Posts Under Personal Category
When I was about 7, one of the spare bedrooms at my paternal grandmother’s house held an antique penny slot machine and a bowl filled with pennies to use with the machine. One of my favourite things to do was (is, much to the delight of Casino Niagara and Fallsview while I was in university) to play slot machines. Nothing made me happier at 7 than seeing three cherries in a row, and hearing the delightful CLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINKCLINK as previously deposited pennies poured out of the machine.
Now, besides my no-longer-secret slot machine addiction, I have two things to share with you:
- My grandmother loved cats, and you couldn’t move 5 feet in her house without seeing those squishy cat balls they played with, although the cats were usually
sleeping hidinglurking somewhere (no doubt plotting something evil), and, - (as if I really need to state this, as I’m sure you’ve figured it out by now) I hate cats.
And no, before you ask – I don’t mean dislike, I don’t mean would prefer to avoid, I mean full out, would-not-hit-the-brakes-if-a-cat-ran-in-front-of-my-car** HATE cats.
This one particular day, not unlike many others, I decided to go play the slot machine. One of the cats was lying on the bed, which I thought nothing of.
I should probably mention that at this very moment, my innocent, naive, 7 year old self did not hate cats. Quite the opposite – I was OK with moving at age 5, as long as it was to the “house with the well the kittens were playing around” (my parents did buy that house, I was devastated to discover neither the well nor kittens came with it when we moved in), and could often be found on the floor rolling around balls with bells at my grandmothers trying to entice the cats to come out of hiding.
But for whatever reason, this PARTICULAR day the he-demon cat started hissing at me and crouched up the second I pulled the lever on the machine – I guess he doesn’t like gambling. I turned around to see what the matter was, and the thing LEAPED off the bed at me, teeth bared, hissing, and attacked me as I ran shrieking, crying, and hysterical from the room.
(Karma – he got run over by a car 2 weeks later.)
I hated cats for years after that.
Then finally, when I was about 11, I finally started to warm up to my best friend’s cat, Cleo. She was this big, fat, sweet, fuzzy ball of cuteness with a limp that you couldn’t POSSIBLY not warm up to. Her mom had 5 or 6 cats at the time (they LOVE pets) and Cleo was the ONLY one I secretly liked would tolerate.
Even I, as a cat-hater, was not immune to this cat’s adorable ways.
Mistake number one.
I learned a valuable lesson that day: never trust a cat; even an old, limping, believably cute one.
One day, we were sitting on her bed and I innocently went to pet it and it BIT ME.
Turns out, my friend had been tapping it’s foot and irritating it shortly before I went to pet it – so it took it’s annoyance out on me, not her… but by that point, it was too late. Surely a DOG would know the difference between two people. My DOG would never bite my friend AT ALL, and certainly not if she was mad at ME.
Angry, I decided I would never again trust a cat.
I still find cats cute from time to time – I love the infamous surprised kitty video (but you couldn’t pay me enough to tickle that cat), and I think Cats That Look Like Hitler is a hilarious site (though possible because it makes them look evil, which they are since they’re, you know, felines). I even “awh” at the white kittens in the toilet paper commercial.
But all THOSE kittens have one thing in common: I’m looking at them through the safety of my computer screen.
To this day, I still LOATH all things feline and am nervous around them… which OF COURSE only makes them want to “make friends” with me more. They follow me around, lie on the back of the couch behind me, and rub up against my leg. One more than one occasion, when crashing at a cat-owner friend’s house, I’ve awoken to a kitty either a) staring at me while I sleep and flicking it’s tail, or b) practically sleeping on my head.
But of course, the cat-owner NEVER believes their pet is plotting my death – nope, it’s “Oh, how ADORABLE, look, he LIKES you! How can you POSSIBLY not like/be scared of something SOOO adorable, he just wants to be FRIENDS!”
No, I’m pretty sure he is just tracking my behavior and plotting my untimely demise.
A few months ago, while at a girl friends house, her cat went bat s&!^ crazy – hissing, lunging at people, running around her apartment attacking everyone and everything that stepped to near it.
I was cowering in the corner by the balcony, standing ON a chair (not like that would save me from a cat), ready to open the door and jump down two stories before that thing was getting anywhere near me.
And this was all because she PICKED IT UP AND BROUGHT IT INSIDE when the pizza guy came.
When I pick my dog up and take her somewhere, she gives me a dirty look and leaves the room if she doesn’t like it.
