And the votes are finally in, the 6 weird things about me are...

I was tagged at the beginning of December to write 6 weird things about myself. I was very excited to post it because it seems very fun. I started writing my reply right away and now I've finally come up with the 6th and final (at least for this list) weird thing about me. Here it goes...

1) when I was younger, I assumed there were little people (kinda like the Fragels from that show in the 80's) that were living inside electronic devices like computers and TV's. They would make the decisions on what would go on inside these devices and when they got made at each other, there would be fuzz on your tv. Very elaborate I know, I was a creative kid.

2) When I'm doing something monotonous, like unpacking boxes at work, or cutting up food, I count the number of steps it takes me to complete the task. Like all four stokes of cutting a box open, how many steps it takes to get the merchandise out of the box or how many cuts I make in the food. I don't keep track of these numbers or use them to try to improve. It's just something for my brain to do.

3) I hate smoking, I think it's disgusting habit and was so happy when the cities in Ontario passed bylaws to omit smoking from public places. It meant I could go to the bar and come home and not have to have a shower before going to bed because I smelt like an ashtray. However, recently, I've noticed that when someone lights up a fresh cigarette, I really enjoy the smell. It brings back childhood memories or something and makes me think of my dad, who has smoked my whole life. Whenever I smell it, I think of him. Even though I believe he really should quit!!

4) I love to eat!! Food is sooo good to me. But I hate cooking, cleaning up after cooking and grocery shopping to get food. I also don't enjoy eating out all that much because the food is never just the way you want it. So I'm really not sure how IÂ’m supposed to get food into me to eat. I also like things neat and tidy but don't want to be the one to clean them up, even though I live alone and I'm the one who made the mess...Maybee it's really that I'm just lazy

5) This one was pointed out to me by Andrew recently. The more I do, the more energy I have, the less I do, the more lethargic I get. ItÂ’s typically bad when I have a day or even worse a weekend off and I end up hanging out with Andrew where we really donÂ’t do anything all weekend. I still feel incredibly tired and lethargic on Monday when I go back to work. ItÂ’s a really bad routine to get into. You would think a nice lazy day or two would give way to a refreshed person, but no, not I.

6)When I make hot chocolate, I boil water and pour my mug 3/4 of the way full with boiling water, then add the chocolate powder, then fill the mug the last 1/4 with cold milk. I do this for 2 reasons, one to cool the drink down because I'm a big wimp and don't like really hot drinks and two, because with just water it's really thin, and I like me hot chocolate to have more supstance, like when you buy it at Starbucks or Second Cup.

Since most of my friends have already been tagged, and the rest either don't read my blog, or blog themselves very often, I'm going to tag, Matt; www.vernhout.net, Tasha; huladreams.blogspot.com and Rachel; koetsier-gang.blogspot.com
and we'll see what happens

I hate it when...

I hate it when your driving by yourself and some lady walks by wearing a light Pink faux fur coat that looks like it belogs on a 4 year old. Stuff like that is just not as funny when there is no one else to laugh about it with you.
I also hate it when you realize you were wearing your warm up pants backwards when you walked into a sports store... Yeah me :)

Holidays part 3

I can't really remember what I was going to write about in my supposed 3rd holiday post. I did work on boxing day which was nutso. I forgot how much shoppers attitudes change in that day they can't be shopping. They go from being normal, all be it a bit demanding and sometimes up tight, but neat and tidy at least. To tearing everything apart, and throwing everything on the floor. Not to mention not willing to pay more then $5 for any one item. The actual week between Christmas and New Years was far more stressful and annoying then the 2 months leading up to Christmas. It's funny to because I really do forget that every year. Luckily that week is a short one, I only ended up working for 3 days, but I think that is part of the problem because you can't get anything accomplished. I should have actually worked 4 days also but was sick on New Years Eve day. I wasn't to worried about calling in sick because we all figured it would be dead at the stores be we were very wrong. Apparently there was something very crutial to the New Years Party at Linens n' Things.
So I spent my New Years Eve Day in bed hoping to allow my self to at least me social for some of the night. It worked to some extent. I had a good time and was able to participate in the Wii playing we did as a group as well as the drinking but I also slept most of New Years Day away and still really don't fell like I've totally kicked the illness... uggg... Very frustrating!

