Wine & Cheese Party

I hosted a nice social evening at my place about a month ago, so I thought I'd share a few photos from that night that I just received... mostly just for Julie's benefit ; )

me and santo (one of my co-workers)

igor (co-worker), me, santo, leslie (santo's girlfriend), and heather (my cousin)

yes, we had a little pillow fight after the majority had gone home....

Ovation Revisited

This is the closest I've ever been to a famous person!

count your blessings...

i normally don't like it when people send me forwards, but i have one friend who sends them to me all the time (grumblecakes). today, however, she sent me one worth reading.... it helped me put things into prespective.

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If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who won't survive the week.

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 20 million people around the world.

If you attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than almost three billion people in the world.

If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If your parents are still married and alive, you are very rare, especially in the United States.

If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful, you are blessed because the majority can, but most do not.

If you can hold someone's hand, hug them or even touch them on the shoulder, you are blessed because you can offer God's healing touch.

If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read anything at all.

You are so blessed in ways you may never even know.

how many of you?

as is routine for me, i was listening to the radio this morning and found their topic of conversation interesting (though much less serious this time!) and worthy of mention, haha. According the the US Census Bureau POPClock Projection, which is a ticker that estimates the population of the US based on a few variables at any given moment, the USA reached 300 million at approx. 7:54 am today (w00T for them! althought they've long passed that number by now, since it's late in the day), making them now officially 10 times larger than Canada in terms of population.

anyways, this lead the conversation to this cool website that you should check out!

www.howmanyofme.com

you just type in your first and last name and it tells you how many other people have your first name, last name and full name in the USA. Pretty sweet!

Here's my stats, just for entertainment value:

• There are 169,482 people in the U.S. with the first name Katie
• Statistically the 355th most popular first name (tied with 2 other first names)
• 100 percent of people with the first name Katie are female ; )
• Names similar to Katie: Catherine, Katherine
• There are 350,963 people in the U.S. with the last name Bell
• Statistically the 58th most popular last name (tied with 2 other last names)
• Famous people with the last name Bell: Alexander Graham Bell, Bobby Bell, Catherine Bell, David Bell, Jamie Bell, Kendrell Bell, Kristen Bell, Monta Bell, Rex Bell, Tatum Bell, William Brent Bell
• There are 198 people in the U.S. named Katie Bell!

things about stuff

* this past weekend was SO good for going for a long drive through the country... the trees were absolutely beautiful. God is a great creator! simple life pleasures....

* i got to go to the Stampede Ranch in Guelph again this weekend with some stratford friends (the greatest country bar in all of ontario, as you may have heard me say before)... this is the first time i've been back since julie's initiation into country scene more than a year ago. it was just as much fun this time as it has ever been. i love it there tremendously!

* i got a crock pot! so many new recipes to try... the options are endless! yay

* i discovered that you can get the Veggie Tales "The Hairbrush Song" as a cellphone ringtune (but it's not Larry's voice... for shame!) .... who knew?!

* there's been a lot of shifting around going on in my office lately, so as one friend of mine was cleaning out his desk today to move to a new desk, he re-gifted to me a still wrapped video entitled "Gold Rush 2002" about the olympic mens hockey team in salt lake city that he found in his desk... i watched it already and it brought tears to my eyes (for serious) cause that was such a proud memory for me... best gift ever! (i was also given a poster that says "Adversity: Whatever doesn't kill me only prolongs the inevitable")

* october marks the start of a new fiscal year at DMTI and so i found out today that not only do i get an expansion of my benefits package to include vision coverage, but there has been a company-wide salary scale adjustment... in other word, pay raise for me!! yay : ) and also tomorrow we're all going to Black Creek Pioneer Village for our annual meeting. fun!

take 2

i'm gonna try this musical horoscope thing again... i'm feeling better today cause i gave my playlist a good shuffle ; )

1. Don't Stop Dancing - Creed (i never do...)
2. Memories - Manic Drive (i've got lots of them...)
3. Love Song For No One - John Mayer (you can say that again...)
4. It's A Beautiful Morning - Young Rascals ( i loooove thunderstorms!)
5. The Last Days - Evanescence (...until julie's gone)
6. I Hope You Dance - Lee Ann Womack (...and don't stop!)
7. Somewhere Out There - Our Lady Peace (ya... uhhh, i've got nothing)
8. Figured You Out - Nickelback (that'll never happen...)
9. Boulevard of Broken Dreams - Green Day (i hope not... that's just sad)
10. The Show Must Go On - Queen (amen! haha)

BONUS:
11. Hurts So Good - John Cougar Mellencamp (i'm not convinced...)
12. Take It Like A Man - Michelle Wright (bad advice.)

