Sea World recently started a new blog all about dolphins called Dolphin Bubbles..It’s a really cute, informative blog where you can interact with others and learn all about them. There’s a really cool video they captured and share on the blog of a dolphin blowing underwater bubbles..It’s really beautiful and impressive! I’m dying to go to Sea World and experience the dolphins there in person…Hopefully someday! Check out their Dolphin Bubbles blog here…. 🙂

The blog reminds me of when I went to Marine Land both with Ry and his parents and then just Ry and I and I got to feed a Beluga Whale and then an Orca. It’s so amazing to be up close with these huge animals, and the ones I interacted with were total sweethearts! Here are some old school shots (2004) of me feeding their orca Hedstrom…

Hopefully I’ll get to feed a dolphin someday too…and visit Sea World!

Isn’t it funny how you can be in the most random place, smell something familiar and have it trigger a flashback of childhood and times long gone? Or how a smell will immediately think of one thing, good or bad..just because of how you were brought up?

I can’t help but think about how special it is, how our brains work..to lock in these smells to memory to trigger things special (or not so special..) to you. Why am I on this topic? I don’t know really..I have lit a lilac candle in our den the past few days and each night I blow it out as to not burn the house down while we sleep. I’ll leave to do a few of my night time to do’s and come back into the den to smell the scent of a candle blown out and can’t help but immediately think of childhood and blowing out the candles on my birthday cake. Each year around thanksgiving I’d have a birthday party where all my friends from school would come celebrate with me, usually at Major Magic’s, Chuckie Cheese or the local bowling alley. Each party my parents let me pick out a double layer half sheet cake with buttercream frosting (usually chocolate cake with strawberry filling!). It was always decorated with little scenes and figurines of what I liked at the time..Winnie the Pooh, Barbie..you know what I mean 🙂 I was always so excited blowing out those candles on my special cake..and each time I smell the smell of a candle gone out I can’t help but feel a little warm and tingly inside, no matter what my mood is at the time.

This has happened before too with smells that just randomly come out of nowhere at remind me of someone I love who has passed on. I remember in 02 or 03 I was in Quality Market food shopping on main Street in Williamsville and happened upon a spot in the store that succinctly smelled like my Aunt Lynne had just been standing there. She passed away when I was 13..I was locked in that spot in the middle of the freezer section just taking it in for a moment, while it was there..remembering how when I smelt that specific smell in the past she was there with me. This has happened on and off again over the years..Whenever I smell someone smoking a pipe I’m immediately taken back to sitting with my Great Grandpa Charlie who always sat at the kitchen table with a pipe, smoking and telling us stories of his childhood in Germany. Another time more recently (probably about 3 years ago) I went into Atlanta Mills Bread Company and immediately thought of my grandpa Joe who died in 2004. He was in the coffee business, supplying commercial coffee makers and coffee to local businesses and his house always had this specific coffee aroma whenever we visited. Well that smell seems to be locked in the doorway of Atlanta Mills..at least whenever I visited there in Buffalo.

I wish there was a way of bottling up these scents. When you’re having a hard day it’d be nice to sit down and reminisce about the people I loved so very much and feel like they are in the room with me…

I wonder what other smells will become locked into my memories as I continue on in life..I can’t wait to find out 🙂

So how about you? Are there certain smells that make you warm and tingly? Smells that remind you of a loved one? Don’t be shy..comment away! I’d love to hear.. 🙂

So I’m having a stressful week and I’m exhausted..It led to my diet basically going out the window (along with the exercise!). Yesterday I ate my leftover baked mac and cheese for lunch and had a can of soup for dinner..Ok well, that’s not bad I guess..I was too stressed and overwhelmed to have much of an appetite! Today I didn’t feel up to working out (went back to bed instead!), had burnt toast and peanut butter for breakfast…bulk candy gummies and sour cream cheddar chips for lunch. Then, Ry made me one of his delicious omelettes with cheese and bacon for dinner. I made him put in the 2% cheddar at least? To top it off I ate two of my chocolates from a box of chocolates I got from Ry for V-day..Ok I guess it wasn’t that bad with my stress fasting yesterday, but I always feel guilty when I miss a workout. I hope everything that has been bothering me this week clears itself up within the next couple weeks so I can get back on track for the wedding.

Our wedding tasting and one of the main big wedding planning meetings with our venue is Saturday, I just hope I feel emotionally up to going and enjoying it! Cross your fingers for me!

