Whimsical Reflections...

Cake day!

2009-04-04T14:54:00.003-05:00

Another year older, another year even happier than the one before and more than ever I feel completely blessed. It's cake day, pictures to follow later today. :)

Here's a pic of the cake Kevin baked from scratch, including the marshmallow fondant. I think I've got a baker on my hands. :)

Better late than never

2009-02-21T20:03:00.003-06:00

I haven't had a chance to update until now, but I did do my weigh in on Tuesday. I was at 153. Not too bad considering I haven't been trying too hard lately. ;)

We had weekend guests last weekend (Steve was in town), and breakfast was massive as is usually the case when we have company over, BUT... I did get a pedometer, and I've started keeping track of my steps. On an average day, without trying I'm at around 4K steps, with a little effort I've been able to bump that up to 6K no problem, so if I REALLY put some effort in I think I'd be able to do the 10K.

In other news, I get my braces off on the 26th and I've taken the day off work to get them removed and to celebrate after by eating something REALLY crunchy. :)
My orthodontist gave me a gift certificate and I plan to use it at the mall that day to treat myself to something nice that I wouldn't otherwise splurge on. I'm thinking a lululemon hoodie.

I can't wait, it's been a long four years of carting all this hardware around in my mouth.

The bank also releases results on the 26th so this means that the auditors will be long gone by the time I return to work on the 27th, woot! Things have been even more stressful this quarter as I've basically been holding down the fort while my boss is away dealing with some personal issues. I'm not complaining though, it's been challenging but interesting being the "go to" person, not to mention that given the times we're in, I consider myself pretty fortunate to still have a means of paying the bills. Times are tough out there for so many others and I hope things turn around soon for those affected.

Well that's about it. Hope everyone's having a good weekend!

Knew it!

2009-01-27T20:14:00.003-06:00

Tipped the scale at 154 this morning, no change from last week, though after the weekend I had I should be thankful it wasn't a worse reading. Work's beginning to get really insane again as we approach the end of another quarter at our much loved financial institution, fun! Which means if eating less doesn't help, the stress sure will.

Tune in again in two weeks, next weigh in is on February 10th.

Miss Piggy

2009-01-26T20:55:00.002-06:00

Ugh. Not so sure about tomorrow's weigh-in. :(

Jeff and Michelle spent the weekend at us and I've basically been feasting for the past three days. Michelle made this awesome cream cheese/chocolate ball served with cookies, I think I put away quite a few pieces of that. Too many pieces that is. BUT I did have fresh fruit, granola and yogurt for lunch today so maybe, just maybe 153 isn't toooo much of a stretch.

I guess we'll have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

Weigh-in #1 - one pound lighter.

2009-01-14T16:26:00.003-06:00

I guess it's a good thing that I didn't set the bar too high, my goal for the first two weeks was one measely pound. Jumping on the scale this morning, it was mission accomplished! Whether that has anything to do with the fact that I've been sick these past few days I'm not sure, but either way I'll take it. :)

So as of today, 154 lbs. The next weigh in will be on January 28th, target weight for that weigh in is 153 lbs.

Things that I still need to work on include upping the water intake, still struggling with that. I'm also planning on eating out a lot less, in addition to reducing caloric intake this way, I also wouldn't mind putting even more cash towards my savings during these very uncertain times.

I'm thinking about picking up a pedometer, wonder how close I am to a target of 10K-15K steps per day, I'm guessing not very close... but maybe using a pedometer would give me an idea of where I am and help me try to add additional steps in, whenever possible.

There's also been some recent developments in my family's health history that concerns me. Decreased kidney functions as a result of high blood pressure and diabetes (even with medication and diet to control both of these and remarkable progress in keeping them under control the kidneys have been compromised) is a major one for me, and one that hit pretty close to home. If that doesn't kick start striving for a healthier lifestyle not sure what else would. Other problems, albeit somewhat less critical ones, that have raised their heads recently include acid reflux and gallstones. These can be controlled with diet and the stone that was found in a family member is a silent stone so at least all is well on that front.

What health changes are you making in 2009?

Nutritional Changes - Week 1

2009-01-10T22:40:00.018-06:00

Five days until my self-imposed weigh in... still eating whatever I'd like, that includes chocolate and fresh fruits and veggies. Also, continuing my commitment to push the plate away when I feel full, nevermind how tasty it is, if I'm full... I stop eating.

Haven't done too well in the water department, still need to find a way to make myself voluntarily down 6-8 glasses a day.

I've picked up some Seven Seas Cod Liver Oil Capsules
My parents made me take this stuff as a kid - I figured I'd add them back as part of my drive to become even healthier this year.

I've decided to keep blueberries on hand at all times, they are high in anti-oxidants... and don't taste half bad, though I will say I much prefer strawberries. Speaking of anti-oxidants, I grabbed a bottle of POM Pomegranate and Mango juice yesterday at the grocery (after initially balking at the price for about two minutes). Haven't tried it yet, but will tomorrow.

Kev and I also wanted to incorporate good old fashioned Quaker Oats into our diet, I mean our parents gave it to us as kids but we really haven't had it since, so tomorrow morning he's making me breakfast, we didn't get the instant stuff so we're hoping the time and effort that we put into making it the old fashioned way pays off. And if at worse case scenario we hate our little concoction tomorrow, then I can try to get creative with it. I found a Banana Bread Oatmeal recipe that looks yummy and I'm sure there are tons of other recipes out there.

My short term goal for the first weigh in is one pound. Five days to go, we'll see how I do... even if I don't lose that pound I'm so proud of myself for the many changes I've made to try to eat better.

Wish me luck!

Of grandmothers and great-aunts

2009-01-08T20:50:00.003-06:00

I'd blogged a while back about Auntie Mavis visiting us for a weekend, and of her visit coinciding with Gran's birthday. Here they are enjoying breakfast with us at Cora's. Love this pic. These are two of the dearest souls on the face of this earth and we love them dearly.

Striving for a healthier lifestyle Part 2

2009-01-01T19:57:00.002-06:00

The last time I blogged about wanting to achieve a more healthy lifestyle, and my hope to drop a few pounds in the process, was back in August of 2008. At that time I was down about 17lbs.

