50 before 50....

September 19, 2019 Arlene Giddings

the weekend dorian
hit PEI
with hurricane force wild winds
and pounding, pouring rain,
i turned 49.

my age has never really bothered me too much.
i have always rounded up by 5 years
because
a) i’m bad at math
b) when i hit the “big” years, it doesn’t even matter to me…
i’m like “meh…i’ve been 50 for five years now”

and, if i am going to be painfully, brutally honest
this past year (or more) has been a little rough.
i could focus on all the ways things are not
where i thought they would be when i hit 50

i can say whatever…and make myself a list…
cause
i love a good list. :)

so i have LESS than one year to do the things on this list…
cause
i also work better under pressure.

THE 50 BEFORE 50 LIST

Get a new tattoo
Go skydiving (tandem is ok)
Visit a province/place I have never been (not on PEI!)
Go camping alone
Go camping with someone else
Cabot Trail
Drive in
Give blood
Go on a road trip
Finish the Bernadine story
Build a robot
Knit a robot
Go sledding
Try rockclimbing
Get a passport
Watch all Game of Thrones
Go apple picking
Go on a train
Go to a football game
Play badminton
Have a sleepover with friends
Plant a garden
Try kickboxing or karate or judo or something that could give me a belt
Climb a tree
See a live band
Bake an apple pie
Start and finish a puzzle
Carve a pumpkin
Have a bonfire
Drive someplace really dark and look at stars
Ride on a motorcycle OR in a racecar
Paintball
Photowalk with other people
Hit goal weight
Treego
Zipline
Rollercoaster
Drive some kind of heavy machinery
Learn to drive standard
Learn to drywall
Make a calendar
Pop up shop
Fill my Etsy shop
Aerial yoga
Kayak
Watch the sunrise
Make meat pies
Hold a baby goat
See fireworks
Make a snowman

wordless wednesday....

September 18, 2019 Arlene Giddings

tuesday truths in bullet form...

September 17, 2019 Arlene Giddings

walking home after Dorian hurt my heart a little bit…all those trees :(
ice cream with a mix of warm caramel sauce & warm strawberry sauce in a waffle bowl has been my new obsession
my feet are cold
i am feeling a little burnt out. and maybe a little sad. i know i am usually go, go, go but lately…i just feel like i want to sleep, sleep, sleep. maybe it’s the change in season. maybe it’s too much ice cream.
great lake swimmers are playing at kings playhouse and i can’t wait!
i need a haircut
i literally just found my photos from my trip to fundy park…i wanna go back!
the fact that it’s 7:30 and almost dark out makes me wanna cry a teeny tiny bit. i am not ready! i want more summer.
and ice cream. i want more ice cream. sigh.

whatcha readin'? 2019 {book 13::goal 25}

September 10, 2019 Arlene Giddings

here’s a secret
that’s not really a secret…
i love fairy tales.

and this felt like a fairy tale to me.

a little girl lost and abandoned,
secrets kept and whispered and wondered about…
a mystery,
a book of fairy tales,
a hidden garden, walled away from the rest of the world…

oh, i loved this book.

i will warn you though…i had to make notes at one point
of who was who and how this person knew that person
and so on and so forth. :)

5 out of 5 ♥♥♥♥♥’s
NEXT UP:: GIRL WASH YOUR FACE - RACHEL HOLLIS

a very smurfilious post...

August 27, 2019 Arlene Giddings

i don’t pick favorites but…this one is kinda my favorite…heehee

here’s a fun fact that
maybe
you didn’t know about me…
i like smurfs.

well…all retro toys really…
but i really have a smurfy-spot
for these little guys…
maybe i identify with them
because they are only 3 apples tall…
but regardless the reason,
i just really love smurfs.

i had planned on collecting 99 smurfs
(including gargamel and azrael)
so that i could have the whole village
and maybe someday build mushrooms
out of paper mache and set up photo shoots…
yes. i apparently do have too much time on my hands.

i had been stuck at 89 smurfs for a bit…
but recently, some kind people have
passed along some new smurfs to me
so, it makes me incredibly happy to tell you
that i now have
ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN smurfs!!

I can’t tell you how excited i was..and how
much i love that people will randomly
bring me smurfs…i find them on my desk at work,
in my mailbox and when I am out for walks…
but a couple of weeks ago
my aunt Marie was having a family get-together
which is exciting enough on it’s own because
yay, family!
and double yay, chicken fricot!!! just the way i like it!!

but, as soon as i walked into the house
i saw a plastic yellow bin in the entry way
FULL OF SMURFS

and not just ANY smurfs.
i mean, i love all the smurfs i get…but these…
these were SMURFS I HAD NEVER SEEN BEFORE!

and i seriously couldn’t contain myself…
normally, i am a little more polite and reserved and calm
but i was literally like “ummmmm….
what are these here for” and when she said they were for me
i just about cried.

these were just so smurfingly smurfulous that
i had to do a small smurfy photo session
so i could share them here…
if you are not into smurfs,
well..you probably stopped reading 7 paragraphs ago…
heehee

and i know that now that i have reached my goal
i really, really should be done
but…i can’t…especially now that I have seen these guys…
i am telling you
i would not been more excited
if someone gave me diamonds…
it was sooooo fun to go through them
and see all the different ones…
and the papa smurfs…
sigh.

so smurfingly smurfy it just makes me want to smurf… :)