Finally after nearly six full months of keeping it a secret I hopped a plane and headed for the United Sates of America to meet Aughra in MI and drive to IN to surprise and meet Jenn who is already dear friends with Aughra, they have had the pleasure of meeting twice now, but Jenn was told Aughra was coming solo at the end of July, not the case at ‘all!! It was really cute to see Aughra’s faux arrival date written on Jenn’s calendar she really had no idea when and that we were both coming! Our surprise went off without a hitch. Thanks a ton to Jenn’s husband for not only keeping the secret but for offering to keep us both a surprise.

People aren’t kidding when they say doing selfless things feels like a million bucks. I’ve always been giving but selflessness as a whole doesn’t come easy to me.

I’m cropping and uploading photos which are going to take forever but the set is [started] HERE. I am feeling pretty over stimulated [although in a good way, over stimulated none the less I stepped about a million miles out of my comfort zone and element] so I still need some time to decompress before I write about our amazing mission/adventures.

But here is a photo of the lovely ladies I have been blogging with for three plus years.

From the left we have the gorgeous expectant mother, and the beautiful text message queen herself, Aughra.

When I get sick I am a pretty big baby combine that with seasonal allergies and night time barfing and things have been fantastic!

Boooo last Friday I had to cancel therapy re: being sick, no girl time re: being sick and I had only been looking forward to that for WEEKS! Adam is sick as well so we’ve been passing this shit back and forth and at first I wasn’t snotty I just felt EXTRA balloon migraine head with MILD head cold, NOW I’m getting full head cold and snotty. YAY! I’ve been having really awesome night sweats as well and I haven’t been forgetting to take my crazy people tits and so therefore I can not pin point a reason other than being SICK.

In other news, The Greeper has a new place that she likes to sleep. Pretty exciting shit eh? I know, I thought so too until it turned out she’s serious and has taken over half the spot I sleep in. She has of course had other phases, other places she goes back to. The fashion box, the tent, I’m sure she will get bored of sleeping right below BUT almost ON my pillow soon.

Our camera is not back from being fixed yet so we had to buy a back up one. We couldn’t delay the monkeys any more due to lack of photos, but at the same time we HAVE to be able to take photos of our product. This issue of course led us into a discussion of other things that could happen to slow us down, when we are just about done with a lot of the start up necessities and can now work on picking up our production pace. I mentioned that there would come a time that we’d make a monkey, look at it, hate it or it would not meet our quality standards and we’d have to start over. Really, did I say that out loud? Because it happened the monkey after I said it! YAY! We have informed the buyer, I figure honesty is best, there is only two of us and both of us had a hand in it sucking so we’ve had to start over. Now we have a physically challenged monkey in our apartment, at least Dr. Vegas finally has a monkey that isn’t going anywhere to play with mostly because it is blind and can’t speak. Once that red thread goes on for the mouth the suckers don’t shut up. Banana this, poo in your face that.

My Dad is supposed to be dropping two boxes of stuff off to Adam and I on Saturday, some of my stuff, some stuff they are giving us, some stuff that has been in the family forever that I am taking because I’m the last member of our family and I don’t want it leaving the family till I die I guess. Small problem though, my Dad and I got into one of our infamous fights today. Oh how I love them. Always in regards to the exact same issue(s) hidden by topics seemingly cloaked in difference that spread years, weeks, months some just days - we some how manage to piss each other off regularly even when not in big fights. My mom is going to be all upset now and that’ll be my entire fault too, I’m sure. Super awesome, we both resort to behavior befitting that of two year olds and just generally spin in circles for a while. Fun times. We have worked hard on things as a family but my Dad and I, man we’ll just always scrap, sadly that is just how we are, we can’t seem to communicate in any sort of healthy way. Wonder how many more phases this move to Bali holds in store for us.

Just finished my fifth book of the year leaving me three behind my minimum quota for 2008, I will get off my ass and post on them soon. This year has been good so far aside from The Time Travelers Wife. EWWWW.

