our house in the middle of a....drug bust!

At first thought of moving into our townhouse, I can't say I was terribly pleased. I'd only seen the place once, and it ended up being a drive by. Al's sister lived here for a while but when we came to see them, they weren't home.  My houses growing up were always in new developments with brand new houses with potted flowers and window shutters and trampolines and connecting back yards that all the mormon kids ran around together in. So, needless to say, this place looked like a hole. But then once we got inside and came here a couple times, I decided it was going to be great. It's got a lot of room and is clean and nice and we're really quite comfortable here! I love our home.

I knew right off the get go that our neighbors were treats. Special treats. Every day when I would come home, the two neighbors on our right side were sitting right outside their door (since that is the only place to sit that is on your own property) basking in the sun...and they had been there the entire day. Dale had his shirt off and was the color of a walnut and the texture of an elephant and Susan had her orange spandex dress on with her hair slicked back. This was the same. Every. single. day. They are both on AISH and pleasant as plums and love to say hi but nothing else every time I walk in my house and also love asking for favors.

Susan is my favorite. We can smell anything and everything she does in our stairwell (and the rest of the house) but really good in the stairwell. She likes to smoke and also likes to burn her stinky food that she makes for her and her dogs. One day we heard smoke alarms going off and went to shut them off thinking they were ours. Turns out they were coming from the stairwell. So we waited like 10-15 minutes, and I figured I should send Al over there since I started smelling a nice disgusting smokey smell wafting in. So Al knocks on her door, and here comes Susan....one smoke detector under her right arm and one in her left....still beeping.
"just wanted to make sure everything was ok over here..."
"oh ya, just burnt some food"
"......."
(gesturing to the smoke detectors) "these should go off in a while."

She's the best. Another incident:
Knock on the door.
Alan opens the door..."oh, hey Susan!"
"could you shovel my walk for me in the morning?"
"..sure!"
"I can't get out of my house."
Susan climbs through the snow back home.

We also, right off the get go, noticed that our other neighbors a few doors away had LOTS of friends. New, different friends every day. Most of them 20-something grease monkeys just getting off work from their blue collar jobs. Everyone has a key. And if you don't, all you need is the mail box to get your friendship fix. But mostly, walk up to the house, go in, stay for two minutes, get your friendship, and go home....happy as ever!

As you can imagine, they are all quite friendly. And we really do love it here.

But a few nights ago, the top story in the Herald was a shooting.....involving a cocaine bust. We see the picture in the paper and, wouldn't ya know it, that's right by our house. Like, our house was almost in the picture.  A legit, straight-up shooting right across the street from us. Our neighbors, upon questioning, referred to our neighborhood as "the projects" and "livin in the slums"

I feel pretty legit now (and BA enough to use the word 'legit').....like I've seen everything. "oh yaaa, this one time...pretty much right outside my front window...I saw a man shoot a guy....right in the face! I saw the whole thing!"

I guess it's a good thing we have to move soon. For now, I'll just keep my pepper spray on me at all times...like I was already doing anyways due to extreme paranoia.

PS the guy that got shot is ok. No need for panic. But he really DID get shot....and we really did sleep through the whole thing.

Whatevs, You Guys

Hey there. 

I am just soaking up the sun and the Easter holiday today. Or whatever it is. I think Monday is supposed to be the Easter holiday. Well I guess Good Friday and Easter Monday are holidays so we should get them both off, but ya can't have your cake and eat it too...oooor CAN YOU?

We got up and ran 11.5 miles for marathon club this morning. And 11.5 rounds up to 13, so I just basically ran a half marathon. WHAT UP. Running is kind of a good time. I think the only reason I enjoy it is because I'm in a club and I never got to be in one growing up cause I was such a queer so now I am making up for that and being really cool in a club with a bunch of old guys with broken hips that can run faster than me. Anyways, here are some tips for running from one of the best shufflers out there (that's a better description of what I do, don't think I can really call myself a runner):  

1. buy lots of over priced and color-of-the-season running clothes so that the only excuse you have to wear them is to go running and so you have to go
2. don't expect to ever buy boots cause you officially have huge, muscly, manly calves
3. make sure you are super interested and intrigued by nothing at all, i.e. cracks in the side walks, garbage stuck to the fence, what people are doing in the privacy of their own homes in front of the window, the shape of the girls (or guys?) butt running in front of you, etc etc etc. 
4. have your husband have chocolate milk, a smoothie, bagels, chocolate, pasta, peanut butter sandwiches, Nutella toast, and really any other carb in the house laid out on the counter for when you get home...and make sure you eat all of it so that you never lose any weight from your run.
5. don't ever stretch. 
6. don't make goals for yourself. Just randomly start to run, run somewhere, and run back home. Don't look at the clock or try and beat someone in the club, just run. It will keep you nice and motivated. 
7. And listen to this song the entire time your entire run...

In other news, I decided to make use of my sewing machine and ended up making a decently hideous skirt.  See below. 

Best worn with your ugliest, oldest shirt.

