hometown 6: abbotsford

What is hometown 6? see friday, may 26's post on where this idea came from.

Here are my six photos:


Streetsign: We live on Terry Fox Avenue.

Banner/flag: These banners are all along South Fraser Way promoting active living in Abbotsford.

Yard animals: Now, i think this category was supposed to mean animals in gardens and such but in abbotsford (which used to be more of a farming area) there's this big farm in the middle of town that this little old lady refuses to sell so houses have been built up all around it. But i love that it's still there. And these are some "yard animals".

Mailbox: Another sign of Abbotsford's farming-ness.

Flowerbox: When you start looking for flowerboxes (like under windows?) they're hard to find. Hence this flowerpot.

Gazebo: okay, so i've cheated with this picture because i wanted to get these photos posted while at my parents tonight and i hadn't found a gazebo yet. HOWEVER, this gazebo is at Trethewey House which is a historic house museum on Mill Lake in Abbotsford where we often walk.

pedicures at california prices

in california, there are a dozen salons per town that do cheap manicures and pedicures. my friend danielle (from california) used to get pedicures regularly before she came up to go to TWU for 4 years. she couldn't believe what we paid for pedicures up here. when i went down to visit her in 2004 for 3 weeks, i got to experience these inexpensive pedicures myself. WELL...i have found a little salon in abbotsford that gives pedicures for $18. i went and had one yesterday and it was great. it turns out that this lady is from california where she had a salon for 25 years! now, i have had pedicures at Spa Utopia and that great little spa in Pennisula Village and sure they might have nicer atmosphere and special pedicure chairs but Elegant Hair Salon still does all the filing, cuticle pushing, dead skin removing, foot massaging, lotion rubbing, and nail painting that you could ask for in a pedicure. and for only $18? it's not as tragic if a toenail gets chipped or something.

in triathlon news, i'm officially signed up and paid. it's on. triathalon training day one: 15 min. on a stationary bike. 30 min. walk/run.

hometown 6

disclaimer: read the post below to understand how and why i found this site

so speaking of my cousin rachel, (hi rachel), she once posted these 6 pictures that she entitled "hometown 6". i thought they were interesting despite not understanding why they were posted. HOWEVER, today i found the inspiration to rachel's hometown 6 photos. her friend is doing a year-long blogging project (yes, it's true) where each month on the 6th, she gives 6 categories to inspire photos of your hometown. it's quite an interesting project. for example, jamuary's 6 were 6 signs of your hometown or area's name. well...i think this is a great idea. hopefully it's okay with michelle that i post this here and do this myself because it sounds great. feel free to feel inspired by this and take and post 6 hometown photos of your own. here is the may hometown 6 categories:

It's May! It's springtime! And it's a long weekend! How about a springy-yardy-parky kind of challenge?

For this month's challenge, you are given the following list of items to photograph in your hometown or hometown area:
1. Mailbox
2. Street Sign
3. Flower Box
4. Gazebo
5. Banner or Flag
6. Yard Animal(s)
You may interpret these items however you deem fit, taking a photograph of each, or taking six photographs of one, or a combo, whatever you'd like to do is each.

bored on a friday

okay, so it's friday night and tim's gone out for a dinner with an old buddy and i'm home alone. and i know my dad would say that it's good to have some alone time but that doesn't make me stop thinking how great it would be to have an abbotsford friend. sigh. okay, okay...enough pity partying. what i do think is that sometimes it would be nice to hang out with someone for a couple hours and then go home. when we do all this driving to WR or those of you wonderful people who do the driving to Abby, obviously we want to get the most of the hang out time by spending many consecutive hours together. which is great. but what about on a tuesday night at 7pm? no one (myself included) wants to drive 45 min, right? i don't think anyone can take offense to me wanting an abbotsford friend.

however, i do not have an abbotsford friend tonight so i've been looking at blogs and have stumbled across this site called www.etsy.com . maybe some of you already know it. i found it from my cousin rachel's friend's site and it's the greatest place ever. it's kind of like an ebay but with all things homemade. here are just a couple of my great finds of the night. finds that make tim happy that i don't have a credit card.


i wish i had a button maker.

this is pretty.

screenprint postcards. i love these.

this is an 8x10 photo and i love this seller's site.

check it out -- see the link in my sidebar.

deep thoughts from sharelle

Since i have not posted in a couple days for lack of anything to say...i am choosing to quote sharelle here in one of her lastest deep thoughts. yes...this is really how she blogs. this should be in a quote book somewhere...(or maybe it is...?)

