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I called and made the appointment yesterday. I’m getting dreadlocks done professionally on Monday at 9:30am. I’ve tried twice now to do dreads in my own hair and both attempts haven’t been quite what I wanted. I took the most recent attempt out a couple weeks ago (an incredibly painful experience by the way) and now I’m doing this the right way. I called a local hair-styling school and found a woman from Haiti who can do them for a cheap price and within 3 hours (a short amount of time considering I have fairly long hair). So, I’m excited.

Also, tomorrow is my 1 year anniversary with Tom. We had planned to go on a fun picnic, but the weather around here looks like it’s not going to co-operate. But I’m sure we’ll figure something out. We both agreed not to get gifts for each other or anything like that because a) we’re both broke at the moment, and b) materializing our anniversary just doesn’t seem right. I’m really happy he’s stuck with me. And he’s such a sweet guy, I mean, he drove down to Oakville to see me at school every weekend last year! Who does that?! Yeah, I’m happy.

And our house search in Toronto has begun. We were supposed to be going down yesterday to look at a place we really want, but there was a bit of an err in communication so we had to re-schedule. But I think we’re both pretty excited and giddy about the whole idea of finally living together (maybe I’m the giddy one). We pretty much live together now, we spend half our time at his parents house and half the time at my parents house… We just need a house of our own.

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Tom and I have been staying at my parent’s house for 4 or 5 days now babysitting the two dogs, Winston and Billy, while they are gone to South Carolina for a wedding. It’s been a surprisingly fun and eventful weekend. We bought some expensive wine, went to the lake… Basically we’re just relaxing and enjoying being out of the city.

Recently I’ve decided to make a cooking book for myself, with recipes I like and can actually make. Nothing too fancy, and nothing too hard, just some things that are healthy, moderately easy and, of course, yummy. I’ve never been a good or even decent cook. I usually burn things or somehow ruin even the simplest of meals. So, since my parents have a great kitchen (it was featured in a country home magazine a couple years ago, yeah it’s that nice!) I decided to put it to good use. I found some recipes from a vegetarian cooking book I bought and started at it. I’ve already got a few meals I’ve added to my little book and I’m looking for more. If anyone has any interesting recipes they really like, I’d love to hear about them! I’m vegetarian, but post it even if it has meat; I can probably substitute something else in.

Anyways, here’s one recipe that I fell in love with. It’s really damn simple and yummy so I thought I’d share:

Three Bean Salad (6-8 servings)

• 1 1/2 cups - green and/or yellow beans
• 1/4 cup - extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup - wine vinegar
• 1 - clove garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp - parsley
• 1/2 tsp - granulated salt and sugar
• 1/4 tsp - dried oregano and pepper
• 1 can (540 mL) - chickpeas
• 1 can (540 mL) - kidney beans
• 2 - green onions

i. In a saucepan of boiling salted water, blanch beans until they are tender-crisp, approx. 3-5 minutes. Drain and refresh in a bowl of ice-water to stop the cooking, approx. 5 minutes. Drain again, then pat dry.
ii. In a large bowl whisk together oil, vinegar, garlic, parsley, sugar, salt, oregano and pepper.
iii. Add chickpeas, kidney beans and green onions - toss to coat.
iv. Cover and refrigerate for up to 8 hours.

I got that from Canadian Living magazine (surprisingly enough). But don’t worry I won’t become one of those people who blog about everything they eat.

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EDIT: My friend Lauren was in our local newspaper today as the June 2008 poet of the month. She’s one of the most talented and inspiring people I know, you should check out the article at least to read some of her lyrics and poems.

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I made a little buddy at the lake the other day. He sat on me for the greater part of half an hour while Laura and I tanned on the dock. Laura thought he really liked me, but I think he just wanted some of my wine.

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Tom and I went to the lake yesterday for the afternoon. He and Jay went fishing and testing out their new tackle while I sat on the dock, enjoyed the sun and read a good book. It was really relaxing and wonderful to spend a day just chillin’ out in nature. Tom caught a nice speckled trout with his new rod and he cleaned her up and we cooked it on the fire for dinner. I haven’t eaten fish in years, but because Tom caught it and it wasn’t store bought or raised on a fish farm or anything, I had some. It was pretty good. Tom and I thanked the fish out of respect.