It's got pockets and everything. I might wear it sometime when nobody is looking. Or maybe to the wedding we go to tonight just to prove a point and say to everyone "I can wear whatever I WANT!"

We were priviledged last weekend to attend the great and magnificent Riverdance. Ok seriously you guys, it was so fricken sweet. I could have sat there for three days straight watching them dance and sing and fiddle and play the bagpipes. Never seen anything like it in my life. And I'd like to say that I've never seen a goofier picture of Dixie in my life either, but she does that in all her pictures. We tried to get her to stop...so now everytime we get the camera out she acts normal until the LAST second and then pulls the big eyes out. Nobody really knows why.

Me and J enjoying the festivities! I love my mother and my sister almost as much as I love Al, but sorry guys, not quite. But still, a LOT!

Wad Of Pics

I've got some pretty good news for everyone today.....drum roll please. This blog is getting even better than it already was. WAM! Impossible, You say? Well aren't you naive. I know that the pictures I post on here are already exquisite and beautiful beyond all compare, but believe it or not, it's about to get better. Al recently (weellll actually like kind of a while ago by now) purchased an iPhone 4GS....complete with like more pixels or something than my phone and a flash and a little button that makes it so you can flip the camera and see yourself when you are taking a picture. Ya, none of this crap 3GS thing I've had going on. Things are getting pretty serious around here. Now the only thing left to do is get working on my tinawildephotography.com webside. It's gonna be HUGE.

So without further ado, all the pictures we have taken in, like, the last 4 months:


This one time I bought this really super long T-shirt from Superstore as a nightee and then went swimming at the Ramada. Next thing you know, I look like a Psych Ward admittee.

Then this other time I left Al home to fend for himself one night, and I receive message on the phone encompassing this picture. I threw up a little...or maybe a lot..in my mouth. He swears he loved it. Those are not hot dogs, they are breakfast sausages, for the record.

You know when you can see the mountains really good, so you try and take a picture with you in it and turns out you can't even see them at all in the picture? And also, you know when you take a picture with your left hand, unaware of what your right hand was doing at the moment? Yaaaaa....I don't know.

Al just YESTERDAY explained his smile to me. I can't count the number of times I've mocked him and other times screamed at him to "stop making that fake smile". He apparently cut his lip doing something in high school....ummm crap don't tell him but I don't remember what he said he was doing when he cut it......maybe I actually have heard this story before yesterday. Anyways, he cut his lip and now his initial smile turns crooked. So he tries to pull the left side of his lip down, making it look incredibly forced. So, whenever you see this smile, he really is genuinely happy, I swear.

A terrifying knee face. Artist: yours truly.

Takin a lover's walk across Whoop Up. We love you Lethbridge, but please let us not be living in you in a few months!

We took a little trip to Sir Scratchewan a couple weekends ago. It is sad when you consider being in Saskatoon for 4 hours and then Edmonton for like 5 a relaxing holiday, but I guess that's what us full-time employees gotta live with (I was clearly not made for working). Everyone kept telling us how excruciating the drive to Sask was going to be, but somebody's crazy cause that drive was gorg+beaut+fant. All shortened words for AWESOME. This blue bridge was my favorite part. We were in a hurry so we couldn't stop to take a picture, but being the photographer I am, the pics turned out great. I think the rock chip in the window adds all kinds of character.

I'm still mad at myself for not turning on Long Gone Sasatchewan by Corb while we were driving, but it was a little high stress on the way there. I had to help Al practice interview questions AND stay awake at the same time so we didn't die the whole drive. Be impressed, cause I did it.

The thing I enjoyed most about the drive was probably the 50 of the raunchiest, most run down gas station bathrooms I have ever laid eyes on and also peed in. Seriously, oh my gosh. Holy crap. I have never experienced such filth. I still didn't line the toilet seat with toilet paper or squat though. I guess that means I belong in Saskatchewan.

But also, the town of Alsask was pretty good. No, that doesn't say Alaska. It says AL-SASK. Took us about 13 minutes to figure that one out. So as we were pulling out of another putrid gas station, I decided to google map where we were. You guessed it, we were smack dab on the Alberta/Saskatchewan border. Really creative, finder of Alsask, real creative.



After being treated like Kings and Queens by Branny Pants in Edmonton, we drove home. And it was my birthday so we got to stop at Olive Garden. I also bought myself this new outfit. It was my birthday, shout hooray!

Why is this the first time I've seen one of these? Doesn't take a genious to know that I need at least 5 packets of ketchup every time I have fries. Five packets combined into one? Yes please!
And we all know I'm ALL FOR being sexist, but shouldn't this be upsetting more people?

Yes, we take all sorts of fun and interesting pictures around here. We are just snappin em left and right. That is quite literally all I've got in my photo library. I DO own a nice little Canon digital thing, but it either ends up in one of the random baskets of the house, the junk drawer, the utensil drawer, or the dish rag drawer, and every last one of those locations hides things very well....so good thing Al's iPhone is so rad.