The Lost Blog

This post is called The Lost Blog because I tried uploading it a month or so ago when I actually did this and it wouldn't work. Feeling great frustration with technology, I saved it as a draft and left it. Never feeling the motivation to try another attempt again. UNTIL NOW...

So today my parents were out of town and my brother was still at work so I was home alone after school. This NEVER happens to me. Who knew that having a stay-at-home mom meant they'd be home ALL DAY, EVERYDAY? I swear sometimes I just want to run wild, blast music and spill stuff all over the floor but I can't...because my mom is there. Sometimes I get undressed for a shower and I'm like oh dang I left my hair brush upstairs. I could just run up and get it in my naked form but wait...mom's home. I guess I'll put on a towel...again! And then there's that time when I start getting really desperate and she's like "I'm going out to get the mail" and I'm thinking 'oh god, what should I do first? Dance with the dog? Throw away the leftovers I'm supposed to eat tonight? Rearrange all the living room furniture and make a fort? Lick all the spoons?' and right when I'm opening the cutlery drawer she's already back, a handful of envelopes and flyers, totally oblivious to the thoughts I just had. So anyways, I knew I had to spend my time today wisely. At first I played it cool. Laid on my bed listening to music and texting some friends. But I soon grew bored of this and felt like I was wasting my precious and rare time. And then a light beam shone through my window and directed my attention to the angelic gnome across the room.

In one of my option courses, we made a music video and so this, as well as my garden friend's beauty, inspired me to make one myself. The star would be Gnarly, the scene would be my home, the song would be Big Wheels by Down With Webster. I don't know why, but I barely had to give this any thought. It was almost as if my heart has been waiting to make a music video for this song and I only realized it today. I set up scenes, grabbed props and inspired Gnarles to act his best performance in this video. I'm hoping that if I show it to DWW they will like it and I can be their friend. Maybe I can even be hired to do a music video with them and Gnarly. Ooh! Wouldn't dat be cray? I seriously hope they see it and don't think I'm a total wackjob, even if that may be true. I am actually super proud of my work with this video. It only took me an hour to shoot all the footage by myself. Half of which was spent attempting to score a cup in beer pong. If I hadn't muted the clips you would be able to hear me cursing Gnarly for being too good.

Once finished the filming stage, I took the MacBook with me to the theatre in order to edit the footage. As well as practicing my great work ethic, I spent the night making the most wonderful music video of all time. I also posted the video on Facebook and received 7 likes thus far. Therefore, I consider the video to be a success. My coworkers and friends were quite impressed.

I also put it on my option teacher's computer desktop for him to see later. Haha hopefully it makes his day. It's not everyday you can say you've been hacked by a 3-foot gnome. 

I hope everybody likes it! If you see Down With Webster be sure to tell them about it! This is why I shouldn't be left alone for too long; too many mind-blowing things happen ;)

May the Force be with you!

-Ace and Gnarly

(Beardy called me Ace the other day and I thought it was so kick-ass. I am now using it with hopes that it catches on)

Kiss My Class Goodbye '12

Hello my lovely readers. I hope you are enjoying your summer. Actually I don't really care about your vacations because this blog is about me, not you. Can't say I'm not honest.

So during the last week of June it was my high school graduation. Well I guess it was my peers' graduation too but let's not pretend that you care about them more than me. It was an alright event. I wore a big ass dress and got my hair all done up. I looked ballin'. (In a way different than when I wear my Star Wars shirt. Speaking of which, the other day I was getting ready for work at the coolio poolio and pulled on my Empire Strikes Back shirt and just as I did so, my seventeenth alarm went off and played the Darth Vader theme song. It was fucking awesome. How awesome? Rock Mother Fucking Awesome. So awesome I feel the need to put vulgar terms in front of the word.)

All year I thought 'grad is stupid. Why are all these bitches so worked up about it?' I used to go to the meetings for the committee and sit in the back but they eventually kicked me out for laughing when they had throat-grabbing arguments trying to decide between red and burgundy. I'm sure some girls had their dresses at the end of grade nine and I thought that's insane, you've gained so much weight since then. (Haha you know I joke). Dress shopping for me was quite interesting. I've never had to stand with my butt available for the whole store to see while being laced up by an eastern man. I guess I need to get out more. I had told myself that I wanted a short dress. Not too short, just short enough to be like one of those tops you see on a hanger in a store and think 'is it a dress or a long shirt?' and I didn't want a purple one. I had already seen so many Facebook photos of girls in purple dresses.

We get to E-Town and start shopping and I finally found the perfect dress.

