Am important post you should all read.

I feel like when one becomes a blogger (which I obvs am), you search for all of these important topics to blog on and every once in a while, you get hit with an excited wave of inspiration that makes you say NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN STOP ME FROM GIVING MY OPINION ABOUT THIS TOPIC.

I have found another one of these topics.

Today, my faithful readers, I am going to talk to you about......

How to properly load a dishwasher.

I think Lloyd will take a particular interest in this post.

I should probably take the time now to point out that I am slowly and purposefully transforming myself into Lloyd. Being a homeowner, if you have a Lloyd around, it's really very useful. You can say things like "Lloyd, at what price should I buy lean ground beef?" and Lloyd will confidently tell you "$1.99/lb". Lloyd may also let you know which stores currently have such a deal, or at what time of the week you should go to Superstore in Bayers Lake to get good deals on meat (Monday morning y'all).

Similarly, if you were to wonder, I wonder how much each meatball costs in this giant batch I just made? If you were Lloyd, you would know it was $0.30.

So, I have found myself attempting to accumulate and make use of Lloyd's excellent life knowledge. I calculate the price per roll of toilet paper at the grocery store. I then compare it to the detailed per roll information that Lloyd has imparted on me ($0.25 per roll? Purchase. Higher? Do not purchase). I make a note of how many liters of ice cream are in the containers. I then consider writing a letter to Farmers to tell them how indignant I'm feeling about it, and how they're not fooling me.

And now we come to today's topic.

When I was little, I would see Lloyd constantly rearranging dishes in the dishwasher. OMG Why does he CARE so much? I would think.

NOW I UNDERSTAND.

Let's start out with illustrating my first tips with a picture. Please take a look and note the loading errors.

It makes me shudder just looking at it.

Number 1 - don't put containers in the dishwasher. Just don't do it. Sue, I'm looking at you. They will flip over, WHY DOES THAT NOT BOTHER YOU. I can't *scientifically* say that anything bad will happen to the container other than it flipping over, but I just can't handle it. If a container is upside down in the dishwasher, and I go to take it out, there is WATER in the lip for the cover and it goes ALL OVER ME. WAHHHH I'm upset just thinking about it.

Next, that strainer is taking over half of the bottom rack. You had pasta and water in there, and it basically is still clean. It would take 30 seconds to wash. Do not put large items in the dishwasher. That space is valuable.

Thirdly, I have adopted a new habit with my dishwasher loading skills over the past few years. It is based on common sense.

Put some of your cutlery facing upwards!!!!!!!!! Genius?!?! Yes. If your spoons are spooning throughout the wash cycle, do you think they're getting as clean as they can be?

These are my first few tidbits. Now we get to the really important stuff. Listen up, because if I see this situation at your house, I'm going to be upset.

Large dish = outside of rack.

Small dish = inside of rack.

If you put a large dish in front of a small dish, do you think the soap is going to leap over the large one and zero in on the small one? No. It won't.

Take a look at this picture and tell me how it makes you feel.

Don't you feel calm inside? Ahhhhh. It's so neat and tidy. Now THIS is how a dishwasher should look.

Don't go trying to sneak in another plate on the right hand side. It won't be solidly anchored in there and it will wiggle around.

Oh and here is a S. Dickey favourite - let's put a COOKIE SHEET in that spot.

WHY would you do that to meeeeee.

I leave you with one final note. I'm not sure how you might use the wrong soap in the dishwasher, but make sure you don't, otherwise this might happen. 

An earwig mooned me.

You heard me. An earwig. mooned. me.

So let's give some background information to this story. I just got my fabulous new house, as you all know. The other night, George, George's dad and Lorrie were visiting, as were Carla and Sean.

The house was a little chaotic so I decided to head to the kitchen to get a drink of water from my beloved waterbottle.

My waterbottle goes everywhere with me. Literally. It's always in my purse. It's one of those fabulous ones from Costco where you push the button on the back of the cover and it opens the little spout for you to drink from. I put it full in my purse and it never leaks! Mine is the pink one *obvs*.

