The visit from my "Sister In Law"

My sister in law Melissa was in town today and we had a chance to catch up cause it had been a while....a long long while.

But first, here's a quick history of me and Melissa to catch you up:

Melissa is my sister in law, quote unquote. I "married" her sister Amanda years ago and by married, I mean that Amanda and I connected INSTANTLY and had SO much in common, and loved her awesome sense of humour and wit and logic SO much, that I just started calling her my wife one day.
I actually asked her nonchalantly "Panda, will you be my wife?"
She laughed so hard her 40D's bounced as she giggled out a yes.
That was 5 years ago.

Now...Mel and I didn't exactly hit it off like Amanda and I did. Oh lord no. She has pretty much the same personality as I do which caused for us to have friction. Meaning, she's outgoing, loud and fun just like me...but can whip into bitch mode in a nano-second just like me. I'm not trying to degrade her, I bet if she's reading this now, she's nodding her head in agreement and laughing about it too, so she knows I say it with love. :)

But yeah, for a while there you couldn't put us in the same room. You wanna talk Cantankerous Kangeroos...lol.

Then one day we kinda looked at each other and said "Why on earth are we even fighting? This is child's play, we aren't 11 and in the school yard!" And ever since then, we've been besties.
Sigh.
Girls eh :)

Fast forward to today. Mel and her boyfriend Jeff drove to London from their small town north of the T-Dot because Jeff had to have surgery. Whilst he lay on crisp linen sheets and donning those embarrassingly unattractive gowns (sorry for the visual), Mel, my daughter and I had some serious girl time.

I rubbed her belly (she's due in January so that makes her...I dunno, far enough along to have a cute belly!), told her the story of a restaurant that didn't give away plastic cutlery with take-out orders that in turn caused me to eat fudge (in lamance terms, I am purposely leaving some information out), and gave her an awesome home-made semi-hand painted card. There were some tears; of laughter and of joy.

Jeff was still in surgery and Mel was going a lil' nutty from looking at the walls and seeing as though I had some places to go and people to see, I brought her along with us. :)

We went to Gift of Art so I could drop off the labels, show off my new catalogue, and let Mel ooh-and-ahh over the great pieces of art.
OH! And I showed her urbanLove's display.
Of course!
Of course.

Then we went to pick up a funky round red table that I found off Kijiji for a whopping $5. The guy who sold it to me was pretty cute too...a nice ego boost mid morning never hurt anyone ;)

And then we headed over to Traditions and Occasions to see Cheryl who owns and operates the ever-expanding store. Right now she's got a newly introduced ice-cream shoppe that also sells candy and specialty teas. She's doing more reno's over the course of the next month so once that's complete I will for sure upload a blog about her as well cause she's super cool people to chat with :)

After all that was done, I drove Mel-Mel back to the hospital where Jeff was probably groggy yet happy to see his gorgeous Baby-Mama to be :)

Then my daughter and I headed to Value Village for some retail therapy where I found the pieces for my 2009 Halloween Costume AND my 2010 one as well! All for under $20! God I love that place........

So that was my day with my Mel-Mel. It may have only been a couple hours, but it will have to do until I see her next; at her baby shower!