While hoping to be down even more before the holidays, things didn't quite go that way - when does it ever? :)

Instead I've gained back about 2lbs and have now settled at around a 15lb loss altogether. My goal now for 2009 is to either match or beat that 15lb loss. In order to hold myself accountable, I plan to do a weigh-in every two weeks and update my blog with my current weight.

If I'm brave enough I might even take a pic of myself wearing the same clothes at each weigh-in. If I can lose the bloat face and the gut by the end of 2009 I'll be a happy camper.

My plan is to continue with my portion control efforts while still eating whatever I want and to continue drinking lots of water. And while this isn't a resolution of any sort (it's more of a goal set since 2008) I do hope that I don't fall off the wagon, I truly want to be healthier in 2009.

Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas Checklist

2008-12-17T19:35:00.003-06:00

When did it get to be one week before Christmas?? Holy! I think I've been on cruise control and totally lost track of time, now I'm starting to freak out a bit, so I thought I'd jot down everything that's been done so far and try to think of everything that still needs doing.

On the complete side of things:
1. Gran's home is decorated for the holidays, little christmas tree and all. Yay!

2. I've worked out Christmas plans with my family AND Kev's family. This essentially means having Gran stay with us from Christmas Eve and through Christmas which leads into preparations and dinner at our place on the 26th with my fam... then being stuck travelling in a car for 10+ hours the following two days. Don't you just LOVE the holidays? I'm going to spend all day sleeping as soon as we're back in town. Don't get me wrong, I love my inlaws, I just hate the travelling, really not a very big fan of road trips. Must remember to pack chocolate to reduce crankiness.

3. Most of the presents are bought and I've been wrapping them as soon as they've been picked up, so except for stocking stuffers.. most everything is done in the present dept. Well except for Kevin, he's driving me nuts with his request for "oh, just shirts" this year.

On the not-so-complete side of things:
1. Our home isn't finished as yet. I think Kevin has abandoned the icicle lights this year so on the outside we basically look like the red light district, dotted with a pair of lighted palm trees. Classy. On the inside, I've got to make a decision about the garlands that are still not hung, either string them up or put them back into the bin.

2. Dust and vacuum and sweep and mop. The house is pretty clean, but my mom can find even the most miniscule dust particle when she comes over.

3. Figure out what we're doing for dinner #1 and dinner #2.

4. Buy items needed for dinner#1 and dinner#2.

5. Sleep.

Ah... sweet, sweet down time.

2008-12-08T18:58:00.002-06:00

The bank released results on the 5th, however it seems that didn't matter much... as year end quickly merged into month end and everything continued to be a blur... BUT that's all about to change! Freedom is right around the corner! Woot! I actually found some time today to get my administrative type stuff in order (while at work! imagine that!), like submitting expense reports and figuring out which days I want off this year and next. If you've been following my blog you'll note that I'm totally drained at this point after a crazy over-time schedule during year-end.

I've worked out my time off alotment for next year and cleared it with my manager today. I get my usual four weeks of vacation (technically 21 days if you include the provincial floater), and then another three weeks off as time in lieu of time worked. I think Kev's got about five weeks... so... if we stop being so conservative and cautious AND miserly and decide to just spend the money on a European vacay then at least we've got the time off to pull it off.

My plan is to take some of that time as soon as I can, just so that I can sleep. I need it. Truly need it. Then another few days for Christmas baking and a trip to the US before the holidays. The rest I'll figure out later. Right now I'm just stoked to be taking the regular train home with Kev again and enjoying my evenings again.

Next on the list of things to do --> head over to Granny's home and help her decorate her home for the holidays.

I have weekends again!

2008-11-14T21:24:00.003-06:00

Woot! I can actually sleep in tomorrow, i.e. wake later than 5:45am. All is right with the world again! Sleep! Oh how I've missed thee. :)

Today is also my grandmother's birthday, and to celebrate we're taking her out to breakfast tomorrow at Cora's - should be a splendid little outing. I might be a bit bias, but I think she's the most awesome granny ever. Looking forward to catching up with her tomorrow. :)

Running on nothing but adrenaline

2008-11-07T19:57:00.003-06:00

Tomorrow marks day #13 since I've had a day away from the office. I think I've clocked over 160 hours during the past 12 days. Year-end is brutal. BRUTAL. I love my job, but these hours are killing me, I'm dreaming of hedges, SWAPs, various SBC plans, pension plans and tax scenarios every night! Not to mention that I am paranoid that I'm going to screw something up from being so mentally tired that I'm double checking and triple checking and questioning the logic behind entries that made perfect sense just hours earlier. Ugh.

I think I might be in a position to take this Sunday off though, here's hoping that the finance gods smile on me and things actually go according to plan. I've decided to go in for 9am tomorrow instead of the usual 7:30am - it's going to be a long day regardless, and I'd much rather have the extra Z's in the morning.

George, bless his soul, tells me he's coming in armed with coffee tomorrow. I think after year end is over, I just might take all of January off. :)

Hello Berries! Hello Autumn!

2008-09-28T11:25:00.005-05:00

Every year the first sign that autumn is here comes in the form of the lovely berries on our neighbour's tree. Here they are, some hanging over our fence.

Job anxiety no more!

2008-09-25T17:30:00.002-05:00

Going on three months now since wading into pensions, swaps, derivatives and SBC territory and I'm happy to report that things are wonderful.

Absolutely wonderful. Thank god!

It's morphed into the kind of job where the day just blows by, I've even had to set an Outlook calendar reminder so that I don't miss my train. It's busy, very busy, but good busy. All my worrying was for naught. Anxiety no more and it feels great!

This of course leaves me with plenty of time to work up the courage to take a peek into Kevin's shower project. His first attempt at laying tiles... I think he said something about "floor tiles" being done. Heh. It'll be fine.

Strawberry Fields Forever

2008-09-21T19:51:00.004-05:00

Ok, so maybe "fields" is a bit of a stretch, but I'm super excited to introduce "Shortcake" to the world. She's my wittle strawberry plant who is about to produce her very first berries. She's tiny, but absolutely adorable.

Can't. Stop. Laughing.

2008-09-14T18:39:00.004-05:00

If you've been following the US elections process at all, enjoy! There's even a lapel pin reference in there.

I had tears in my eyes. Good job, Tina & Amy!