I know what you're thinking, that's one good looking date right there, and that looks a little purple and a little long. But it's actually considered 'wine' which my mom told me numerous times. And I had to go with a longer dress because City and Loodles both got short ones and I thought we'd look silly if we matched. So I took one for the team and told Melaney to buy it.

For my hair I really had no idea until like two days before grad when I found a picture of Jessica Alba I liked and sent it to my hair dresser. I have to say she earned her tip.

She braided my bangs and had them going into the low bun and put jeweled bobby pins in to bedazzle the do. 

It was then time to put on the dress for the night. My mom forgot to remind me to pee beforehand and I felt like a kid in a snowsuit for the next few hours. I am always the one who has to pee once you get on the highway or once I get in the pool. Always thinking 'oh yeah! That's what I was gonna do!'

While waiting to leave, Coke snapped some shots of me on our driveway with some of our vehicles.

Look at that beaut, and then there's some girl in front of it...

This is Big Poppa's Super Bee, he bought it for me to rest my arm on. ;p

I spent the night dancing and parading around in my dress. I changed out of my heels and into my Toms the first chance I got. The dress is now hanging on a nail in the unfinished part of our basement. It kind of looks like a ghost hanging from the ceiling, causing the shit to be scared out of my brother, T-Bird, and I as we went down to our rooms one night. 

The next day was our commencement ceremony where we received our diplomas. They had us fill out slips of paper asking what our future plans are a few months prior to the occasion. I had wrote 'waiting by the mailbox for my letter to Hogwarts' and they wouldn't allow it. I had to change it to 'to be successful and happy' which is super lame. This is after we listened to cliche speeches of Dr. Suess quotes and were told to be ourselves repeatedly. So really they want us to be ourselves but only under their conditions. I'm supposed to believe in myself but I can't be a wizard. I can't have a sense of humour and be goofy and enjoy this day that I only get once even after being instructed to 'be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.' 

Beardy, me, and my childhood friend, Seannanigans rocking the cap and gown. We look like wizards! Stupid school rules always messing with my mojo. 

Well I'd just like to say conGRADulations to all the other students who graduated this year. We are all rock mother fucking awesome! Class of 2012 FTW.  

May the Force be with you! 

-Ace

Rocking The E-Town Groove

Right meow I am on my way to E-Town for a math diploma prep course. This is how I survive school; half-ass all term and then do a three-day course that reteaches every concept so that you can "rock the diploma". It's pure genius. What wasn't pure genius on my part was not packing any snacks or eating breakfast. I can't believe myself. Like I brought chemistry notes to study but no food?! What was I thinking? I need to sort out my priorities. That's also what my mom told me when I was late for math and she walked into the bathroom to me doing my makeup. "Ashlynn, math is more important than makeup," she said. "What's really gonna get me farther in this world, mom?" that's what I said. She was not pleased. I don't actually believe that looks are more important than knowledge but I mean, I'm gonna be a rockstar. I doubt that I will be writing songs about balancing equations and finding the sin of y. Let's get real here, people.

So I'm sitting cross-legged in the back seat of Big Poppa's work truck. I've been sitting cross-legged a lot lately. I might as well be Ghandi. Especially with the whole no food thing. I'll just say I'm on a hunger strike. We've been on the road for about 40 minutes or so and I became bored about...39 minutes ago. And I thought 'I guess I could look at those chemistry notes'...pfft HAHAHAHAHAHA :') too funny. Who am I kidding? I mostly just grabbed them to fill out my backpack.

I then realized that I have the best invention ever in my pocket; an iPhone. And on this iPhone the blogger app. So here I am, coming at ya mobile-style. I can already tell this post is going to take a while to write since I keep being distracted by the classic rock flowing through the speakers, causing my bones to feel the jiggyness and having no choice but to shake it away. (that was a pretty complicated way of saying 'I keep stopping to dance') I also get distracted every time we pass another vehicle because I always look at the driver with an expression that reads 'see ya later, mother trucker'. It's an expression that says 'yeah, we're passing you but don't worry, you're still ahead of that smart car a kilometer back.'

Wow, we just went past a young man driving a truck with his window down and his elbow resting on the edge. "Sir! It's raining! Your sleeve is going to be all wet and muddy and won't match the other sleeve." What on earth is he thinking? Bitches be crazy.

Ooh, this is that awkward part when you enter the city and all those mother truckers you passed earlier have caught up and are beside you at the traffic light. I usually pretend to be busy and adjust the air conditioning vents or pretend to pick up something off the floor mat. (oh a rock! I've been meaning to get one of these...) Or sometimes they look right at you and you just have to pull the whole "oh hey! I knew I'd see you later!" look.