So now that I'm caught up I'll share with you my fun day today. Today was the day I finally got my Passport together. I had gone down to the office last week but meet up with a co-worker and was told that the line was 2 hours long. However if I filled out the form online, I could be rushed to the front of the line and avoid waiting that long. I came home and tried to fill out the form which I wrote about last week but really to no avail. Since the guarantor still has to sign that form and all the people I know who are eligible to do so live near my parents, I opted not to take the drive back and suck up the waiting. I prepared myself today, had my book with me and a bottle of water and got to the office around 11. A lot of people had told me that I should go as early as a good to avoid waiting as much but I really needed to sleep and didn't have much else I needed to do today so I figured I would stick it out. When I got through the pre check they said it would be about an hour to an hour and a half. I was 100 numbers down. I waited patiently, in the same seat, which is amazing for me, for over 2 hours, finally got to the front of the line, to find out that the pictures that I had were no good because you could see my teeth. No, not that I had smiled or even really opened my mouth, but the way my lips were, there was a tiny gap and you could see the tiniest bit of my teeth. So of course I'm a little frustrated with myself. I've been sitting with everything ready since September but just never bother to make it enough of a priority to set something else aside and make sure I had the money to cover it. Now I'm rushing at the last minute to get this taken care of. Another bad stroke for procrastination. So luckily I was given a special paper which allowed me to skip to the front of the line when I came back with new pictures. I went back to my car, where I found a parking ticket! Guess while I was waiting, I should have come down and added money to the meter considering I only had enough change for 20 min. I headed to the mall near by, grabbed some grub and got my second pictures taken. I got back to the passport office, payed an extra 10 bucks and am guaranteed to get my passport delivered there on the 9th of February, 10 days before my flight... thank god.
So the though part is over and now it's back to the fun part of planning. I have the weekend off so I should be able to finish reading my Britain book and decided where I really really want to go. Sunday I'm going to meet with my traveling partner Dianne and were are going to make some decisions and do some booking!!

Holidays... part 2

Working in retail at Christmas time tends to be stressful as you can imagine. It's not very often that you get your days off placed together but this year I got lucky. I ended up with the 23rd, 24th and 25th off, which is pretty darn cool. The only unfortunate part is that I have to work boxing day, which it turns out I would rather have the two days off and not work boxing day, but that just means I have to smarter next year and book it off ahead of time.
Most people in retail find that on the 24th your brain and body take an early leave of absence, because you've been working so fast and hard for so long, you can see then end and you start to give up before it's really here. Well since I didn't work the 24th, mine came a little earlier, around 5 on the 23rd, which isn't bad except that I had to work until 10... opps. I was expecting a really busy day so I was ferociously trying to get things done before the big rush. When it never came, and I realized it wasn't going to come, I pretty much gave up, even though I still had stuff to do. I paid for it on Boxing day but i'm still not convinced that anything I actually would have done would have helped me, but it's one of those live and learn things.
As for my days off they were quite nice, peaceful, laid back and full of good food, fun people and lots of drinks. On the 23rd I meet up with my old high school friends, had a fun 'tacky gift exchange" which kept us laughing for quite some time. Caught up with everyone and had a few to many drinks. Even pass out on the ride home... ahh back to the good old days.
The 24th was much the same, went to mass, hung out with my family at the neighbours place and again had to much to drink, but this time stumbled home instead of riding in a vehicle.

