Priceless

On Friday, I told you I had a secret...and now I can talk about it online. I flew out to Edmonton this weekend to surprise Gabby. She graduated from her BEd degree, and I wanted to be there to see her walk across the stage. I figured surprising her would be a lot of fun, and boy oh boy was I right. Just the greatest reaction ever. I loved it so much. And as an added bonus I got to see some other lovely people who I haven't seen in a while and who I often miss. So, although flying out here is way more expensive than it should be, today was basically priceless.

Adventures in Antiquing

Today I took advantage of the fact that I had a four day weekend to do something I had never done before: I went antiquing. My parents and I hit up two antique malls here in the city in a quest for furniture for my new (although still theoretical) apartment. I found an adorable little coffee table and a positively gorgeous hutch. I'm rather excited about them. It's nice to think that I am going to be able to populate my little home with pieces I really love. That's really important to me. Perhaps it has to do with my desire to be surrounded by things I find beautiful, but I desperately want to avoid simply getting things because they are functional. Yes, things need to be functional; as someone who is relatively uninterested in chotchkies (with the exception of old cameras and typewriters, I discovered today) this is an important element of anything I buy. However, I want more than just functionality in what I'm buying; I want to actually find it lovely and enjoy looking at it. This might sound impractical and superficial to some people, but I firmly believe that if you fill your space with things you love, it will have a positive effect on your life. Isn't it so much better to have your gaze fall on something lovely that brings a smile to your face than on something that causes you to curl your lip? I think so. And that is why I enjoyed my antiquing experience. I know the things I found will fulfill this strange set of requirements. Plus, I got to spend an entire day looking at things that ran the gambit from gorgeous to kitschy to strange to amusing to downright ugly. It was a rather visually satisfying day.

This is one of my photos from our Canada Day excursion to the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village. Apparently my weekend had a bit of an antique theme.

Oh give me a home, where the [bison] roam

Sorry, that song is going to be stuck in your head all day now. If it is any comfort it is going to be stuck in mine as well, and I am almost ready for bed so it will be playing on an endless loop as I try to fall asleep. Wow. I just realized how much mental pain I inflicted upon myself with that title. Anyway. I worked today and one of the stories was about a herd of bison that broke free from their farm in the Camrose area. This prompted the great "are they bison or buffalo?" debate in the office. (They are bison.) It also led to the inevitable use of the phrase "where the buffalo roam" over and over again. I thought that in light of this it was appropriate to share some of my own pictures of bison. One of my roommates comes from a family that has a bison farm in southern Alberta. I've spent a couple of Easter breaks down there. The first time we were out there her dad took us out to the fields to get up close and personal with the bison. Let me tell you, they are big. It was pretty cool though. I do think that my spectacular inability to climb over the gate demonstrates that I am NOT "home on the range" though. Oh well. I got a good story out of it. And some good photos. I like the first one here because it also shows a bit of the vastness of the prairie as well as the bison. It seems to fit the song.