SNL

Flowers & Fruit

2008-09-09T17:59:00.009-05:00

Last Friday, as you stepped off the elevator and on to our floor, the smell of fresh fragrant lilies filled the air. Co-workers were amused, some were intrigued and others just couldn't resist stopping by my cubicle to say hello, as they followed their nose all the way to the absolutely gorgeous flowers that I received from my loving husband for our anniversary. It's been an amazing four years for us, he still looks at me with pure love and adoration in his eyes and I still look at him and wonder if he's remembered to put the toilet seat down. ;)

In more ways than one, it's as if we're still newlyweds and I love him, and my life with him, dearly.

Happy Flowers and Fruit anniversary. :)

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

2008-09-01T19:39:00.002-05:00

My dad celebrated his 51st birthday on Sunday. He spent the day the way he wanted to, relaxing at home and hanging out in the backyard with his three kids, that's all he wanted to do. And I know if anyone had asked him why he chose to spend it like that he would have said he couldn't have had a more perfect day any other way.

Bunny is home!

2008-08-28T20:39:00.003-05:00

My brother is back from Churchill. He spent the better part of the summer on a field research trip there, to say it's great having him home is an understatement. As a big sister I had my moments where I was worried about his well being especially since he was carrying a gun around constantly, in case of a bear threat. Fun.

I like having him home, now I get to enjoy all the stories he brings with him, starting with him being attacked by a goose as they attempted to put tags on them.

Welcome home, kiddo.

Striving for a healthier lifestyle

2008-08-12T20:15:00.005-05:00

Everywhere you turn, someone's talking about diet and exercise being an essential part of healthier living. I'll readily admit that I lack the motivation to drag myself to the gym. I'm way too pooped after work to even entertain the thought. I'll also readily admit that I refuse to not eat things that I crave. But something's gotta give, otherwise I know I will continue to lose the battle against weight gain.

So my compromise was portion control, walking a few more steps every day, and uping my water intake. To incorporate these three steps, and see how it goes, was the little deal I made with myself. Veggies, proteins and good fats have now become a staple for my lunches and dinners. I also now have breakfast at home in the mornings, and when it comes to snack foods, my rule is that it's okay to eat whatever I want, as long as I watched how much of it I was consuming.

I started this little experiment back on June 16th and have seen enough positive results to keep me going. According to the scale, I've lost about 17lbs in two months, most of which I'm sure was water weight, but it's helped in the motivation dept. And I'm doing it the healthy way, by still maintaining a balanced diet.

My goal is a return to a weight that I'm happy with by the holidays. That might be a bit lofty, but we'll have to wait and see.

For now though my clothes fit better, and that's reward enough to keep me plugging away at this. :)

Gardening Woes

2008-08-10T18:43:00.002-05:00

I've been working 14hr days for the past two weeks or so as we prepare for the release of the bank's quarter end results. As a result, not only did I miss Leah's party because I had to work this past Saturday, but my poor garden has suffered as well due to neglect.

Upon closer inspection and investigation, it appears as though Kev's poor rose bush at the front of our home, has developed black spot disease, which is a fungus known to attack roses. Actually, I think it has attacked both the yellow and red rose bushes. While the rose bush in the backyard has done really well we haven't had a whole lot of luck with the ones at the front, first we had cutter bees that punched holes in the leaves and well, now there's fungus thanks to the humid summer we've been having and the lack of dry, non-rainy days.

So tomorrow I get to break out the dormant oil that I used to save our Euonymus earlier this year and hope for a little miracle.

It's amazing what pretty pink toenails will do for the soul

2008-08-05T18:50:00.004-05:00

If you're reading this, you're probably staring at it in disbelief. No need to rub your eyes, yes, this indeed, is a new blog entry. Stop the press! ;)

If I think really hard about it, I'm sure I could compile you a list of everything that has happened since my last entry... to now. But none of it is really important, you've certainly got better things to do (I hope!), and well I'm too lazy to type it all. So let's not do that, hopefully I can keep the blog current going forward. :)

So what prompted this entry. Nothing significant really. Lying here on the couch, laptop on my lap, I couldn't help but notice my pink toes. It's a new fun shade for the week, maybe shade number 10 or so, in what has become a Sunday night tradition this summer. It's amazing what an at-home pedicure can do for the soul. It's my girly time, my alone time, my ignore-the husband time, after a nice hot shower... and it totally boosts my spirit. Pink nailpolish, I'm telling you, it's the new chocolate.

In other news, I'm scrapping again. It's really the only way I can relax, so that too is good for my soul. The wedding scrapbooks are all but complete and I've started work on our anniversary scrapbooks. I've got one going for each year and found the cutest 1-10 lettering for their spines! This means I've finally got new homes for all the keepsakes we've been gathering the past 4 years or so and just have to work on some layouts. I'll link some pics once I have something vaguely resembling a completed book or two. At which point Leah and Caty will probably point and openly laugh, at my pathetic attempt at creativity. :D

And that, my friends is my reflection for the day.

Happy Cake Day! :)

2007-04-04T14:38:00.000-05:00

http://sambakza.gemtoy.com/02_cakedance_eng/cakedance_eng.htm

That is all :)

One of those days

2007-02-26T19:37:00.000-06:00

I'm in such a rotten mood, I have no idea how I made it through today without punching someone in the head. There's no real reason to be in a rotten mood, it's not like anyone was ESPECIALLY annoying today or anything, so I must be PMS'ing.

Even now, typing this I have the urge to throw things. Hmmm... I think I best go have some hot chocolate or something.

And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva...

2007-02-17T11:26:00.000-06:00

I haven't blogged in a while, mostly because I've been pulling 14 and 15 hr days at work. Thank god that's all behind me now, I tidied up the last return last night around 9:30pm - and so I shouldn't have to do any more overtime until next quarter. I'm now looking forward to attending a Chinese New Year dinner at Austin's today and seeing everyone. :)

In the middle of all those long hours though was Valentine's day, and true to form my loving and totally romantic husband made my day by having a wonderful arrangement of the most gorgeous pink orchids be delivered to my tiny little cubicle. Once again I'm reminded of how lucky I am to have found Kevin and to have his love, not to mention of how ridiculously spoiled I am! ;)

Now everyone, say it with me ---> awwww.

Wanna go play on a hill? :)

2007-02-05T14:37:00.000-06:00

In the spirit of fun [because, well... who doesn’t need a bit of fun?] we’re thinking of going tobogganing, it’ll be my first time out. :)

Would any of you be interested in coming out with us? Maybe when they lift the extreme cold alert?

