{a game?}

want to play a game? 

it's called, "where in the world is carmen sandiego?" 

except instead of carmen sandiego, it's me. 

suzy. 

so.

where in the world is suzy?

{and barclay. obviously.}

where in the world is are suzy and barclay!?

hints:

now guess! 

we can play again tomorrow, if you want. because we will be somewhere else entirely by then.

{need gravol NOW}

last night i was visited in a dream by a woman who looked a bit like whitney houston. she floated all around my bed and sang, all gospel-choir-y, "girl you better sing like a bird if you wanna learn how to fly."

and now i've had that line in my head all morning, caught myself humming it in the shower, and am starting to wonder if it's the flu that's making me nauseous or this irritating "song". how weird and lame is my subconscious?

{liv out loud}

i just wanted to send you guys over to meet a new friend of mine. her name is olivia, and she is fantastic. she's been doodling around the uk for the past 4.5 months, and records her lovely life in a webspace called "liv out loud". we only "met" recently when she emailed me about a wee blog makeover--you can check it out by clicking on the screen shot!

as per usual, feel free to contact me about any doodles you desire. i'm learning much in the way of html and that, plus i just love to draw stuff.

{things i saw}

still living out of a suitcase, still not finding much time for uploading my memory to the computer. life feels a little frantic, a little everywhere. big decisions are being made, and in the face of big decisions i am a little weak flea, or something you could squish with an eye blink.  

but i wanted to share some things i saw. 

1: a moment where i was incredibly relieved to have brought my phone with me so i could document the stupidest new trend i've ever been witness to. i'm really sorry if YOUR car has eyelashes and is decorated inside and out with "i'm the princess of the world" stickers and seat covers and steering wheel covers and EYELASHES and license plates AND HAS EYELASHES. i just can't handle it. look at those things. they are not just painted on there.

2: then i went down 13th and saw a woman with a tea kettle for a hand. not even a new-fangled electric tea kettle. i thought to myself: if i ever need a surgery like that, i know just the kettle i want.

3: major major bathroom renovations happening in our neck of the woods. the before and after is going to be drastic. 

happy belated thanksgiving, americans!  

{gift ideas}

i've been a crappy blogger lately. this is for all kinds of reasons. reasons of i'm not living at home right now and reasons of i'm suuuuper tired all the time and reasons of quite frankly i've got nothing to blog about. don't worry; it's just a season in every blogger's life. i'll come back.

in the meantime, i wanted to drop in and share a couple of Christmas present ideas. because i was online looking for Christmas presents for friends last night and it was completely overwhelming. did you even know how big the internet is? the internet is bigger than saskatchewan even. and, land mass-wise, saskatchewan is pretty big. but the point is not that.

the point is that in my combing of the internets, i came across a few cool present ideas.

first: bracelets and necklaces from thirty one bits. {$9 and up}

taken from the thirty one bits website:


{{Kallie Dovel, traveled to Uganda in the summer of 2007, getting a first- hand look at life in Northern Uganda. While she was there, she met women making paper beads but who lacked a plan to market and sell them. After spending time in their homes and hearing their stories, Kallie knew there had to be a way to give opportunities to her new friends. She brought a box of jewelry back to the U.S., and spent the next year finishing her degree and dreaming up the concept of a development organization. She brought a few friends on board and her ideas quickly evolved into 31 Bits. The girls traveled back to Uganda in August 2008, and selected six women to begin buying jewelry from on a monthly basis. Since then, we have grown to 99 women; each with a unique story of suffering that has been overcome with joy and liberation. Find out more about what we do in Uganda here.}}

it's a really cool organization, and the jewelry is so, so, so pretty. i kind of want some for me...

second: absolutely anything from photojojo.

but might i recommend these fantastic polapost mailable frames? {$15 for a pack of 7} 
they're little envelopes with a clear cover. you cut down a picture, stick it inside, seal it shut, and write on the back! i would love to own a little pack of these. stationary is one of those gifts that you can't really go wrong with.

but there is seriously no end to the goodness in the photojojo store. crazy lenses for your iphone, sweet picture frames, a diy pinhole camera kit... i just bought a camera bag from there and i LOVE it. plus their customer service ROCKS, PLUS they ship out their stuff crazy fast {international shipping to me took 11 days, even though international shipping usually takes anywhere from 2-4 weeks}, PLUS PLUS they threw a little toy dinosaur in with my order. weird, but endearing. right?

third: again, absolutely anything from david's tea.

