Princess Jazz

Yesterday was my shower with all my friends. It was awesome to see everyone! There were people I hadn't seen in incredibly long amounts of time (like Becky who has been living in France for the past year!) and they were here from every area of my life. It was king oof tough in the beginning bcause no one really knew each other - it was a very ecclectic group. Eventually it became more comfortable.

As for gifts - I got a lot of sexy stuff. Most was tasteful, some was a bit more, shall I say, daring. I'm sure that everything will be used and appreciated eventually though. Thanks so much to everyone who came! Conversations also leaned a bit toward the "daring" side of things and I think some of my friends were at a loss as to how to respond. Actually there were times where I was at a loss for words. Looking back, I wish I had maybe steered conversations down different paths, but hey, what's done is done. It was still a great time.

Bre and Danielle (and Bre's mom, Deb) planned the whole thing and they did a beautiful job. There was a pink and lime green theme going on, which I loved! The food was great as well - lots of chocolate. : ) But again, as I said, the best part was the company. I have some great friends! What a blessed girl I am.

I'm excited. My bridesmaids are throwing me a wedding shower this Saturday and a bunch of my friends are coming from out of town. The earliest guest will be coming tomorrow and some will be staying until Sunday so this will be a full weekend. Debra is coming tomorrow and I have not seen her in stinkin forever. We met at camp when I was 11. She's one of my best friends but we rarely talk. I love that we can keep minimal contact and yet always be secure in our friendship. It's a solid thing and I like that.

Many friends are coming from Waterloo as well, some of whom I have not seen in a very, very long time. It'll be weird to have all these people from different parts of my life, and they won't all know each other, but it'll be good to see them all again. Oh I'm excited. So excited that I just might squeak.

I worked my standard Friday lunch shift at the restaurant today. Not much of note happened. The lunch rush was a bit late and not as big as usual but not bad money. My boss' 4 year old son kept me company for the slower parts of the day. I love that kid. He's always telling me "I like you Jasmine, you're the best" and hugging me. I used to hang out with his brother like that, when he was young and at home during the day. Now that Dash has grown up it's nice to have a new little buddy.

There's this one customer that often comes in and always throws me off. He's young, probably mid-twenties. He reminds me of a friend of mine, Bryan. What's unusual about this is that Bryan died a few years ago. So it's very strange to be interacting with this guy like normal while the entire time I'm thinking of Bryan. When Bryan was alive I probably would not have thought that he would have such a big impact on me. But I think about him fairly often and it's been almost 4 years since he was killed. We didn't even see much of each others in the last few years before his death - he moved and switched schools and y'know.... but we were friends when we were kids (gr. 8, 9, 10) and we lived close so we saw quite a bit of each other. There was a group of us that used to hang out and I wonder how much the others think back to those times.

Life is strange. It's hard to realize the impact of things when they're around, but as soon as there's a shift and things change and are lost, then we notice their absence. It's like that song "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone." True that.

I went to see Kingdom of Heaven last weekend with Todd. I really enjoyed it. It had a lot of interesting comments to make about religion. I feel like I need to watch it again to really catch all the conversations and meanings. Todd and I both liked it and it sparked some conversation afterwards. (Justin, I think you'd like this movie.)

I'm going to see The Interpreter tonight with my dad. It should be good.

I am superexcited about Star Wars Episode Three: Revenge of the Sith. It is going to be amazing. Hopefully they can redeem the last movie by making this one awesome and by cutting down on the cheesy dialogue. I'm most excited though about getting to see all of Amidala's clothes are hairstyles. Who knows, maybe I'll find a hairstyle for my wedding day. (As of now I'm inspired by her hair in Episiode One as Padmé.)

I like movies. Sometimes I get frustrated with myself for helping to make Hollywood what it is, but I really just enjoy watching movies.