Even my friend was scared of her OWN cat, and she finally had to throw cat nip into her bedroom and lock it in there – at which point it began slamming into, and clawing at, the back of the door.
Holy. Crap.
If that doesn’t prove all cats are evil – I don’t know what does.
Give me a dog any day!
**I’m (mostly) kidding about the not-braking part, cat lovers/PETA… a cat would surely dent my bumper.
Not because I’m acting immature, stomping my feet, or holding my breath in anger, mind you– but because I randomly stumbled upon a Tumblr photo of doll combs. Doll combs, you ask? Well I was DAMN certain those combs were from Lady Lovely Locks dolls.
As it turns out, I was right.
As it ALSO turns out, all my favourite childhood memories can easily found through the power of the interwebz (and Google).
So now, I am going to share some of them with YOU! Hopefully some of you have the same favourites as me and will get as much of a kick out of this as I did.
In no particular order:
Serendipity the Pink Dragon
Totally a childhood movie favourite. I bought a copy off eBay in 2007 and was devastated when it wouldn’t play. Until I realized the problem was with 
the plastic VHS case, and decided to attempt to transfer the tape to a different VHS case. What did I have to lose? It already wouldn’t play. It was easier than it sounds and, most importantly, it WORKED!
I then watched the movie, and my older-but-wiser self realized a few key things.
- how freaking SAD the beginning is when Bobby’s parents pretty much die,
- the fact that the pirate villain is likely a drunk, and
- The creators are CLEARLY confused over Serendipity’s background. Is she a Dragon, or Dinosaur? The title says one thing, opening song says another… fail.
Regardless, I still loved it. And now, you can love it too thanks to the power of YouTube!
Lady Lovely Locks and the Pixie Tails
What little girl in the 80′s didn’t love Lady Lovely Locks, wish they had her magic hair, and secretly hope pixie tail friends would live in their hair?
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s called lice – but anyways, the show was cute, taught good morals (look how well I turned out, just ask my mom! ;), and made a sweet doll line to go with it.
Although I also secretly loved the villainess, Duchess Ravenwaves – in fact, in my teen years I used her photo as my profile picture on various message boards. Yeah, I was cool in high school.
You can watch the first episode here. The quality sucks, but it still rocks. If you check “related videos” there’s lots of other episodes as well.
Dinosaurs
I was a little older than 5 when I liked this – maybe 7. Cute show. I don’t remember too much about it actually, except that I watched it a lot and Baby always said “Not the Mama!” and “I’m the baby!”
Popples
These apparently still exist today – not sure I’ve ever seen them in Toys R Us, but they have a webpage! The older ones were cuter in my opinion.
I had Party Popple (in fact, I still have him!). If only my mother knew the future she was foreshadowing by buying me a Party popple ;)
If Party Popple picked a peck of Popple pals, who’d be the new perky, playful pals Party Popple Picked?
Try saying THAT three times fast. I did. Many times. And failed miserably.Well, 5-year-old-me, I can do it now. Look how far you’ve come in 20 years!
Pogs
I loved Pogs in elementary school. I used to keep mine in an old M&M’s mini tube (they were the perfect size!) Until one fateful day on the playground, when I dropped my tube and my Pogs spilled EVERYWHERE. I had some really rare ones too. A bunch of kids came running over to help… no, wait, they were RUNNING OVER TO STEAL MY POGS. I lost like 20. Including my really rare ones. I was devestated, cried all the way home, and never took my Pogs to school again. Or played with them again, for that matter. Kids are so mean. I hope karma stole THEIR Pogs… or made them ugly. Jerks.
Cupcake Dolls
These quite possibly spurned my adult obsession with cupcakes. 
I still have mine (which is the same one in the picture!) but one of her arms is no longer attached.I should probably try to glue that back on at some point.
I loved this doll, loved the way she smelled (they were scented) and most of all, loved how she folded into a cupcake. Yes, that’s right – these dolls TURNED INTO CUPCAKES. If that’s not awesome, I don’t know what is.
