Happy Mother's Day

Here's Mommy and Me...
Now:


And then:




Happy Mother's Day to my strong and beautiful mother, who has shown me by example how to overcome life's challenges with grace and good humour.

I'll Be MIA for a Few Days...

It arrived today!! Dead and Gone by Charlaine Harris! Look how excited I am! I need to remember to savour it, though, as I don't know when the next is coming. But I'm going home on Sunday, so I'll get to spend next week reading it on the porch - we'd better have good weather!

Seriously, guys, are you reading this series yet?

Me, Right Now

I was tagged by Ria to take a picture of me right now and post it. I cheated and did not do it right away when I found out I was tagged... BUT, this is me right now, at almost 4pm... still in bed.


I am gunna tag a crapload of people (go check out their blogs, too): Jay, Jessica, Larissa, Olga, Whattakes, Shan, Carmen, Courtney, Alanna, Shannon, Laura, Karen, and Ashley. Phew!! Let's see how many of you do it!

Easter Weekend Update... A Week Later

Hey, remember how last weekend was Easter weekend? Yeah, I had a fantastic weekend at home with the family. I had planned on sharing pictures with y'all, and even started uploading them last week... but then I fell asleep.

So, here they are, a sampling of my Easter weekend:

Here's Mom and Dad at Easter dinner. Doesn't Mommy look amazing!? Take THAT cancer!

The next day, we went to the Farm (remember? the "farm"?). It was the first time I'd actually been to it other than just viewing it from the road at Christmastime. We got to hike around and I got to play in the creeks/ponds - which I reveled in, of course, being approximately 5 years old on the inside.

This is me being a swamp creature!

This old tubing is left over from a maple sugar operation that was on the property a while back. The tubing was stuck under a bunch of mud in the creek, and Dad had just finished talking about how he tried and tried to get it out of the ground and couldn't. I walked into the creek and pulled it and got it right out... and then proceeded to heckle Dad about getting old. What an awesome daughter I am!

This is me and my littlest sis. Notice my classy classy outfit!

And here I am looking like a model in front of our biggest tree, appraising it for tree-house worthiness.

Overall, Easter weekend was one big awesome WIN, and the "farm" gets my seal of approval!

Update

This is Mom and me. I love this photo.

The surgery went without a hitch today, and Mom seems to be doing well. The doctor seemed very optimistic that she could be out by the weekend as long as things are moving well, he wants her up and walking around tomorrow. She was really doped up tonight, which was likely a good thing. Mom grew up with the woman who is the head of pain management for the hospital and went to nursing school with her, so she's being taken care of. I will likely be going up to visit tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday - mostly to give her and Dad a break from each other and to make sure Dad is taking care of himself.

Thanks to all of you for your support and positive thoughts and good wishes, it means so much to me!

Cancer-schmancer

Mom's surgery is on Monday.
This will be it. The end of the battle (hopefully).
The doctor will take away Oscar Ostomy (that's right, she named her Ostomy) and hook everything back up and once the muscles are working properly again, my mommy will be back to normal.
It's been a long year. Cancer... shit. I did not ever expect to have to deal with that. Other people got cancer, I knew that, but certainly not anyone in my family, especially my mom.
After the diagnosis, I didn't know what to do with myself... Mom is supposed to take care of ME, not the other way around.
Dad having a slight heart condition I could handle, that I was used to, that was under control. But Mom having cancer!? No way. Can't happen. Cancer is a dirty word. It's a being that comes in and destroys everything it touches and takes away the people it inhabits.
Little did I know...
We were lucky that it was caught relatively early.
We were lucky that Grandpa is a well respected doctor and has connections.
We were lucky that the chemo/radiation shrunk that tumour away to nothing.
We were lucky to have an amazing surgeon.
We were lucky to have tremendous support, from our family, from our town, from our church.
We were lucky.
Cancer isn't an all-devouring beast. It comes in many forms. For some people, cancer will take them away from their loved ones. But for others, there is hope. That is something I wish I knew at the beginning. There is hope.
And you know what? No matter what the outcome, cancer brings people together. Our family became closer than ever. People that Mom had grown apart from came out of the woodwork, bringing cards and flowers and meals and gifts, and most importantly, their presence, letting her know they cared.
As a family we cried, we laughed, we fought, we encouraged, we pitched in. Mom learned that it's okay to take a step back, to ask for help - things she would never do before. The middle sis and I became more present, in spite of not living at home, we made more of an effort to be there. For me, it taught me that if I can get through this crisis, I can get through most anything. The littlest sis, the only child living at home, grew up, a lot. She gracefully dealt with situations that I could have never dealt with at 16. She took care of the house, she accompanied on doctor's visits, she dealt with the outside world when Mom couldn't, she put her own needs aside and became a better person. Dad learned to leave work behind, that business could wait. Never, in my life growing up, had I seen Dad leave the store behind and trust others with his business. Dad also, I think, realized that life is short... not long after this ordeal, he decided to follow his dream of having his own forest and so bought the new property (his new love).
Yeah, cancer sucks ass, but I like to think that there is always a bright side to the crap that happens. Cancer may have ravaged Mom's body, but it also changed all of our lives in a positive way.