Christmas Day is a very exciting day for me, usually one of my favourites of the year. I love going to church and seeing all decorated for the holidays. Relaxing and hanging out with my family all day, and the present thing isn’t so bad either. This year I was very nervous for most of the day. It was the first time I was to meet Andrew’s parents after dating for almost 9 months. He had been feeding me horror stories for the last 3 or 4 months on how his parents would behave. Yelling while guests are present, not necessarily because of anger but this is how they discuss things they’ve even gone as far as throwing dishes at each other while other people were present and of course, my favourite, at some point his mother would take me in a room by ourselves and talk about sex… I still can’t wrap my head around it. I was comforted by the fact that his older brother and his brother’s girlfriend would be present to take some of the tension away from me

Needless to say for the entire drive I was very nervous, probably talking to my self for the whole trip! When I arrived I was visible nervous and even repeated my name twice but that was the worst scenario of the whole evening. Andrew took me on a quick tour of the house so I managed to get myself back together. We had some very interesting conversations, mostly his mother, father and brother all trying to talk to me at the same time. And yes they are really loud and opinionated, but I kind of expected that, because that is how Andrew is. I had to bite my tongue when his father was teasing his brother for being so opinionated, when I know for sure is father is the same way. But we got thought the conversation, Andrew and I even took a nice little walk before dinner to work up an appetite. Dinner was delicious and even managed to not spill on myself!!! We watched a bit of football after we eat, then the weather turned kind of sketchy so I ended up staying the night and leaving for work in the morning. I was very happy to have everything go over so well and I’ll think I’ll be able to handle any odd questions that come my way after getting the worst part over with. Plus I know they like me so life is good.

I will publish yet another Holiday edition with details of New Years later in the week.

As an update for the passport, it’s still not completed, turns out what I did on the internet was just filling out the form so I’ll still have to go to the office and wait in line….blahhh!! Thanks for the reminder Christielli, I’ll remember to bring something to do with me

Passport... what a pain

So as you may have previously read, I am going to England in Febuary. Well who know that my trip is already only 6 weeks away!! I had my passport all filled out and ready to go back in September, but some how I kept putting it off and now it has to be done pronto!!!
I went to the passport office on Wednessday, all ready to get everything set up and ran into a girl I work with who was on her way out and informed me that the line up was about 2 hours long! however, there was a woman who had done all her info on the internet before hand and got to skip over the line. I have tried the internet option before but for some reason, it wouldn't accept my browser or some other crazy thing so I figured I would just do it the old fashion way. I decided it would be worth my while to go back home and try the internet option again, as opposed to waiting in a two hour line up. I've been working on it for an hour now and it has been quite a pain in the a**, however, much less then waiting in line because I at least got caught up on my blog reading. I've now finished all my blog reading and am still running into a few little glitches so I thought I would set up a quick post while I was waiting.
Damn internet... I swear, for something so advanced it can be so retarded!!
Anyway I'm hoping to post tomorrow with another Holiday segment, this one will entail the actually days off for Christmas, including the meeting of the bf's parents... very riviting!!

What good excuse can I come up with this time

So it's obvious that I've been terrible at posting again. This time I choose to blame it on sickness! I would say that I would make a new years resolution to write more but I don't really believe in them and therefore it would really work! I caught some sort of evil cold on Christmas Day (that is one reason it is evil... what kind of sickness shows up on Christmas Day) and I haven't been able to kick it. Usually I'll sleep for a day or so and it will go away but this time I had 2 days off and slept, drank lots of fluids and all around rested but it's now worse then it was Thursday night when I proclaimed to be getting better. So there has been quite a bit of on goings in my life over the last few weeks so I'm going to do some posting in installments.. Basically in chronological order, but just really far behind.
So the first installment will talk about something that I was really afraid of and nervous for for a very long time... Andrew finally meet my parents, and I finally meet his, but that will be another installment. Way back on the 17th my mom and dad had my dad's sister and their kids over for the "McLaughlin family Christmas" We really don't see this part of our family very often and it was strange that asked to get together. They are kind of antisocial and choose not to see us with the exception of once a year.. if that. Since Andrew had been proclaiming illness for about a month and using it as an excuse not to meet my parents we decided that he was going to have to come to their house with me so they didn't develop a complex that he didn't want to meet them or something to that effect. So we got there around 3 sat down and drank some beer and started chatting. The evening went very well. My mom, in the middle of dinner, attempted to "interrogate" Andrew but couldn't really come up with any good questions. She didn't even scare me!! She later claimed it was because my brother had made fun of her so she was afraid to ask any questions ect. But we had a very lovely evening. My siblings, Andrew and I went downstairs and played pool on the newly re-finished pool table and he got to chat with all 3 of them plus get a break from the boring adults.
At then end of the evening we get in the car and before I can even close the car door, he says to me... "Your family is awesome... but your aunt and uncle and their kids... are weird!" I laughed have the way home. This comment is only funny to the people who actually know my aunt and uncle, but none the less, it is funny. Plus it gives you an idea of his overall reaction of the evening...