So, Joaquin Pheonix was on Letterman this week (or was he?)…and it was seriously just one really weird and awkward experience. I’m not sure why he even agreed to be on the show because he clearly wasn’y interested in being there. It was at least entertaining, maybe more enteraining than some of the normal guests with too huge egos. He just sat there and looked around sort of occasionally answering with one word answers..and occasionally getting pissed off because people were laughing

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXpYk7WGN5Y[/youtube]

My favorite parts were probably when Letterman asks how his unibomber friends are..and when Paul Shaffer bursts out laughing (which -really- pisses off Joaquin). He HAS to be on -something-.

BTW – Did you know Joaquin is trying to make it in the music industry now? As a rapper…Nope, no joke. Weird, weird guy.

I’ve been a little MIA the past few days…I was so caught up in blogging every day or so and then this week got really busy for me (and it’s only going to get busier as it gets closer to July!).

I have about 8 blogs I maintain, not to mention a few non-blog websites..plus a mini craft business and wedding paper supply/stationary business on the side. Well on top of my normal 2-3 blogs per day this week I was also designing, printing, cutting and hole punching a bunch of favor tag orders that came in.. A total of 4 orders totaling 800 tags? Each cut out and punched by hand..ugh! If anyone has ideas for speeding up the process of printing/cutting/punching paper products…please share! My hole punch keeps getting stuck. Grrr! I’m a perfectionist too..So once the customer orders and approves the proof I send over I’m printing and cutting almost immediately..I know how excited I am to get my wedding items, so I want to make sure theirs ships as quickly as possible! 🙂

I also had our wedding cake tasting on Saturday and it was fantastic! We discussed how the cake would be designed (4 tier round with buttercream covered with fondant, with blue and green hydrangea sugar flowers and white scrollwork icing..classic and pretty, fits the theme!), and then she sent us home with 4 slices of cake to taste and sample. We stopped briefly a the mall nearby and grabbed a bourbon chicken dinner from the food court to share and went straight home for some lunch and cake! We got to try a hazelnut cake/mocha filling combo, chocolate cake/fudge filling combo, white cake/raspberry filling combo and a lemon cake/lemon filling combo. All four were so amazingly yummy that we still haven’t decided! We at least have four tiers to work with..so we don’t have to pick just one. Right now we think we are gonna do the hazelnut/mocha, chocolate/fudge, white/raspberry and then a red velvet/cream cheese tier..but we haven’t decided in what order we want them. Mmmn..so good. (But maybe not so much for my diet! Meh!)

[dorkiness]I got my eq2 conjy to level 60 tonight..woohoo! I’m so kewlies, heehee! Also, I heard freak on a leash (korn) on the radio this weekend and I couldn’t help but reminisce about Palace Chat and how I was addicted to it back when that song was huge. Everyone and their dog had korn avatars on..even the preppies![/dorkiness]

That’s about it in lillyland..I’m going to browse through my new Victoria’s Secret catalog before I go to sleep and dream about the cute undies, bikinis and clothes I wish I could buy. Maybe I’ll post some of my favs next blog! 😀

I was browsing around some old old bookmarks the other day and ran across the booksmarks I had for some wbs.net roleplaying chatrooms I used to frequent VERY often back in 97, 98 and 99. I was a daily visitor of Glenshadow’s tavern which later became Nia’s Tavern when it changed hands.

Basically it was a gathering of dorks like me who enjoyed text-based role playing that was based in a tavern and was basically open ended. Kind of a never ending story you would create with each of your characters which would end up intertwining with others characters as you role played along with them. (link to wikipedia write up!)

I had a whole slew of characters but some of my Mains were “Pearled Maiden” or Destiny who always seemed to be in a relationship with “Damien Garrde”..She was just your regular human type..Then there was “Dawn Barron”, a vampire..I had probably about another 15 characters but I won’t bore you with the details.

Did you play in the wbs.net roleplaying chatrooms at all? If so please leave a comment! I’ve heard some people have been attempting a recreation of the old wbs rooms but I’m unsure if they’ll follow through…and if they do if all the old friends would return (probably not 🙁 ) I haven’t played much since they were bought out and the rooms disappeared..I joined im-chat and played there a bit back in the early 2000’s but honestly had completely forgotten about it until recently. They don’t have tavern style rooms there either.. :(  I miss my roleplaying buddies and sitting down for a good night of rpg’ing! Oh, I know it is so dorky…I know! I loved it though..*sniffle*

Character pic flash back!