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I’m one of those people that tend to dream a lot about really random things and remember them fairly clearly. I really should start a dream journal or something, because they probably have some sort of meaning I don’t know about - I just enjoy them for what they are; fun stories to watch while I’m sleeping. But the other night I had a dream unlike any I’ve ever had. I was at my cottage at Copp Lake (my family’s co-owned private lake) and I was laying on the hammock. And in my arms starring at me with big blue eyes and a huge smile on her face was my daughter, apparently named Isabelle (my grandmother’s middle name). Now, I’m only 19 years old, I have never wanted to have kids and to be perfectly honest, never before this dream had I even thought of it as a possibility. Tom and I had both talked about it before and neither of us had any desire whatsoever to create a crying, pooping, whiny offspring. In restaurants we roll our eyes and cringe when a baby starts to cry - we are not baby people!

So needless to say this dream confused and frightened me a bit. Where did it come from? The kid was cute though, and never cried once. She just starred wide-eyed at me for the entire dream, smiling the whole time. I was terrified of her, I do not know how to take care of children, I was a really awful baby-sitter. But I felt a strange kinda love for the thing. So, even though I was fairly confident that Tom would roll his eyes and cringe at me, I told him about it. I was shocked when he said “well, whatever happens will happen. And if it’s going to happen with anyone it would be you.” That sentence nearly knocked me on the floor. The man who hated children, was now talking about our hypothetical baby girl and he didn’t even cringe or wince once!!

We both don’t want anything like that anytime soon, we’re super jumping the gun here, but it’s nice to know that we’re pretty much ready for anything the world can throw at us.

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I feel like I’ve had a busy week… Even though it’s been nearly regular. I had another opportunity to go to Stratford with my parents and Tom on Saturday. We saw Romeo and Juliet done at the Festival theatre and I have to say I was very, very impressed. Which usually isn’t easy to do, I’m always criticizing something or other when I see a play. But Stratford lived up to it’s reputation (and I shouldn’t have doubted it) and delivered world class theatre. I was shocked by the number of young actors in the company this year and very pleased to see some faces I knew from past years like Lucy Peacock (who did a fabulous job of playing the nurse; hilarious and tender), but when I saw the motorcycle on stage and the modern outfits, I have to admit I was very skeptical. I kept thinking “Great! Another crappy modern day version of classical Shakespeare”. But when they made the smooth (and well done I must say) transition to classical costumes and character I was thrilled. Even more so when they brought back the modern day in the final scene.All in all, basically, if you have the opportunity to see a play in Stratford, do it! Even the worst skeptics eat their words.

Unfortunately now I have to wait another month to see Hamlet! :P

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I got accepted into Humber college on Friday. Which means Tom and I begin looking for a house very soon! I’m pretty excited for a big change in my education as well as a taking a big step in my relationship with Tom. Even though we pretty much already live together, soon it will be official. :P

I started up a 30 hour Famine group for people in this town and I went on Facebook, did the whole creating an event and inviting people thing, and it’s a bit shocking the number of people that have turned it down. I even offered to host it at my place where we can go swimming, lots of room to play sports, and could have a nice big party afterwards. I asked a few of my friends why they turned it down and they all seemed to have the same reply: “It’s not my thing.” If that’s what makes people do things, I am amazed we ever do anything new!

I dunno, it just seems silly to me, I’ve done all the work in ordering the donation forms, posters, money receipts and all that fun stuff, I offered a place and fun things to entertain us, all they have to do is do exactly what the majority of the world’s population does every day anyways - not eat. I’m excited that simply by not eating for a few hours, I can help people across the world. Maybe I don’t understand the not wanting to do it, because it is “my thing”. But it wasn’t always. And it’s not like doing one good deed is going to make you into some green-loving, soy-eating, barefoot, camping, peace-loving, no-good, filthy hippy!

…But one can hope.

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Last night I saw something that will probably haunt me for the rest of my life. It wasn’t something I expected to chill me, I even sat down and excitedly waited for it to happen. Last night, as we do very often in my house, the family sat down after dinner to watch a documentary. We watched War Dance, a documentary about a school of children in Uganda and their journey to the National Music Competition in Kampala to represent their tribe; the Acholi tribe. This school, and this group of children competing, was from the war zone in Uganda. The film goes on to let the children tell their story about abduction and war and how some were forced to act as child soldiers in the Lord’s Resistance Army and even kill the innocent, how some of their parents were murdered before their eyes, the loss of brothers and sisters, the terrifying ordeal these children had to endure, and now how they live in a military protected camp of over 50,000 - refugees in their own land.

The children in the film absolutely blew me away. Not because they were brave - nobody would choose to be that painstakingly strong - but because they had tremendous hope. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone with that kind of hope and drive to carry on. A child shouldn’t have to hope that strongly so early in life.

I recommend you all go out and rent it. It will change your thinking about many things. It did for me. Yes, I said it will haunt me. But so it should! If this was happening in North America it would haunt all of us every day of our lives! But because it’s “over there”, in Africa nobody seems to notice. These are stories that need to be told and need to be heard.

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