they have, by far, the cutest and most efficient tea sets, travel mugs, and tea accessories i've ever seen--not to mention, the best tea. but i have to tell you, this cork collection teapot is what i would pick if you were shopping for me. {$29.50}

stocking stuffers? definitely these mad libs bandages from perpetual kid. {$4.99} 

i saved my best for last, obviously:
click here to shop for gifts that will actually help people in third world countries.

it's run through an organization called Compassion International, and it's a really cool thing. 35 bucks gets a kid some dental care. 16 bucks gets a family a chicken. for 100 dollars, you can pay for medical assistance for new moms.

a friend and i decided earlier this year that we're going to do this instead of getting each other gifts this year, and i'm pretty excited about it. i have 112 subscribers right now, but according to the stats page there are more than that who read every day. so even if each of you just bought one chicken, you could feed about 200 families. i think that's cool.

anyway, at least read up on it and let me know what you think.

whoa. i need to get some brekkie. i'll see you all around. happy Christmas shopping days!

{blogcrashers vol. 10, i think, weekend edition number 2}

hannah takes a page from molls and tells you about her five faves.



www.todayinmyteenageangst.blogspot.com

{relephant the relevant elephant}

so last week i was reading something off the relevant magazine website, and since it was about 2 in the morning i started thinking about elephants and then wondering why i was thinking about elephants and then realizing that it was probably because the word relevant sounds too much like the word elephant for 2 in the morning.

so then i started thinking i was all clever and picturing relephant, the relevant elephant, and how funny that could be and then i was going to tweet it because that is what twitter is for and then i remembered my rule that i should keep my 2 am funny things to myself until at least 8 in the morning so that people will still respect me, because i usually wake up at 8 in the morning and think about the funny things of the night before and realize that they're actually more embarrassing than funny and i usually feel pretty good about my decision to keep them in my head. so i forgot about relephant the relevant elephant.

yesterday, in twitterland:

DO YOU HAVE GOOSEBUMPS? I KNOW I DO.

so then i told her that i had, i had thought of relephant, and i don't know if she believed me but she rejoiced with me that we're probably telepathic and stuff anyway, and then she sent me this this morning.

so.

from now on, any time paige baker has a good idea, you'll know that it's actually my good idea, telepathized to her at 2 am and then forgotten about by me. too bad for me, but paige is going to go places. congratulations, paige.

also: i just saw this now. more goosebumps.

see?
telepathic telegram, spot on schedule.

{if you don't know who paige baker is, you must be new to the internet. you can find her here.}

{movies and princess hair}

i got something i've always always wanted yesterday. very excited about it.
i'll show you it maybe tomorrow or the next day or next week or in a month or something.

in the meantime, i have two major movie recommendations for you.

a) the soloist.



b) martian child



have you seen either of these? they're both completely fantastic. i promise.

also. i was cleaning out my docs folder this morning and came across some pictures from the summer when i got to dress up like a princess {for a play, not just for fun}.
check out my hair; i did it myself. i don't know why i didn't brag about my mad princess hair skills earlier, but here it is anyway.

this picture was in the same folder.
i...don't know.

{imagine me and uvula}

i just had the most horrific experience involving my uvula.

{totally just dictionary dot commed the word "uvula" to make sure it was what i was thinking of before writing a whole post about it. it was.}

and, in case you had a stupid moment like i did and also wondered what "conical" could possibly have to do with the soft palate:

oh. duh.

so anyway. onward and upward. about that conical uvula.

i ate soup for lunch. but i hope you know that soup is always better with a heap of cheddar cheese on top, and i hope you know that i put extra cheese on everything that i put cheese on, and can therefore surmise that there was a good mount everest or so of cheddar cheese on my soup that i ate for lunch.

you guys.

it was fantastic the whole way through. the right amount of soupy, the right amount of cheesy. UNTIL THAT FATEFUL BITE.

the last bite.

i always save a good amount of cheese for my last bite so that i will end the meal on a perfect note, and this last bite was no exception. except, except, except that the cheese clumped into a ball and stuck to my uvula.

it was horrible. it just hung there, suspended precariously over that back part of my tongue that always makes me gag if anything touches it. i couldn't swallow, i couldn't cough it up, no amount of water chugged at top speed would wash it down. i tried gurgling with mouth wash. i tried gurgling with hot water. i tried gurgling with boiling water. it was almost exactly like that time i snorted a handful of pepper to make myself sneeze and almost died on the kitchen floor in a pitiful mess of hysterical laugh-sneezing. 

barclay didn't know what was going on. i yell-told him, "THERE IS A BUNCH OF CHEESE STUCK TO MY UVULA!"
he looked horrified. but he couldn't help me. no one could.

my friend, karlie, was at the door. i was mid-panic. "THERE IS A BUNCH OF CHEESE STUCK TO MY UVULA!" i yell-told her.
she laughed at me. that's what friends do, i guess.

anyways. the cheese slid the rest of the way down my throat about an hour later. so.

that was good, i guess.

i'm sorry if that grossed you out at all. i just needed to talk about it.