9 shopping days till Christmas

So it's here, that last big weekend before Christmas starts. At my store we're all assuming that next weekend people will have already started celebrating and not doing to much shopping. I have 6 working days left then I'm off for 3 which will be really nice. I haven't had more then two days off in a row in a while so it will be good to enjoy some time off!!
P.S. I got taged this week for a post, six weird things about me, and I'm still working on it. Can't figure out the sixth. Next week for sure!!

GOALLLLLL!!!

So I played forward for the first time in a real soccer game and I scored a goal!!! I almost had 2 other ones too!!! I was so excited it has caused me to blog twice in one day after a very long dry spell!!!
I'm so excited I can't sleep... or maybe it's the fact that I ran for a full hour, hard to say...

By the way, my mom voted for Rheo's over Barrs. We had tried them last year, but I couldn't remember the outcome, good thing I have her around!!

Jingle Bells, batman smells, you know the song.

I haven't thought of that song in a very long time, until it came on over the PA system at work the other day. One of the other mangers and I were complaining about the Christmas music they were playing on the satellite system at the store, and now in every store. It was weird because two weeks ago Friday, I left for the weekend and there was no Christmas music, I came back on the Monday and it was all about Christmas. But not only had we started it but so had everyone else. I guess we passed the day and it was suddenly acceptable, and man was it EVERYWHERE!! So back to my batman version of Jingle Bells, we were complaining because there are no original Christmas songs, it's the same six songs over and over again all day, just different people singing it and adding their own pizzazz if you could call it that. Some of them seriously sound like the singer is on Coke or some crazy thing. It used to be bad in that we would hear the same song day in and day out some times twice in one day, but now it's the same song over and over and over again. Trust me in a 10 hour day you hear Jingle Bells quite a few times. So we were working away and all the sudden the Barenaked Ladies version of Jingle Bells came in and it was the version you used to sing in the playground in elementary school, the whole thing!! Let me tell you, it was a nice break from the sappy slow crap we've been constantly hearing, BLAH!
So truly I am excited about the Christmas season. I really do enjoy Christmas. I take great pride in finding the perfect gift for everyone on my list. I love seeing someone open something they really wanted and never expected to get it, least of all from me. Currently I have 2 people I can not crack and it's driving me nuts. Any unusually gift suggestions would be welcome; I just need Ideas and don't have much time to go shopping, since I hate doing it with to many people around.
I also need opinions from Stratford people, which is better chocolate, Rheo Thompsons or Barrs Chocolates... Got to give the standard chocolate to the chocoholics...
Enjoy your Christmas shopping folks!

You don't know how much you miss it until it is gone

I’ve been in a bloging dry spell for quite some time. I haven’t even been able to keep up with friends’ blogs and see how they are doing. What have I been up to, you ask? Well, that is part of the problem, I don’t know. I haven’t been doing anything different then when I was able to blog once or twice a week. I’m still playing soccer once a week, I’m stil working my crazy 47 and a half hours every week and I’m still making it to the gym 3 or 4 times a week. My schedule is essentially the same as it was all summer, and yet somehow, I have much less time and for a lot of things. My house hasn’t been cleaned in so long I don’t remember what my floor looks like, I haven’t seen much of my friends, my e-mails are piling up and I’m ALWAYS tired! I’m not sure what it is, but every year around this time, I feel like I lose 3 extra hours out of every day. Okay maybe it’s only an hour but still. I don’t understand where those 7 hours a week go. I get up at the same time, I go to bed at the same time and yet they just totally disappear. If anyone has any idea how I could find these hours, could you please let me know!

