I will see you next week.....

Just a quick post to inform you I will not be around for about two weeks. I'm heading to my grandparents to help out and then heading to the trailer. I promise I will be back soon, I just don't know how much time or internet connection for that matter I will have. I will be at the trailer, swimming, reading, playing bingo, hay riding, and relaxing. See you all soon!

I share my hair for the women battling cancer

"Don't you ever complain about having a bad hair day. There are many cancer patients that wish they had the beautiful hair you have." ~ My Great Aunt Maxine

   Growing up I was used to getting compliments from my friends and family (and the occasional stranger) on my long strawberry blonde hair. Through-out my childhood my hair did what hair does it grew, longer & longer. I did not like going to the hairdressers as a young child so my mom finally excepted to just wait until I was ready. She occasionally asked me when I was going to cut it and my answer was often " NEVER! I love my hair!". I would let my mom trim my hair but that did not happen often! Eventually my hair was long enough to sit on since I love long hair, I didn't care that I was sitting on it.

   That summer was insanely hot since we had no AC and I had super long hair. We went to a family BBQ where like always I got tons of family touching my hair and complimenting on how beautiful & long it was. My great aunt Maxine who I did not get to see often ( maybe once or twice  year) complimented my long hair & it's color while playing with it. " Your hair is so beautiful! I love your color" My answer was something along the lines of you have the same color silly! and its not pretty today its a rats nest & I look like a rag-a-muffin. She looked at me and smiled & said I pay for this hair color and "Don't you ever complain about having a bad hair day. There are many cancer patients that wish they had the beautiful hair you have." I didn't know what to say so just said thanks and ran off to play with my cousins. She had a point though, here I was with all this hair when there are people with little or no hair wishing they had some. Little did I know that my great aunt was actually of them!

   I started looking online for how to donate your hair to cancer patients for wigs. How much do I need to cut off? Where do I go? Where do I put the hair? I found Pantene Beautiful Lengths
and started reading and thinking. I found out that I needed to cut off a minimum of 8 inches, no dye, and no more than 5% grey. Alright, I have more than 8 inches extra I can spare 8 inches no problem, dye? heck no!! no dye here and oh dear I hope I don't have grey yet! My mom came into the office while I was reading donation stories and asked what I was doing. I couldn't think up a story so I told her I am looking at donating my hair to help cancer patients feel more like themselves. Shocked she asked are you sure? and then asked about the requirements, and where we get it done & where we take the hair. We found out we can go anywhere since they have a sheet for taking to your stylist. Where does the hair go? In a ziplock, in an envelope, and in the mail.

  Summer was almost over and the entire family went for haircuts before back to school. This is it, I'm donating my hair. I will admit I was teary and worried and freaked out when the stylist said lets do your hair really short. Nope, not happening! After talking my mom and the stylist agreed on 13 inches... I however was still very nervous but gave in because I just wanted out of the chair & to be done. I'm actually really happy to say I sent 13 inches off to Pantene beautiful lengths for them to make a FREE wig for a women fighting cancer ( It actually takes 6-8 ponytails to make a wig so I guess I made part of a wig). I didn't like my new style but it was nothing a month & some positive attitude couldn't fix. Since it was my first real time at the hair dressers I had no idea what to tell her and made the mistake of letting her do what she wanted as long as my hair was kept as long as possible. Those bangs and huge puffy hair are NOT my thing! As well as the fact she spent 40 minutes styling my hair which I would never do.

   That was a few years ago now & my hair has grown long again. I have made the decision to again donate my hair and send it to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. I'm excited & hopefully the new hairstylist & I will be able to communicate better and I don't end up full out hating my hair. The "goal" this time is donate hair 8+ inches but keep it longer than shoulder length and do not touch my bangs. And no matter what, its for a good cause and some lucky women out there will have a beautiful real hair wig.

For the record here is a before picture ( of my current hair)

  

Summer Sand Pail list UPDATE

My 2013 Summer Sand-Pail/bucket list update! It's been a few weeks since I posted my list so thought I would update on what is done or in progress. As well as some pictures down below!


