slowing down

after assessing the finances, i've decided it's time to slow down. driving. apparently, you can save a lot on gas if you don't drive over 110km/h. today i drove under 110km/h. it was like i was an old lady as people stared at me as they passed. i saw semi-trucks ahead of me but never caught up to them. it was very very difficult. but we'll see how this tank of gas lasts.

after assessing the finances, tim and i also decided that we cannot eat out for the month of may. that means tim hortons AND starbucks. painful.

so i'll be driving slow and i'll be angry because i'm not drinking my coffee on the way to work. look out world.

am i missing something?

saw an ad today on a bus stop. it had a picture of a skinny model and said, "the best way to loose weight!" and it's some diet patch.

loose weight? is it a pun? nothing looked loose. did they seriously make a major spelling mistake or am i missing something?

the answers are out

so i've been avoiding the blog all week after posting my quotes. thought maybe some more comments would come in...but since they didn't - i posted the answers to the quotes on that post in bold italics.

The War (1994) with Kevin Costner and Elijah Wood. (quote #2) if you never saw this movie OR you saw it in '94 when you were in grade 6, you should really see it again. it's powerful. poignant. well acted. touching. thought-provoking. it's so good.

i can't believe no one got quote #14 - the grandpa says it to the little girl when she's nervous about going to the pageant.

and Into the Wild - if you haven't seen it yet, you should.

and that's all for movies for now. your regularly scheduled blogging will recommence tomorrow.

so there may be a couple obscure ones but there are quotes still there that you should know - these are also your favourite movies.

i'm betting #2 no one will get except maybe my brother but doesn't it sound like a quote from a movie you'd like to see? i can't wait to tell you what it is so that you can go rent it because it's a fantastic movie.

quote it up...

as a favour to Sharelle...haha. i mean, Sharelle did this and now i am too. i'm really not a quote person - i often feel as though i watch a movie with someone and we leave the theatre together with them repeating lines from the movie that i don't even remember. or maybe that's just alyssa. but anyways, i did my best to pick my favs but i'm starting to wonder if other people have even SEEN some of these movies...we'll see...

Pick 15 of your favorite movies.

Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie (or quote them from memory).

Post them on your blog for everyone to guess.

Fill in the film title once it’s been guessed.These are the players’ rules:
No Googling or using IMDb search functions (don’t cheat!).
Leave your answer(s) in the comments.I pick the quotes; you guess without internet aid. I'll post the results as they come in.

1. The only true currency in this bankrupt world if what we share with someone else when we're uncool. Almost Famous

2. Well I don't want our kids growing up thinking there powerless because of me. Everything they do in this world has a consequence. Our children still believe in miracles. They still believe anything is possible. As long as they believe like that, they're gonna be something. They're gonna make a difference in the world...and that means I made a difference. The War

3. You know what that is? Death. You know what I just did? I defied it. Wild Hearts Can't be Broken

4. Do you know how popular I am? I am so popular. Everybody loves me so much at this school. Breakfast Club

5. "I love the sky. It's so limitless." "It is big. It's very big." "Big doesn't even sum it up, right? That word big...is so small." What's Eating Gilbert Grape

6. I'm impossible to forget, but I'm hard to remember. Elizabethtown

7. The question isn't "what are we going to do," the question is "what aren't we going to do?" Ferris Bueller's Day Off

8. Rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness... give me truth. Into the Wild

9. This is one of those key moments in life, when it's possible you can be really, genuinely cool - and I'm failing 100%. Nottinghill

10. I can't seem to stop singing wherever I am. And what's worse, I can't seem to stop saying things - anything and everything I think and feel. Sound of Music

11. I was a little kid, and I was crying for one reason or another. And [my mother] was cradling me, rocking me back and forth...and there was like snot running down my nose. And she offered me her sleeve and told me to blow my nose into it. And I can remember, even as a little kid, thinking to myself, this is love... this is love. Garden State

12. "You don't always have to be who they want you to be, you know?" "I happen to like being adored, thank you!" 10 Things I Hate about You

13. Walk on road, hm? Walk left side, safe. Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later...get squish just like grape. Karate Kid

14. A real loser is someone who's so afraid of not winning he doesn't even try. Little Miss Sunshine

15. The first rule of eye makeup is that you can never wear enough blue eye shadow. My Girl

i don't get it

i read blogs of people i don't know. some of the blogs i found through magazines that recommended them. some of the bloggers have written books and want strangers to read their blogs. other blogs belong to friends of friends. you know how it goes.

my question today however, is how does one's blog acquire "famous" status. sure, if you're an author, it makes sense. BUT the "diet blogs" that i read that were in some health mag are not well written. they're kind of mundane. and they get over 50 comments per post. we (my friends and friends of friends) are better bloggers than this! we're funny and interesting. why aren't we famous? how does a blog GET famous? do you advertise? do you comment on other peoples' blogs and suggest they read your blog? if anyone could let me know how i could go about doing this - i'd be up for fame and 50 comments a post.

potter...harry potter.

so i'm in. it's not that i haven't wanted to read the harry potter series. there was just so much hype about it over the last few years that i hadn't been super interested right away but knew that one day fo sho i would read them. i'm a teacher - how can i not?

so i started on spring break. i have to wait for the books to come into the library so it has taken some time between books but i'm about to finish off the third one and it's pretty good. keeps you wanting to read. i think maybe putting more space between the books would keep you wanting even more. i'm impressed by the intelligent writing and great vocabulary rowling has used in kids books (though some might put the word kids in quotation marks). sometimes kids' books can be dumbed down. the main girl character's name was killing me though because i couldn't figure out how to pronounce it having never heard the name before. hermione. sure, you're laughing at me if you've been reading the books/watching the movies from the beginning but seriously...hermione? it's not spelled how it's pronounced. i finally rented the first movie to hear it and i'm still not convinced that that's really how you say it. (those of you who have never seen the name before and are thinking, "how DO you pronounce it?" - it's her-mine-ee) it's hard to change it in your head after you've read three books thinking it incorrectly - her-me-in. haha.