Big Poppa just put on New York Groove by Sweet for me since we just entered the city. Haha I'm a little embarrassed to say that it is getting me quite pumped even though, as fellow Albertans know, Edmonton is no New York. I don't think it's even worthy of being compared to the Big Apple. This isn't where dreams are made of. This is where dreams go to die! Haha okay that's a bit dramatic.

5 hours later...

Okay I have finished the first session of the prep course. Not too shabby. Nothing is particularly difficult so far. I am pretty confident that I will indeed rock the diploma! I will have to study my buns off for the chemistry one though since I had to choose between math and chemistry prep courses. This is where I really need my time turner necklace to work for real so that I can pull a Granger and be in two places at once. I would get so much done if it did work. But I guess it will always be just a dream to be a wizard. Until my letter comes!

Wow I wonder if any of you reading this have realized that I really didn't plan out this post at all. I have no idea what the point of it is. When I decided to post something I originally planned on talking about cooking. I seem to have strayed a long way from that topic. Don't worry, I'll bring it in here.

So my deal with cooking is that I suck at it. I also feel a strong hatred towards it. I can't stand the whole technique of measurements like pinch, dash, splash. Someone says that and I say "how fucking much of this shit am I supposed to put in?" Like everybody's different. Everyone has different hand sizes so how big is a pinch? Everybody's dishes will be different! This is so chaotic! I need consistency. I need a constant measurement that will remain the same every time. I learned how to make French toast in the 5th grade by following the instructions in a children's cookbook. Even though I could probably recite the recipe by heart, I still bring out that cookbook to this day just to be sure. I don't know if maybe the number of eggs changed since the last time I made them or the amount of vanilla has increased. I just need to be certain it will all end with pure deliciousness. I even measure the 2 cups of water you boil to make Kraft dinner. If its even slightly over the line you pour that shit out and start over. One day I was feeling particularly courageous and I eye-balled the amount of water. This resulted in some shitty KD. Just a monstrous bowl of disgusting macaroni. I learned my lesson that day; water is meant to be measured. Bad things happen when it is just violently poured into a pot. That water gets back at you and destroys your dinner hardcore.

The last time I did attempt to cook I was preparing mini frozen pizzas in the oven. I made them perfectly. They were a beautiful golden brown with cheesy delightfulness baked on top. I was so proud of myself and so excited and hungry. I carefully removed them from the oven and placed them on my plate. On my way from the kitchen to my seat on the couch in front of the tv (I was gonna pretend that I was going to sit at a table set with beautiful china and silverware but I feel like I can be honest with you guys. I was gonna sit with greasy pizza on my lap, wearing sweatpants and watching a rerun of Teen Mom). I was so excited to chow down that I didn't see one of my dogs at my feet and was soon struggling to keep balance and my plate tilted to an angle that caused my pizzas to slide onto the floor, cheese-side down. :( my pizzas were ruined and my cooking confidence and patience were lying beside them. I was so upset. To this day, I still haven't talked to my dog. Haha just kitten, we're all good. I just had to make a trip to McDonald's. And that's why I leave the cooking up to restaurants and my mom. I like it when food just appears in front of me. It just finds its way onto my plate and into my mouth. You know that movie 'Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs'? Well I've never seen that movie but I'm pretty sure that it's based on my life. Food pretty much just falls from the sky for me. And I, approve.

So I think that pretty much wraps up this post...it only took me all day. I don't even know what to title this since I am all over the map here. I'll figure something out.

-May the Force be with you!

Leave Me Alone

First off, I'd like to say how tickled-pink I am that so many people enjoy reading my blog. I've had quite a few people asking me to post more often which is very flattering but at the same time, I have to ask that you please get off my back. I love you but I feel like we need some space. Everything has just been moving so fast lately! I'm not sure if I can handle all of this commitment. It's just a little too soon since starting my instagram account and I guess I'm still not quite "over" that yet. It's not you...it's me. I can't handle the pressure you're putting me under!! I'm not saying we're through I just want everyone to know that I don't think I'll be able to make any new posts the next few weeks because it's the last couple weeks of school to hand assignments in and my teachers are all homework nazis. I want to assure you though that I am planning on dropping one hell of a blog bomb on y'all the second things start to slow down. I have quite a few ideas to write about which makes me super excited. Some future posts you can look forward to are; Theatre Theatre Popcorn Eater, My Grandma Calls Me Asshead, My Reinvention of Texting, Signs that You are Growing Up, A Cupcake a Day Keeps the Skinny Jeans Away, I Don't Even Gnome What to Think, "It's like that Game we Played", I Still Need an Xbox, My Special Relationship with Mirrors, May the Floss be with You, Pug Life, Queen of Wieners, Mustache Stash, and any thing else that pops into my head. I have many blogs in the brewing just not enough time on the clock. And I mean, if anyone wanted to help a brother out and write a couple of my diplomas so that I can blog that would be okay, I guess. So what I'm pretty much saying is stay tuned, the best is yet to come.