I sat down on the random deck chair in the kitchen. Carla and Sean were on one side of me and George was on the other. I reached into my purse (also a beloved friend) and pulled out my waterbottle.

I pop my waterbottle up to my mouth and go to take a big swig.

OMG???? What is on the spout of my waterbottle?? I think as I feel something on my tongue/lips. I immediately decide it must be a piece of wallpaper that I scraped off the wall, as there are little bits of it everywhere in the kitchen.

I remove the water bottle from my mouth and look down and WHAT DO I SEEEEEE.

THIS BEAST WAS JUST IN MY MOUTH!!!!! AND TOUCHING MY TONGUE!!!!!

You people KNOW how I feel about bugs. Just imagine what I would do if one was in my MOUTH. ALIVE!

This was the point in time that I realized the earwig was mooning me. He was stuck hallway in my waterbottle and halfway out!!!!!! Wahhhhhhh. So this is all occuring in like a few seconds and even though it didn't really make sense why I did this, I spit my mouthful of water all over the floor (in from of George, Carla and Sean). George thinks this is hilarious! Carla is thoughtfully concerned for my wellbeing. 

I didn't know what to dooooooo. I shake the bottle furiously until the stupid thing flies out. Then, I have an awful decision to make.

What do I do with the waterbottle that has been tarnished by an evil beast? Melanie informs me I should throw it out. But I CAN'T. This is like my other half!

I start weighing the pros and cons. On Survivorman, he eats bugs all the time and is like, yum protein! So perhaps the residue from the bug would give me a perk during the day. Also, I don't really know how you wash the tops of those waterbottles aside from just rinsing them.

So, you will all most likely be extremely proud of me to know I decided to spare the life of my waterbottle. I thoroughly (and I mean THOROUGHLY) rinsed out the top. Everytime I go to take a drink, I assume the earwig has been resurrected and will be there once again. Hasn't happened yet, but at least I'm on alert.

The Mud Puddle

So, on the advice of Sphennigan Foster, I thought I'd tell you all about yet another traumatic event that occurred in my life, around the time of the SPIDER INCIDENT *shudder*.

It all started with a fabulous home cooked meal. Scott and I got ourselves invited to Carla and Sean's house in Spryfield for a tasty roast chicken dinner. Yum yum.

Along with this dinner, I had some lovely vino. I brought one of my faves - Black Tower. The $12 special.

So as we're wrapping up our evening, I decide to text Mom as I remember Doug has arrived in town. It's about 11:30pm at this point but I'm totally unconcerned as Mom and Doug usually stay up until like 3:30am.

Mom writes me back and informs me they are at Sue's and heading home shortly. She says to stop by but that they want to go to bed at midnight. Jeesh, early night.

So we head off. Of course we make a necessary stop at the always useful $pryfield McDonalds, who of course did not give me my extra Smarties in my McFlurry that I definitely paid for.

As we're driving to the house, Mom texts me and tells me to come in the backdoor because the walkway is flooded (shocker).

So we park Vivian at the bottom of the driveway, and I pop out, feeling chipper even though it's rainy and terrible out. I walk over towards the deck, on the grass the leads up to the steps.

SWWWWWWWWISH!

Emily's feet fly out from under her, as she has just stepped onto the motherload of slippery wet ice, and she SPLATS horizontally onto the ground!

Wahhhhh baby I fell!

Scott helps me up, probably trying not to laugh.

I look down. I'm all wet it appears. I assess the status of my McFlurry. Ok I'm wet, but my McFlurry appears to be fine. I think I can handle this.

We walk up the deck and I come in the door. I'm feeling mopey about my wet self now. I look down. WHY AM I FULL OF MUD???

WAHHHH DAD I FELL IN A MUD PUDDLE!

Dad is at the kitchen sink and appears to be somewhat concerned but also amused. I stand there helpless like a child, as he comes over and says "oh dear" and starts to try to wipe off the mud from my pants and my jacket.

Doug comes into the kitchen. DOUGGG I FELL IN THE MUDDDD.

I'm not sure what Doug was thinking, but I'm sure it was extreme concern for my state.