I’ve been putting off writing this post because I do not in any way shape or form want to hurt my mother’s feelings. Although this is an extremely exciting time for my parents this is also a hard and sensitive time for my mother and I do not want her taking anything personal but I have feelings and they aren’t negative they are just feelings or I guess some are negative but I’m trying to be as positive as possible.

As I mentioned a while back, my parents have retired early, they are moving to Bali.

ASIA. From PRINCE GEORGE.

PRO: they are flying us to Bali once a year. Paid.

CON: THEY ARE MOVING TO ASIA.

My mother made it clear that IF Adam and I were having children they would NOT be going that far away. The fact of the matter is, and I’ve been given permission to announce it, Adam is having a vasectomy. He is also going to blog his whole experience, as most who read here are aware he has always done guest posts, this will be his first series.

Shortly before it was confirmed that my parents were in fact moving to Bali, I also found out that a woman who is more like the sibling I’ve never had, Rhonda, was moving to Ontario. She has since left because her and her man now own this here Edgewater Motel. Of course again this is a pro, I’m extremely happy for her, proud, every feeling you can have for someone you love so much. But con, she isn’t here anymore. I have known her since I was 13 years old. We’ve never actually lived in the same town or city at the same time but we have always been in the same province and always had regular visits or at least been in touch. Our friendship is one that is so close that I feel a complete calmness [or as close to calm as I get] and one hundred percent of every single part of me is present and Adam can see this other more of ME that exists but is buried come to the surface and sometimes it sustains me for weeks after she leaves. Almost all of my positive memories from my adolescence involve her, almost every thing ‘bad’ I did as a teen involved her which made it twice as fun. Having her at our wedding meant the world to me. Having her visit with Adam and I in our brown shoe box and such visits like last April when we BLEW UP STEVE are beyond wicked memories and watching her and Adam bond and seeing how well they took to each other made me happy because that would have been bad like Gus not liking Adam had it have gone the other way, cept’ Rhonda probably wouldn’t have made it a point to jump on Adam’s balls just to get the point across. There is nothing, absolutely nothing that I have gone through where Rhonda has not been there for me from beginning to end. GOOD LUCK DUDE!

Now I’d best start at the beginning. I never said anything at the time but both of these events although both wonderful in their own right did play a part in my recent breakdown. I’ve played the avoidance card with them both to the point that I just the session before last started to talk about my ‘feelings’ in regards to both. I was holding back all emotion because it isn’t about me and I had enough issues already going on to mask some of the real pain, it is about my parents and their fantastic retirement and Rhonda and her new business endeavor and both parties are flying us in to visit so I figured that I wasn’t allowed to be upset. But I was and as we’ve seen when I hold things in the outcomes are never good. There is no question that in the back ground of some of my misdirected rage was a shadow where these two bits of heavy news were hiding in plain view.

I was afraid if I came out and said “I’m really fucking upset that my parents are moving to Bali” that I would just get back something to the effect of “you are almost 31 and they are flying you both in PAID once a year get the fuck over it.”

I didn’t get that from my shrink, he looked at me with puzzlement and said “No, that is a loss.”

We had discussed briefly after my breakdown that it got lumped in with all the shit that had built up and that the moves wouldn’t be easy but we moved on to what was happening RIGHT THEN and I hadn’t given him that many details. Because some times stupid meaningless shit is easier to have a breakdown over than real life shit that actually matters.

What we know: I’m an only child, I’m almost 31, I’m married, and I’m not having children.

When I moved out here in 1996 I had a really hard time when my parents sent me a massive box containing almost everything I had ever owned and had left in Terrace, at 19 I had no idea that a lot of that stuff was going to have meaning to me now in my thirties and some really important stuff is gone and whether it be materialistic stuff like my old camp fire blanket or fifty plus paper back books I don’t miss at all, I’ve still at times been upset and they know it, that they sent it ALL out to me. I was upset for one because when I would go home to Terrace it was like I had never even lived there and secondly because I moved six times between 1996 and 2000, I simply could NOT hold on to it all.

