spilled all over the floor. Mookie and Wolfie are vultures and tried to eat whatever she dropped so I had to kick them away and yell for my dad to let them out while I cleaned it up. I did not need those two getting loopy, they’re a handful enough! Finally we got Vashti to reliably eat her pills by stuffing them into bits of hot dogs.

March 22 (Saturday)
Dad spent all day trying to rearrange flights for Mom and Gary because she’d gotten food poisoning and Gary had to take her to the hospital. I just played with the puppies and cleaned the kitchen, wiping down the cabinets, walls and appliances. They get really muddy at doggie height.

March 23 (Sunday)
Happy Easter! Mom and Gary were supposed to be home just after midnight that morning but Mom got food poisoning and was throwing up too much to travel. Dad had rebooked their flight for midnight that night but she still wasn’t feeling well enough so they had to change it again. Dad and I however went to King Street Blues restaurant and both had their new brisket sandwich. I don’t usually go for that kind of thing but it was pretty good, but I had to pick through the brisket pieces and take out the fatty sections. I hate that.

March 24 (Monday)
Mom and Gary finally made it back to D.C. Their flight came in just after midnight but it took FOREVER for them to get to the baggage area and another FOREVER for their bags to come through.

March 25 (Tuesday)
I had to be at the airport by 11:30am.. had no trouble through security. Grabbed a BLT bagel because my tummy was growling and read my book. The silly flight attendant made me put my purse up in the bin, which I’ve never ever had to do before and really pissed me off. It was an hour flight and I didn’t want to bother the woman sitting in the aisle seat to get up and get my book and headphones for the 30 minutes that the seat-belt sign is turned off. So I just slept. Had a long walk through the terminal to customs and baggage but no problems there either. Got a cart for my bags, **note** I really hate this brown suitcase I always end up using because it’s got a hard shell and is wide enough for all my jewelry making tools that I like to bring on longer trips to my parents place. It has no wheels and it cumbersome to carry through customs. I don’t have to carry it on the way home though, as the baggage drop off at Dulles is right next to the ticketing counter, but I do have to shuffle it through the sometimes long line in Toronto when I’m leaving. I really need a new hard shell suitcase.

I called Ken once I got outside and told him which pillar I was standing by. It was snowing pretty hard and I had only brought my light windbreaker. I was freezing cold and Ken accidentally missed me and had to drive all the way around again. We stopped at Lonestar on Dixon to warm up and have lunch but the snow didn’t stop. Ken told me that it had pretty much started as my plane left D.C. and it hadn’t snowed at all while I’d been gone. Lovely! It was kinda pretty though, the gigantic snowflakes looked like the cheap soapy bubbles they sometimes use in stage plays.

March 26 (Wednesday) to March 27 (Thursday)
Spent these two days catching up on my shows on the pvr.. it was at 88% and afterwards was at like 25% :p

March 28 (Friday) to March 30 (Sunday)
Mailed off Melar’s daughter, Alana’s birthday bracelets. I made her 2 so she could share one with her best friend if she wanted, as girls often do. Then I went to pick up Ken’s cousin, Michelle, from Kitchener which is about an hours drive away with no traffic. We hit a little traffic on the way home and arrived around 5pm. Ken was still working so she and I took a walk down Yonge Street to the Sassy Bead store I go to sometimes. I’ve mentioned before but it bears repeating, I hate shelves and shelves of beads in tiny tiny jars.. We spent a good long while there and we both picked up a few things. I got some curved silver tubes, a silver leaf pendant and a circle pendant. She got some matte grey beads. I also picked up a neat little tool that’s supposed to help you put on bracelets by yourself. It has a clip one one end that holds the clasp open and a ring at the top to grip with your fingers, then you use your other hand to hook the other side of the clasp on. I think it would be great for Ken’s grandma.

When Ken finally finished his work we went down to Papa’s Grill and both Michelle and I had to bring home doggie bags. I had a village salad and humous .. My favorite. She had a beef souvlaki dinner and Ken had lamb souvlaki dinner.

Saturday Ken took Michelle to the Farmer’s Market at St. Lawrence Market. They were there till around 2:30, and Karen stopped by at 7pm to chat. I hadn’t seen her since Ken was away in Sausalito. At 8pm Ken flipped off our breakers to turn off everything for Earth Hour. We lit a few beeswax and non-toxic candles. Michelle knitted while I read them questions from Trivial Pursuit: Canada Edition. It was 9:30pm by the time we realized Earth Hour was over. No harm in that, we had fun, but we use Bullfrog Power anyway.

We decided to stay in for dinner so we ordered Chinese from C’est Bon. They have a really good barbeque pork and crispy sesame beef dishes. While we ate we watched the Stargate movie The Ark of Truth (second time for Ken and I). Then played some Rock Band till sleep-time.