Days off are just not long enough

Inventory is done and over but I'm still feeling very stressed at work. I was talking to our new manager over the phone today and we both agree that there really isn't a team atphmosphere in the store and I think that is a big part of why I'm so frustrated at work right now. Needless to say I was really looking forward to today as it was my day off, even though I was just off Monday. I was really excited for today because I had decided I was going to reorganize my room! Tu, my roomate since May moved out last week so I had a whole empty room again, so I decied to put my computer back in the room and make it my little office. I finally got ride of my old hunk of junk of a computer and have so much room on my desk now it's fantastic. I'm sure i'll fill it up with junk in no time but at least the space is there. My bedroom is also much roomier now as I don't have the desk in the room taking up all that space. Ya more room to thorough my clothes on the ground!!!

After I got my rooms all set up, I spent most of my day goofing around. By the end of my shift last night, my feet were killing me so I decided it was time to get some new work shoes, 6 months of 50 hours a week is alot for a pair of shoes. At the gym today I realized I also hadn't bought a new pair of running shoes in almost two years and there were starting to look pretty worn. I spent about 4 hours shopping for new shoes and finally found a pair of runners for both work and the gym at the same place. All and all it was a good day, just not long enough, I didn't really get to relax all that much, and now i'm trying to prepare my christmas list because before you know it.. that will be here too.

And the heat is on!!

So it's 7 days till inventory day and I'm still no where near ready for it.... OH YEAH. The good news is that I'm not nearly as stressed as I was. There are plans in place to get thing rolling and I'm confident I can get my shit together. It also helps that we have 7 people in from other stores helping out and unlimited payroll to make sure we are good to go.
I've meet the new manger this week and I'm very excited to work with her. She has been with the company for quite some time and knows a lot, plus she actually does work!! So we should be able to turn things around really well!!! I'm a little concerned that there is going to be a lot of girlie bitching and bullshit but hopefully I can work past that crap.
We also had a visit from the head honco of the Canadian Operations today and it went pretty well considering. He did permit the junior managers to work up to 60 hours as opposed to only the 47.5 and that we are scheduled to so that will help out a lot with the work load. He also managed to get the truck that was to be delivered to us tomorrow canceled so that is also exciting... Yeah to big dudes with power!!!

I don't know what to do with myself!!!

It's official, I'm stressed!!! I just got back from work and I have so much stuff to do that I can't go to sleep. I had to work and "overnight" shift, which is really more of a late night shift, in order to rearrange one of my rooms. The move itself went well, however I didn't realize how much left over stuff there was going to be that, in theory, isn't susposed to be in my store anymore because it's not on my plans. The more likely situation is that the dumbasses in Jersery, where our head office is, forgot to take it all into account. So after we had finished moving everything around and cleaning up the mess we had created, I left instructions for the girls who were working in the morning. Again the Jackasses in Jersey (that has a real ring to it) are screwing me over and sending us 3 trucks this week so I was trying to help them out with the new merchandise that was coming in. My note when something like this; new quilts, ask Jenn, New bed programs, ask Jenn. Ad merchandise that has to stay off the floor, ask Jenn. So essentially I'm just going to let my manager handle everything because I'm so stressed, I don't know where to start. I was thinking about it on my way home and this is way to early to be stressed out. Usually I feel like this around the middle of November which is understandable because of the time frame and so on, but I'm in for a really tough Christmas season if I'm already freaking out....