When my parents moved to Prince George it was even worse, now they were in a town or I guess it has enough people it is considered a city that I had never lived in and didn’t care for, I had spent a lot of time there as a kid and it smells gross and is butt fuck ugly. Granted they did live in the middle of no where taking it back to our Smithers roots of bush living and owning horses and all the fun stuff I missed when we lived in the town of Terrace instead of in the sticks. But like anything in life I got over it, came to love going to Prince George and building stuff with my dad and doing fire wood, my parents making fun of my need to turn the ‘electric’ heat on in the room that I would sleep in. It is hard to believe that everything is sold and/or gone now, even the pets.

To me it is about ROOTS and I feel like I am losing them. I don’t really give a shit if I sound like a baby. This upcoming move is hard for me to deal with. I did not grow up in close ‘healthy’ relationships with my parents. My father and I were very very close, but it was NOT healthy back then. Now we are still very very close and it is healthier and we work on it. My mother and I were not close when I was a child and are working on building a relationship now that I am an adult. My parents and I have worked incredibly hard to deal with our pasts. But there are feelings that remain that I can’t do anything about, there is nothing that can be done to change them, there is no real ‘getting over it’ there is dealing with it which I do and in dealing with that means that sometimes I get upset about it. IT being, that I never had a say in moving to British Columbia, I was born in Ontario and my entire family except one Aunt who stole from my husband’s boss at our wedding live in Ontario. I talk to one of my cousins over MSN and one of my other cousins is on my Facebook but I don’t think we’ve ever spoken. My favourite Aunt died on September 14, 2001 after an amazingly courageous fight with colon cancer. My contact with the family in the east has always been extremely minimal for reasons that would need a whole new post and then some. As a kid I visited once or twice on unaccompanied minor tickets and we went back as a family in 1994 which was a royal fucking mess and I went back alone to see my Aunt for Christmas 2000, but of course pissed off the rest of the family because I only saw my Aunt. Umm she was dying get over it.

A feeling of loneliness even with Adam right next to me is rearing its ugly head. My in-laws are starting to warm to me a little but it is hard because building a relationship has not been easy and it dates back to when Adam and I met. So yes I’m feeling a tad sorry for myself I don’t have any siblings to turn to, I don’t have what I originally dreamed would be awesomely close relationships with my SILS because I was never socialized properly and it fucks with me in a major way in my adult life. As if that isn’t obvious to people who know me mind you. I have nothing left in the north. I have a bunch of season’s passes for the Smithers and Terrace Ski Hills and I WILL ski in Smithers again some day but the north will just feel different now. How long will it take until I’m just another brain washed city folk knowing nothing of the problems the government ignores in the north, how long will it be until I don’t even know about the pine beetles any more until the north burns down and I see it on TV because realistically I have to move on?

Our parents retire and their lives move on without us, and I’m not going to have a baby just to keep them close. In some ways we will probably talk more. Living in the sticks they are on DIAL UP! In Bali they will FINALLY have high speed; they bought us a web cam. THANK YOU! I despise the phone but I’m always on line so Skype will become my new best friend not to mention we should be able to have book club meetings via web cam. I’m trying to just let it go and not think about it but it is so far away if something seriously serious happens it is not just a ten hour drive or fifty-eight minute flight. I’m just worried and nervous and scared and excited all at the very same time and it is all very confusing. It is no secret I don’t have a lot of close friends RE: FUCK UP MOST FRIENDSHIPS BECAUSE I’M CRAZY. Oops am not supposed to call myself crazy. I will punch myself in the arm. There, ouch.

I’m working on it but this is tough, really tough. I’m seeing them in May then probably really quick in September and then that is it until we go to Bali.