Here's the ladies of our family, only weeks before Mom was diagnosed, celebrating middle sis's birthday. From the left we have littlest sis, middle sis, Mom, and myself. If we only knew what was coming...


And here's my beautiful Mom this past Christmas. Here she has gone through a month straight of chemo and radiation, a surgery to remove the affected part of the bowel and insert an ostemy, and she was currently in the middle of 4 months of chemo (1 week a month). Just look at her! She looks incredible! She amazes me with how strong she is.

And so, on Monday, she goes in for more surgery. Minor surgery, just to hook everything back up.
It's minor, I tell myself, it's a happy surgery to fix everything back up. After this, it will be over. Right?
But I still get a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think about it. Not as big as the one I got before her first surgery... but it's still there.
Maybe it's because I don't deal with hospitals well. The waiting while she's being operated on, how sterile everything is, how scary the patients look, Mom... hooked up to tubes and monitors. I'm not looking forward to going through that again. I feel like I already know my way around that hospital way too well. I'm not a person who deal with medical things well... or bodily fluids for that matter. Heck, I shy away from dealing with emotions. That feeling in the bottom of my stomach and the back of my throat is there the entire time I am, and it stays even when I go home at night. I use humour to get through it. I'm the one in the hospital room cracking jokes and goofing off. Voted most likely to get kicked out of the hospital room and be scowled at by nurses.
But, we'll get through it. And you know what, Mom's going to be fine. They'll continue to check on Mom for the next few years to make sure the cancer doesn't come back, but she responded so well to the treatment this time that I am not terribly concerned about that. Mom's a tough cookie. And no matter what, thanks to this fight with cancer, I have hope. You never know what life's going to throw at you, but even with the bad, you can find good.

Oscar Night Faves

If you follow me on Twitter (it's @ewalker9), you know I spent my evening watching the Oscars. I missed the first bit because I was on Skype with my Mom, and I hear the opening was great, as were Tina Fey and Steve Martin. I loved the new format, where for the major awards, past winners announced the nominees. I found it so much more personal, and it definitely made me teary on a few occasions (Best Actress, anybody?). Having only seen a few of the movies in the awards this year (only Mamma Mia and Benjamin Button I do believe), I wasn't hardcore rooting for anyone. However, Kate Winslet winning Best Actress made me really happy because I really like her. And how adorable was her speech?? Getting her Dad to whistle made me so happy!! And acknowleding Meryl Streep's greatness in her speech was so good. Also, Heath Ledger's family accepting the award and celebrating him instead of mourning him was great!
Now, in pictoral form, here are the people and outfits that made me most happy tonight:

John Legend. I freaking love this guy. His voice is beautiful, I kind of wished his performance could have been by itself, he was really stunning with the Peter Gabriel song. And check out his suit! A little retro, a whole lot of hot.


Oh Brad. I'm not a fan of the facial hair, I must admit, but otherwise you are a good lookin' fella. I loved you in Benjamin Button (I meant to post about it, but forgot, maybe I'll do that soon). I think the fact that we can see you getting wrinkles only make you hotter - you've gone from pretty boy to distinguished man and I like it.


RPattz!! I was crazy happy to see you on the red carpet, and then you presented and I turned into a squealy fangirl. And when they did a close up on Mickey Rourke during Best Actor, I saw you over his shoulder, which made the Mickey close up more than bearable. Most importantly, you hair doesn't look like it could eat me or like it contains small forest animals, I like it.


