Lizard Breath

The only blog I read other than my own is my sister's. Everyone I know is more into facebook or myspace (but facebook more than anything, these days) than blogging, so I don't really pay much attention to blogs. Note: This is probably why I hardly ever post. If more people I know had blogs I might think about it more often... but anyway.

But Elizabeth's blog is a joy for me. I love reading it. I get to read stories from home, little ones that are funny but not super important, that I would get to hear if I was home, but while I'm here, they don't tend to come up in e-mails and things from home... ya know? I also get to see pictures of her beautiful little boy (my nephew Hunter, the coolest kid ever) and her growing family (by growing, I mean in her belly). I grew up calling her Lizard Breath and trying to get her to drink Happy Water on a regular basis, and yes, being more than naturally frightened every time she walked by me in the house. (See #6 of the post I linked; I literally laughed out loud remembering that when I read it.)

So anyway, just thought I'd mention that my big sis is really fabulous and I want to thank her for keeping a blog so I can always see her and her little family. Hunter is seriously a miracle and I can never get over what an amazing and beautiful little boy he is! Then again, 'little' is a term we won't be able to use for him much longer.. I can't believe he's already turning two next week, and I am so so super excited to see him be a superstar big brother!! I love you all so much!!



She didn't tag me on this, but I figured I'd do it anyway just so I have something interesting to post. This is: 7 random facts about me...



1) I just moved to Ville-Marie, Québec, about three days ago and so far I love it. It is in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of the province. The humidity is waay high compared to anywhere I've lived before, but it's been nice and warm, and this town of 3000 people is the biggest I've lived in over the past six months, so there is a lot more to do! I am looking forward to an awesome summer full of fun and français!



2) The day after we arrived here, we left in the a.m. for Rouyn-Noranda (a little on the difficult side to pronounce - I just call it Rwanda), which is another Katimavik town nearby (in our cluster), for workshops with the other two groups and to volunteer at a World Guitar Festival. The towns in our cluster are: Ville-Marie (us), Rouyn-Noranda (the group that was at Marion Bridge, on Cape Breton Island with us first trimester), and Val D'or (the group that was in Marathon, in Ontario with us second trimester).
Well, first of all, I was totally culture-shocked at the size of Rouyn. All the Katimavik towns in all of our placements have been small so far, and by that I mean 3500 people or less, but this was a real city. Somewhere around 39,000 people, which just seems huge to me right now. I think I heard Rouyn-Noranda has the same population as all the Témiscamingue region put together. The Katimavik group there lives in 2 attached apartments close to downtown, which sounds cramped but is really not so bad.
While we were there, Friday was spent doing workshops at the university and introduction to the 'Katimavik-Québec way of things', which is basically, since Katimavik was founded here, they are really into preserving the great image of Katimavik, so they crack down more on the rules. This is alright, because by now we are pretty used to the rules anyway. Anyway, then we (my group along with a few from Val D'or, as well as one guy from Rouyn) spent the rest of Friday just seeing the city. We shopped at the mall - I got some much-needed new summer-ish clothes - and then went around to some 'resto-bars', which are just basically everywhere here.
That night we slept in a daycare in Rouyn, and this morning we had bread for breakfast on the lawn, early. We got all ready to go and then we headed over to the Katimavik house, again, early. I cannot emphasize enough that we did all of this very early in the morning.... just to find that the organizers of the Guitar festival didn't need us to volunteer after all. It had started raining, so they would be holding the shows inside and didn't need 25 people to set up the stages. So, that kinda sucked that we were up and ready to go but had nothing to do. Then things got much better when we realized that we were in a real city that actually had things to do. We went for a hike near the lake, right downtown, and then headed over to the guitar festival.
We saw some really cool bands, and the festival is from all over so it was really diverse. There was a bluegrass band, a rock/folk sort of band, and some guys with guitars and an accordion. Hard to explain it all, but it was a really cool event and we had a good time listening to some awesome live French music. The weather cleared up really quickly, and we later went for ice cream (mmm banana split) downtown and walked around in the beautiful sun.
So that's about all, it was a long day and now I'm just in bed, back in Ville-Marie, about to go to sleep. Also, I feel like that story had way more than 7 facts, so now the rest of them will just be cheap-o ones because I really just need to sleep.

3) I've had some really annoying fever blisters all around my mouth for the past week or so, and now they are finally - albeit slowly - healing up, yaaayyy.

4) I got a bazillion pairs of new socks yesterday, and I am so excited because I was seriously running out of socks for a while there. These ones are all different weird colours and patterns, and one pair is even hot pink and says "I love Dance", and they were.... drum roll.... 99 cents a pair!! Beat that!!

5) It is driving me crazy to always look out the van window and see nothing but flat. Where did the mountains go!!!? I can't wait to see them again. Less than three months!!!

6) One of my new favourite bands is The Sounds. I just randomly found them on my iPod, and they're really good. I think the mysterious benefactor might have been my brother, but I'm not sure.

7) Bed time.