My 2013 Sand-Pail list!:

1. Cut my hair & Donate it
2. Camp with friends
3. Lose weight ( I am now down 5 lbs and I'm still going to work on it so not really off my list but in progress)
4. Build a sandcastle
5. Have a picnic at a local park
6. Have a water balloon fight
7. Volunteer ( I recently returned to one of my volunteer groups & started volunteering again! So far it has been fun :) )
8. Blog ( Well as we can see I have blogged a few times so check! but I do plan to continue to blog throughout the summer! )
9. Watch the sunset
10. Find a geocache ( Not check-YET! but I did quickly stop at the area for one and thought I found it but, I had found the decoy!)
11. Have a scavenger hunt
12. Go Mini putting
13. Chalk & run ( 2 weeks ago one of my best friends and I went to a nearby park that has trcks to walk, run, bike, rollerblade etc on. While there we chalked inspirational messages to help keep people going. It was a lot of fun and they lasted for 4 or 5 days before the rain washed them away. I even saw some tweets and instagram pictures of them from other people, it honestly felt good.)
14. Go to amusement park
15. Go to water park
16. Do a 5k
17. Go out for ice cream with a friend
18. Eat S'mores
19. Sit in a hammock
20. Drink cold hot chocolate ( awesome alternative to HOT chocolate during the summer!)
21. Have a spa day
22. Movies!
23. Dance in the rain
24. Scrapbook
25. Go bowling
26. Rollerblade
27. Go to a fair/carnival
28. Bake
29. Make a movie
30. Watch fireworks  ( Canada day weekend I got to sit on the second level of our house and watch fireworks all across the city, so many beautiful displays!)
31. Plan a party
32. Organize closet ( in progress,,,, I started over a week ago :S)
33. Go out for dinner
34. Make smoothies
35. Throw a Frisbee
36. Organize/play a game of kickball
37. Have a sleepover
38. Take kids to an indoor playground
39. Organize/play a game of capture the flag
40. Go to a water fall
41. Photoshoot
42. Throw a football
43. Make a pizza
44. Roll down a hill
45. Read in the sunshine
46. Get Ice cream from an ice cream truck
47. Find a castle
48. Eat one new thing
49. Run through a sprinkler
50. Sleep till Noon ( once) ( yep that's done! I didn't even mean to it was one of those press the snooze button and sleep for 10 more minutes ( that was at 9 am) next time I woke up was 12:07...)
51. Have a Disney movie marathon
52. Go to a trailer park
53. Shop for back to school

Wordless Wednesday~ July 17 2013~ Berry fun Strawberry picking

R.I.P Talia Joy ~ Youtube make-up guru & Ellen's honorary Covergirl

          Talia Joy was a young 13 year old girl who gained popularity on her youtube channel taliajoy18 and even more popularity after appearing on the Ellen show where she became an honorary Covergirl. Talia was an aspiring make-up artist and did many make-up tutorial videos on her channel. She said that "Make-up is my wig". But..... why? Talia was battling a childhood cancer called neuroblastoma and due to treatments like many cancer patients had lost her hair. Talia chose not to wear a wig because she didn't want to "be fake". Make-up became her "wig" & she used make-up to help her express her personality.  Talia was diagnosed with stage four neuroblastoma on valentines day of 2007, over the years since she had beat neuroblastoma an relapsed a few times over the past few years. Even during her battle against cancer Talia seemed to have a very positive attitude & still remembered to have fun doing silly make-up challenges with friends and family, I remember on her appearance on the Ellen show, Ellen asked Talia how she stays so brave & Talia answered that a fish told her to just keep swimming ( anyone know the fish she's referring to?). Then in late 2012 Talia broke the news to fans that they had found out that she also pre-leukemia and her cancer had progressed. Talia was now faced with neuroblastoma & leukemia at the same time and given less than 12 months to live. The doctors suggested a bone marrow transplant as a possible remedy, Talia decided not to have the painful surgery and focus on enjoying whatever time she had left. She spent time with her friends and family, making videos on youtube, chatting with subscribers and launched a clothing line called "That bald chick". It always amazed me and will always amaze me how positive Talia stayed, and everything she worked to accomplish  both on her own and with the help of her fans. I was very sad to learn that after 6 years battling, Talia lost her battle with not one but two types of cancer (neuroblastoma & leukemia) at 11:22 am this morning. I admit I was also shocked, yes she had cancer, and yes doctors gave her 12 months to live, but I was really hoping she would beat it and not relapse. It is very sad that she's gone & I hope she is never forgotten by her fans. Especially those who are working on completing Talia's bucket list for her <3

R.I.P Talia <3

If I had a million dollars.....

 

   Tonight's the night the $50,000,000 ( as well as 2-1 Million prizes) are up for grabs in Lotto Max. I got to thinking what would I do if I was lucky enough to win even just one of the million dollar prizes? So I decided to grab a calculator, sit down, research prices, and think about it. It is really fun to dream & wish!

First of all I'm sure I would be so excited and have feelings that are unexplainable, I think I'd want to try ( key word try) and stay normal and not change my life completely. I'd want to remain the same person and continue my life without others judging me on the fact I won the lottery. Actually I would try not to tell anyone that I won, and try to space out my spending so it's not super obvious, and of course still use coupons and look for deals.