So here, I’ll close with the positive, once a year we will fly to Indonesia. In Bali a driver will pick us up because driving there if you are not a native is apparently insane and only those with a death wish would do it. We will be taken to the house or villa I think it is considered a villa, it is ocean front, with pool and pool ‘area’, two storey house, master bedroom up stairs with king bed with wrap around the house patio and doors out onto it from bedroom and main room, lower floor with TWO bedrooms both with queen size beds and doors that open right onto the pool ‘area’. There is much much more but I’ll save it for when we go. A few lucky couples and friends and SILS have already been extended invites to join us after we go alone the first time of course, there is potential for this to end up having many many positives once I get over that they are in ASIA.

I have a list of ideas for blog posts that I think will be good blog posts if I write them and I was even starting to write posts and store them but that never lasts long, I get all concentrated on lots and lots of different things and unless I write every single little thing down like POST EVER DAY on every day of my day book I won’t do it, and even if it makes it in the day book something that doesn’t HAVE to be done, something that is a want to do, may or may not get done that day.

I’m trying to avoid starting any paragraphs with ‘SO’ right now it is fun.

We have been very busy. I almost wish they did, but businesses do not start themselves. What business? THE MONKEY BUSINESS!! Even without the site up [you are still more than welcome to keep doing as you have, contacting us over facebook or through our contact page here] they are selling nicely through word of mouth.

They do take longer than they used to having added in the ‘accessories’ [headphones, guitars, basses, swords, hockey sticks, hockey helmets etc] and the option of having your sock monkey personalized with other wonderful things such as tattoos or iron on patches, the only patches we are offering are Canadian flags at present unless we happen to see a patch that matches a request. Basically we can’t guarantee patches but if Adam can draw it, he can tattoo it on your monkey. Having recently ordered three pre-made t-shirts online at the beginning of March and the fact that they JUST arrived today has me pretty confident that our monkeys will still all be made and leave in an extremely reasonable amount of time being that they are 100% hand made and our production speed with only increase as we get better.

Although I have registered the company and many of you being part of our open Facebook group and some of you having been invited to the new Flickr group, [to obtain or request an invite you must have a monkey made by us] we aren’t going to announce the official name until we are ready to launch the site and at least have buttons and stickers. There will be a mass mailing to people out of the region who can’t make our launch party so they still receive that which will eventually come standard with the monkeys The stickers are mainly for the reusable bags that the local monkeys will depart us in but ones that are mailed just get a box but will be sent the sticker, a button and our business cards we also haven’t made yet. Our logo is seriously awesome and has been seen by a select few people but has received a great response and we are really excited about unveiling it all.

I always thought I’d own my own used book store but we own a business none the less and it feels seriously awesome. Business Woman I am and Housewife Extraordinaire. Life is good. Even if it is, “painful and real” at times.

We are about to throw ourselves into a whole new batch of sold monkeys one with a Hello Kitty guitar. OH YAY!

Here are some of the Sock Monkeys who have moved into new infantries.

Owner Phaedra Monkey on left

Owner Tiana Baby Sock Monkey, w/traditional ‘MA’ tattoo

Photo © Traisas Rock N’ Roll Sock Monkey, has anarchy tattoo on back

Owner Jennie Hockey Sock Monkey, with Canadian flag iron on patch on back

The Amazing Adventures of Corinna and Adam Part One

And on an added note, at this time last year a visit had just ended with someone who I’d have to say we both now consider one of our very best friends, C.J Hixon. The one year of our ‘meeting anniversary’ was none other than March 26, 2007 extremely easy to remember, Adam and I married on the 26^th of a month. You need only look at the picture that he used to link my blog to know that he has been here since the beginning and the three of us getting to know each other across the pond and hanging out over here on this here ocean front city of Vancouver last year holds a few of my dearest memories to date. The last year continuing our friendship and watching it grow has been beyond fun. Much love to you C.J!