This is the song that never ends... it goes on and on my friends

So I had to cut my self short on my title because I really could go on forever. The reason I picked this title is because this has felt like the week that will never end. I had this past weekend off and spent most of it relaxing and being lazy which was very nice. But since tuesday I've been thinking that the next day should be Friday because that is my other day off this week... not that I can afford to be losing that kind of time in my life because there is just soooo much to do, but let me tell you I really need a day off!! We are coming into the 4th quater which is obviously the busyiest time of year in the retail buz. Of course we are getting bombarded with stock. We just got in a new sheet program and I recieved 500 cases of sheets in the last two days that all have to be opened and processed and then I have the fun challenge of finding a home for it all, it a very small store by any standards. In fact, the cases are still filling up the majority of my sales floor space... soo not good. To top it all off, our company has also decied that it would be smart to have physical inventory in the begining of October... yeah, someone should be fired for that decision!!!! So needless to say I'm having my end of the week drink, right now!
We had an interesting chain of events today. The store that i'm now working at, the GM is not a well liked person. He can be very dificult to work with, very self centered and obnoxious but gets nothing done and is in no way supportive. In fact, a few weeks ago when I was staring at a room full of stock, that I had no home for, he said to me... "don't worry, it only gets worse from here!"... mmm thanks for the help Jacka**! Long story short, we were informed today that he is no longer working for the company. We're not sure if he quit or got fired, but really it dosen't matter because he's gone and we should be getting someone to replace him in the next week or so... could be an interesting time!!!

And the lesson for the day, teamwork!

So I think someone, somewhere, is trying to tell me that I need to learn how to improve my teamwork skills or find a way to influence others to work together. Last night we had the worst soccer game of my life! The team almost literally imploded! There were at least 3 players who wanted to walk off the field, myself being one of them. It wasn't so much that we played horribly, my skill level wasn't up to par, and there were a few others who weren't playing their best games but it was more the issue that we weren't playing together. There was about 6 mini games going on the field but it was all with in our team. It was really disgusting. There were points that we were just yelling at each other which really doesn't help with the team building aspect of things. And then their were the stupid, fundamental mistakes, like passing back with in your own end when your constantly getting beat by the offence to the ball, all the passing going into spaces that were closer to the opposition then to our own team mates which obviously meant that we lost a lot of chances. But the fact that we fought with in our selves for 90% of the game made it the most frustrating of all.
This is not the only area of my life where I am finding team work an issue. I was just recently transferred in my job to a new store, where on the management team of 7 there seems to be 2 who push the other 5's buttons to the point that they don't even bother trying to help out the team members that the do like. It also makes for a really frustrating environment, and I'm having a hard time rising above it, and keeping positive. I'm finding myself getting really involved in gossip and being worried about the actions of others instead of only dealing with what I have to worry about. So maybe that is the real lesson, keeping myself from getting involved in the gossip and other bull that I really don't care about.

Today is the day!

I've decied, no more procrastination!!! I've been "meaning" to clean my house for a few weeks now but keep putting it off for one reason or another. Well today is the day I say, and my roomate got me off to a good start, he had yesterday off and cleaned up the kitchen, now I just have to scrub the floors in there and then I can reorganize my room. It'll be soooo nice to get things organized, since I feel like I'm currently living in KAYOS. I would really like to get my old desktop computer out of here, but I have no idea what to do with it, can you just trash them. I would think it could be of some use to someone, but whom? I think i will have to do some reasearch on this!!!

Update, still procrastinating!! Didn't get the kitchen floors scrubed, but I did get my room reorganized, more of an organized kayos...

Small things amuse small minds!

I'm so excited!! I just got back from booking the flight for my vacation in Feburary. I still don't have my passport yet, I still have no idea where i'm going but my flight is booked. This means i'm offically going and that is damn exciting! I've even figured out exactuly what day's i'm taking off work, and i'm going in tomorrow to book them off... I can't believe how excited I am over something that cost so much and is still far away!!

How sad is it when your younger sister can drink you under the table

I'm feeling pressure from my friend Joanna to increase the blog posting as she as just started a blog as well and has quite a few posts up. Today I choose to write about my sister's 19th birthday.

