Summertime sucks for creativity, eh? I have had SUCH a hard time blogging lately for a few reasons. The aforementioned wedding invitations taking up redonkulous hours, the craziness that is work year-round, trying to keep up my workouts and enjoy the approximately three sunny days we've had this summer.

I just asked H2B what I should blog about and he said, "Cuddling." It seems as good a topic as any! I am a definite fan of the cuddin'. I'm not much of a huggy person publicly--you know how junior high school girls squeal and hug and jump up and down when they see each other after being seperated for, like, the amount of time it takes to pee and wash your hands? That wasn't me. But I do love a good cuddle on the couch. AWWW, as I type this H2B is reading over my shoulder and attempting to cuddle. We're so snuggly up in hurr!

Summertime's writer's block makes me extra grateful for Mama Kat's blog prompts. This week, I chose what are your 7 favourite summer items?

1. Hawaiian Tropic SPF 8.

I KNOW. SPF 8 isn't enough protection for a Whitey McWhiterson like me. Don't panic, I layer this with "real" sunblock. I looove the smell of this stuff particularly after you've been out in the sun for a bit and are just a teensy bit schweaty. It brings back awesome memories of the beach.

2. Fresh fruit and salads.


It's hot out. I don't want to cook supper, slaving over a hot stove all 1950s-housewife-like. Salads are yummy and easy, and there are lots of options to keep things interesting. Fresh fruit makes an awesome snack--I've had my fill of strawberries and am getting into cherries and raspberries now. We've been eating more watermelon too. So good!

3. Big sunglasses.


I have had my current pair for a couple years and love them. They are Ralph Laurens, big and black, and hopefully slowing down my crows' feet a little bit at least. I like how they make the rest of me look smaller by comparison because they're so big. You know how the bigger a woman's bag is, the slimmer she looks? Same goes for sunglasses.

4. Gossip magazines.

I love taking these to the beach and seeing STARS WITH CELLULITE! and ANGELINA AND BRAD SPLIT! and JESSICA DUMPED ON HER BIRTHDAY! Totally shallow and pointless and perfect for beach reading. Runner up: Chick-lit. Sophie Kinsella, Jennifer Weiner, Emily Giffin...all easy reads and great for relaxing!

5. Air conditioning.

My Mazda3 is the first vehicle I've owned with A/C and while Mother Nature hasn't been kind with giving us sunshine, she's suffocated us plenty with humidity. Sooo I've been appreciating the air conditioning on the drive home in the afternoon. Same goes for our apartment. Only the penthouses in our building have A/C. Woooo haaaaaa! I love it.

6. Sundresses!

Best thing to wear on a summer day, hands down. One piece of clothing and you're done. Bonus that I have zero boobs so it's literally, like, ONE PIECE OF CLOTHING. Not at work though, obviously. That would be inappropriate. I also have a bad weekend habit in the summer of forgoing "real" underwear and wearing bikinis instead, because you never know when you might have an emergency beach trip or get pushed into a pool or something.

7. Drinkypoos.

I drink way more in the summer than I do in the winter (and by "way more" I mean three drinks per week, not one. I'm such a baby. I used to drink three drinks at breakfast on a Thursday). This year I have been lovin' on white wine and Bud Light Lime, much to my coworkers' chagrin.

This is my first chance to blog this week because other than working, eating, sleeping, running, and being in the bathroom, I've been picking away at these babies:







We fiiiiinally got our guest list more or less complete, and have been busy printing the invitations, filling in address labels, tying those godforsaken bows and assembling the invites, which involves a certain degree of craftiness. The goal is to have our invitations ready to go by the weekend so we can start getting them to our out-of-town guests right away.

It's taking a ton of time and we'll be happy when we're done since it'll be a massive to-do off our list, but putting the invitations together has been fun. We bought the kits at Michael's and printed them at home so we were able to do 90 invitations for less than $100 bucks plus some printer toner, so like $140 total. We'll have to add stamps to the reply cards, which will probably be the biggest expense. I'm thinking of just putting an email address on the RSVP cards as well, and putting stamps only on the old peoples' envelopes who probably don't know what Teh Interwebz is. But that might be in poor taste. Any thoughts?

Anyway, it's been a project and a half but the finished results are looking good, and we have been working well together to get things done...not a bad sign!

We have 81 days to go and things are coming together decently. Getting the invites out will be a huuuuuuge sigh of relief. Next up: ordering wedding bands and booking our honeymoon. WOOP WOOP!