May the force be with you!

Sorry for Melting Faces

Please excuse my absence lately. I'm sure so many of you have been just been on standby waiting to see a new post from me. (Thanks for your patience, mom and auntie) I will now explain why you may have started to think I have fallen off the face of the earth. It starts with a T and ends with an -alent Show. That's right, the talent show. What some of you may not know about me is that I play guitar. Just kidding, I rock the guitar. I've played for about 9 years now and am still obsessed with it. My idol is Slash and one day I'll be him. But minus the drug addiction and habits of stealing. So they'll probably just call me Ash. Anyways, I really wanted to enter in the talent show since it would be the last year I'd have the opportunity to show all of my peers up. I was too nervous to go in alone though and so I decided to collaborate with my two talented friends, PattyStabs and Blondie. They already had a song in mind which we did an acoustic cover of. We started to practice about three weeks before the talent show which just added pressure of perfecting it in time. This made me quite nervous considering my stage fright consists of me losing all memory of the rehearsed performance and praying to God that I somehow pull through. I used to be a synchronized swimmer and if asked while waiting for my turn at the Water Show I wouldn't even be able to tell you how I got in the pool. But my muscle-memory would kick in and I'd somehow do fucking awesome. So I practiced this song like there was no tomorrow. Every chance I got I was in my room rocking out. The day of the talent show I didn't know what to wear. I thought 'everyone is going to be looking at me, I gotta look ballin'. So I went with my Empire Strikes Back t-shirt. When in doubt, rep The Force.

Not sure if people liked the song or the shirt better. Pretty classy, I'd say.

I made a lot of people promise to vote for us, including my mom and aunt who bought $10 worth of votes each as they walked through the door. Beardy told me this was cheating. I say nay nay. When you've got a fan base you put those peeps to work. 

Okay the suspense is killing me so I'm just gonna put up the video.

Some of you may know the song, its Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People. One teacher asked us if we wrote it and we almost said yes. At the end of the video you can see Blondie and I throwing our pics. Blondie thought that this would be a fun way to end the performance especially considering they made us go first. When we threw them they didn't go far at all. I wonder if anyone even bothered to grab them. The janitor who swept the floor afterward is one lucky lady. 

The pic I prepared to toss off stage.

After the long weekend we found out that we came in first place thanks to our loyal fan base. so we each won $25 iTunes cards. My grandma also made me a delicious celebratory cake.

 

A is for Awesome! ...and Ashlynn, I guess.

  Gnarly also enjoyed the cake. So like I said, I apologize for my absence but I think it has been excused. Sometimes melting faces gets in the way of blogging. 

May the force be with you!

P.S. Episode IV: A New Hope came out 35 years ago, today. 

Gnarly and Me: 15/05/2012

I know, I know. I'm a day late for my first Gnarly and Me post. I will tell you what kept me a day late after I introduce my garden friend. The moment I set eyes on Gnarly I knew we'd be best friends. My friend, Coke, and I were walking through Walmart when I stopped mid sentence and was amazed at this enchanted creature. He didn't say much, but he spoke to me.

Gnarly looking fine from the beginning. Look at how stupid that Pooh Bear looks behind him. Lay off the honey, Pooh! (Winnie the Pooh is a beloved character from my childhood. I would never mean those words I said in anything but a comical sense. Pooh, you know we tight.)

Coke and I loved Gnarly from the start. We unfortunately didn't have enough money on us to purchase the gnome so Coke proceeded to hide him behind some bags of dirt in one of the racks. I went home that evening and told my parents about him. Big Poppa and Melaney were not impressed. But I begged and begged for them to buy him for me. Melaney finally agreed and said that he would be my valentine's day present. I was ecstatic! Never have I had a valentine and my first one is a giant gnome! I must be the luckiest girl in the world!! I took her bank card back to Walmart and rescued Gnarles from his hiding spot. Carrying him around Walmart included many looks from other shoppers. Mostly out of envy. They would have all loved to take this bearded bundle of joy home but it was I who succeeded in doing so. 