And in things amusing, Kev bought a sled, and by sled I mean a thin piece of plastic that’s red in colour. So again, once the weather is better… who wants to watch Kev fall and break a leg or two? :)

It's been a while

2007-01-27T07:52:00.000-06:00

It's actually been so long that I can't remember everything that has happened in the days leading up to this entry, but I'll try.

--Let's start with "My brother likes this girl". It's been such a bumpy ride for him so far having to deal with my parents... mostly my mom, I totally empathize and I hope that it works out, but most importantly I hope that he finds the courage to stand up for what he believes in and that he prays about the decisions he's about to make. It's weird to know that he's got a GF, he'll always be my little brother seeing that there's an eight year difference between us, but he's growing up and and I'll respect his judgement and decisions until I have reason not to, unlike my folks, who've already jumped the gun. *sigh*

--Kev & I also got our very first mortgage statement in the mail, it was actually very weird receiving it, seeing our names on it, mortgages [in my head] were always such an adult thing... but it was also pretty cool at the same time... we're growing up. Well I am, anyway... the jury is still out on Kevin. :)

--Liv and Jen both annouced their pregnancies, they're both due around the same time, and I'm totally excited, two new babies to play with this summer! :)

--I spent the weekend of the 13th at my parent's home, Kev was down in Detroit for the auto show and I decided to spend some time with the folks, it was a pretty good visit and I had a really good time. The boys have officially moved into the upper flat of my parent's home so they are enjoying a bit of independence that having their own space brings. So, yup, all in all a pretty good weekend.

I'm sure there were tons of other stuff that happened over the last month or so, but for now most of it escapes me. Well, I'm off, time to make breakie and do some chores! :)

T'was the month before Christmas

2006-12-22T07:51:00.000-06:00

Wow... haven't blogged since November 27th... I've been silent for a while, eh?

As you can imagine, work is nuts so I haven't had a whole lotta time to update as often as I'd have liked but here's a brief synopsis if you still check in:

Chantal Kreviazuk - (November 30th)
Chantal Kreviazuk paid a little visit to the waterfall stage at my work a few weeks ago, and gave a little concert - I'd known about it ahead of time and had mentioned it to the guys so Bruce, Kevin and Ken decided to join me after lunch so we'd get a chance to see her perform - she's pretty good live, better than I was expecting actually, and she looks a whole lot better live than she does on her album covers... I really don't get the heavy eye makeup they tend to use on her covers... it almost seems like they are going for the anorexic look or something!

Poker Night (December 1st)
We had our first official poker night at the new place a few weeks back and got a chance to try out the table that Kevin had refinished with a felt top. Jeff & Stacey and Aaron cancelled at the last minute but we still had a mostly full table, Roop played for the very first time [and he brought Karen along as well], the others at the table were Bruce, Jess, Kevin and myself. Mike was there too but I think he much preferred the video game segment of the night over the poker bit so we let him be. :) I won the first game, though there was no cash involved, and was pretty happy about it given that I'm getting better at heads-up play. The second game [the real one] came down to Jess and Bruce, with Jessica winning in the end.

My Dad's Van & Matt's car (December 2nd)
The guys[Bruce, Kevin and Matt] spent the better part of the day working on the ball joints of my dad's van and Matt's gauges in what can only be described as freezing weather, I'm not sure how they did it, but was grateful for their help. I tried to keep them warm with hot chocolate and munchies throughout the day but it was pretty bad outside [Matt even had to borrow one of Kev's sweaters] - in the end though they got everything done and they ended up with free pizza after the delivery guy showed up late, dropped some of the pizzas and forgot a few of the cans of pop. After all that though, my dad was pretty happy with the install thanks to the guys.

The Childless by Choice dinner. (December 3rd)
This all got started after I spoke with Meghan and realized that we wouldn't be seeing them at the P-Christmas gathering because she had to work late that night. Not wanting the holidays to go by without seeing them, I mentioned that we'd definitely have to do dinner before the hols so we pinned down a date with her and Wotjek and included Bruce and Ken & Liv. I made my infamous cinnamon and nutmeg roasted chicken and served it with garlic bread, mashed potatoes, roasted veggies and green bean casserole [the test run]. It all worked out well, I'd ensured that the makeshift dining table had a complete overhaul complete with table cloth, runner and a centrepiece and we managed to squeeze all seven of us around it for what turned out to be a nice sit down dinner. Liv would later brand it the "Childless by Choice" dinner. :)
We ended the evening with a viewing of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation [which I'd been meaning to see before the hols anyway] and as always is the case with that movie, we had quite a few good laughs.

Lucy's Kitchen - (December 6th) & Lynne Spence (December 7th)
A few weeks back, Lucy Waverman decided to pay a little visit to FCP and I decided to attend the session, I wasn't disappointed, it was a total blast as she attempted to make these recipes and we had a chance to sample, ask questions and get quite a few baking and cooking tips from her in the process - then as luck would have it, they drew for two door prizes and I won one of them which was an autographed copy of her new book Lucy's Kitchen so my plan for Christmas Day is to attempt the "Savoury Cheese Stars" because they tasted absolutely divine and an awful lot like "Cheese Straws" that my mom makes, but with a bit more of a kick.

Leah's Christmas Gathering - December 9th
Gathering at Leah this year - as we've done many times in the past was a good time, as is usually the case whenever we get together. I attempted the green bean casserole dish, that Mir had mentioned is usually a holiday staple, and was pretty happy with the end result. In addition to the dish, I'd spent the day baking, while Kev did the packaging and so together we were able to hand out the annual oatmeal cookies that has become an tradition for us with this group of friends. We got a few prezzies as well and we've placed them under the tree, except for Bruce & Jess's CD which we played on the way home from Leah's.

Christmas Concert/Musical - December 10th
On Sunday we attended the Christmas Concert at "The People's Church" with my family - this year my parents invited Granny and Aunt Lillian to join us and as was to be expected we all had a good time... though I daresay that I preferred last year's show over this year's production... that aside though, it was all in all a good time and it totally sprinkled the Christmas spirit all over me. :)

I think I lost track after that as the month end numbers were released and work in turn went nuts. Last weekend was spent bumming around and finishing up on our last minute shopping, I went to Pickering Town Centre for the first time, I went with low expectations but as it turns out, it's a pretty decent mall. We'll definitely go back as it's not that far from our neck of the woods now.