I always:
-sing along with the music playing in the car...loudly...and with hand gestures.
-pay my Visa bill immediately. In full. I have never carried a balance and the idea of it makes me crazy.
-go through my very lengthy getting ready for bed routine, even when I'm sick, very very tired, and/or drunk.
-wake up at the exact same time, even on weekends.
-coo when I see cute dogs.
-screen calls at home.

I sometimes:
-don't bother wearing my glasses when I'm driving. Sup accident waiting to happen!
-don't wash my hair or shower on Saturdays. I like being a dirtbag on occasion.
-abuse my wine by mixing it with things like Diet 7-Up to make lemony spritzers.
-talk with stupid accents when I'm in other towns where no one knows me.
-am convinced I have adult ADHD.
-think about how weird it would be to have a weiner.

I never:
-drink Guinness or any really dark beers. It's like drinking molasses.
-compost or separate my garbage. Bad, I know.
-return library books on time.
-remember to take my vitamins. BUT I don't forget my birth control. PRIORITIES!
-get pedicures...my feet hate being touched.
-let different foods touch each other on my plate, particularly when one food is a different texture than the others (i.e. mashed potatoes and carrots)

This week, there's not much to be giddy about. For the past three days at work, there have been massive screwups/bad scenes of epic proportions/general uncomfortable-ness (??) and weird vibes. Half my coworkers and clients are on vacation and the other half are stretched thin and stressed to the max, resulting in several un-fun scenarios.

This quote sums up this week perfectly: "A career in advertising: One big, long panic attack, and little else."--thanks, Hugh MacLeod! I can't think of a more accurate description for my life over the past month or so.

Buuuut, there are a few recent events and things marked on my calendar that I'm quite excited about...one could even say 'giddy' if one were so inclined.

-H2B and I have learned to play tennis. w00t for new outdoor activities we can do together!

-Big Brother gives me three hours of trashy awesomeness per week. This season's houseguests take smarmy to a whole new level. Between Russell's roid rage episodes, Jordan not knowing how to tell time ("How many quarters in an hour?" "Uhmmmm...25?") and Ronnie being a sneaky snake in the grass in geek's clothing, it's a total guilty pleasure.

-This weekend I get to visit a tiny new baby girl and possibly go camping, weather permitting. Alternative option: manicure. Either way, it'll be a treat.

-Next weekend is a four-day weekend for the agency and I will be hauling ass out of town at 5:01 on Thursday afternoon, heading for a beach with zero Blackberry reception, and baking in the sun for four straight days with breaks for swims, fried seafood, Bud Light Lime and Captain Dan's. I can't wait to get tore up from the floor up and pass out in the sand and wake up with a royal case of the spins, a seagull on my shoulder and a cheeseburger wrapper stuck in my hair OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!! FOR FOUR DAYS!!!

-Plus, H2B has never been to a zoo! WTF! Clearly we're going to have to take care of that.

The fact that my giddiness is summed up by mindless TV, getting extremely drunk and eating greasy clams should be some indication of how my summer's going. I think that deriving pleasure from hangovers is also clearly a cry for help. Whatever. I'm pumped and I'm going to shout it from the rooftops--I love grease, booze and scandal!

Thanks, Mama Kat for the prompt!

89: number of days to the wedding.
37: tasks completed on our wedding checklist (out of 103, according to Martha Stewart)
$3,272: dollars spent thus far.
$GAZILLION: dollars left to spend.
0: number of invitations printed.
0: number of first dance songs chosen.
2: number of wedding bands tried on tonight that I really liked.
162: number of guests on our list.
130: number who will likely show up.
300: beats per minute...my heart is racing just thinking about everything that's left to do.

Biggest issues right now:
-getting a cake booked
-getting the invitations printed, assembled, and mailed
-booking hair and makeup (since eeeeeeeveryone says you can't wait until the last minute)
-booking the honeymoon
-figuring out how to register for the things we actually need: i.e. honeymoon money and money for a dining room set and a bedroom set, without offending people who don't want to give money

Growing up, we didn't have a microwave because microwaves cause cancer*. We didn't have cable TV because in a place called Frosty Hollow you need rabbit ears with steel wool pads on the tips to get ANY reception (three channels, thankyouverymuch)--forget about the cable company bringing any service to that backwoods riff raff. And, for some reason unbeknownst to me, we didn't have a dishwasher.