{kid history}

my sister just showed me this, and i thought of how fortunate it was that she did {because you know about how much i like to laugh at stuff}.



PS: thanks for all the sweet suggestions on my last post. i'm absolutely going to do some link surfing and hopefully find my dream day planner. i'll let you know which one i pick and where you can get one too. if you haven't commented yet but still have something to say, let me know. the more options, the better. obviously.

{help!}

there is a problem:
2011 is almost over.
and there are seven pages left in my moleskine dayplanner.

i don't know about you, but i find it very, very hard to keep organized. hard to remember who i said what to, who i made plans with, what time to meet this person at ...that place. what place? what person?

what day?


and i hate to be the voice of reason here, but you can only stand a friend up so many times before they start to take your forgetfulness as a sign that you just aren't interested in them anymore. even if your forgetfulness is nothing more than a sign that you're forgetful.

i don't really remember what day it was that my head fell off, but that happened. and the day after, i bought my first moleskine dayplanner.

i feel as though my day planner has become like a third arm to me, but as 2011 comes to an end my new limb is in danger of falling off. and, quite frankly, i'd rather lose my right nostril {i smell pretty good as it is. i probably only really need one nostril}.

now here is the part that is equal parts lame {if you're a boy reading this} and understandable {if you're a girl}.

i want a new day planner. but i do not want a plain black one again. i want something...pretty? something neat. something nice. something that screams, "i'm organized plus i'm also really cool as well!" but not too loudly. i don't wish to make a spectacle of myself.
obviously.

it's a big commitment i'm talking about here. a day planner has to last you a whole year. you can't just quit on it--unless you want to quit on your sanity at the same time. no good can come of that.

here's my deal:

i need something small enough to fit in my purse. i like the bungee cord holding the whole thing shut so it doesn't splay out all over inside my purse and lose its guts. i like being able to see a whole week at a time. i like space to write and space to doodle, but i don't want a big bulky thing.
no, i'm not interested in making my own. no, i'm not interested in any of the "special edition" moleskines in the online store. i want better.

i am an organization BRAT.

so i come to you guys. you know all the cool etsy shops and big cartel stores. you live all around the world and you know where it's at, organizationally.

i need help, and i need it before january 1.

oh, also: please.

{paper dynamite}

i have writer's block.

the best thing to do when you have something you don't want is either:
a} ignore it
b} blow it up

you cannot ignore writer's block. writer's block is like that woman in front of you at the movie theatre with her three small children. writer's block is like a mosquito existing anywhere in the room while you're trying to sleep. unignorable. intolerable.

tonight, i



but when i'd blown up the page, the writer's block was still there.
what do i have to do? blow up my head?

{i am more afraid}

one time, this happened:

i screamed and mom came running and i pointed at the offending piece of spider scramming up the wall and mom said it wasn't that big even though it was and then she said one of those things that moms say that are meant to be reassuring but are actually just confusing: "spiders are more afraid of you than you are of them."

and i've always thought of that. a futile thing to dispute because no matter where i started i always ended at but moms are always right therefore spiders ARE more afraid. 

i thought of it again last week when there came to be a spider living on the toilet, the only toilet in our house, and i had to, you know, hold it until i got brave, and it turns out that fear is stronger than any other thing, and so i, you know, held it all day.

and so as i was sitting there in the room farthest from the bathroom wishing i could drink some water but not daring to, i thought, "if i was a centimetre tall, and there was a house full of 5 and 6-foot spiders, i would neeeeeeeever be brave enough to go sit on their toilet unless i was completely unafraid of them."

and, i guess, that was the day that i proved my mother wrong.
i am more afraid.

{late-o-clock}

i should be in bed or something.

you should be in bed or something.

what are you doing awake at this hour?

if you asked me that question, i would say, "oh not a lot. just finished eating some pasta and playing some video games with barclay. one {of many} last hurrahs before we go gluten-free. 

