Americanuck

Ever since CTV started using this song in their commercials promoting the various shows on their network I was reminded how much I liked it and the  meaning behind it. I finally got around to downloading the song (paid of course, I’m a good girl.) Someone said the other day it would be a great song for a graduation ceremony or video and they are right it fits really well.

“Unwritten”

I am unwritten, can’t read my mind, I’m undefined
I’m just beginning, the pen’s in my hand, ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Oh, oh, oh

I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We’ve been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can’t live that way

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten

written and peformed by: Natasha Bedingfield

Her website says the song was written for her brother’s birthday, but I guess for anyone who is young and just starting out the song works.

I found a link to a site that plays the video in a much better quality that youtube would be allowed to.

Chris’ Graduation ceremony they played the song ‘Beautiful Day’ by U2. Now don’t get me wrong it’s a great song and it WAS a beautiful day, but the lyrics don’t exactly fit the sentiment of something like sending your newly graduated birdies out into the real world, I mean come on…

“You’re on the road
But you’ve got no destination
You’re in the mud
In the maze of her imagination “

Still makes me choke up though every time I hear the song, I mean come on! It was my first baby’s graduation!

Many years ago my ex-boss and I were discussing how many people would walk out of the washroom without washing their hands which is a HUGE pet peeve of both of ours. You just knew they did this because you would be in a stall, hear someone flush, exit their stall and then walk straight out the door. Gross!

One day in my daily “Far Side” Calendar there was a cartoon of a guy walking out of a washroom looking shocked, above his head was a flashing ‘Did not wash his hands’ sign. Both of us thought it was hysterical not to mention apropos, so she enlarged it on the photocopier and taped it to the mirror in the ladies room. I was seriously tickled.

Herein started the battle. Every day someone would tear it down and she would take another copy and put it up. Of course we knew the people tearing it down were the offenders. I mean why else would it bother you right? She kept it up for a while before finally giving up. She had made her point.

Over the years I myself have left ‘touch this and die’ notes on things, when someone decided the pop in my lunch was a freebie, or when someone ate my sandwich (!) or “will the person who stole my stapler please return it” variety, generally done with some type of tongue in cheek humour. But I have to say that this site is pretty darn funny, some of these people sound seriously pissed.

Enjoy!

When did the fortunes in Chinese food become so, oh… pessimistic?

I thought they were all about boosting you up, giving you hope that things could get BETTER in life.

Sean had best hope the bitter guy working in the fortune cookie factory isn’t Kreskin…especially when you add the words ‘In Bed’ to the end of your fortune when you read it out loud to everyone after the dinner (like we do).

Sean pulled his out and slapped a hand over his face and we knew it would be good.

Now I would consider myself a very techno-savvy person. In fact I have trouble shot many a computer in my day breathing life where there t’wern’t none before, patiently even, when other people may have given up. I rarely read an instruction manual when I get an electronic gadget (ooohh gadgety goodness!) preferring to poke about and figure things out myself. Granted this at times can have me discovering a feature (see digital camera) a year or so later than I should have, but hey, it’s kinda cool getting those kind of surprises! The weird part is I read the instructions for something like a hair dryer. Go figure.

But alas, I too have my “Achilles Heel” and they generally involve audio/visual equipment. Show me a stereo, TV, VCR etc that requires any kind of hook up, I can and will eff it up. Once Tom had to long-distance talk me through hooking up an old camcorder/ TV/VCR combo so I could transfer old small cassette videos of the kids when they were small. Yeah I’m lame.

So, a couple of days ago I decided to crack out the MP3 transmitter that Tom gave me for Christmas so I could listen to all those tunes I have on it now while driving around. I had tried using it once or twice right after I got of course after reading the instructions (remember this is an audio product, I know my weakness) and after having some difficulties finding a range where there wasn’t a strong radio signal I gave up on it.

Like I said, I just decided to give in another whack. I kept trying it over several days but I was having all kinds of problems. At first it didn’t seem to turn on properly even using the cigarette lighter in the car. I brought it to Tom and using the battery power managed to turn it on with no problems and tune it to our home stereo. Cool! He told me he had preset a good station on the tuner and for me to just tune my car stereo to the same channel and I should have no problems. I mentioned that I didn’t know if my car stereo was getting all the channels that were on the transmitter. He looked puzzled and said well this one should be ok. So I’m all like, yay!

So I took it out on Saturday when I was driving around and it wouldn’t work. I tried practically every station I could and it just wouldn’t pick up the signal. I was pretty frustrated. My theory was that maybe it needed the cigarette plug thingie as some kind of boost so on Sunday I took the player/transmitter down to the car once again and plugged in the power and this time it got juice and started up. Once again I ran through every station in the range and NOTHING, BUPKIS.

When I told Tom yesterday he suggested that when we take the young Boy over to his Father’s I could drive and he would fiddle and see if he could get it to work. I had been listening to news radio and he reached out and changed the frequency to FM. I said “Oh it was already on AM”. Pause.

“Um, this is an FM transmitter, AM is garbage why would anyone want that?”

“…Oh” *blush*

So Tom says “Maybe I should of thought to ask you if you had it on FM, but the fact that the back of the thing says….”

OK as they say a picture speaks a thousand words. I will let this one speak for me.

I love Spring. I know, the weather is all kinds of unstable in Spring and trust me, living in Vancouver rain is no stranger this time of year, but there is something special seeing the trees all freshly ‘leaved’. Okay, maybe I love Summer a touch more, but Spring runs a very close second.

I hitched a ride downtown with Tom yesterday and while he worked I hung out with my best girlfriend. We drank some wine, went for dinner and then walked off said dinner, or at least attempted to. She lives just off one of the main drags on a nice tree lined street. While we were walking we passed bluebells and bleeding hearts in full bloom and some glorious rhododendrons of a deep, almost blood red. Walking there I almost forgot I was downtown. Almost. It was hard to ignore some of the mysterious city smells in the air that no flower in the world can mask.

She’s a true Urban girl, having moved downtown last year after many years of living in a suburb. She is loving the lifestyle of being in the heart of downtown steps away from anything she needs. She says she barely uses her car now, just to do major shops or to drive back out to the ‘burbs to visit her family. Her daughter is all grown up and living with her Fiance so it was her time to live where and do what she wanted. Me? I guess you could call me a suburban girl with a leaning towards small town girl, at least if I had the choice. I take a lot more pleasure in nature than I do bricks and mortar.

Her daughter is planning her wedding for next Summer. Her wedding! I’ve known this lovely young woman since she was five years old, in fact she calls me her other mother. Crazy that we are old enough to have children who get married. Or rather my friend is, I’m a couple of years younger . I just know I’m going to blubber when baby-girl walks down that aisle, I mean geez I blubbered at her sweet 16.

Today was my Mom’s belated Mother’s Day. Mom had requested a breakfast out and that is what the two of us did. Even though the rain was of biblical proportions we actually had a nice time. I had to drive across town, or rather float across town to go get her. I swear my wheels were hydroplaning more than connecting with concrete. Ironically where she wanted to eat is close to where I live so I ended up making two round trips but eh, she was happy.

Tomorrow is cleaning day. I’ve been seriously letting things slide and I really want to give the place a good scrub down. Work stress has left me feeling somewhat drained and I’ve done basically nothing on weekends and while I’ve enjoyed the downtime, my tolerance for messy has just hit maximum threshold. The kids are at their Father’s and there won’t be anyone dropping things behind me while I go so maybe I have a chance of having a clean house for more than 0.3 seconds.