I had my very first dishwasher experience when I moved into Clayton Park with my ex-roommate, who we'll call Melissa Kennedy. We thought we were pretty high rollers because our apartment was on two levels, had two bathrooms, and yes, a dishwasher in the kitchen. I was a lost babe in the woods. I had no clue what to buy or how to run the dishwasher. Melissa Kennedy had to teach me what to do and where to put the cleaning stuff and even how to load the bloody thing. From that very first wash cycle I was hooked. Never again will I have dishpan hands! I crowed. The modern technologies made me feel luxurious, pampered, spoiled. I vowed to never wash a dish again.

I moved out of Clayton Park and in with H2B after a falling out with Melissa Kennedy that involved her bulimic friend eating all the food out of my fridge and cupboards one night after the bars. (To be fair, it was the straw that broke the camel's back after months of issues, but seriously??? Keep a handle on your drunk, emotionally fragile, binging frenemy or at least replace the $200 worth of food INCLUDING AN ENTIRE BOX OF CREAMSICLES FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK. I still haven't gotten over that.) Aaaanyway, H2B's lovely apartment also had a dishwasher. And when we decided to take our living-in-sin to the next level and pick out a new den of iniquity together, we made sure it had a dishwasher, too.

I think I could live without other appliances. You can make substitutes for almost anything else. Think about it. No stove? Get a countertop griddle and a toaster oven. No microwave? You can do without. No coffeemaker? Buy a kettle and drink instant coffee. But there is no substitute for a dishwasher. The dishwasher can be neither imitated nor duplicated.

I'm spoiled now and I will never hand wash a dish again. It's saved me countless hours (probably weeks! months!), being able to fire the dishes into the dishwasher rather than slaving over a sink full of suds and feeling up grody food remnants and crusty pots and pans. NO THAAAANKS.

Thanks Mama Kat for the prompt! :)

*My parents FINALLY bought a microwave when I was 22 or so. They admit it has changed their lives. Popcorn consumption in their house has gone up ten thousand percent. And so far, no one has acquired cancer.

Today I was informed of the following link, which is one of the best blogs ever, particularly if you work in the advertising/marketing industry: THINGS MARKETING PEOPLE LOVE.

I had a laugh and a half reading through the posts and realizing how disgustingly accurate this list is.

The first thing I noticed about my peers at my first agency job was an onslaught of black clothing--specifically, black shirts--and funky-framed glasses, in particular on the creative team. The wearing of Chuck Taylors also prevailed. There are Starbucks ventis aplenty if you look around the desks in our office along with plastic ninja toys.

There's also lots of marketing-speak that would be lost on an outsider. This blog references "tapping into" things but listen in for a minute and you'll also hear, "viral app", "low-hanging fruit", "organic spread", "the core idea" and much more.

Advertising is such a weird profession. I find it ironic how much whoring goes on that we try to skew as wholesome and clever. Not literally whoring, at least for the most part, anyway, but whoring of ideas and products and brands. We're like pimps and our client's products are our little hos. Is this even making sense? It's been a 12+ hour day, after all.

Whoring or not, I like it. Luckily for me, I enjoy black t-shirts, overpriced sushi, Keynote, and awards. Let the stereotypes live on!

I spent the weekend in New Brunswick. It was a laid-back couple of days, including:

-first beach day of the year
-a TON of reading
-coffee with my parentals
-falling asleep in the yard
-running on the treadmill (watching Talladega Nights makes 45 minutes go by much faster)
-eating strawberries that were just picked, like, 10 minutes earlier
-hanging out with this hairy beast:



It's weird how every time I'm home for more than a day, my priorities and my personality swing completely the opposite of what they are in the city. New Brunswick Amy and Halifax Amy are so different.

New Brunswick Amy is happy to spend time at home with a book, sans electronic devices. She doesn't have to factor in traffic issues or parking time if she's going anywhere. She is never in a rush, wears shorts and tank-tops, and doesn't blow dry her hair. She carries cash. She has one coffee a day and drinks it sloooooowly in the morning and listens to country music in the car and waves at everybody whether she knows them or not, and they wave back.

Halifax Amy is attached to her BlackBerry and cannot ignore the red blips. She freaks out at traffic tie-ups and cries about the lack of parking downtown. She dresses up every day. She blow-dries her hair every morning. She is stressed out, frazzled and hateful. She never bothers with cash because every place accepts Visa and debit, no questions asked. She drinks tons of coffee and eats snacks all day and is cranky. She listens to gangster music that all sounds the same and swears and gestures at other drivers.

I think I need to find a way to incorporate more NB Amy into Halifax Amy. HaliAmy is kind of a bitch.