That's about it from my end. Not a whole lot is new except I think I might be addicted to Burrito Boyz. Today is the last day of work before the hols and we're heading to Windsor right after work to visit with my inlaws. 3 more sleeps 'til Christmas! :)

Merry Christmas everyone! :)

Snowflakes and Googols

2006-11-27T12:42:00.000-06:00

Kev and I were sitting watching TV the other day as I studied the little snowflakes I'd bought.

Looking at them, all similar in shape, I wondered out loud about the rationale behind the common saying that no two snowflakes are alike. I understand why the presumption is made, but really who has gone around documenting this with certainty? No one.

Anyway, thinking back about our conversation I decided to look it up today on the net and came across this site. Take a look, the site and the reader's comments were quite amusing.

How can they be sure no two snowflakes are alike?

A Christmas-y kind of weekend

2006-11-27T10:35:00.000-06:00

The weekend started on Friday evening with a visit from our real estate agents, they came by to check on us and brought with them a housewarming gift, after they left I decided to go grocery shopping, I think it was the most relaxing grocery trip ever, probably because it was done sans Kevin and I didn't feel like I was being constantly rushed to get it done and out of there. ;)

I walked through all the aisles that I wanted to [without sticking to "the list"!], I picked up fruit and managed to actually examine it properly before placing it in the basket - and last but not least I didn't have to hear the famous phrase "I'm hungry" at any point. ;)

Saturday morning came and went pretty quickly, and before we knew it, it was time to head to Ken and Liv's place for the annual Christmas gathering. As in prior years it was a total blast, I got a chance to see all the kids and to witness first hand all their cute and mischievous antics. I probably shouldn't have favourites, but I've got a soft spot for Tara, I love her personality and she's an extremely pleasant child.
I think for most of the evening Daniel wouldn't share any of his toys, even if he wasn't playing with them, if the kids ended up finding one sitting somewhere and started to play with it, he'd promptly snatched it away from them as soon as he noticed - so the parents were a bit relieved when the presents arrived from Santa and the kids each got a new toy. Tara got a mic and seemed happy to finally have something to play with other than the doll her parents brought, that was before Daniel saw her , came over... and with his truck still in his hand tried to take her mic from her - but true to form Tara ever so pleasantly, quickly tucked her mic behind her back with one hand... and with the other hand she took his truck out of his hands and promptly smacked him on the head with it - she then turned on her heels and went to sit and play with her mic. He wasn't hurt, he was just startled. I almost died laughing, especially since she didn't stop smiling through all of it. She's 18 months, he just turned 2. Bet he wasn't expecting that kind of retaliation though, and from a girl none-the-less. :)

On Sunday, I spent the better part of the morning making breakfast, tidying the kitchen and even did a bit of cleanup in the yard, it was definitely a pleasant day to be outdoors. Then in the early afternoon Kev and I worked on the indoor christmas decorations while I waited for my parents to show up [we had a Costco trip planned] and Kev waited on Bruce for help with the outdoors lights. By the time I got back home in the early evening, the guys had finished stringing the outdoor christmas lights and had also managed to put up the chandelier in the dining room... my mom, Stefan and I worked on the tree while Bruce, Kev and my dad finished placing the crystal pieces on the chandelier - it was a nice evening, we even had the fire going while we worked on the decorations, my parents left shortly before 9pm and the guys then went to look at "Family Guy" while I finished off the tree. Poor Bruce, it was well after 9:30pm before he finally got out of there... not to mention he's probably all Christmased-out by this point thanks to me so Bruce if you're reading this, thanks a million. :)

Now I've got just 28 more sleeps, or something like that. :)

Holy Busy!

2006-11-21T09:51:00.000-06:00

See? I knew there was a reason we had to have the housewarming on the 4th! I knew that work would wind up being totally insane and that I'd have no other available weekend in November to do it. Looking back, it seems the last day of my blog was the very next day after the HW... and then total silence.

Rest easy, I'm still alive... though just barely.

I think I - [I'd say "we" but Kev was at work for most of the day] - spent most of the 5th cleaning up after the party, having a party on two levels truly meant double the work but my legs needed the work out that the basement stairs provided, plus the fun we had the night before was really worth all the work anyway. :)

The following weekend was spent at work. From around 7:30am to 9pm each night, that included Remembrance Day [a bank holiday]... these incredibly long hours followed me into the new week, which led to a totally exhausting lil' ole me by the time the next Friday rolled around. Somewhere within that whirlwind of a week, I think it was Monday night, I went over to spend some time with Gran - I went straight from work and Kevin met me there - she was pretty happy to see us. Her birthday was the following day - she's now 70 years young. Every day that goes by I am thankful for her presence in my life, she's an awesome granny. Yeah, I know, enough with the mushiness. :)

Thankfully I didn't have to work this past weekend. I managed to sleep in [well by my standards anyway] a bit this weekend... I think I got up around 9am on Saturday and started working on having the house back to a normal state again. You wouldn't believe how much laundry can pile up over the course of two weeks! Kev worked on fixing the vacuum and succeeded, so that meant we can use the piece of crap for a while longer before having to replace it. Between doing laundry and tidying up the place, I managed to pull out the totes with Christmas decor looking for blue and silver decor to loan to my mom. This led to me measuring out and stringing up a few pieces of pine. Turns out that the piece of garland [lighted none the less] that I grabbed for a measley $10 at the garage sale will actually swag the length of the staircase so that put a smile on my face, what a steal that was! The plan is to set up the tree this weekend and finish decorating it, and Stef's coming over to help - I think it might be genetic but our entire family loves this sort of stuff, ever since I was little we'd make an entire day out of it so it'll be nice to work on the tree with Stef in tow.

On Saturday night we went over to Ruth & Dave's place for dinner and a few rounds of pool, based on my complete lack of sleep the previous two weeks I was super tired at an early hour but I still managed to sink a few balls. I made yet another self discovery that night, I think I had underated the extent of my cat allergy - see I had never really spent more than a couple hours or so around cats before so while I would notice my eyes would get red and itchy it tended to clear after an hour or so - however, I didn't get off so lucky on Saturday. I came home with red, itchy eyes, a rash on the left cheek, itchy throat and had a bit of difficulty breathing but alas, it all passed and I've been fine since.