Sunday we all got up kinda late. Played some more Rock Band and I was pretty hungry by 4 and wanted Hero’s hot dogs. They don’t deliver till 6 and Michelle needed to get home to pick up Daisy so we ended up driving to Hero’s on the way to bring her home. I had hoped to stay home and get some chores done because I’ve decided it’s time to Spring Clean. Still, I don’t have a time limit or anything so it’s ok I guess. I just need to get motivated again. Ken and I hit the grocery store on the way home for fresh stuff for salads and bread, got home around 10pm.

Spent the rest of the night playing Guild Wars with Melar, cheering up Reina on the phone and Ken finished Assassin’s Creed.

March 31 (Monday)
Having stayed up playing Guild Wars with Melar till 2am and then continuing on by myself till around 4:30am, I’m surprised I woke up at 11′ish. Chris was over working with Ken and I did some straightening up. The boys went out to lunch at 2 and Andrea arrived at 2:30pm. I hadn’t seen her in 3 weeks, once because I was passed out sleeping, and the other 2 from my trip to Virginia. So she was very happy to update me on everything she’s been up to and I showed her all the bracelets I made for birthday presents. I waited until Ken got home and let him present hers. Hopefully, we want to treat her and her husband (whom we still haven’t met yet!) to dinner this weekend or next at Pier 4.

Chris stayed pretty late working with Ken. I was dying to play some more Guild Wars because I hadn’t been able to play while I was away. Stupid laptop wouldn’t partition for Boot Camp. So after he left, I jumped on with Melar and we blew through the Gates of Kryta mission and attempted the D’Alessio Seaboard mission but failed twice. Sadly our henchmen available there are only level 10 so we’ll either have to wait until my friend, Luvene, can join us, or we’ll have to grab some random players /shudder

Melar went off to watch a tv show at 10pm and I kicked around some more, picking up quests and exploring the North Kryta Province and Nebo Terrace. Then I got through episodes 7-10 of Law & Order: SVU season 1. I’d seen some of them but I like rewatching Law & Orders.

April 01 (Tuesday)
April Fools! I got a cute little card from my friend, Miuu. He knows my fear of spiders is immense but I have lots of <3 for Hoops and Yoyo the Hallmark card characters. The card started with Hoops telling me that I had to save Yoyo from the spiders that they were going to release from a big glass jar. My cursor controlled a big mallet with which to whack them. So I click the button to release the spiders and they start chasing Yoyo.. I dutifully try to whack them but the mallet is frozen in place. At first I thought I had a plug-in error or something... Hoops was chastising me and calling me heartless and such.. They they laughed and said they were just kidding and it was an April Fool's joke then they displayed the message from my friend. It was a good card!

I spent most of the day spa'ing myself. Well as much as I can in our tiny bathroom.. Bubble bath while reading a magazine, deep conditioning my hair... etc.. I really need a pedicure though. I've been trying to wait till I'm ready for a manicure at the same time though. My nails all broke off in the last few weeks and are just starting to come back. Didn't know I was so girly sometimes did you? :p

Ken's cousin, Joel, came over for a dinner date around 8:15pm. We haven't seen him in quite awhile. Ken and I debated all day on where to suggest for dinner. Duffs would have been a great choice but Tuesdays are 1/2 price wings night so the line-up is insane. We also thought Mongolian Grill, Hernando’s Hideaway or La Mexicana would be good choices and Joel chose Mongolian. The first bowl I made contained, beef, bean sprouts, scallop onions, white onions, pineapple, red pepper and their Korean sauce with extra garlic, sesame seeds and a dash of liquid sugar. Sooo good. I really liked how it turned out.

The second bowl contained, beef, bean sprouts, scallop onions, white onions, pineapple, and their mongolian sauce with extra garlic, sesame seeds and a dash of liquid sugar. The beef wasn’t as good, it was the last call so they hadn’t replaced it with fresh stuff. I’m not sure if that’s why the second bowl didn’t turn out as well or if my mixture was off, I’ve done that combination before, but it really was no where near as good as bowl 1.

After dinner Joel played a bit of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. He’s quite good at the shooting parts and I teased him about always trying to solve the games puzzles with his gun first. He left around 11pm to go get ready for work.

I jumped online to play some Guild Wars with Melar before she went to sleep around 12:30am. We did some quests in Nebo Terrace and explored the Cursed Lands. A little ways into The Black Curtain we came upon a rather nasty boss mob who was level 28 and had friends. We’re only both level 17 and our poor henchmen are level 12 if we get them from the Bergen Hot Springs and run from there. I managed to survive and get away but only barely. That’s when she decided to call it a night.

April 02 (Wednesday)
I can’t sleep, so I’m up at 3:30am writing this and playing Guild Wars. I have a bit of a sinus headache, my neck is sore and my ear is bleeding. I have a dentist appointment at 12:45 so I’ll probably just stay up.