"Our past will always be a part of us. Now, this does not mean we should live in the past, but we should be aware that it informs how we act today. There is beauty in watching people grow, but there is also beauty is seeing where they came from. Perhaps the most fun is noticing the little kernels of themselves that will always betray exactly who they are." --sharelle d

beautiful. although note: i am quoting her even though she never gives credit for the photos she steals from my blog and puts on hers. yes...it's happened more than once. haha.

in other non-deep news, i have a sunburned nose. from today's track meet. i dressed for rain because it was pouring when i left abbotsford however, it cleared up here and there throughout the morning giving us a little sun. the track meet was just grade 5 - 7 so i went for the morning while our TA subbed my class and then i went back at lunch. it was so fun. it wasn't until returning and was giving my 3-4s an extra long gym class playing capture the flag and red rover outside that i remembered that i hadn't put on any SPF15 moisturizer that morning. hence the horribly red nose. shoot. but i have to say...i played an awesome game of capture the flag today.

my first triathlon

so i've had an inspirtaion to do a triathlon. crazy goal, i know. BUT...there's a race in Harrison Hot Springs on Aug. 6/06 called "My First Triathlon". it's a 400m swim in harrison lake, a 20k bike, and a 5k run. flat terrain. it costs $79. it would be fun to do this WITH someone. wink wink nudge nudge. i think i have joey haugo in. heehee. check it out at http://www.triathlons.net/firsttri/index.php and see the map at http://www.triathlons.net/firsttri/docs/myfirstmap1.doc then sign up at https://www.signmeup.com/site/reg/register.aspx?fid=F22VLK7 .

here are some pics of a previous "my first triathlon" race. my goal? to not look like this woman running towards her bike. who's with me?

baby names

no, no, not for me. i was reading my cousin rachel's blog and thinking about my friend liz and thinking about names. so... http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/lnv0105.html here's a cool site to type in a name and the site shows you a chart from 1880s to 2004 that graphs how popular and how many millions of people have that name. rebecca was number 13 in popularity (at it's peak) in the 1970s then down to number 22 in the 80s. interesting...

ok, i'm a little bored. tim is powerwashing outside and i already pulled some weeds. i'm waiting for ang to get here. i planning on forcing her to play tennis.

from two cars to none

how quickly things can change. yesterday at the end of the day, i couldn't find my keys anywhere. they were no where to be found. sally had driven so we left and stopped at the whatcom road exit where my car is parked to see if i could see keys left inside (or dropped outside?) but no keys to be seen. so sally dropped me off at my house carless. and no, there are no spare keys for the car. thankfully we just got the truck back from getting some repairs i figured we had that for this long weekend. so today i had a pro-d day beginning with a service project in abbotsford (yay for sleeping in) then the rest in chilliwack. tim carpooled so that i could take the truck. well i'm driving down sumas way towards the sumas border crossing and the truck dies. dead. thankfully i'm not on the highway because i don't have a cel. i coasted to the side of the road and walked into an office building right there and used the phone. however, tim is no where to be found. i called joy and jerry and joy came to pick me up. i wasn't sure what to do but i had joy drop me off at my pro-d thing and she said shaun would take care of the truck. well at 11:30am i realize that i have the keys to the truck so there's no way shaun's even looked at it. so i call shaun, he meets me at the park and ride by sumas exit and gets the keys. i went off to chilliwack since it's not like there was anything i could do here in abbotsford. shaun and christine are going away for the weekend so he called a tow truck for our truck and left us their van for the weekend so thankfully we are not trapped here. but at this moment in time, neither shaun nor i have gotten a hold of tim yet to tell him his birthday news. no vehicles. happy birthday tim!

we heart tennis

yes, it has been tennis week here at ACS. i think i already mentioned this but today was the last day of tennis lessons which was a little bit sad. we had such a big class for tennis lessons that we never really played a game or anything. it was still a great experience. i loved getting be apart of the gym class although i learned that most kids don't want to be my partner for games and such. it's okay -- my feelings aren't TOO hurt. i should be doing that for a living. i can play tennis well enough to teach school kids. i wonder if they'd hire me. haha. here are a couple of blurry pictures. (i can't find the "action" button on the school camera.)