How would I spend it? That's a very good question!
First I think I would give my parents some money to pay off bills, Then I would set aside money to pay off my student loan so I can pay it soon after I graduate. Alright there's the top two for sure. Then I would go house hunting and buy a house (can't live with parents forever :( ), buy some 'necessities" for the house, a nice stainless steel double door fridge with water & ice machine and a freezer drawer, a nice black & stainless steel electric range, oh and I will need to do laundry, so how about a nice washer and dryer set. Hmmm....what next? I think I'd like to go out and buy some "Thank-you" gifts for some friends and family. I know my mom would really love a Dyson DC-42 animal vacuum, and I know that our current vacuum DOESN'T suck ( seriously it doesn't pick up anything!). HMMM What to get for dad, he always seems to be the hardest to buy for! of course I could buy him some golf balls and my normal go to stuff, but come on if I had a million dollars I have to choose something way better than that! OH! I'd buy him a laptop! His got stolen years ago and I have noticed recently he has been coming home for a few minutes to look something up then leave and drive back to wherever he was. I've heard some good things about HP laptops recently too! Then for my sister & close aunts and uncles id go and buy them something special maybe at least $100 each?  Alright who's next?  My two best friends! Now, what to get them...do I buy each of them a nice gift? Do I take them/send them away on a trip? Maybe send them on a cruise, I know K wants to go on a Backstreet Boys Cruise :).
Then I think it would be cool to put aside at least a thousand dollars and surprize people by buying some of their Christmas gifts or groceries for them.  Wow a million is actually a lot to spend when you take it easy and think things through! I think I would put some money aside for my dream of adopting a child and the rest I would save for living life fairly normal and for random acts of kindness. I guess I could use some of it to open my own daycare.

If I had a million dollars.......

Wordless Wednesday~ July 3rd 2013

Canada Day & Canadian Inventions you might not have known were CANADIAN!

Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian readers, friends, and family :)

 

This morning while watching the Canada day celebrations in Ottawa my family and I got on the topic of Canadian inventions. "What do you think is Canada's best invention?" Poutine? Pablum?  soon we turned to the internet to see what else was invented in Canada and/or by Canadians. Here are a few ones we found:

 

• McIntosh Red Apple ( By John McIntosh, 1811)
• Walkie-Talkie (Donald Hings, & Alfred Gross, 1942)
• Pager ( Alfred Gross,1949)
• Peanut Butter (Marcellus Edson, 1884)
• Cardiac Pacemaker (John Hopps)
• Alkaline battery ( Lewis urry, 1954)
• Telephone (Alexander Graham Bell,1876)
• Instant Mashed Potato's (Edward Asselbergs, 1962)
• Pablum ( Fredrick Tisdall, Theodore Drake, & Alan Brown, 1930) 
• Canada Dry Ginger Ale ( John McLaughlin, 1907)
• Brunton Compass (David Brunton,1894)
• Poutine
• Egg Carton (Joseph Coyle, 1911)
• Nanaimo Bar
• Electric Oven (Thomas Ahearn, 1882)
• Butter tarts
• Prosthetic hand (Helmut Lucas, 1971)
• 5-pin Bowling ( Thomas Ryan, 1909)
• Goalie Mask ( Jacques Plante, 1959)
• Trivial Pursuit (Chris Hanley, &Scott Abbott,1979)
• Insulin ( For diabetes treatment) (Fredrick Banting, Charles Best, James Collip, 1922)
• Plexiglas ( William Chalmers, 1931)
• Easy Off oven Cleaner ( Herbery McCool, 1932)
• Garbage Bag ( Henry Wasylyk , 1950
• Jolly jumper ( Olivia Poole, 1959)
• Basketball ( James Naismith,1891)
• Electric Light bulb ( Henry Woodward , 1874) (Later sold the patient to Thomas Edison)
• Electric Organ (Morse Robb, 1928)
• Gramophone ( Alexander Graham Bell, & Emile Berliner,1889)
• IMAX movie system ( Grahame Ferguson, Roman Kroitor, and Robert Kerr,1968)
• JAVA ( James Gosling, 1994)
• Zipper (Gideon Sundback ,1913)
• WonderBra (Moses Nadler, 1935)
• Electric Wheel Chair (George Klein)
• Robertson Screw (Peter Robertson,1908)

What is your favorite invention from the list above? It's hard to choose because so many of them play a large role in our everyday life! I'd say that my FAVORITE is:

 

NANINAMO BARS