This morning, I wasn't feeling a 6AM run and opted for a swim at the Sportsplex instead. I put on my flippy-floppies (no plantar's warts on me!), packed up my towel and drove to the Sportsplex, arriving at the same time as throngs of gentleman's league hockey players, aka old men.

Bleary-eyed, I made my way to the front desk where there was a bored-looking university girl working. By "working" I mean watching YouTubes. "Is there a lane swim right now?" I asked.

She tore herself away from TEH INTARWEBS and checked a schedule, then peered at me. "Well, there's an ADULT lane swim this morning," she said. "Buuuuuuuuuuut, how old are you?"

I was flabbergasted:
a) I LOVE getting ID'ed. Love, love, love. Especially first thing in the morning sans makeup and grooming!
b) I could not remember my age.

I stood there for several awkward sections, eyes rolling back in my head, trying to remember how old I was. I HAD NO IDEA!! All I could think was "1981....1981...." I could remember my birth year but I couldn't do the math. She might as well have asked me the square root of 1,342,434,094 or how to build a spaceship. Zero clue.

FINALLY I stammered. "Uhh, 28. I had to think about it. Huh huh!" feeling like the world's biggest assclown.

"Oh wow, you look really young. No offense," said YouTube.

No offense? Seriously? It made my day. I'm not sure what the cutoff age for Adult Swim is. It's not like drinks are served or strippers are bouncing around the pool deck. Besides myself, the combined age of the other three people in the pool was probably 1,000 years old. Not the liveliest group.

But as I backstroked for 45 minutes, all I could think about, besides swimming in a straight line and not ramming into the side of the pool, was the fact that I had no idea how old I was. Am I getting Alzheimer's? Is this a sign that I am indeed aging? Am I among the elderly? Am I forgetting my age or just consciously trying not to remember? Should I be worried that I don't know how old I am or happy that I don't care?

I decided to be happy about it. Embarrassed that I can't answer one of the basic facts about myself on the spot, but thrilled that I can pass for a teenager and a little pleased about not being so panicky about my age that it's constantly top of mind. I clearly don't feel 28 and someone thinks I don't look 28 either: win-win.

I was tagged by Renee to do this little quiz, which is great because a) now I don't have to come up with a post idea on my own--yay laziness! and b) my favourite thing to talk about is myself.

The Rules
1. Respond and rework: Answer the questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your invention, add one more question of your own.

2. Tag 8 other people.

The Questions
What is the thing that makes you happy? Beach days. Sadly, there haven't been any yet this year, but my fingers are tightly crossed for this weekend.

Coffee or tea? Coffee, for sure--with fat free hazelnut creamer--although I'm starting to get into having a cup of tea in the afternoon.

What’s for dinner? Last night I had chicken and rice. Tonight, it'll probably be a salad: greens, strawberries, almonds, and grilled chicken.

What was the last thing you bought? Lunch yesterday...veggie quesadilla and salad.

What are you listening to right now? H2B calling me a twit

What is your favourite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe? That's hard...I really like my long American Apparel hoodie...it's a little too long to wear with jeans but can be worn with tights and boots. I have an LBD that I've had for a while that always fits well no matter how gross I'm feeling.

What is your favourite ice cream flavor? Birthday Party!

What do you think of the person(s) who tagged you? She's a great storyteller and also shares the NB connection with me, so that's fun :)

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go? Home for a visit.

Which language do you want to learn? Russian

What is your favorite color? Cranberry red, baby yellow

If you had £100 now, what would you spend it on? So that's like $200CDN? Pool membership and a new pair of jeans.

What book are you currently reading? New Moon...#2 in the Twilight series...ughhh

Describe your personal style? I try to look somewhat professional and I guess you could say classic. My goal is to avoid looking dated in pictures. I've read that you don't want people 20 or 50 years from now to look at your photos and be able to pinpoint exactly what period of time they were taken in...that's when you know you're doing it right.

What are you going to do after this? Brush my teeth and pack a lunch.

What are your favorite movies? Love Actually, Mean Girls, American Beauty, Slumdog Millionaire

What is your favorite fruit? Strawberries, blueberries, apples, pineapple, I love all fruit :D

Do you collect something? NAH

If you could change your name to anything, what would you call yourself? Something with more than 3 letters!

How many times do you press the snooze button before you get up? probably twice

What is your favorite smell? fresh baked bread, Coppertone, lilacs

What is your biggest regret? No regrets!!

What are you most proud of? Zero debts, no student loans, no car payments...