The car ride home included many looks from other drivers. They were probably wondering how I got such a good looking man in my passenger seat. ;)

Gnarly was welcomed into my family right off the get-go. Melaney was already dishing him up his own plates. 

So that's pretty much the story of how Gnarly and I began. It was friendship at first sight. 

So the reason why I am a day late with this post is because on Sunday it was Mother's Day. Melaney was away this weekend visiting her grandma so I wasn't able to shower her in gifts. Since her absence wrecked my initial plans, Gnarly and I came up with a new idea. He would wait at the top of the stairs for my mother and my grandmother's arrival and present them with their gifts. 

I have to say he looks adorable! My mom and grandma loved the surprise. 

With my mom just returning home from a long drive I decided that I wouldn't blog and just spend time with her instead. Actually, I've been using her MacBook Pro to blog and felt rude to use it when she has been away from it all weekend. I could use my own Dell but once you go Mac you never go back. So me and Gnarly went outside to enjoy the beautiful weather and get our tan on;

May the force be with you!

My Time-Traveling Twin

So I was working at the theatre today and was sitting in the office just minding my own business while slave labouring. I then turn to my right and see a man at the concession being served by my reliable coworkers. He was probably in his early 20's and was wearing a baseball cap and dark-framed glasses. Normally this would cause no double-take, I wouldn't even notice except that there was something about this young man that caught my eye. He looked just like my friend, Beardy but about 3 or 4 years older. I seriously stared at this person for at least 30 seconds with the words 'what up gangsta?!' on the tip of my tongue before I realized that his moustache was too thick to belong to my buddy. I then texted Beardy and told him that I saw him from the future. He was, of course, impressed. I then decided that I should've gotten a picture of the guy to compare with Beardy today as well as in the future. Like I don't think he realized how similar this guy looked to him. He had the same glasses and the same colour of hair and beard and even the same size of stretchers in his ears. I was amazed! I was in shock! The future was staring me in the face!! Actually he never looked at me but if he did I'm sure we would have one of those moments. You know the ones where you see someone and you're like hey! I know you! We're best friends! Yup, definitely one of those moments.

I guess there's just something about Beardy that makes him easy to look like. A couple weeks ago, my friend had a party and she made it so that there was a theme. Because it's not fun to just get drunk, you have to get drunk to a theme. So the theme was' dress-up'. Everyone was digging through old Halloween costumes and trying to think of good ideas but I already knew. The second I saw the theme I was like yup! Know what I'm being. I'm dressing up as Beardy. So creative I didn't even know what to do with myself. I feel like I should've won an award.

The thing about Beardy is that he's kind of a slut. (Haha he's gonna kill me for saying this) After making out with two girls on New Year's Eve and repeatedly wearing a cardigan with no shirt underneath I started to call him Slutty Buns. I knew that in my costume I would need to reflect this. Beardy had also gone to Banff recently and came back with a pair of grey sweatpants that said BANFF on the one leg. He wore these all the time so I knew this was also a key factor in the costume's realism. And then there was the little accessories that would tie it all together; the earrings, the glasses and of course, the beard.

This is the before shot I took to see how different I look as Beardy.

After tucking in my hair in a nice snap-back and painting on a beard, I realized I really don't look too different from myself and don't look half bad either.

When I got to the party I walked in feeling confident and then found that Beardy was nowhere to be seen. I asked everybody where he was and someone said they didn't think he was coming. I decided to call him and said where the hell are you? Beardy, starting to feel sick and having to work the next morning, said that he decided to stay home and get some sleep. To this I replied, 'do you realize what my costume is? I am standing here with a beard painted on my face dressed up as you.' For comparison purposes, he sent me a picture so that I could see how great of a job I'd done and I have to say it's pretty impressive.

Beardy on the left, myself on the right. Pretty award-worthy, I'd say. This photo got 14 likes on Facebook btw. 

I rocked this look for the rest of the night and received many compliments from my buddy, Hutch, who was amazed at how much resemblance there was between us.

I never really thought of the idea that Beardy and I could be related until my mom and I were looking for a baby photo for my yearbook and stumbled across this little pic:

 This is when I decided that Beardy and I are secretly brother and sister. Even though we were born four months and ten days apart, I'm sure that we were separated at birth. It's probably a usual case with wizards. Look it up. We are twins.

The moral of this post is that Beardy is my brother and a time-traveler. And I win costume parties. Just another reason why I'm too fly to get by.

May the force be with you!