Sunday came and went pretty quickly. I did some grocery shopping, and we even got a bit of our Christmas shopping out of the way, then we made a trip to Home Depot. We'd gotten a few gift cards at our housewarming and decided to pool it together and pick up a bar fridge. I bought a glue gun as well, I'd been meaning to grab one for a while for my crafts but never got around to it, it was $7 so I snapped it up. After the day we'd had I was pretty thankful my parents had invited us over for dinner, we ended up relaxing at their place for the rest of the evening before heading home to crash.

The plan for the rest of this week is to leave work at a normal time, finish up the scrapbook I made for Stef's 13th birthday, ensure I'm home for when the real estate agent drops by on Friday, buy what I need to make the homemade nachos this weekend *and* ensure I have an idea of how to make it work, then it's off to Ken and Liv's for the annual P-Christmas gathering on Saturday.

Sunday is "tree" day with Stef and Kev, Rene is also coming by and so are my folks. So that's my update, aren't you glad I didn't blog before? :)

What a party!

2006-11-06T07:29:00.000-06:00

We had our housewarming on Saturday, literally, I think the thermostat showed us sitting at 25 degrees for a while and I eventually cracked a window after it got too warm indoors!

What a party though, I think the last nine of our guests left around 2am after a good hour or two of charades! :D

Thanks to everyone who came out, I had a total blast, thanks for all the laughs.

Happy Candy Day!

2006-10-31T12:53:00.000-06:00

I'm not big on Halloween.

I don't like ghosts, witches, monsters or evil looking things. Basically I just don't do scary, period, so that being the case I've been predisposed to avoiding halloween festivities in the past... this year I went so far as to get myself a friendly looking scarecrow that has a huge smile on his face and bounces around when you tap him on his head, but that's been about it.

I am however big on cute little kids... so tonight Kev and I are going to be handing out candy for the very first time together... to all the little trick or treaters that ring our doorbell and I can hardly wait to see the little munchkins, so happy candy day everyone, it's a lot less scary that halloween, at least in my world. ;)

If you didn't venture outside at all this weekend, you didn't miss much

2006-10-30T14:20:00.000-06:00

If it weren't for Miriam's birthday party I'm pretty sure I would have been happy having just a cozy PJ weekend. As it is, I hold Miriam to be a dear friend and braved the silly rain and crazy winds to head out to her party, once there [and with the realization that it was warmer in her house than in mine anyway] I had a blast, as is usually the case when we hang out with that particular group of friends. To top the evening off on a high note, Laura and Andrew came out for the party and it was nice catching up with them on what's new, I even got to see pics of their furry new friends! :)

With Miriam's birthday came the thought process of me reflecting on my age. With most everyone having turned or is turning 29 this year, my pending 29th birthday looms in the near distance, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. For the most part I think I've accomplished a lot and I know that I certainly do have a lot to be thankful for, within the coming year though the one item that I'm shooting for is to be that much closer to getting my designation and to at least have it by the time I turn 30 [in 2008]. Now that the house is coming together nicely on a personal level, once work/my job returns to "normal mode" I'd be able to give the pursuit of my designation full concentration and attempt to get it over with sooner rather than later.

Also making the news is that I've had a somewhat productive chat with my manager on where I see myself within the group over the next few months and was told that he'd be doing everything possible [within his power of course] to help me get there. This now initiates the waiting game, I've been asked to give it until March 2007 when these things are considered, and I will - if this goes according to plan it will align pretty well with some other plans I have in store for my personal life in the coming year... if this doesn't go according to plan, plan B is to start exploring various other options which will allow me to be where I want to be career wise.

Mission: Organization

2006-10-25T19:54:00.000-05:00

Before

After

It seems I've been on a mission to organize lately, the most recent to fall victim to my quest has been the main floor hall closet.

I had been watching for a sale on a rubbermaid shoe shelf for the longest while - Canadian Tire finally answered my wish. Even with the sale though it was still stupidly expensive... but for my sanity's sake, it was worth it.

Here are some before and after pics of what I managed to accomplish. Looks like it might just do the trick afterall, given that most of our shorter jackets can still be hung above it.

I've now got a nice little shelf for my hat/scarf/glove box to sit on AND it means no more rummaging for shoes when we're in a hurry. Summer shoes will sit on the rack and winter shoes will sit at the front of the rack for easy access.

That's only the left side of the closet, I'm considering getting another unit like it for the right side but I want to see how this works out first and I've got to take a closer look at what other summer shoes haven't been "unpacked" as yet to determine if it will be necessary.

Next task, sorting out the shelves sitting above our coats to ensure that they are being used efficiently... but for now, I'm going to call it a night. :)

yawn

2006-10-23T09:09:00.000-05:00

I'm tired, well beyond tired actually. I'm pretty close to falling asleep at my desk. I was feeling this way all day yesterday as well, so I went to bed around 10pm, got up around 5:45am. That's close to 8 hours but it didn't help.

Decided to plug in my MP3 player today, that's probably the only thing that will save me from falling asleep.

Loves the husband! :)

2006-10-19T13:53:00.000-05:00

In the random tidbit dept --> I bounded up the stairs last week [from the basement] racing towards the kitchen to find Kevin to to tell him that a bird was peeking in through the glass in the basement window and that he should come take a look because it was cute.

I didn't find him but I found instead, flowers sitting on my kitchen counter. Turns out he was in the washroom and I'd found the flowers before he'd had a chance to give them to me, three black magic roses. Now, Kev's not big on flowers and I appreciate plants more so it all works out in the end, but to get them for no apparent reason other than he just wanted to get them for me, well that's pretty awesome and it totally made my day.

I think I might be spoiled, I also think I might have the most fantabulous husband ever. :)

October 19th, 2006

2006-10-19T09:03:00.000-05:00

Today is the 19th, of October, and it's suddenly dawned on me just how long ago it was that I updated my blog. I'm not sure why that was, it wasn't for a lack of stuff going on, true I've also been pretty busy at work and hadn't much time, but for the most part it was probably because I just didn't feel much like blogging.