Cats or dogs? Dogs. They are kinder and cuddlier and don't have snotty attitudes. You can manipulate dogs into liking you...I like that

What’s your biggest fashion mistake? Scrunchies

What is your guilty TV pleasure? Every show I watch is an embarrassing guilty pleasure: The Hills, Gossip Girl, Big Brother, The City. If I'm going to waste time watching TV I'm making it as mindless as possible.

What did you want to be when you grew up? It changed almost daily: veterinarian, teacher, author, architect

How do you see yourself in ten years? I'll be 38 (!!!) Hopefully with a couple kiddos, owning a home, happily married to H2B with a lot more stamps on my passport and stories to tell. I just want to be comfortable.

What is on the walls of the room you are currently in? A big black and white print of the Brooklyn Bridge, three black cube shelves

What are you doing tonight? Hopefully going for a swim and a run and getting some addresses for wedding invitations.

What are you wearing? Bright blue dress and a while cardigan!

I'm swamped today. Absolutely gagging with work. That's a nice visual image, huh? It's all really interesting work and projects that I love, but my to-do list is longer than my arm at this point. The source of much of this swampage isn't even work related. I have a wedding to plan (just over three months left, and still so much to do!) working out to do, volunteering to kick up, doctors' appointments to attend, and vacation to book at some point. Right now, I have enough to do to keep me busy for the next week solid, sans bathroom breaks or snacks or naps. So guess what I'm doing? I'm writing a blog post. The very least important thing on my itinerary. And not a particularly compelling blog post at that.

I'm ostriching. Burying my head in the sand instead of doing what I should be doing, which is, ummm, trying to plow my way through the approximately 14,302 items written in my day planner today. I'm not kidding:



It's not like I have a shortage of things to do. But rather than dive in, I'm completely wasting my time and feeling a knot of dread twisting tighter and tighter in my stomach. Unfinished work and unmet deadlines are looming and I cannot push myself to just. get. started. When I feel overwhelmed, this is my coping mechanism: pretending I have absolutely nothing to do and acting otherwise. If I really looked at my to-do list and looked at the clock (3:50pm) and THOUGHT about how dire things are, I'd probably have a breakdown. By avoiding reality I'm in a bit of a happy bubble. A fluffy cloud of lies is still a fluffy cloud, kids. Fluff > Reality.

Now I'm going to grab a green tea, slip on my headphones, select some getting-shit-done music, and very calmly, very carefully, start to pick my way through my list of things to do. I'm trying a new approach. It's called acting, not thinking. If it fails, I go back to ostriching. Maintaining my sanity is the key.

Yesterday was Canada Day, and H2B and I were sure to spend part of the day drinking beer like good little Canadians. I'd heard that Bud Light Lime was sold out everywhere in the province but when I stumbled over some in an NSLC store during Tuesday's post-work wine run, I had to snatch up a 12-pack.



One might think we aren't very patriotic, drinking American beer on a Canadian holiday. Don't worry...we had Moosehead the night before. We're covered.



All in all it was an excellent Canada Day. We lounged, we watched TV and played Xbox, we took in the festivities on the waterfront, saw all sorts of riff-raff and a pirate ship, and capped off the day with a Joel Plaskett concert and some pretty spectacular and loud fireworks.

Fast forward to this morning at work when I announced that I'd enjoyed some Bud Light Lime on Canada Day. BIG MISTAKE. I got hassled like mad! Apparently some individuals feel that beers with fruit flavours aren't "real" beers. That they're "gross" and "girly" and "for losers" and "wrong". EH?!

I'm not a beer gal. I'm much more likely to opt for white wine or a nice mixed drink, something spritzy. I drink beer and I get all pukey-full, gassy and sloppy and sick. Beer is not my BFF. Beer is for rowdy frat boys and greasy chicken wings and rambunctious Germans.

But put a little fruity flavouring in there and I'm a goer. Rickard's White with a slice of orange--sweet! Coronas with lime? Om nom nomeriffic. I like apricot ale, I like blueberry ale, I don't like ale. So I was all about the lime-flavoured beer, probably because I don't like beer. If you're a big burly beer buff (alliteration, what!) you probably prefer your brewskis un-cluttered with fruity notes and hints of citrus. I loooove it because it's like drinking the Diet Coke of beers and it hides the regular nasty-ass skunky taste of "real" beers.

Best of all? It still creates a nice happy buzz. I can get just as drunk and disorderly with or without the lime flavouring. Bottoms up!

What do you think? Fruity beers, friend or foe?