I got myself cleaned up and we had a nice visit. However, once we got back into the car to go home, I decided I wanted everyone to know I fell in a mud puddle.

I text Sphen.

I text Kelly.

I text Mark.

I text my friend Heidi.

I tell all of them I've fallen in a mud puddle.

Sphen is concerned but does find it amusing that it was actually a real mud puddle.

Kelly is asking me if I'm drunk.

Mark's response "Haha".

And Heidi is generally confused about where I am and what exactly happened. "So, wait, you fell in a MUD puddle? Like an actual mud puddle?"

Anyway, so yeah, I fell in a mud puddle. The word puddle looks weird after you write it a bunch of times.

THE END!

Traumatic Event

So I have to tell you all a story about something very traumatic that happened to me this weekend.

Here's how it starts out.

It's the weekend! Horray! I wake up early on Saturday as usual (thanks body for not letting me sleep in yet again). I poke around the house while Scott is still asleep - I think I might have watched infomercials.

I lurk back into the bedroom and sneakily make noises which will hopefully wake Scott up. So I'm kind of sitting on the bed, and I happen to glance up at the top of my dresser (which is tall, and right next to the bed).

There was a glass sitting up there, with cranberry juice residue in it.

I see something in the glass.

What is that?......is that a.............I gasp.......GIANT SPIDERRRRRRR!

This is what this guy looked like (he was BIG).

Now, you brave people that are reading this are probably like Emily, it's just a spider, it's smaller than you. (no really? didn't realize.....)

However, what I was concerned about it is, what route did that spider take to get all the way up my dresser and into the glass. And why did he go in the glass? Can he SMELL the juice residue from that far away? That means he's clever.

So by this point, I have basically decided that he crawled into my bed overnight, and all over me, and went in my mouth on his way to that glass (keep in mind that in order to do this, he basically would've had to leap to the dresser from my bed which is like 10 times his body length. Definitely would not put that past this guy though, once you hear how smart he is).

So obviously I inform Scott he HAS to do something about this right away. So he gets up and starts going down the hall with the glass. I'm pretty sure he'll probably be nice and release it, but then I'm delighted to see him heading for the toilet. Take that spider!

Scott tips the glass upside down. Spidey doesn't move. Spidey knows what's going to happen so he is hanging on for dear spidey life. Scott shakes the glass. Spidey is STILL hanging onto the slippery glass! Scott taps it on the toilet. In he goes!!!! Hahaha. I think it's over. Thank God. A spider can't beat the toilet.

Or can he?

The spider is SO GIANT AND SO STRONG that he starts BEATING the toilet current! He is swimming AGAINST the current and WINNING! I start freaking out and screaming and for some reason plugging my ears.

I watch him battle for his life and FINALLY he goes down. I'm red faced and flustered and can't believe this just happened. But he's gone. He went down the toilet. I flush it again just to make sure he's gone.

Whew. Thank goodness that is over. I better go and get started painting upstairs I thought.

Probably an hour later I'm in the kitchen upstairs and talking to Kelly on the phone. George and Scott are working in the dining room on something. Kelly is going on telling me something about some random pharmacy person I've never met, when I wander over to the kitchen window, which is above the sink.

I glance into the sink and who do I see.........

HE'S BAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!! I shriek. I dash into the dining room. George is trying to figure out who or what exactly I'm talking about. Scott appears to be unfazed as he is generally used to my antics. So I'm still on the phone with Kelly, and I'm yelling, BABYYYY DO SOMETHINGGGGG!!!!! He was just sitting there in the sink LURKING like an evil beast!

Some of you may now be thinking, Emily, it's probably not the same one. Spiders can't climb all the way up pipes like that. I thought the same thing, but just to be sure, I said, GEORGE IS IT POSSIBLE HE CLIMBED UP HERE FROM THE SEWER DOWNSTAIRS!?!?!?!

And George, no that's not really possible. So by him saying that, I'm thinking, ok so that means it's physically not possible, because the pipes aren't connected or something. And even if they are, I flushed it TWICE!