Before I give an update though, I wanted to mention that today is my baby brother's birthday, well he's no longer a baby, Stefan is now thirteen. I couldn't be more proud of both my brothers, they've grown into the kind of brothers that make not having a sister not such a bad thing after all, and I wouldn't trade them for the world. I still think that I am in denial at times that they are growing up, at times it seems so very fast. I was sixteen when Stef was born, Bunny was eight, so to both of us he'll always be the baby, he's also the most mild mannered out of us three, the most understanding and tolerant and it can be argued that he's also the most mature one... even though we've got years and years on him. ;) So happy, happy birthday to my baby brother.

In other news. it's been a busy few weeks. Unsure about my commitments at work it hasn't been easy trying to accomplish much on the weekends. We spent a very quiet Thanksgiving at home this year, on the Monday my parents invited us over for dinner, and Kev & I played a game of Balderdash with my brothers after dinner but other than that we kept a very low profile.

The thanksgiving service we'd had a few weeks back for the house went well. In everything we've done together, we've acknowledged god's intervention - he seems to be always looking out for us, so it seemed very fitting that we continue to acknowledge his presence in our lives, ask for his continued blessings and welcome him into our new home. It was also the first time the family had gotten together in a while so that also meant a lot to me. For the meal, I ended up roasting potatoes & baking quite a few pieces of chicken. I served these with a vegetable stiry fry, garlic bread and two trays of chinese noodles and rice. Turns out that, as expected, it was just the kind of thanksgiving meal that was welcomed by those who attended. :)

And with that the month of September ended.

I spent the first weekend in October working on our housewarming evite [which mostly involved ensuring I had the correct email addresses for everyone and more importantly that I didn't forget anyone], and also planning what to have on hand for folks to eat. So far we have about 30 folks confirmed as attending, I've structured it as an open house event where people can come and go between the hours of 1pm on the 4th and 1am on the 5th, the idea being that we want to encourage folks to come out to visit at various times during the day, not just in the late afternoon, so as to maximize our time with everyone and ensure that we get to visit with and devote a decent amount of time to everyone. So the invites are out, the RSVPs are rolling in, I've got a menu planned and I've still got about two weeks before the actual party, which is fine, because as Bruce so kindly pointed out, it's being planned for four days after our fiscal year-end at work. :)

Last Saturday night we took a break from working on things around the house and headed out to Emma's place for a few hours of board games and general merriment.

On Sunday I got up around 8:30am, which is considered late for me as I'm usually up with the sun in the mornings, I grabbed my toothbrush and went to look out the front window as I brushed my teeth - I'm still not quite sure why I did this, part of me thinks that I was subconsciously wondering if the leaves on the tree in our front yard had turned as yet. Turns out, it was a good thing that I bothered to look outside because there dangling in front of me was a piece of the fascia from our roof. I guess the wind had a field day with it and it eventually tore right off - so we're now in the process of finding someone [who isn't going to charge $250] to climb on to our roof and nail it back in place. Fun times. :)

Tonight being Stef's birthday we're heading over to my folks for dinner, tomorrow is going to be spent working on stuff around the house and then on Saturday we're hosting a birthday party for Stef, to the tune of 21 kids and 15 adults. Can you say super busy?

Plus we're still doing little minor stuff around the house on the weekends, there are a few cupboard shelving in the kitchen that I want adjusted to make things more practical, Kev has also replaced two of our ventilation fans so far, so he'll probably be tackling the third one on Sunday. I also want to paint a few of the interiors of the under the counter cupboards in the washrooms but not quite sure if to put that off until the spring when we can paint with proper ventilation... maybe I'll do that and make my winter project the tearing down of all the wallpaper in the kitchen... I think Kev's still trying to figure out what to do with the shower door for the new bathroom, he's convinced that if we continue to have a shower door that opens towards the bathtub area we're going to end up with rotting wood again from a) all the water that leaks off the door as it swings open and b) water leaking off us as we step out of the shower. A mat on the raised bathtub floor solves problem b) but not necessarily problem a).

In the meantime, we're still waking up earlier than we need to because of having to share the one bathroom and I find myself crashing even earlier at night because of it. Fun times, fun times in Hoppland. :)

Bought a scarecrow :)

2006-10-05T14:56:00.000-05:00

So on Monday of last week, we stopped by Canadian Tire to grab some tools, I also wanted to check out the glass measuring cups that they had on sale - to see if they were up to snuff. We ended up leaving with neither the tools nor the cups but instead with the cutest little bouncing scarecrow ever, he's the adorable little guy in the middle, in the pic above. He now sits on my kitchen counter and makes me smile in the mornings. I'm not big on Halloween so a scarecrow is very likely the closest I'm ever going to to get to having "Halloween" decorations in our home.

After leaving Canadian Tire we decided to pop across the street to get a bite. While standing in line I noticed a nice little lady checking Kevin out. Now men being men, I knew he'd be totally clueless that she was checking him out, so before he did something embarassing which could burst her happy-place bubble I decided to nudge him to let him know before we sat down to eat. I think I was about half way through my meal when the nice little lady came over to us, looked him right in the eye and said something along the lines of "I have a mental disorder and people usually say that if they look into my eyes they can see if I'm crazy or not, do you think I look crazy?"

Heh. Make what you will of that, for me I'm going to go with the theory that it's yet further proof that my husband's a stud. ;)

November 4th, please mark your calendars :)

2006-09-29T08:12:00.000-05:00

I've got to set some time aside to work on the invitations, but I think we may have narrowed down a date for our housewarming.

Wish me luck that I don't have to work that weekend! :)

Yippee! Should be a good time, plus we won't have to turn on the heat that day. ;)

Resurfacing

2006-09-27T21:28:00.000-05:00

These past two weeks have been so crammed full of stuff [mostly work] that I feel I've been living under a rock.

A brief synopsis:

- My group at work which is already at full capacity with 13 members, is now operating with only 9, 2 of which are brand new... it's been a fun two weeks. I shouldn't complain too much though, today they took us to The Keg to thank us for all of our hard work. I ordered the Filet Mignon. I figured I deserved it. :)

- Fanyi's wedding is on Friday, which means Kev & I are both taking the afternoon off work to attend, from all indications it looks to be one hell of a party. I still haven't got her a wedding gift as yet, I'm thinking something from Canadian Tire's camping dept, but we'll see.

- Biscuits is doing well, some days he ignores us, others he's craving attention. He's still very messy but I think I've gotten used to it.