hot hot heat

what a crazy couple of days here in average temperature BC. we just don't know what to do with 3o degree weather in the middle of May! i was thinking of Domi today though -- he must be thinking this is okay. haha. this morning i got into my car at 7:03am and the temperature outside was 18 degrees! at SEVEN A-M!

so days in a hot classroom just aren't the most condusive to learning. warm air blowing around makes kids ancy (sp?). it doesn't help that this is a weird week because we have a tennis instructor here to teach tennis to our classes and he teaches my class everyday at 9:30am. this is normally math time and i have become a firm believer in math in the morning instead of the afternoon. well, math has pretty much been in the afternoon or right before lunch everyday this week and it's extra crazy with the heat. i'm beginning to understand why teachers say "june's a write-off" (uhh...not that i agree but it is understandable) because it's just so hot in the class. but anyways, today was still a pretty good day. lots of laughs. laughing with my students is my most favourite thing about teaching. sweating with my students? not so much.

i'm thinking about teaching ESL at a 3-week summer camp in Chilliwack this summer. it looks like it's just 8:50am - 12pm and adds up to about 40hrs over the 3 weeks. $25 an hour plus reimbursement for lesson planning time. so a little over $1000. i'm feeling super torn. do i want to sepnd three of my precious vacation weeks planning lessons and teaching them? i know people who don't know any teachers think we have a slack job but being a teacher...i think we deserve the summer off. (plus we still have stuff we have to do over the summer - all unit plans for all subjects...augh) is $1000 worth it? what do you think? (i know what you would say mom -- haha)

rachel and dallas synchyshyn

ahh -- weddings. here are some pics of last night. yes, there was a little dancing. jamie and judy ripped it up. the rest of us tended to dance in a circle fashion wiggling around. tim threw me off with his moves and actually stayed on the dance floor even when i'd leave. as you can see in one of these pics, he's dancing and people around him are laughing. haha. it makes me wonder what we're going to be like when we're our parents ages though. hmm... rachel looked gorgeous and it was a beautiful wedding. happy married life to rach and dall.

suprise birthday parties here and there

it's great to know that i don't have to work tomorrow! yay for rachel's wedding being on my birthday. heehee. i'm taking a "personal day" tomorrow -- personal day being in quotations because it shouldn't be called that if you have to pay your own sub but hey. i'm happy to do it to attend rach's wedding. at 2pm today, my grade 5s threw me a suprise birthday party with a big Costco cake, chips, pop (no DC though haha) decorations etc. it was awesome. they set it up in the library when they were supposed to be at band class. very cute. then tonight at the end of my dance class (yes, we're still practicing for the big end of the year recital), my sister in law Chris leaves for a second and comes back with a pack of those two-bite cupcakes with candles in them and they sang happy birthday! two suprise birthday parties in one day. i've eaten way too much sugar already and am planning on eating much more this weekend with the chocolate fountain at the wedding and whatever beautiful cake my mom whips up! oh dear. happy birthday to me.

ahh yes, foundational skills assessments...

FSAs. do you remember them from grades 4 and 7? government tests in math, reading comprehension and writing. oh man. i sit these grade fours down in a room, read them the directions from the teacher manual and set the timer. oh the stress. i think it's good in the sense that they learn to take a test as that's what happens more and more as you go through your schooling but on the other hand, if teachers or parents make too big a deal out of it, it could be just way too stressful. I guess there was an ad in the agassiz (and probably other) paper last week to parents trying to get them to pull their kids out of the tests but no parent here did that. anyways, my kids are surviving. today while they did the test, i sat there and also did the test so that i could have answers to pre-mark them instead of just sending them off to the government not knowing how they did. there were some toughies in there for grade 4. it's an interesting process. anyways...that's a snapshot from my day.

playing a little frisbee.

yes, it was a beautiful day in the neighbourhood and tim and i walked down to the park at the end of our road and played a little frisbee. when was the last time you played a little frisbee? well apparently, tim plays frisbee golf on campus tues. and thurs. so he was practicing up. haha. i think i've improved since the last time we played. i can throw straighter. it makes me want to play a rousing game of ultimate frisbee even though i've never played it before in my life. maybe on the 13th at ang's party. hey, remember the wicked game of ultimate bocchi we played at ang's luau (sp?) last summer? into the forest? maybe we'll hook that up too. bring it on sharelle.