So Scott comes over to the sink, and turns the water on and starts chasing Marvin around (we named him of course) with the sprayer. Marvin almost outsmarts us AGAIN is running away from the water stream. Finally, down the drain he goes. Thank GOD. He's gone! He must really be gone now.

I decide to confirm again with George, so it's really not possible for a spider to come up here through the drain? His response "Well they would have to climb up the *insert plumbing lingo* pipes so I would've thought they couldn't but maybe they can".

Soooo, what you're saying is, this might actually be possible.

Outstanding.

30 minutes or so later, Kelly arrives. We work away on our painting in the room and it's looking fabulous (let me tell you, going from elecric blue to creamy beige is a significant transformation). For some reason we wander into the kitchen. I look into the sink for some reason (perhaps my intuition was at work) and GUESS WHO IS BACK TO TERRORIZE ME ONE MORE TIMEEEEEEEE!

How is this happening??? How is he back again??

KELLY DO SOMETHINGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!

Thankfully, Kelly was able to keep her wits about her and came up with a plan. Let's SQUISH him.

I'm delighted. YES LET'S SQUISH HIM! But you do it.

So we take one of the tenants' ugly mugs that they left us and Kelly went to work. Unless Marvin is seriously smarter than all humans combined, I don't think he'll be able to piece his 80 pieces of himself back together.

Thank God we're safe! Unfortunately the scars are lasting. Last night, while sitting in bed with Scott and watching a tv show, I of course was SURE there were spiders in the bed and and kept jerking my legs and whipping the covers off to examine the area. Scott didn't mind at all!

"BABY THERE ARE NO SPIDERS IN THE BED!"

"But something touched my leg!"

So that is my dramatic tale of woe. Oh and for those of you who might suggest that it was a different spider, it wasn't. It was Marvin and I know it.

And now I feel like there are spiders on me again......

Food blog!

So I was perusing Facebook the other day (not at work obviously - I would never waste your tax dollars) and some guy on my list put a link to his girlfriend's blog. It said something like he was "impressed" with her, so being a fellow blogger, I decided to check it out.

Turns out this girl is not only a food blogger, she is like a chic Martha Stewart in the making who also appears to be fabulous at making web pages. Isn't she special.

So the topic of her page was basically about how she loves food. Except she's one of those irritating people who are like, I love staying fit and finding healthy alternatives to my favourite foods! And they're always coming up with clever recipes, and making the rest of us feel inferior.

Anyway, so I thought, ok I'll give this a chance and read on and see if she has any good recipes. I also started thinking, hey I love food, maybe I should start a food blog! Then I could talk about food ALL THE TIME! Amazing.

The first recipe was.....pancakes! I thought, ok this looks good. I read further until I saw one of the ingredients.....apple sauce in my pancakes? Ummm no. And blueberry syrup? I use Aunt Jemima thanks.

Next recipe. Black bean burritos. Enough said. Next recipe.

Oh here we have a dessert! I like dessert. The title said something like chocolate chip cookie dough dip!!! The girl was like, I usually eat a ton of cookie dough when I'm baking cookies! And I thought, oh ok maybe this girl IS more like me than I thought! Here's how delicious it looked in her picture:

I excitedly read on.....

Until.....I read the words....

CHICK PEAS.

WHY WHY WHY would you do this to something as yummy as chocolate chip cookie dough??? It's not the SAME and stop trying to pretend that it is! I was devastated and closed the website.

After reading her blog, I have realized I am not your everyday food lover. I think many food lovers are really adventurous. They love vegetables and say things like "I cooked some AMAZING asparagus yesterday, it was delicious" which really is just baffling to me.

When I find a meal at a restaurant that I like, I get it every time. Swiss Chalet - quarter chicken dinner with white meat and fries and gravy. No I most certainly would not like a multi-grain roll - white all the way! Sometimes I spice up my life by getting mashed potatoes instead of fries. Oh and don't even think about forgetting my hot fudge sundae.

Gingergrass - "L3" - lunch combo number three. Yellow curry chicken with rice. It has been suggested to me that there is a version of this meal that comes with vegetables. Why would I ruin an amazing meal with the flavour of broccoli and carrots?

