Traipsing about the Prairies

At the end of June, my older sister visited for a few days, and having her here was an absolute delight! She hadn't visited me in Regina before, and her trips to Saskatchewan had been few and far between. If you know me in real life, you know that I have a deep love for the Prairies. It isn't always perfect, but the people are wonderful, small cities are so nice, and the landscape is just breathtaking. I will defend the Prairies until I am out of breath, but thankfully my sister was as excited to see Regina and the surrounding area as I was to have her here. My sister is the type of person who is really aware and appreciative of her surroundings, and I really loved that someone from Vancouver was so excited to see Saskatchewan. As I don't drive, we rented a car for a day and visited Rouleau (the town where Corner Gas was filmed!), Moose Jaw, and Lumsden Beach, and spent a solid twelve hours out of the city.



If you don't watch Corner Gas (and I imagine many of you don't, as it's a Canadian show and is pretty regionally specific), you might not get why I'm always so excited to visit Rouleau (aka Dog River), but I assure you it's amazing! It's very hyper real, parts of the town do feel like props, and when we were in the Corner Gas the television show was playing. So weird. So good. It seems like the town attracts a fair amount of visitors because of the show, but I imagine it would be odd to live there. The prop-police station has a "warning: not a real police station" sign, and although the water tower does say Rouleau, the grain elevator is still devoted to Dog River.





After Rouleau, we headed to Moose Jaw where we just wandered down main street and through an adjacent park. We ended up getting a bit lost leaving Moose Jaw, we had intended to go to Buffalo Pound Provincial Park, but missed the turn off, and ended up on a series of unmarked gravel roads between Moose Jaw and Lumsden. I must ask, though, who makes a driving map of Saskatchewan that doesn't include gravel roads? Still, while looking for a road we could identify, we stopped to eat lunch near a small rural graveyard, chatted with a woman on a bike ride with her dog, and stumbled across an old, deteriorating barn. My sister saw an owl in the barn, but I missed it and the only wildlife I experienced there was far too many mosquitoes.





We finally re-oriented ourselves, and made it to Lumsden Beach, which was suggested by friends because it's a lot smaller and less busy than other nearby beaches. They were not wrong! The beach was very small, and we were the only people there. It was a bit cool to find the cold lake water especially refreshing, but it was still so nice to go in for a quick dip and spend a few hours on the beach reading. Before we left, we sat at a small golf course at the top of the valley to eat some berries and watch the sunset. It was breathtaking. I discovered my iPhone camera's panorama option, and was really impressed with how well it photographed the sun. There is nothing like a beautiful sunset to leave you in awe of this world we live in. Simply amazing.





I could talk about home and location and cities and the Prairies and how these all relate to identity forever, and I often do, but I think that's for another blog post. It was really wonderful to have my sister visit, and I loved the opportunity to get out of the city and enjoy the landscape. I wish I did that more often.









PS. If you think the Prairies are boring, I think you might be the boring one. Have you seen that big sky?

DIVA

Last Saturday UR Pride (the organization I'm treasurer of) hosted DIVAS, our annual drag show fundraiser. From a professional perspective it was successful, and from a personal perspective it was AWESOME! Definitely one of the best drag shows I've seen, and so much fun! Of course I had to wear as much glitter as possible - I've actually been considering becoming a drag queen for a while now. I'd have enough sequins for at least my first show!












Sheer sparkly top c/o City Chic, Forever 21+ skirt, Addition Elle satin jacket, WLC tights, Payless flats, Reitmans necklace

This afternoon I'm heading to Saskatoon for a conference, where I'll get to see Ivan Coyote(!). I've decided not to bring my laptop, so I'll be without internet until Monday (though I'll probably still tweet from my phone). Have a good weekend all!

Earn your Stripes

I'm finding my personal style to be quite fickle. A lot of the time I don't know what I want to wear, and when I do it's not possible given what's in my wardrobe. I feel my style is changing but I don't know where it's going. I want to be a bit more androgynous and edgier. Darker... more chic, less childish. Not really androgynous per se.... just less girly. Less overtly cute?

This is just a bit of rambling, really, but it's one of the Top Three Things on my Mind lately (the other two are mentioned near the end of the post). All that being said, I was happy with what I wore today.




thrifted Joe Fresh striped tunic (a medium!), thrifted vest & bag, Ricki's skirt, Spring sandals, F21 sunglasses


rock pendant from some tourist-y gift shop, gifted handmade copper bracelet



I don't talk a lot about health, online or in real life, because it just doesn't interest me. Most of the discussion around health is quite problematic, and when it comes to maintaining a comfortable quality of life I tend to focus on my mental health. However I've been having a few physical health problems lately, namely with back pain, neck pain, and awful tension headaches. It got so bad that I spent Monday night in the emergency room, worried that the neck stiffness/headache/nausea might be meningitis! I'm more than a bit embarrassed that a headache landed me in the ER, but I'm grateful that it wasn't something worse. Since then I had my first massage (I was a bit nervous but the massage therapist, who's a friend of a friend, was great) and began seeing a physical therapist, and I feel like I'm on the right track to deal with my pain.

In happier news though, I'm making a big change come fall. If we're friend on facebook you already know that I'm moving to Regina, Saskatchewan this September! After a lot of waiting and frustration, followed my a whole tonne of indecisiveness on my part, I've decided to move to Regina for university. The University of Regina is the only university on Canada where I can get a Bachelor of Arts and focus on ceramics, which is my passion. I'm pretty set on getting a BA (rather than a BFA or diploma) because I'd like to eventually get a Master of Library and Information Science degree. I've never even been to Regina, nor do I know a single person there, so this is a huge change. To be honest, though, I'm much more excited than I am nervous! It'll be such an adventure! I'm moving the first weekend of September, so until then I'm spending as much time with friends & family as possible, and trying to downsizes a lot.

As always, thanks for reading!