I am the oldest of four kids; with two brothers and one sister and 8 years between me and her as the youngest. Way back when, when i first found out my mom was pregnant again, I was so excited at the prospect of finally getting a sister as I had been putting up with two boys for what felt like a very long time. When she was finally born, I was still very excited and she was an adorable child. I even got to help name her. Those fellings lasted for about 3 years. Between the time she was 4 till she was 10 I was very annoyed with her, at all times! She had the tendancy to be very clingy and I can remember spefic times when my friends, or even some of my brothers' friends, would come over and she would maul them, quite literlaly. I found it irritating and hard to handle. But after I moved out, and went to college, I saw her less frequently so she got on my nerves that much less, but I still never really considered her a friend. Over the last year or so, I feel like we've both really grown up and become more and more like friends. I even went out with her for her 19th birthday this past Sunday. When she asked me a few weeks ago if her and her friends could come down to Waterloo and stay the night if they went out, I assumed i would just stay home as I had to work the next day rather earily , and don't do well on little sleep. (it's amazing how bad it gets when you get older) Anyway things got changed around and I ended up with Monday off so I decided I would tag along with them and having a good time.
It took us a while, but we finally decided where to go, as it was a sunday night and we figured we'd be limited in options so we thought we would start at a pub, grab some food and then wander around downtown waterloo and see what else was open. At every place we hit she would drink more and more, by the end of the night, we had gone to 5 bars, she had had 10 drinks and 5 shots and was still a very reasonable drunk. She claimed she could walk stright but i think that was pushing it a bit. Still no falling down, no passing out and no vomitting, even despite the praire fire, jajermister and the goldshlager shots I bought her. But at the very least, she had a really good time. The final bar we hit was a slimy little country with, you guessed it, Karokee. Her and one of her friends got up and sang a few songs, they even made friends with a group of guys that were there and ended up singing and dancing with them for a few songs too. We were able to get out of there, the whole group in tack and happy!!

Happy Birthday Jan

and the answer is.....

Sorry this took me so long guys... but better late then never.
There are a few answers that I would contest but hey, it's all in good fun.


1. The one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants

know the score or the leader until the contest ends....boxing

2. The North American landmark constantly moving backward...NiagaraFalls. (The rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it every minute.)

3. The only two vegetables that can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons....asparagus and rhubarb.

4. The only sport in which the ball is always in possession of the team on defense, and the offensive team can score without touching the ball....baseball.

5. The fruit with its seeds on the outside...strawberry.

6. How did the pear get inside the brandy bottle? It grew inside the bottle. The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small, and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle is left in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stems.

7. Three English words beginning with dw...dwarf, dwell, and dwindle.

8. Fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar..period, comma,colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses.

9. The original lakes referred to in Lakers...in Minnesota. The teamwas originally known as the Minneapolis Lakers, and kept the name when they moved west.

10. The seven ways a baseball player can legally reach first base without getting a hit...taking a base on balls (a walk), batter hit by a pitch, passed ball, catcher interference, catcher drops third strike, fielder's choice, and being designated as a pinch-runner.

11. The only vegetable or fruit never sold frozen, canned, processed,cooked, or in any other form but fresh...lettuce.

12. Six or more things you can wear on your feet beginning with "S"... Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes,stockings, stilts.

This is a toughy

I got this e-mail today and thought it would make a good Blog post! There are some really good questions. I'll post the answers later, I want to see how many some of the teacher folk can get right!!!
Good Luck

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for severla growing season. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

4 Name the only sport in which the ball is always in possession of the team on defense, and the offensive team can score with out touching the ball?

5. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

6. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

7. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters "dw"and they are all common words. Name two of them.

8. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

9. Where are the lakes that are referred to in the Los Angeles Lakers?

10. There are 7 ways a baseball player can legally reach first basewithout getting a hit. Taking a base on balls (a walk) is one way. Name the other 6.

11. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

12. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter "S."