Bunnicula
Bunnicula was my favourite childhood book series (well, besides Sweet Valley that is – though the Bunnicula books were from when I was much younger!). Possibly also spurred my love for bunnies, and desire (and success) to own a pet bunny. Mine wasn’t white or a vampire bunny that sucks the juice out of veggies, which was a shame (although he did love veggies) – but was still adorable. Maybe my next bunny will be white with red eyes. Yes mom, if you’re reading – I said next. And judging by this post, you have no one to blame but yourself for all my odd obsessions (like bunnies and cupcakes ;)
Kitty Surprise
Surprisingly, I owned a Kitty Surprise – my sister owned the Puppy Surprise.This is only surprising (sorry for the constant bad pun!) because, if you 
know me, you know I HATE cats. Loathe. Would rather be trapped in a burning building than alone in a room with a cat (okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration.) So why on earth did I own a KITTY surprise? Likely because this was before my tramutic, life changing, evil cat event – back when I was young, naive, and thought the damn things were actually cute.
But my hatred of cats is another story, for another day.
Today, it’s about my Kitty Surprise – which was not unlike the one in the picture, except I had five baby kittens (you could have 1-5). Oddly, my sister had 5 too. Considering the “surprise” is how many babies you get – and 5 was rare – that’s weird, right? Not when you have Super!Mom for a mother. She diligently squished each toy’s belly in the store to feel for the fattest one to ensure her babies got, well, five babies.
Easy Bake Oven
If you haven’t figured out by now, my mom was pretty awesome for getting me all these cool toys. She was ALSO pretty awesome for putting up with my “baking”. Once my Easy Bake oven ran out of the pre-packaged, can’t-screw-up stuff… I started experimenting.
And I mean EXPERIMENTING.
We’re talking like, flour, sugar, and egg, and some cocoa powder tossed in a bowl and baked experimenting. And my saint of a mother “Mmmm’d” and “Yumm’d” and ate the whole damn thing.
Every time.
Cause, you know, how do you tell your 5 year old her Easy Bake oven cakes suck? You don’t. Reason number 758 why I am never having kids.
Troll Dolls
I had SOOOO many – they’re so ugly now, trying to be all fashionable – were MUCH cuter when I was a kid! 
Please note I said “had” so many – my parents decided I didn’t need them anymore and tossed my box a few years back. I was devastated. I had a rainbow haired lucky troll, an easter baby troll with bunny ears in a crawling position, my coveted/favourite Blue Jays World Series troll doll, a halloween troll doll (in a mask!), and the list goes on and on.
I am still heartbroken about the loss of my rainbow troll and World Series troll to this day. Especially the Blue Jays one. Sad face.
Early 90s Computer Games
In 1993 (I was 7) we got our first computer. Some things never change, and I was just as big a nerd back then as I am today. I freaking loved that computer, and the few games we had on it. I could probably do a whole blog on old computer games, but I’ll try to keep it short and sweet.
- Wolfenstien 3D – I never forgave my dad for beating it while I was in bed, as I missed seeing the guy run out of the castle… I made him do it again, but he NEVER MANAGED TO WIN THE LAST LEVEL EVER AGAIN. Crushed my dreams.
- Christmas Lemmings - good for playing year round, not just at Christmas – although I never could get farther than a couple levels.
- Maniac Mansion – Not sure if I ever managed to beat this one, but it was fun. Mostly played it at school, I think.
- Some random, text based fantasy/adventure game (you just type things like “look” and “go left” etc to navigate)I can’t remember the name of but have been desperately trying to find for years. I bug my parents about it a lot. At the start of the game, your car broke down (I think) and you wake up in some castle/mansion. I remember there was a werewolf somewhere that would kill you unless you had already picked up the silver bullet; there were gardens outside; and in the attic there was a bat, or owl, or something that would attack you. I never figured out what I needed to avoid that attack, so would just avoid the attic. If you have any inkling of what I’m talking about please tell me I’m not crazy!! haha. I think it was called Enchanted Castle, or something similar – it’s not the popular text “Enchanted Castle” game you get when you google though
- Cross Country Canada - An educational game, but loads of fun – education and fun for an 8 year old? Who knew! Used to play it in computer class ALL the time. Basically you drive a pick up truck around Canada learning about the provinces and avoiding getting your truck jacked by hitchhikers. Or if you’re me, always getting your truck jacked since you always try to pick them up “for company”. Awesome
- Island Survival - You’re stuck on an island. Survive. I managed to find Lemonade Stand for the iPhone, WISH they had this for it! One of my favourite games as a kid.