Taraji P. Henson was amazing in Benjamin Button and is super cute in all of her interviews. She looked stunning in that beautiful dress. I would totally consider a dress like that for a wedding dress, I love that classic shape and the un-traditional material!


I have a giant girl crush on Natalie Portman. She is just so freaking cool. She was hilarious with Ben Stiller, and the dress is classically beautiful!


I know it's been on some worst dressed lists, and I know many people (myself included) are not Miley Cyrus' biggest fans, but I freaking love this dress! She looks so grown up in it, and it gives a beautiful silhouette. I just think the dress is gorgeous!


Kate Winslet... another of my girl crushes. I'm so glad she won! I wasn't certain about this dress at first, but the more I saw it, the more I liked it. It suits her perfectly! I usually don't like one-shoulder dresses because it makes your boobs look uneven, but this one works well. I like the a-symmetry and the combination of the gunmetal grey and lace. Way to go, Kate!


And finally, Anne Hathaway. I wasn't sure about this dress at first either, mostly due to the giant gap in the top of it, but it also grew on me. I love how sparkly it is and I love the colour, a daring one for someone so pale (like myself). She looks beautiful, and her expressions during the speeches were adorable, she was so excited and invested, made me happy!

So there we go, those aspects of the Oscars made me the most happy this evening. If you want my other thoughts as it happened, go follow me (@ewalker9) on Twitter. Happy Oscar Night, everyone!

The Letter N

Lindsay over at Adventures of a Book Thief made a list of 10 things she liked that start with the letter m, and gave me the letter n for mine.
Leave a comment if you want me to give you a random letter for a meme of your own!


1- Night - I am almost entirely nocturnal if given the option, I would much rather sleep all day and stay up all night.
2- Neverland - Not the Michael Jackson place. Peter Pan is one of my favourite books ever, and the newer live version of it is one of my favourite movies. I would love to live in Neverland with the pirates and mermaids and Indians, and never have to grow up.
3- Nosferatu - Basically synonymous with "vampire". I have had a healthy obsession with vampires for years now, much before the Twilight Saga came out, I read Companions in the Night and Dracula and dreamed of running with the vampires.
4- North - I live in the Great White North, and I really do like it here, though I am not technically all that nothern, as I was born about an hour away from Canada's Southernmost Point (Point Pelee and Pelee Island, in case you were wondering), so technically I have spent most of my life more south than most of Canada and some of the US.
5- Narwhal - What a freaking cool animal. It's got a freaking unicorn horn, do I need to say more?
6- Ned from Pushing Daisies - He's completely adorable! Ned could bring me back from the dead and solve mysteries with me any day.
7- North by Northwest - A Hitchcock classic with Cary Grant. Action packed and full of lines such as: "You're a big girl in all the right places", you can't go wrong.
8- Nano - As in, my iPod 3G Nano. I rarely go anywhere without it. It gets me through my hour commutes to and from work.
9- Nerds - The candies! I especially love the green and yellow ones, in sour and normal.
10- Number 36 - The Dave Matthews Band song. Here, Wikipedia tells us a bit about it's history:

Four days after his assassination, the rock group Dave Matthews Band (whose lead singer and guitarist, >Dave Matthews, is from South Africa) began playing a song, #36, to honour Hani. A live favorite for years, the music evolved into the basic foundation of the 2001 single, Everyday. The Introduction to the popular hit "Everyday" starts with the crowd singing "Honey, Honey, come and dance with me", and the crowd and band occasionally use the reprise as an outro to the song as well. (It was originally written as "Hani, Hani, come and dance with me," but Matthews believed the song to be too cheery with those lyrics, so he changed it.)

Here you can watch it:

My Secret Identity

You can go make your own over at The Hero Factory! Thanks to Gretchen for pointing this out!

All this breathing in, never breathing out...

Hey! Remember when I told y'all I was going to see Ben Folds?
Well, I did! Last night!!


That guy! Yeah! I think he's a hottie. I had a big plan that involved getting close enough to pet him... heavily. But it was packed up close to the stage and I figured that heavily petting Ben Folds might get me kicked out and/or arrested, so I decided I would be better off enjoying the show.