three days until rachel's wedding. AUGH! can't wait!

rachel's bachelorette

good times on a saturday night. rugby club. locking keys in the car. BCAA. leaving poor throwing up laura in the car while we go to Shine. (in retrospect, probably a bad choice -- sorry laura) dancing in new shoes -- never a good idea. new ingrown toenail. leaving at 12am. mcdonald's drive through for a sundae. home at 2am. it is strikingly apparent that i'm just too old for all of this. i think i was born too old. here are some pics.

a movie to see

today tim had plans to work on his truck with shaun replacing the timing belt. knowing that this would most definitely take all day, i went out and rented a movie. shopgirl. i'd read about this novella that steve martin had written and i wanted to read it then i heard it was going to be made into a movie. well, it's out. with no warning. i never even heard when it was in theatres. it was amazing. it's a quiet movie with well developed characters. beautiful cinematography. dramatic use of light. i really liked it. claire danes, steve martin, jason something from rushmore. great. provokes thought.

stress headaches and garden slugs

what a week. i had one of the worst headaches of my life yesterday when the school day ended. i was feeling fine and then all of a sudden it hit. i thought i was going to be sick to my stomach it was so bad. sally drove that day so i was able to close my eyes the way home but driving my car from whatcom exit to my house? i thought i wasn't going to make it. but it did. i fell into bed, put on my mask, and lay there in pain for a couple hours. tim rubbed my neck when he got home and it hurt to the lightest touch. i think i was just so stressed out from the day (especially stressed by one child...) the tension built all day and my neck was TIGHT. ow.

and remember the garden? if you haven't seen the pics, go back a few posts. well the dahlias that were supposed to be replanted but hadn't yet...they're pretty much dead. slugs. slugs like dahilas. shoot.

thankgoodness it's Friday. although that won't stop the slugs.

that darn census craze

so i'm hearing these census 2006 commercials on the radio and getting the flyers in my mailbox and i have to admit...i'm looking forward to recieving the census stuff to fill out. i've never filled out any census thing before and i like filling things in. you know me and surveys right? well i got the census stuff today and got the access code to do it online. i logged on and all it is is your names and birthdates practically! it turns out...i didn't know what a census was for. i thought it would be much more interesting. and what made me laugh at the end though was this question:

"Mark YES if you are willing to make your personal information public 92 years after the 2006 Census."

Ninety two? am i missing something? is there a reason it's 92 years as opposed to 100 years or 90 years? let me know if you know the answer to this. in case you're wondering, i answered yes. why not?

dance competition results...

yes, you missed it. my dance competition was tonight at abbey arts centre. it was so great to have my whole family there to see it. thanks for coming guys. i have never worn so much make-up in my entire life total. pictures to come. as for dance details?

imagine it's you: music was cued wrong to start so you walk on and then had to walk off again. that throws you a little off. then the dance begins and all of a sudden it hits you that you're dancing in front of an audience and your throat goes totally dry. like you're in a desert. but the dancing is going okay. THEN halfway through the dance you run off stage to grab your chairs (because there's a part where you use chairs) -- (i know you can't believe you missed this event) and you run out and your chair's not there!!! panic! what to do? what to do? then another girl grabs it from behind another curtain for you and you barely miss a beat...except the chair was turned the wrong way so when you go to open it, you can't get it open. but it gets worked out. now you're totally and completely thrown. you have a very serious look on your face as you concentrate but keep remembering you're supposed to be smiling. pop in the occasional big smile. serious look. smile. serious look. smile. it's coming to an end...big finish...strike pose one: oops, wrong arm. strike pose two: great. and done. run off stage and keep yourself from bursting into tears because you could have done it better but who cares because you're adults.

did you feel it? those were all my feelings as i danced. it was quite the traumatic event for me. mostly because of the make-up. haha. the missing chair totally sucked but matt says i recovered quickly. ;) the good thing? out of six adult groups? we came in first!!! craziness. i have a gold medal and first place ribbon to prove it.

i bet you can't wait for these pictures to surface hey? check this coming sunday night's post.