This is getting really long, so I’m going to wrap it up by giving a shout-out to a few other childhood memories that I didn’t love quite enough to write about in full; or that were from when I was a little older: Sky Dancers, Polly Pockets (back when they ACTUALLY fit in your pocket!), Creepy Crawlers, Rainbow Bright, Jem & The Holograms (I had a bad-ass pink vinyl notepad holder and pen), My Little Ponies (I LOVED these but they’re still around), The Last Unicorn (still a favourite movie, but listed on my bio page so it just gets a mention :), Barbies (still popular!), a Doodle Bear, my Polaroid Camera (still awesome),
There’s me as a 5 to 8 year old in a nutshell.
Did I miss anything awesome as a kid? And do you love some of the same things? Let me know :)
Look Ma, I'm in the Circus!
Fun fact about me: I’ve had a secret dream to run away and join the circus since I was little. Something about wearing bright colours while swinging around on a trapeze, sticking my head in a lion’s mouth, and riding around on an elephant just seems so cool.
And let me tell you, it’s a good thing I never found out the Toronto School of Circus Arts existed before the age of 8 or my childhood (and teen years!) might have been much different… or just would have involved copious amounts of whining at my parents to send me there, instead of the copious amounts of whining to send me to private school. (Yeah, I whined at them for YEARS to send me to the local girls-only private school: in my defense, I was like 8 and it’s in a castle, ok? ;)
Very recently, Jukari Fit to Fly launched at Kingwest Fitness in Toronto. It hit 12 cities world-wide in 2009, but it took a few years to come to Toronto (the first Canadian city to get the program was Montreal).
Jukari is a new workout regime developed by Cirque du Soleil and Reebok that promises a tough, intense – but still fun – hour long workout. You spin, jump, dance, run, stretch, and swing your way through the class using the FlySet; which is basically ropes that swivel a 360-degrees and are suspended from the ceiling, a 4.5 lb steel bar you can hook into said ropes, and foot straps that also can clip onto the ropes. It’s like a low level trapeze that gives you a cardio, flexibility, strength, and core workout.
But simply describing it doesn’t really do it justice. So, check out this promotional video for the program to see what a Jukari workout looks like, while I try not to move in fear of making my abs hurt more than they already do:
It looks fun, right?
And easy!
Yeah, my instructor made it look easy too.
Most of the class went a little something like this:
The best part was when we put on the foot straps midway through, because we got to lie down for about 30 seconds while listening to the next move… which was a nice, easy plank.
Well, “easy” (I use that word loosely!) if it was a normal plank.
You see, in a Jukari plank your arms are fully extended; and your legs are stuck through a bungee loop attached to the ropes hanging from the ceiling.
Dear lord, my arms.
I have to admit though, despite how incredibly impossible some of the moves seemed, and how tired I was just 25 minutes in – it was an AMAZING workout, and so much fun! I got a really intense workout in just an hour, and the time flew by because of the great music, high energy instructor, and good company (I took the class with two of my girl friends). It’s no secret I loathe going to the gym, and easily get bored on the elliptical, weight machines, and bikes.
Today, my body feels like I did my normal 1.5-2 hour workout at the gym (actually, probably worse than that!) but it only felt like I was at Kingwest for a little bit of time.
I have 4 more classes left (I bought a 5 class trial pass through Teambuy last month), and even after that’s done I can see myself going back for drop in Jukari sessions from time to time.
If it’s in your area, give it a go! You won’t be disappointed… just sore.
Earlier this month, I had a fantastic idea: I wanted to get up really early to watch the Royal Wedding, and have a 5:30am, high tea, Royal Wedding pajama party with my mom and sister. At Easter, my mom was telling my grandmother about the idea… she loved it so much she decided to come.
So, bright and early – actually more like dark and early!- Friday morning (at 5:20 in the morning to be exact) I got up and woke up the rest of my family. Please note I said “got up” and not “woke up” – I’d like to think I went to bed at a decent time, but the reality is I was up until about 2 and then the Royal Wedding coverage was starting… lets just say I got sidetracked for a good couple hours and took a power nap at 4:10.
Ahem.
After the ceremony (note: before the kiss!) we had a Royal Wedding Tea Party with all sorts of tasty breakfast treats… and our own crowns, of course. I hand painted them and glued some sead beads on to make them match the British Flag.
Breakfast was SO good: we had tea biscuits, strawberry jam, and strawberries. My grandmother brought homemade Devonshire Cream and lemon butter as well. And WOW was the cream, jam, and lemon sooo tasty on the tea biscuit together. We also had oranges done up in sugar syrup, and English Breakfast Tea.
