Eight random things

1. Tomorrow morning very early we leave for a weekend at my dad's in Gravenhurst. Our weekend should be chalk full of tobogganing (I have finally learned to spell that without spell check. Queen of the spelling bee!), skating, eating and watching a real t.v.... with real cable! Sometimes I feel like a pioneer. Those are the kinds of sacrifices we make around here, she says, as she types away on her rocking iMac.

2. It's been almost a year since my hard drive died and I lost all my photos going back to Christmas 2006 (let this be further warning to you to back up on a reliable source. Reliable source does not equal an antiquated external hard drive, fyi.). As of next week, I'll have finally finished collecting all the photos I can from my Kodak Gallery albums and this blog. (I do realize that this should have taken me about 1 week and not 1 year but I make procrastination a sport.) I did send out a plea for help to my family members and friends begging for photos of the kids that they had. One person - Pam, friend extraordinaire - actually lived up to her promise. Ahem. Family, you suck. And I'm coming for you.

3. My poor skates, after 4 years of poor treatment by me, have been declared by a skate-sharpening expert as "irreparable." I'm going to try them out this weekend regardless and probably curse them up and down. At least it gives me something to blame my poor skating on.

4. I'm addicted to Farmville. I've got it bad people. Real bad.

5. Can someone please explain to me why Arnold Schwarzenegger is running the Olympic torch into Vancouver? Seriously, I've gone over it six ways by Sunday (I love throwing in old cliches just to keep you on your toes and also because I truly love them) and I'm still at a loss. Yet another reason why the Olympics lost my interest years and years ago. I still plan to watch the luge and all the other crazy sports I can lay my hands on this weekend. I'll just plug my nose for all the icky parts.

6. Ontario Today had a phone-in today about Valentines Day: love it or hate it? I realized that I'm totally in the middle. Which makes me completely apathetic. Which I once heard is worse that hating something because it is completely devoid of emotion. That pretty much sums up my feelings on Valentines Day. John and I don't celebrate it. We just don't see the point when we tell each other how we feel every day and do lots of special things throughout the year (okay, less now that there are kids, but still). However, it's hard to ignore it all when you have a kid in school who is inundated with all things valentinian for the week leading up to the big day. Emily actually thinks this is a major holiday. Like Christmas. She may end up hunting down cupid herself when she opens her crappy Kinderegg and homemade card from me. Or not. Could go either way.

7. I made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing today to get in the spirit for the girls. And my verdict is: red velvet looks cool but is kind of boring. Also, buttercream still rules as the best icing of all time unless it's for a carrot cake. Still, a worthy experiment.

8. I think we're going to New York City with the kids in April for a long weekend and let me just say: HOLY HELL AM I EXCITED. Yes, I'll be 7.5 months pregnant. But I'll be with two little kids so I figure we'll walk at the same pace and keep up the same level of whining so it should all work out.

Given that this is Lunar New Year, I figure 8 is a good number to end on. Happy weekend, whatever you are celebrating!