Those are just two examples of many. I'm slightly more adventurous at home I suppose. If it's salmon or chicken, I literally will eat it in almost any form. But I'm not that good at creating new versions, so I usually stick with the same form of them. Scott is more of a "chef" and throws in random spices, while I perch over his shoulder and provide helpful comments like "But how do you KNOW those will taste good together?".

So I'm going to make my OWN version of a food blog. Well actually I'm just going to do some posts on food. I like taking pictures of food, which some (Fran) have pointed out as potentially being weird. I thought it was totally normal to take pictures of food! Why WOULDN'T you want to see the fabulous meal I just ate/made?

Anyway, stay tuned for my first post about food!!!!

Now I'm hungry.

Untapped markets

Ok so seriously, if I was good at drawing, or sewing, or creating things in general, I would totally be a designer.

There are SO many clever things that I think of that I need, that don't seem to exist in the fashion world!

First of all. All I want is a really nice knee high set of boots in like 3 colours - black, brown and grey. I want them to be flat, completely waterproof and have a sturdy sole so I don't slip. And none of this, it's waterproof "up to the zipper".  I want you COMPLETELY waterproof. I also want it to have a nice shaped toe - nothing too weird, just a normal round-ish toe.

WHY DOESN'T THIS EXIST???? The best I have done is find this brand called "Aquatalia" (guess who wears these? Surprise - Kate Middleton!) but I am not kidding when I say the price of these boots is like $600. You can get some on sale which might bring them down to $200, but seriously? And of course, if they go on sale, the only sizes left are 5 and 10.

Also, the perfect pair of jeans. I'm sure everyone has this problem. I do have a pretty wicked pair from Target that I got for $20 - they're literally my fave. But it's really hard to find more! I always read those magazine articles - jeans if your body is pear shaped! Ok that's not me. Jeans if your body is curvy! Also not really me. Jeans if you have no hips! Also not really me. I fit into ZERO of those categories!
Here's mine - Pretty slim, but have Foster love handles, fairly tall but not super tall, and have a Foster butt as opposed to a Coleman butt. So where do I fit in??? Nowhere apparently.

Oh god and don't get me started about shoes. Siiiiiiigh! The bunions. Those friggin Coleman bunions. It's a sad event to go shoe shopping. I try to not be the type that's like, I can't wear those, they hurt too much! But when you have a bunion, you don't really have a choice. You can't be one of those people unless you enjoy having stiff fake leather from Aldo rubbing against a solid ball of BONE all day.

So, how many people in the world must have bunions? What hasn't someone thought of making cute shoes for people with bunions? I don't get it. It's an untapped market, and if I knew how to make shoes, I'd be all over that.

And finally, jackets. I have a love affair with jackets. Mostly because I love being warm and they assist me with this. HOWEVER. Has anyone noticed I have a lot of jackets? This isn't just because I am a shopaholic and can't help myself! Ok that's mostly it. But, the other reason is that there is no jacket that serves all the purposes I need it to serve!

In the winter, I need you to be dressy and stylish, really warm (not fake warm where you say you have down in you but then you're somehow not that warm) AND waterproof. Like for realz waterproof. If you're water resistant, you may as well be nothing. You're just trying to trick people who don't carefully look at the tag into thinking you're waterproof. You can't fool me though - Lloyd Foster taught me the value of a waterproof jacket.

So those are my gripes about untapped markets. I'm sure I'll think of more as soon as I click post. But I just had to vent right now about these ones.

Emily's cleaning tips!

Hi everyone!

Oops it's been a long time since I posted! I think I was too busy shopping for Christmas presents for myself...I mean, for everyone else.

So now that Christmas is over and we all have no money left, let's talk about something else other than shopping (I know you're all disappointed).

I was telling Sphen and Mom a few of my cleaning "tips" the other day and they told me to write a post about it! So I am! I have such loyal fans.

Let me start off by saying that these tips may not be *the most* environmentally friendly, but they make my life WAY easier and without them my house would definitely be dirtier.