We had such a lovely morning watching the wedding together, gushing over Kate Middleton’s dress, and laughing about all the outrageous hair pieces and hats.
I seriously want to do this kind of fancy breakfast more often! Maybe a little later in the morning though – like, oh, maybe an 11 o’clock brunch instead of a 7 o’clock breakfast?
Although I’m impressed – for 7 a.m. in a family that likes our sleep, we all look fairly awake!
Oh yeah, and of course – Kodee and Becky got in on the fun too.
Back when GeoCities wasn’t owned by Yahoo (and still existed, for that matter)? When frames were considered “high tech”, when it was perfectly acceptable for backgrounds to be a picture repeated over, and over, and over; and when there were animated .gifs literally everywhere?
Oh, baby.
You can actually click through this screenshot to browse through the archived site in all it's glory; thanks to the Wayback Machine.
Oh, and in case you were wondering – yeah, that was MY website.
Okay, you can stop laughing at me now – I was 12, and it was REALLY cool back then. All my friends were jealous. And then they made their own sites. And recently, I embarrassed them all by finding all THEIR old sites and plastering them all over Facebook!
Ah, the wonders of modern day technology.
I still remember my first webpages address – which is kind of odd, considering it was SO. LONG. AGO. (And so long, in general) Good thing though – that’s what allowed me to track it down via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
It was http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Dell/5503, in case you were curious.
Actually, that was only my FIRST websites URL because I RAN OUT OF SPACE (seriously) and ended up having to make a second, then third, then… you get the idea.
I always feel a little silly when applying for jobs (and in interviews!) when I’m asked how many years of web design experience I have. Because when you’ve only been out of school for 2 years, and you didn’t major in ANYTHING web related, claiming 5+ years of experience – let alone 10+! – seems a little ridiculous, right?
But truth be told, I made my first webpage when I was 10/11, in 1996 (my family got our first computer in 1993, and I thought it was the coolest thing since the mechanical cheese slicer we owned - hey, I really liked cheese and was clumsy with a knife, okay?) and from then on I was hooked.
I created my first .gifs in KidPix, than – oh my God – moved on to animated .gifs.
Also in KidPix.
This frog was my second one.
Pretty badass, right?
Please note the hot white background surrounding the graphic – yeah, transparency didn’t exist yet for me. 
I soon moved up in the world, and learned to work Paint Shop Pro.
Shortly after, I was making adoptable eggs that hatched into bunnies and pigs. We won’t talk about my first adoptable animals, a slew of unanimated KidPix bunnies.
And then I finally, FINALLY learned how to use transparency – no white borders here, folks.
Back then, I was sooooo proud of these graphics (and okay, you’ve got to admit – for a 12 year old in 1997 they were pretty damn good!). I wanted to be a graphic designer until I was about 15 and discovered law (surprise, I’m not a lawyer today either!). And there were a few weeks when I was 13 when I was insistant I’d be a marine biologist, until I realized I never, ever wanted to disect an animal in science class. And yes, I did avoid doing so all through high school.
Although I’m by no means a graphic artist, I do still make graphics (all the ones on this site are my work), and I dabble in some freelance graphic work when the opportunity presents itself (right now, I’m actually designing some material for Open Media’s “Vote for the Internet” campaign).
For those of you who know me (and well) – you might see parts of my “grown up” personality still splashed around that page. I still love bunnies and penguins, for instance. And if you read my “all about me” page (please note the bangin’ rainbow background), you’ll note I list my hobbies as swimming, reading, and drawing (yup, still do all those things).
Ace of Base and Spice Girls were my favourite bands, and Geri Halliwell was my favourite singer. Not sure whether I really want to admit this, but I still have music from all three (yeah, yeah, including Geri’s short lived solo career) on my iPod.
I guess something things really do never change (except technology, thank God!)
And, for a laugh, check out a few popular pages in all their frame heavy, blue underline linked glory:
- TheStar.com, circa 1996 (check out those buttons!)
- Apple.com in 1997 had a great deal: order CyberDrive today for a FREE CD Rom!
- Disney.com was high tech in 1997 with their transparent graphics, frames, and online store.
- One of the nicest layouts 1996 ever saw was probably ABC.com’s site.
- Google was still in beta form in 1996.