Last week was a seriously huge week for Adam and me. We were both completely absorbed in ourselves, I a bit too much.

We had the absolute pleasure of selling our very first Sock Monkey to Phaedra, the ‘official’ site where they will be available is not finished yet, just email us through the contact page if you want details on obtaining one. We have now sold two monkeys.

Phaedra’s Monkey who she has named Bobby has already been out on the town ripping it up. Here he is hanging out with Marc Emery. Oh, I know one of OUR Monkeys is hanging with Mr. Emery, CRAZY!!!. ROCK ON BOBBY!! The Monkeys we make for people never cease to make us proud.

Photo © Phaedra on Flickr

Looks like Bobby will be joining us bowling as well, and the Bollwitt’s [R and J] have a Monkey and we have the original Dr. Vegas so who knows what sort of monkey business will take place. Naked bowling as per Keira’s comment and Monkeys? I’d say sponsor us or I mean me. [Please]

My Parents also dropped the HUGE news on us that they are moving to Asia, Bali to be exact. Everything is happening extremely fast right now. They put their house on the market last week and it is sold already. Adam and I are currently in negotiations with them over what we can have, buy, lease, and/or ship of theirs. Right now we are very concentrated on the Yamaha piano that I played growing up and some other stuff. It’ll be interesting I don’t think we can fit the piano in here Adam says we can and he wants it really really bad. I think our land lord is going to kill us but oh well we only like her 50% of the time anyway.

The kicker the hugest news of all is that my parents are I kid you not, flying us out once a year. Did I mention they were moving to Bali? They are having a house built for retirement and of course once the insanity of knowing we get to go to BALI ONCE A YEAR wears off [if it does] I wonder what phases I’m going to go through with this? I’ve already mentioned to my shrink that I feel like I am losing my ‘Northern Roots’. He said that is normal but it is just starting to bother me. There was a big deciding factor in their decision to go so far away that did consider us, but I’m choosing to keep it private at this time.

That news combined with the sock monkeys starting to sell has us both really excited and really busy. The possibilities feel endless right now.

• I have to have all the songs on Guitar Hero III open by tomorrow. People are coming over to play and I want all the songs open. I started on hard level because I play on expert now but I got stuck in level seven [hard] so I have had to go back to medium level so I can get everything open. The things I do for my friends, seriously.

Top five total BS reasons I didn’t insist on the cordless guitar being mine and have not even tried it:

1. I don’t want to get used to it
2. I LOVE starting almost every sentence with “since you have the cordless guitar on can you please get me…..”
3. I obviously have issues with ‘excessive’ use as I broke the whammy bar on our original red guitar
4. I won MAJOR points taking over Adam’s old black and brown guitar
5. Cordless or not I will still find something to trip and fall over

• The latest visit with Rhonda was awesome, as usual, but was also bittersweet. Not my place to talk about her life on my site. I haven’t even posted the photos to flickr yet but when I do I’ll do a photo post because we took some pretty interesting photos. Underwear on my head was involved and Adam got a stingray.
• I have therapy today and BOY do I need it.
• I haven’t touched The Time Traveler’s Wife since GH 3 came out and I remain on page 50.
• I bought the new Britney Spears, Blackout at the same time that I bought Puscifer, “V” is for vagina.
• I’m almost done the second quarter of 100 things about me.
• Adam and I got new cell phones for free. My phone is so kick ass I can’t even use it or I can but I may have to call in reinforcements to teach me, I got the MOTOKRZR K1(RED) made to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. I have this thing where I hate reading instructions, but I take direction well.
• I got a change sorter because we save every single piece of change and I love it so much I may dedicate a whole post to it. If you only knew how much money I/we have saved and the things we’ve ended up using it for you’d all start saving your change today.
• This season of Ellen Degeneres is so good I can hardly handle it.
• Project GOING GREEN is in full swing we’ve added reusable bags for groceries and drugstore shops and have found even more things to ‘flick off’ and unplug. Friend and fellow blogger Keira-Anne has also done some great posts on GOING GREEEEEEEEEN and even has a Roots, Flick Off t-shirt.
• Project get all the songs open on Guitar Hero III by tomorrow must recommence now.
• As of this minute I have 144 unread blog posts on my feed from blogs I actually read because I only have blogs I read on my feed because of you guessed it, GUITAR HERO. [anyone sick of hearing about GH refer to my about page]

