it's 1983?! Oh crap.

I've had some people ask me about the title of my blog. For those that don't live in Lethbridge, there is a piece of graffiti that is on the side of a building downtown and I stole my title from this. Or so I thought! I went to go and take a picture of it so those that aren't here could see it and understand the origin of my blog name and what did I find? It's not 1984, its 1983! Crap. I didn't get it right. I'm not changing the name of my blog, but here's the graffiti anyways.

feminism

I recently read a post on a blog called "a dress a day". It talks about an artist who is wearing the same brown dress for a year in an attempt to make "one small, personal attempt to confront consumerism by refusing to change my dress for 365 days." The artist then goes on to say "But on a feminist note, let's stop agreeing that the best way for women (in particular) to "express themselves" is by purchasing new wardrobe items and putting together daily outfits."

The blogger responds with this:

I am proud to call myself a feminist, as I believe in equal opportunities for women and men. Last time I checked, feminism didn't have a dress code, and, in fact, now that we're on the subject, I am fed up with people who claim that women who enjoy wearing dresses can't be "real feminists". Yes, dresses are traditionally feminine, but really, part of being a feminist, in my opinion, is finally internalizing that "feminine" does not equal "bad" or "weak" or "unworthy."


When I was a teenager and in my early 20s this is the form of feminism I adopted: I thought that femininity was equal to weakness. I never wanted to be the kind of girl who couldn't do things for herself, or needed to ask for help. I was always trying to prove myself by changing my own oil and doing typical "manly" jobs myself. Skipping ahead a few years I believe that my rejection of femininity was to my detriment. Being female is a beautiful thing. Women are DIFFERENT than men and that is to be celebrated. In the same way, men are to be celebrated for their uniqueness as well.


In my true nature of swinging from one extreme to the other, I have a strange preoccupation with the icon of the 50s housewife!

digging for dinosaur bones

This weekend Chris and I went camping with Anne-Marie and Tom to Drumheller. Chris and I had never been to Drumheller before so we set out on Saturday morning eager for the adventure that lay ahead. I don't know why I've never been to the Badlands before, but I knew we had to remedy this before we left Alberta.





As all camping trips start out we found a place to camp and ate watermelon.

Then we hiked down into the badlands and went hunting for dinosaur bones. They were everywhere! I couldn't believe it. It gave such an eerie feeling to be digging up bones of these ancient animals.









Our best find was the top half of a shin bone, at least that's what we think it is.


The icing on the cake was the cactus in bloom. There were huge patches of them everywhere.




The next day we headed down Dinosaur Trail to the Tyrell Museum.



As we were walking through the museum I couldn't help but think about how all this information we have about dinosaurs could be completely wrong. How all the skeletons are largely put together by human's imaginations. I know that they often find bones in situ and that they know a lot about anatomy but really...they're putting bones together that they're digging up out of dirt. I'm a bit of a skeptic but its still really fun to go and look at them. It was funny to see how the conception of what the dinosaurs looked like changes over time. The newer Albertosaurus that Chris is standing beside is skinnier compared to the old one that I'm standing in front of.



This is the classic Albertosaurus from the 80s. Its skin felt like a golf ball.

the graduate

This is getting to be old news now but Chris graduated from University with his BA in Geography. I'm a proud wife. It was a great occassion to get together with family and celebrate the conclusion of four years of University.



My Mom and Dad brought champagne and so for the first time I let the champagne cork fly. (I usually put a tea towel over the cork so I don't make a mess). It was really fun!





This weekend was a very exciting one as there was everyone and their monkey in town visiting. Marc and Kylie were here for Shareen's wedding, Chris and Cathy were here to pick up the Airstream trailor that she will turn into a retail space (look for it on Baker St. in Nelson in the future) and Lisa V. returned from her trip to Guetamala. (Note the airstream trailor in the picture above)

Its funny how so much time passes between visits with good friends but it just doesn't really matter. You can have conversations as though you saw them just a few days ago.

And now for pictures of Iris. This girl really works the camera.

Croquet anyone?

The sport of croquet has been revived by Neil and Michelle! After a beautiful dinner of epic proportions we headed out into the field for a jolly good round of croquet. Much fun was had. Classic lawn sports such as this should really make a comeback. I should maybe start an organization with a catchy acronym like SOCK: Society Of Comeback Kids- Bringing back lawnsports to the next generation. Who will join me in this new revolution?



International Croquet Team: Lethbridge Division
From L to R: Neil, Chris, Michelle, Lisa (missing Katherine)



Croquet Sisters Unite!