anyways, all these facebook statuses have been related to ending school pretty soon so i thought i'd give a suggestion of some fast reading that will relieve you from your textbooks.

loving oat bars

if you also love the oat bar from starbucks and have perhanps been thinking it's healthy because it has the word oats in it...i'm bursting your bubble: it has 370 calories and 19g of fat!!! wha??? (that's a whopping NINE ww points!) have a piece of cheesecake! so on a quest for a healthier oatbar, i've tried a few recipes and bought a few different types of snack bars and after a long quest, i have found your substitute.

quaker oatmeal to go - oats and honey. sure, it's not THE oatbar but for 200 calories and 6g fat (only 4 pts) - it's worth trying. for those stats - it's as good as an oatbar for me. try it!

ahh...softball season...

i was a backcatcher. i had a great arm. i could catch anything. ...i was in grade six.

today i had high hopes for what my grade 6 skills could do for me as i walked onto the field with my new PPAC softball team. i was going to make those teammates happy i had joined.

my grade 6 skills let me down. apparently 14 years does that to skills. sure, i caught some hits, threw as hard as i could and tried to look like i knew what i was doing - but there were no joyful shouts from the regulars when they saw my skills.

maybe my hopes were too high. but hey - now i know where to stand if i'm the second baseman and now i know i'll have to stop running forwards for the flyballs that are actually way behind me and now i know i need to wear sunscreen on sunny days. i'm a quick learner.

matt says i'll get better. there's hope for the comeback of the grade 6 skills...maybe even more.

now they're on their own...

the salmon were released today!

i scooped the fry out of the tank (which took 15 minutes!) into a big bucket and we headed to a nearby slough that leads into the Fraser River. all the kids had their own little containers so that they could each release a few of the their own.

hopefully we didn't freak the salmon out so much that they swam into the river and died but because i forgot my little net at school, i had to scoop all the fish out with one of the containers that the kids had brought. there was some wicked turbulence in that bucket before they were released. oh dear.

so when the kids all released their fry, there were mostly shouts of "good bye!" and "there they go!" with one or two "mine's just lying here in the mud...". umm..."he's just scared."

and hopefully now the salmon dreams will stop - i've spent many an subconscious hour with these salmon and i'm looking forward to that being over!

thanks for all the comments and interest here on the blog! here are some pics - more here.

getting water from the river to add to our salmon bucket to help acclimatize them.

scooping...

(that's me with the giant bucket - i couldn't get the last dozen out so i released them myself!)

"there they go!"

the class newspaper

keep up to date on my class's reports online every friday. sure to be a good time.

cold turkey

so i WAS going to post a daniel larusso video here but i lamely can't figure out how to post youtube videos on my blog. so instead, a hundred points to the first person who can tell me who daniel larusso is (without googling, sharelle).

anyways, cold turkey. that is how i am going about cutting out snacks and sweets. i've been pretty lame (which apparently seems to be a personal theme lately) on counting my points and sticking to the plan. that's the nice way of saying that i've been eating very badly. we had some friends over the other night and they were talking about how for the last year, they've cut out sugar except for one treat a week. (and then i served them apple crisp and ice cream...oops) i got to thinking about this.

at first my thoughts were: i could totally cut out sugar (meaning refined sugar - not apples and such) but that's because sugar is not my downfall. my downfall is greasy, salty snacks. buttered popcorn, creamy dill chips, french fries! so i thought why bother with cutting out sugar?
then my thoughts evolved: i should cut out greasy, salty snacks.
nah.
then i ate a lot of crap on a little trip to seattle then came home the next day and ate more crap.
my thoughts developed into: i should cut out greasy, salty snacks AND sugar.
i'm so extreme.
anyways - done. it's begun. as of march 31, all the crap is gone for a month. (except for one treat a week) so far - it's been fantastic. it's so much easier for me to say no altogether instead of trying to limit a little bit. instead of saving 6 points for popcorn and butter, i can eat an apple, cheese, crackers, and an entire can of tomato soup made with milk. i'm much fuller.

so if you have me over for dinner this month (no, that's not a hint) and you serve me lemon merangue pie - please don't be offended when i decline. ;)

(as a side note to those of you counting points or trying to find healthy snacks - i've discovered All Bran bites. ONE point. one. and five grams of fibre. how can you go wrong? well...i guess you could go wrong if you buy them thinking they're going to be yummy. they're not bad but they're no blueberry muffin. definitely worth one point with the cup of coffee.)

oh dr. phil...

Have you seen that Dr. Phil Personality Test on facebook? i took it and couldn't decide if i mostly sat with my legs stretchd out or crossed. Here's the difference it made:

:egs stretched out:
Others see you as sensible, cautious, careful and practical. They see you as clever, gifted, or talented, but modest. Not a person who makes friends too quickly or easily, but someone who's extremely loyal to friends you do make and who expect the same loyalty in return. Those who really get to know you realize it takes a lot to shake your trust in your friends, but equally that it takes you a long time to get over it if that trust is ever broken.

Legs crossed:
Others see you as fresh, lively, charming, amusing, practical and always interesting; someone who's constantly in the center of attention, but sufficiently well-balanced not to let it go to their head. They also see you as kind, considerate, and understanding; someone who will always cheer them up and help them out.

really? crossing my legs makes me that much more center of attention and interesting? note to self.