{it's just something we're going to try.}

{{but first we have to eat allllllllll the pasta in the house.}}

{{{this is probably going to be my favourite part about going gluten-free.}}}

i should show you: i did another blog header, this one for the lovely celeste over at wanderlust. her blog is fantastic and i really like that girl. go say hello and stuff. 

and seriously, if you want doodles of any kind, be them on your blog or anywhere else, let me know. i'm saving up for a trip to paris, and i'm halfway there.

{email me: itwalkedonmypillow{at}hotmail.com for more info}

{RAPID FIRE DOUBLE BLOG THURSDAY POSTS}

i don't know if you know this about me, but i'm an intensely emotional freak. i was talking about this with some friends the other night. they were like, "oh yeah, i cry in chick flicks," and i was like, "oh yeah, i cry in every other life situation."

because i do.

for example, this:



it's like an early 90's underdog sports movie. but it's better because it's real life. and it reminds me of my big brother, tj, who loves basketball and has down syndrome and who is awesome.

so best.

{where i've been}

one day, i went for a walk. there were birds and leaves and only a little wind and friendly neighbours and there was sun and lots of other things. when it's like that, when everything around you is nice and fine and there is no having to think, "i'm too cold," or, "i'm too hot," or, "i'm in a sketchy neighbourhood and my life is in imminent danger," your mind is mostly free to do lots of other thinking. 

so i started thinking about all the things i should do today. from that little email i have to answer, to those plans i made with that one person, to the dirty dishes in the sink and the latest episode of the tv show i've been watching lately that i missed last night but can watch online if i want to. this, inevitably, caused me to think about time.

so i was thinking about time and all the things that had happened so far in my little timeline and all the things that could still happen in the time i had left and i was thinking about that particular day's time and how much of it there was in comparison to how many things needed to be done in it. and i was thinking about how you can't go back, only forward, and how much it was like tetris, the game where you needed to stack every block perfectly in the right nook or cranny so that all of the blocks didn't pile up to the top of the screen and flash at you and make that horrible sheep-bleating noise that meant that you lost because you couldn't handle all of the things that came down at you. and i was thinking about how some days felt like level one and some days felt like level nine. you know, speed-wise.

i pictured time as a horse and me as myself {obviously} and the horse sometimes walking slowly along, me walking beside it holding it by its mane, and the horse sometimes galloping along as fast as the wind with me flailing along behind it hanging on by the hair of its tail, the tetris blocks falling all around me and me letting them land wherever, the day rapidly coming to a close as everything piled up and piled up and piled up.

i became indignant at the thought of being controlled so severely by the invisible, charging horse. 

i sat down, in the middle of the street. i tried to pull up the pavement and dig to china. i stood up and began walking backwards.

i ran. i couldn't see where i was going. that's why they generally advise you to run forwards, i suppose.

i stumbled over a tree stump and fell off the end of the earth.

and, i guess, that's where i've been for the past little while. 

sorry about that. i'll float back down when i can.

{murder in the lighthouse}

halloween parties are more like halloween work days.

i mean, you have to think up an original and creative costume {or else shell out 50 bucks for someone else's creativity}, you have to get a bunch of food and drinks, and you have to entertain people and think of witty conversation, and you have to invite a billion people and then clean up after them.

hullo. 

scary, yes. fun, no.

well, fun, maybe. i guess it could still be fun.

but the point is not that.

the point is: have you ever tried a murder mystery in a box? 

you can buy it in the board game section. you take it home and voila. 

instant, easy party.

you find 8-10 friends who are game, and you assign them characters. the game includes their costume suggestions, as well as a menu for appies, the main course, drinks, and dessert {just get everyone to bring a thing. minimal work for everyone!}

on the night of the party, everyone shows up, you sit em down at the dinner table, and you all read from your scripts. zero awkward pauses. zero i can't believe i just said that moments or am i talking too much moments. there are four scenes, and you play while you stuff your face.

it comes with a {wonderfully cheesy} cassette tape, which briefs you on the situation and who has been murdered and how, so you the host don't actually have to have any social graces. 

one person is the murderer, and only they know it. at the end of the game, everyone presents their solution and makes their accusations, and if anyone guesses right, they're the winner!

who doesn't like a party where you could potentially take home the title of Winner?

we did one with a boat theme. the murder took place in a lighthouse... there was a lot of khaki, a lot of accusing, and a lot of food. 

what more could you want in a halloween party?

have you ever played one of these?