The biggest and most fabulous cleaning discovery I've ever made is DISPOSAL WIPES. I adore them. I have tons of containers of them in my house. I use them to clean pretty much the entire bathroom, except the tub. So basically they're wet wipes, with disinfectant in them, and I use them to clean the toilet seat, around the outside of the bowl and around the base.

This came about because I asked Sphen who cleans the bathroom in his residence room (which he shares with like 3 other guys) and he said they have a schedule. He was saying it was kind of gross, and mentioned something about hairs (I'm almost gagging thinking about it) and I asked him what he uses. He said a J CLOTH! I was horrified. So, hence the reason for my tips.

Anyway, so my fave type is Clorox. They smell better than the Lysol ones and I like the cover of the container better (for realz). I would recommend the green container. Don't ever pay more than $1.99 for the 35 wipes container and more than $3.99 for the big container (75 wipes). Here they are!

I use these for tons of other things. Wiping gross stuff up in the kitchen, sometimes giving my baseboards a quick swipe, anything! I have issues with my dishcloths getting stinky so this is how I came upon these wipes. I ALWAYS would thoroughly rinse out the cloth after using it. STILL STINKY. I even bought these stupid "bamboo" ones that claimed they wouldn't get stinky. STILL STINKY!!! So I got fed up. I actually *somewhat* enjoy cleaning my bathroom and do is faithfully every week because it's so not gross! And it makes it super dee duper quick.

Next! For cleaning the actual toilet bowl, my favorite, I use Comet! It is like literally $0.59 at Canadian Tire all the time. I also do my tub with this. I use a sponge with a green scrubber side. Is that bad? It cleans it so WELL.

My other fabulous discovery has to do with dusting. So, let's get something out in the open. The Fosters never really dusted. Sorry Mom, I outed you. So I wasn't ever quite sure how often to do it or how do it. We did have this giant "duster" thingie (who remembers that - it was like red and blue??) that was kept in the cupboard above the fridge but whenever it was busted out, I'm pretty sure that person got yelled at by one of the allergy-infested Fosters for actually spreading dust rather than removing it.

So, in my young life, I learned one technique of dusting from the Kaulbacks. Let me tell you. The Kaulbacks are SERIOUS about cleaning. Their method was to use this Pledge spray and a cloth thing and spray the surface and then rub it. This is time consuming! Plus, being a fairly new homeowner/dweller, I don't have "rags" laying around. I'm still accumulating new things - I don't have things that are old enough to turn into rags! Although I'm sure Lloyd Foster has 50,000 he could give me.

So I decided to follow the wisdom of a commercial and I wiggled to the grocery store and smugly purchased a Swiffer duster thing. LIFE CHANGED AGAIN!

You know those commercials where the dust is a person and they're like "I'm lonely" and then the Swiffer thing comes along and they're like, yay it's time! And then they attach to it? Well the dust actually does this to the Swiffer thing! (I'm pretty sure anyway).

You get this little yellow handle, and then these duster thingies that you slide on and once it gets gross, you get rid of it (again, not overly environmentally friendly, but it works).

(The box in this pic says Swiffer "Stoubmagnet - is that french for Duster?? Anyway you get the idea)
Finally, can we just talk about my vacuum for a second? Marie once said, I've never seen someone so excited to get a vacuum for Christmas. It's trueeee, I was so excited! I decided a few years ago a I wanted  a neon green Kenmore. Fran and Lloyd MADE this happen, with some assistance from some unassuming Club Ski 30 members. So Fran and Lloyd go the States for a ski trip. They randomly find my beloved vacuum somewhere down there but don't have room in their car for it! So what do they do! They ask a random fellow skier to drive it back to Halifax for them! "Excuse me, do you have room for a vacuum in your car?"..."Um I guess so?...."(I'm assuming Lloyd handled this request).

This vacuum is awesome. The attachments are stored right in the top of it! I'll admit, I lost the little flat one. But I still have the BEST one....the long skinny one!!!! 

Anyway, so those are my cleaning tips. They make my life better. I am learning as I go, so please feel free to provide me with your equally clever tips.

Yours in cleaning,

-Emily