"Time always kills the pain."

Boredom really makes my brother a lot nicer to me, and it definitely makes him a lot more willing to hang out with me, his super-awesome big sister.

But anyway, this morning, my mother woke me up super early. It was apparent that the day was going to be filled with "adventure"; however, I wasn't very excited because A) I was still super grumpy about being in Nanaimo and B) Sleeping on the ground, last night, sucked.

After eating my chicken sandwich for breakfast, we were on our way to Chemainus... the town
famous for its murals. So weird. I fell asleep on the way there, and when I woke up, I felt like I had woken up in Star's Hollow (total Gilmore Girls reference... high five to those of you that got that) because Chemainus is TINY. According to the brochure that my dad magically produced in the car, Chemainus is named after a chief who was massively wounded in the chest and survived... yep. The chief's name was, "Tsa-meeun-is," which translates to, "broken chest." Then, you know, the Europeans came and changed it to Chemainus.

This may be kind of late, and I don't know whether or not I've already written about this (if I have, I'm sorry), but I guess that I should explain my frequent trips to Nanaimo.

Last year, my dad had to stop working as a mechanic because he got really sick and working on cars became too difficult. Things kind of sucked for a long time because there was only one income, and everything got very emo. But then, a few months ago, my dad came home super excited because he had just been to some sort of info conference. He had a huge box with him and explained to me that he was going to be rich, soon (the conference had been about making money, or something crazy like that). My dad spent a week reading every single pamphlet and book that came in the huge box, and by the end of the week, he made the decision that he was going to start buying and renovating inexpensive houses on the Island, so that he could sell them for a greater amount later on.

It's been somewhat successful, I guess.

It kind of sucks that I only see my dad two out of seven days of the week, but I never really talked to him before he started going to Nanaimo. I guess it's true that you don't realize how much you have until it's gone. Or somewhat gone. Now, it's just took awkward. You'd think that I'd relish the time spent in stinky Nanaimo, right? I don't know. I guess I'm crazy, or something.

Anyway, enough about that. Whenever we go to Nanaimo, we stay in whichever house my dad is renovating at the moment. The most recent house is definitely the nicest, even though it's dusty and cold. It has high ceilings and a huge backyard; however, my favourite part of the house is the balcony overlooking the living room. It reminds me of a balcony you'd see on Cribs. The house used to belong to dog trainers. William said that the floors used to be covered in dog poo.

... Okay, so back to the trip.

We drove past little clothing stores and ice cream shops in Chemainus. Everything looked so quaint. There was a store called Sexeccories. A sex shop seemed out of place to me in that little town. We didn't spend a lot of time in Chemainus, though. My dad just picked up some brochures from houses for sale and then we were off to Parksville to see more houses and to visit a friend of my mom's.

In Parksville, we stopped to eat at a McDonald's off the road. This trip to McDonald's is probably the highlight of my day. Have you ever heard of a McSLUSHEE? Neither had I, until I saw this McSLUSHEE machine in Parksville! Soooo crazy. Who knew that McSLUSHEES existed even existed!?

I bought a Disney Princess Happy Meal and got a Belle necklace as my toy. At first, I thought that it was only a super-cool necklace, but when I opened the pendant, I was SO excited to see that it was also a lip balm!

... Or what I thought was lip balm. My lips were chapped, so I was SO relieved to find this special two in one toy. I rubbed the substance all over my lips, thinking, "Ew. This tastes kind of funny. Oh well." I began eating my french fries...

... but stopped when I noticed a white piece of paper with the toy's instructions on it.

OMG. I totally rubbed perfume, or whatever, on my mouth! Geeeeeeeez. Anyone could have made that mistake though!!!!!!!!! What kind of perfume comes in solid form?!!?!?!?!?! Goodness.

After eating at McDonald's, we did more house shopping and blah blah blah, the end. It wasn't that great. I mean, puh-lease, the highlight of my day was a McSLUSHEE machine.