Tomorrow I'm getting up early to be in London for (gasp!) 9am to get a blood test done. I need to results for my doctor's apoointment on Monday. I absolutely detest these appointments. I feel like my endocrinologist just wastes my time. Plus I stress for weeks beforehand. These blood tests are more stressful than exams because they have a much greater impact on my life. When I'm stressing about my exams in school I can always calm myself my asking "What's the worst that can happen if I fail - Will I die?" and the answer is always no. However, If I ask the same question here the answer is "possibly." So therefore these blood tests freak me out. (For all of you who are not so familiar with this, I'm talking about an A1c test which measures the amount of sugar stuck to my homoglobin. It's kind of like an average of my blood sugars over the past 3 months, but it's more complex than just that.) I'll find out Monday how well I've been doing at taking care of myself.

This weekend will likely be a bit slow. Todd will be away at his cottage, and my mom and brothers will be at a youth convention in Waterloo (lucky kids, I wish I could be in Waterloo), and my sister has moved out already. Now it's just me and my dad. I think we'll go see a movie tomorrow night.

I had plans to go shopping with my boss/friend Manjola today. We ended up bringing along her mother (who speaks no English) and her 4 year old son who speaks a weird combination of English/Albanian/Made-Up Language. It was actually very fun. I went back to their house/restaurant for dinner. Their dad (also my boss) had just brought home a trampoline so I helped them set it up a bit and then I jumped with the kids for about an hour. So Much Fun! I love trampolines. I think I'll be hanging out after my work shifts more often now.

When I was leaving both kids were begging me to stay longer. I love those kids. I love that entire family. Saturday night as I was driving home after work I realized how incredibly blessed I am to enjoy working so much. So often I have to thank God for the opportunity to work at this restaurant. It's the best job. I hope that I can always feel this way about work. I was talking to a friend tonight who told me that thinking about having to go into her job makes her want to cry. I'm so scared of experiencing that. I've been fortunate enough so far to have enjoyed every one of my jobs. Hopefully this pattern will continue.

I realize that it has been a while since my last post. I've been pretty busy this past week and exhausted so other things have been taking priority. I'll tell you my most interesting story now though:

My dad had surgery to repair a hernia on Wednesday. His operation was delayed a few hours but everything went fine and he was home a few hours later. That night as my sister and I were getting ready for bed, about 12:30, we heard a huge crash and ran downstairs to find my dad passed out on the floor. He was walking from the bathroom to the bedroom and passed out. He slammed his head into a big book about Hutterites and gave himself a concussion. We got him up and I was helping him to the bedroom when he went all weird and passed out again and dropped to the floor. His eyes were open though and he was just sort of frozen. We couldn't get him to respond for a few minutes so we called 911. The ambulance came and they checked him out but by that time he was fine and embarassed that we had called him. So, we all went to bed.
I got up at 4am to check on him just to make sure that his concussion wasn't too serious. Long story short we went through the whole routine again but this time we convinced him to go to the hospital.

Burr and I went along to keep my mom company. The doctors said that he must have still had some of the anasthetic in his veins and when he walked around it realeased into his blood and put him out. That's why his unconscious state was so weird. It was like he was frozen. They flushed his system with 4 bags of IV fluid and sent him home.

The ambulance driver told my mom that 50% of their calls are to clean up mistakes made by the hospitals. People are being rushed through surgeries and sent home way too soon. Just a few years ago someone having this surgery my dad had would be in the hospital 3 or 4 days. They kept him only 4 hours.

We're just blessed that he didn't injure himself seriously when he crashed to the floor. Fortunately nothing serious happened.

All of that explains part of my tiredness - I only got 2 hours of sleep that night.

In relation to my last post - things with my sister have been great. We've been spending time together and not getting on each other's nerves. This is good. I'm always glad when she's around but also nervous that I'll do something to tick her off. So far so good.

Todd came home Sunday night. I was waiting at his parents' place, hanging out with his brother, waiting to see him. I'm so glad he's home! Life feels more complete and I feel more grounded.

Monday we went to Waterloo and hung out with my sister's guy, Dan. We played a game of foosball (one of Todd's favourite activities), then went for dinner with my friends Cynthia and Justin. We all went to the Embassy Monday night and then out to Dairy Queen with some more friends. All in all it was a good day.

I moved the last of my stuff home from my apartment. It's sad to be gone, but kind of nice to be done with the transition. I do have a couple things still there, which I will eventually need to get, but I'm sure that I'll be visiting friends this summer so that won't be a problem at all.