Interpretation:
I have great memories of dancing non-stop to love songs and hoping that someone would join me. I would often get strange looks from people like they just couldn't figure me out, which is probably why i walked the boulevard of broken dreams and sang and danced to no one. But one beautiful morning in the last days i came to a realization that the show must go on so i just needed to take it like a man. I know there's someone out there somewhere who can appreciate this about me, so it's a good hurt.

Wow, that was a stretch... painful. Sorry again.
(Disclaimer: this horoscope is NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY!!)

p.s. the hockey season as well as my hockey pool is off to a grrrreat start!! :-D

horoscopes

...i definitely don't believe a single word they say, but in the lunchroom with my co-workers they certainly do have a high entertainment value! We have a free newspaper delivered to our office everyday. And because it's of the "free" variety, it's pathetic. So around 1:00 every afternoon, we all gather 'round the table and skip to the back of the paper to read out our horoscopes to each other, and then laugh histerically because we're so confused. They're usually three unrelated sentences that don't mean anything at all. So even if you wanted to believe it, you'd never be able to figure out what it was talking about. For instance, earlier this week Sergei (a Sagittarius) was told "A tree will suddenly become important to you" (no joke!), and Jeff (a Capricorn) was supposedly a loner for some reason, and one day Igor (a Gemini) was told to rearrange his furniture... and then we always make fun of Warren just for the heck of it, regardless of what his horoscope says because he's a CANCER, haha. I'm a Taurus, just so you know.

Anyways, a few days ago Julie posted a Musical Horoscope on her blog and I thought it was fun (and fitting for me), so i decided to do it too! All you have to do is put your music player on shuffle and write down the first 10 songs that come up. Ok, so here it goes... (i'm scared)

My Musical Horoscope

1. Clarity - John Mayer
2. Are You Ready? - Creed
3. Getting Into You - Relient K
4. Crawling - Linkin Park
5. Best Years Of Our Lives - Baha Men
6. I'm With You - Avril Lavigne
7. Don't Forget Me - Glass Tiger
8. Cry In My Heart - Starfield
9. Concrete Angel - Martina McBride
10. Flowers - Brad Paisley

BONUS:
11. Start The Commotion - The Wiseguys

Uhhhhh... I don't get it. This doesn't mean anything, just as i suspected. They're not even good songs. Maybe I'll have a better day tomorrow.

hockey's back!!!!

i know that none of you really care, but i don't care cause i'm very excited! : ) hehe We had our hockey pool draft picks after work today and I was the only girl... i gotta represent ; ) haha I'm up against some stiff competition, but i'm pretty confident. Here's what I got:

Forwards
Daniel Alfredsson (#11, RW, Ottawa Senators)
Sidney Crosby (#87, C/W, Pittsburgh Penguins)
Brian Gionta (#14, RW, New Jersey Devils)
Brendan Shanahan (#14, LW/RW, New York Rangers)
Mark Bell (#7, LW, San Jose Sharks)
Marian Gaborik (#10, RW/LW, Minnesota Wild)
Brenden Morrow (#10, LW, Dallas Stars)
Martin Havlat (#24, RW, Chicago Blackhawks)
Ryan Smyth (#94, LW, Edmonton Oilers)
Shane Doan (#19, RW, Phoenix Coyotes)

Defense
Scott Niedermayer (#27, Anaheim Ducks [who, apparently, are no longer mighty])
Bryan McCabe (#24, Toronto Maple Leafs)
Sergei Gonchar (#55, Pittsburgh Penguins)
Joni Pitkanen (#44, Philadelphia Flyers)

Goon
Chris Neil (#25, RW, Ottawa Senators)

Goalie
Martin Gerber (#29, Ottawa Senators)

I'm so embarrassed that i have a Leaf on my team but no Habs... sorry daddy! : (