Here we are, waiting in anticipation... there were two openers, a band called Miniature Tigers and an acapella choir from York University that did amazing versions of Ben Folds' "Underground", a Sarah Slean song, and "Don't Stop Believing." Beforehand he played some "bad spa music" due to his interview on CBC radio earlier in the day and the controversy that has follwed it.
And after what seemed like FOREVER, Ben came! These are MY pictures, which explains why they are kind of crappy, and you can see the head of the stupidly tall guy who was RIGHT in my way, but still, it's Ben Folds.



He sang sooooo many songs that I love. I mean, it's hard not to love any Ben Folds song, but he sang a lot of the oldies - Landed (my fave Ben Folds song EVER), Army, Philosophy, Zak and Sara, Kate, Annie Waits, Fair, etc. He also did quite a few of the songs from his new album, which are awesome, like You Don't Know Me, Bitch Went Nuts, Dr. Yang, Kylie from Connecticut, Hiroshima, Effington... I could go on.
He's an incredible live performer! He does amazing things with that piano, he takes audience requests, he interacts with the audience, he got us involved in singing parts... I don't even know what else to say, it was just plain awesome.
If you're even a little bit of a Ben Folds fan, I'd recommend you go see him live ASAP

Kitteh Love

We had another cat photoshoot at my apartment tonight! Then I dressed the photos up using Poladroid. I am aware that I am just a few cat photoshoots and a few boyfriendless years away from crazy cat lady-dom. But will you just look at how cute he is!?

An Update in Photo Form

I finally bought a feather headband! I got this one from Urban Outfitters.


Thanks to Doniree, I got to make my very own Obamicon!


In other news, Thunder Kitty is still cute - even with creepy camera flash eyes. He's back on weight control kibble, but I think it's weight control because it doesn't taste good, he hardly eats it!

Baking With Erin

Tonight I decided to break out my new cookbook (got it for Christmas) and do some baking. I wanted chocolate, and had the right ingredients, so I decided to make brownies. Unfortunately, I did not think that maybe the dish I had was not actually a 9 inch pan, like the called for, but in fact much smaller. All of the mix fit, so I figured that I was good to go. This nearly turned into a giant brownie FAIL when I realized that the insides were still gooey but the outsides were done. I decided to take my chances in hope that the mix would solidify as it cooled...

It didn't, but I decided to try it out anyways...


And it turned out to be a GIANT BROWNIE WIN! Like brownie pudding or a molten lava cake! I may or may not have gone back for seconds...

So, ladies and gentlemen, the lesson for today is don't bother measuring your pans, because way too thick brownies turn into amazing brownie pudding cake!

Fancy Dressing

Over at Classy in Philadelphia, Jess asked all of us ladies in blog land to share our formal dresses. I thought that even though I haven't had that many, I'd still share my pretty dresses. Unfortunately, although most people have been to quite a few formals and proms, I've only been to one highschool prom and I was a bridesmaid in my friend's wedding. That's it. I'm okay with it though, I get kind of awkward when I get really fancy.

Here I am at highschool prom, grade 12. I'm with my BFF Jim and my pretty hairdo is battling the wind here. I was so excited about this dress, but in hindsight I should have either left the gloves or the wrap. Also exciting was the fact that I got to wear my Mom's pearls (after a stern lecture about what would happen to me if I broke them)... from her wedding I believe.


And here's me posing outside of the men's washroom at my church. Classy, I know. I got to be a bridesmaid in one of my elementary school BFF's wedding. She told us what colours she wanted, and we got to pick out any dress style we wanted as long as it was long. I got mine for about $50 which was amazing, but it was a few sized too big so I had to get Mom to take it in for me. Thank goodness she can sew! I was sooo thrilled about my hair - I felt so classy and elegant, even though it took about 1,000000 bobby pins to keep in there. The hairdresser's wife has the same kind of hair as I do, so he was able to make it look amazing - and he attended the wedding and reception, so he was always there to stick another bobby pin in when it started to loosen.


Finally, for your viewing pleasure, photo evidence of the fact that I have always been freaking adorable/stylish!

So, ladies of the blog world, I expect you to show us all your pretty dress photos, hopefully you have more than I do!