I have not been blogging, which isn’t really a strange thing I suppose. I just can’t seem to find the motivation even when things are happening in my life. I think I want to have some kind of specific reason to blog. By that I mean maybe my creative abilities, but I never seem to do any doodling or writing anymore. I’d like to have a reason other then just making people read about my dull life. There’s my photography but I have a different site for a photoblog, then again I could always use this one for the ‘behind the scenes’ type stuff, like my desires to start making some money from my pictures. I’ve also always wanted a web comic, and even have an idea, but I just never seem to get around to doodling it, and every time I try I get bored or I hate the way it looks before I’ve done more then the two main characters. I need to get my tablet working with my laptop (not as easy as it sounds…I’m running Arch Linux and everything I’ve tried doesn’t work).

Speaking of things happening in my life (since I haven’t figured out anything else to blog about), I got to see Great Big Sea a week and a half ago. It was the greatest concert I’ve ever been to in my life!! I got some good pictures from the second row too. I kept meaning to blog about it and maybe post a couple pictures, but I never did. I haven’t uploaded any of the pictures yet either. I did get some printed though because I had a 100 free prints coupon for Blacks that expired three days later. The rest of the pictures are just random favorites from the last year or so.

I need to redo my photoblog too. I’ve only posted 6 pictures or something stupid since last august when I started it. I don’t like the layout, it’s dull and boring, but I haven’t had the time to do another layout. I’m far too picky about things I think and I just frustrate myself when I try to get into doing any website stuff lately. I also really need to put more galleries up on my photography site. I’ve been debating making a new layout for it too. It’s been up for a year and had the same layout for that whole year, but I do love it.

A big reason for not having time or motivation to do any of this stuff I’ve just boringly rambled about is that I’ve been sick for the last two weeks. I think I started thinking about all of it while I was dying on the couch last week. I called in sick for the first time in 3 and a half years because I finally just couldn’t stand anymore. I had a horrible chest cough and have never used so much Kleenex at any other point in my life! I’m feeling much better now but still have a runny nose and occasional itchy throat.

Anyways, that’s enough boringness from me I think. Going to go play a bit more Professor Layton and the Curious Village…

I’ve had this dream!! Many many many times! Usually it’s that I’ve gone back to school but apparently have been skipping for months. I get to my locker and can’t remember my lock, then I try to find my class but I can’t remember what class I’m suppose to be in. It’s the weirdest feeling.

Another “stress” dream that I have is that I need to get to work and I can’t. For some reason or other I’m in a place or situation that puts me in the position of not getting to work on time. For some reason I can’t phone and say I’m going to be late or I don’t think of it anyways. It always seems like such a tragic thing, like it’s going to ruin my life if I don’t get to work lol.

My favorite (only because, as one of my coworkers said, it proves what’s most important in my life) and most frequent lately is that I’m somewhere interesting or important…and I don’t have my camera. One I remember I was at a hockey arena somewhere and there were some NHL players there and for some reason I had left my camera at my cousins house. I remember leaving the arena and running through this little town trying to get to her house and back (never finished that dream…). In one my boyfriend and I were leaving for our Europe trip (which we are actually plannign to take in September) and I think were either in the airport boarding or already on the plane, and I didn’t have my camera bag with me. It was the worst feeling ever! lol

I had a new one the other day. I was apparently visiting my Aunt in Ontario. My boyfriend had decided to leave earlier then we’d planned for some reason or other. My first panic was when I thought he’d forgotten to leave my plane ticket, then I found it. Then my next stress was that I didn’t know what time I had to be at the airport (this was apparently on the day I was to be leaving). Then it was trying to find all my stuff to get packed. And for some reason there were spiders everywhere…but I’m not sure what that had to do with anything.

Now what I’m calling ‘stress’ dreams are dreams I have when I fall back to sleep after turning my alarm off in the morning, mostly just on days that I have to work. It’s basically like my brain waking me up so I don’t sleep in too late lol. It’s very weird!

So for about three weeks now I’ve been saying I’m going to go looking for the old well in Bastion Square to take some pictures and just because I’ve lived here all my life and never seen it. Every weekend I’ve ended up with some reason why I haven’t gone. One weekend was Tourist in your own hometown weekend, and I was sick all the friday and stayed home so I’d enjoy the night at the hotel at least. One weekend I was running around buying a birthday present and do other errands. In the end I’ve never gotten down there for some reason or other. But this weekend I am.

Now the reason I want to go is because I like old places and things. It’s an old water well from when Fort Victoria was built. It’s also supposedly haunted, and I love ghost stories! There is supposedly a little native boys ghost that haunts the well. The story goes that a sailor was getting water from the well and dropped his kettle inside. Being too scared himself to go down and get it he called over a passing native boy and asked the boy to go down the well and get it. In the process the boy ended up falling down the well. I’m not sure if he died when he fell or was left to die, but so far as I know they never got him out. It is my favorite of the ghost stories of Victoria, which has many. I want to go see the well which is partially uncovered inside one of the buildings in Bastion Square. I’ll have to listen for the prisoner that haunts the alley the building is on… he was beaten to death by a guard in the prison that use to stand there.