When I was a kid and we lived in Smithers we only had two TV channels and so somehow I talked my parents into getting me a Nintendo. Until I moved out to Vancouver at nineteen I hadn’t upgraded, I only ever owned Mario one and three and I had Duck Hunt. Duck Hunt ruled that gun was so kickass. My girlfriend, Rhonda, who lived in Kitimat at the time had upgraded her Nintendo so I would play hers. It is rather surprising how much we got to see each other when I was still in Smithers, it is considerably further from Terrace where we ended up moving. Terrace and Kitimat are around 65km apart so once I was sixteen and had my license, until Rhonda graduated and moved away for college we saw one another almost every weekend or the memories are so good it feels that way.

If memory serves I bought a Playstation when I was twenty-one. I always LOVED Oddworld and had both games. Then in 2002 [at twenty-five] with my Christmas bonus I bought a PS2. I really had no choice. At the time I was friends with a group of four plus guys hanging out in a ‘guy’ apartment doing nothing but drinking, smoking pot and kicking the shit out of each other on Virtua Fighter [for example] and I was the only girl gamer so it was hold your own or get the fuck out and I of course held my own and decided it was high time I upgraded my own gaming hardware. It was a good investment anyway because this also gave me a DVD player.

*free tip for the single ladies*

Even if you hate gaming buy a PS2 they are ridiculously cheap now because the PS3 and new Xbox whatever is out and it will get you a man. Guys would go mental when they would see I had a playstation before I met Adam but also including Adam. I used to constantly joke that I had to hide the thing, it was almost as bad as guys trying to get in my pants. Guys like girls who have gaming systems. Accept it.

And so one day I’m talking to my buddy on IM and he is dating this rad girl and he says, he says AND SHE EVEN HAS AN XBOX. HA! I responded with: That is PROOF guys would have TOTALLY said that about me. I know they did I didn’t really need the proof but it is more cool that through meeting my buddies girlfriend I have now gained a new gaming girlfriend as well which brings me up to THREE girlfriends that game. Rhonda, Iris Eggwhites and Spockette.

Guitar Hero Three - Legends of Rock did NOT come out last Sunday as scheduled and has been pushed back to THIS Sunday. Ok, I seriously thought Adam was going to cry when it didn’t come out last weekend. If it is not in our hands THIS SUNDAY I can see some major flipping out happening. BUT wait didn’t you say THIS was Guitar Hero Three? When my friends ask me that I explain it in these terms: You know how after Sarah McLachlan released Fumbling Towards Ecstasy she started to release albums like Rarities, B-Sides & Other Shit Stuff in between pretty much every full length album release, almost like she is insecure and afraid her listeners won’t be there after her breaks which pisses me off because I will always love her and still bought all those in between albums, that is what Guitar Hero is doing. The Encore 80’s game is SHIT. If I was not ADDICTED to the point of needing an intervention to GH 1 and 2 because I am so close to finishing Expert level on both games we’d have gone back to Tiger Woods PGA 2007 till GH 3 came out.

So, with all that said, Rhonda gets here in a few hours, she normally brings games for the PS2, [she owns more than one gaming system] we’ll be going to Walmart as I have been letting EVERYTHING run out because Rhonda is a Walmart addict and I don’t know we just go to Walmart and we make crafts - must be the years and years in Scouts or some shit but we ALWAYS do crafts. Anyone new here can check out other visits with Rhonda here, here and here and this post has us as teens so we look SUPER hot.