I myself have never seen a ghost and don’t expect I will when I find the well, but all the same I find it fun! And I have a desire to take pictures of as much of old Victoria as I can before things start disappearing. I already regret never getting a picture of Memorial Arena which was torn down to build the awfully named Save On Food Memorial Center (affectionally known as the SOFA, the A standing for Arena). The field by my dad’s house, though not really an old part of Victoria since it’s not downtown and was just an empty field, is now being developed and I have no pictures of how I remember it as a child. So much is changing around this city that I feel the need to go out searching for the old things and documenting them through photos. And I figure it’s good practice too. I still don’t know much about my DSLR.

(One week until Great Big Sea! I’m so excited!!)

I’m finding that lately life just keeps handing me more stress. First there’s work. My boss talked to me about taking more responsibilities which I agreed to. I will be training to help out in the pharmacy which, though it will be a great new experience, kind of freaks me out a little bit. For one there’s the dealing with customers which I know for a fact is not a fun thing to do sometimes. I live in a neighbour hood that consists mostly of seniors. Most are quite nice, but there is a group that are just nasty people to deal with. Then there’s one of the pharmacists that I’m not overly comfortable around yet for reasons I’m not going to go into here. I do have the advantage that the pharmacy techs are great girls and are excited about working with me.

One thing about work that is bothering me a little bit is that the new responsibility is going to change my days off from Fri-Sat to Sun-Mon. It still gives me a weekend day off with my boyfriend which is good but it takes away the day I was going to try to sell cards at the market next summer. It’s one of those things that wasn’t for sure but I was kind of looking forward to even though it was far away. That and I’ll probably be working fridays until 7 which is when the Salmon King hockey games start, and saturdays I’ll be missing Coach’s Corner every week again. Sadly that bothers me just as much as the market. lol

The next stress is our Europe trip. I haven’t planned anything yet and it’s stressing me out. I’m horrible at saving money. I haven’t had any extra money to save yet and it’s worrying me a little bit. We want to go in mid-September which is a while away yet, but coming up fast. And I’ll have one of my debts paid off next month so that’ll be a little bit more money that I should beable to save. I haven’t even got my passport yet and I don’t know why. For some reason every weekend somehting else gets in the way. I’m making it a point to get my passport pictures done this weekend even if I look like crap. That’ll be one step that will ease my mind a little bit.

A smaller stress is that I’m going to be photographer for my friends wedding in April and I’ve never photographed people really… lol I need more practice with my Rebel XSi in general. I’m hoping that sometime before then I can go hang out for a day with her and her kids and take some pictures. I am excited too though. I’m hoping that I might enjoy it and get over the nervousness of taking pictures of people I don’t know (I’ve never met any of her family).

But it’s not all stress. I got my 2nd row Great Big Sea tickets in the mail yesterday. I’m incredibly excited! I’m getting my new point-and-shoot camera this weekend so I’ll have it for the concert which is on the 26th (yes, spending money, but I need it for my trip too so it’s allowed lol).

…that’s actually the only thing I can think of right now…

So today it has snowed and then been sunny and then snowed again and then been cloudy…off and on it’s been all day. I see the snow starting up yet again right now. None of it has stuck, which is normal for Victoria. If you asked any of the locals it shouldn’t even be snowing.

Every year we get Tourist in your own Hometown tickets and stay in one of the hotels that have deals in it. This year we decided on the Oswego. It was definitely the nicest room we’ve stayed in (in a Victoria hotel anyways). They even had a murphy bed which was kind of cool. It was already set up and everything so I didnt’ see it in the wall, but it was still neat. It was a good night except that at 4am I woke up to this horrible noise. It freaked me out at first even though I could tell it was from the wind. It was incredibly loud. Turned out it was whistling under the door because we had the window open. After closing the window it wasn’t quite so bad, but I didnt’ sleep well the whole night.

Earlier today we went to the Art Gallery. They had a religous exhibit that was very interesting. I enjoyed it more then the one we saw last year. That’s all we ended up doing this year.

And just because I like answering random questions: Saturday 6 …
1. You wake up and discover that it’s a rainy, dreary day out. Does this affect your attitude at all or do you tend to stay happy no matter what the weather is doing?
I love the rain! Seeing a rainy day wouldn’t do a thing to change whatever mood I wake up in.

2. What would you rather receive from a good friend: a specially-chosen gift or a quiet evening just spent together?
Quiet evening, definitely

3. Do you tend to be happiest in a crowd of close friends, with one or two close friends, or alone?
Depends on my mood. Quite often lately alone because I’ve been sick and exhausted. If with friends I prefer just a few, I’ve never been a crowd person.

4. If money were no object, would you remain in your current career?
Hell no, I’d be taking a photography course and starting my own home business…or opening a used bookstore

5. Take the quiz: What Kind of Happy Are You?

You Are Affectionate

Your life is full of love and friendship – and you always have more to give. You have an open heart. You are willing to take that leap and put your faith in people. You see the good in everyone and everything. You are a very sympathetic person. The people you love make you very happy. You feel warmly toward those around you.

6. What single part of your life are you happiest with at the moment?
Well, that’s hard to say because I’ve been sick for a week now. Probably just the little moments I get to spend quietly at home with my boyfriend and my cat.