- I went on my first serious garage sale expedition on Saturday with Aaron and Kev. And by serious I mean I got there early. I scored a gift wrapping organization kit that I'd been wanting, two very rustic looking candles and a box of magnetic poetry for our fridge. No luck in the plant pots or garden tools dept but there's always next Saturday. :)

- Went on a Home Depot expedition on Sunday, and saved over $60 in the process using the new homeowner coupon I got in the mail. :)

- Dropped by Ruth and Dave's new place on Sunday after hitting Home Depot, they landed a lovely little nest egg and I think they're going to have many lovely moments and memories there. :)

- Went to visit Gran on Sunday after we left Ruth and Dave's place, she'd ask for our help hanging her bathroom curtain and a few ornaments that she wanted for the walls, we hung out for a bit and then brought her over to my folks for dinner, altogether a pleasant evening, as it usually is when I hang out with Gran. :)

- Helped Stefan with the write up for his birthday invitations, as I expected he loved the fact that they were saxaphone shaped - I still can't believe, however, that he turns 13 in a few weeks. *wistful sigh*

- We're having a Thanksgiving service for our new place on Saturday of this week, this only got decided yesterday, thankfully my uncle is a pastor [and is somewhat accomodating] so it looks like I might actually be able to pull it off even with short/late notice.
Ideally I wanted to do it on Thanksgiving weekend itself but with work being the way it is right now, I'm having a hard time trying to plan anything ahead of a few days. We've decided to keep it very intimate with family only attending, the housewarming will be sometime in November [very likely the 4th] and that will be for all of our friends and extended family - the 4th is still tentative, I have to see what my work schedule shapes up to be closer to the date.

- As a continuation from the above point, I've got to start thinking about what to serve for dinner after the TG service. Right now I'm drawing a blank. :)

That's about it from the last week or two. Gonna go check and respond to some emails now, hopefully things will settle down at work soon and I can get back to my usual routine.

A YouTube morning

2006-09-16T09:04:00.000-05:00

There's something incredibly sexy about a guy just sitting there strumming his guitar, no band, no other instruments - just him, throw in the lyrics for "your body is a wonderland" and John Mayer and you've definitely got my attention. Kid's got talent, even if he does make funny faces while singing.

John Mayer

YouTube clips that made me smile:

Cover 1
Cover 2

The weekend came and went by with a swoosh!

2006-09-14T14:36:00.000-05:00

On Saturday it was pretty much GO, GO, GO - I woke up early, as is almost always the case - and attempted to make as little noise as possible allowing Kev to sleep in. Around 10:00am I decided to give George a call, Liv had mentioned that he would be back from vacation around the first week of September and that would be a good time to contact him about the office chairs. I was in luck, not only did he answer the phone but he said he'd be at the warehouse today up to 12noon and then he'd be gone for another month or so! As soon as I hung up I ran upstairs to shake Kev awake, and an hour later we were on the road heading out to get the chairs.
George, not only had decent office chairs that we got for free, but he also had, believe it or not, matching chairs in a colour that goes well with the carpets we have on our floors currently! [note: This is not necessarily a good thing but it does the trick for now]. I called dad and he came over with the van to help us get them home. Having skipped breakfast we ended up having lunch at my parents, together with Mr. Chan, who Kev and I hadn't seen since December 2001 so that was kinda neat - though we skipped out early as we needed to make a pit stop at both Home Depot and Costco [it's never really a pit stop when one goes to Costco but we came pretty close this time]. Kev then dropped me off at Gran's place to meet up with my parents and headed home to work on the car.

Shopping with Gran and my folks was fun, we got her groceries and then brought her over to Dollarama as she wanted to get a few items there, it took a while but we got it all done - I ended up returning home around 6:00pm, totally pooped. Kev had been washing the car while I was away so he was pretty tired too, and after the non stop GO, GO, GO that we'd had that day we decided to shower and just relax for the rest of the night. Unfortunately, we missed Matt's party in the process, but word on the street is that everyone had a blast regardless, and I sent him an email on his birthday with our apologies.

Sunday came and we headed out for Dim-Sum at the-place-formerly-known-as-Furama-House, they're under new management and I'm pretty sure Ken mentioned the new name at some point, I just can't remember it right now. It was a good time as always and Wotjek and Meghan both came out for the first time. We stuffed ourselves silly and then headed over to Ken & Liv's to play poker, as is usually the norm, for the rest of the day. Later in the evening Liv made a fantastic lasagna [from scratch] and after three games of $5 buy-ins each so $30 in total between us, we left with $32.50 - so up about $2.50 overall. Not bad for quite a few hours of fun. :)
Liv's mom was kind enough to bring me two oregano plants from her garden that day as well, for me to transplant, I've now got fresh basil and fresh oregano - and so I feel like quite the cook when I pluck the fresh pieces off the plants. Too cool :)

Monday through to today has been a bit interesting at home, in a nutshell Kev managed to break the shower in our master bath [though if you ask him he'll tell you that the tile was already coming out and he just helped it along] so we've been sharing the guest bathroom, which makes for an interesting morning when we're both getting ready and leaving for work at the same time, right now we're doing the one-person-wakes-15-min-earlier thing but essentially that just means we're both up earlier than we'd like. In the grand scheme of things though, this is trivial compared to the fact that we are going to be redoing our bathroom a lot earlier than we would have liked, so I'll stop complaining about the "little" things. :)

So yeah, bathroom reno, well more specifically, shower reno. Based on what our inspector said, it looks like we'll be taking out the existing tiles, replacing the waterproof dry wall with cement board and checking for any damage to the structural wood before retiling. We should ideally start on this as soon as time permits as while it may very well be a winter project, we'd still need to work outside to prep the materials etc. My biggest worry at this point is dealing with the possible rotting of structural wood, the drywall will be easy to rip out and replace but we need to ensure that we find and remove damaged pieces of wood/plastic etc. Did I mention that we're going to be attempting this by ourselves? Yeah, inspector guy confirmed our thoughts, he said we should be able to pull it off and save ourselves a few thousands in the process so that's the plan.

Looks like we're going to need to buy a Shop Vac, oh and a fire extinguisher, but that's a whole other post all by itself. ;)

Worthy of cute overload

2006-09-08T21:10:00.000-05:00

Here are some pics I took of the kids this weekend.

That's Paige in the green shirt, Tanya's little girl and the boy in red is Talon, Meighen's little boy. That's Talon's funny face, just so as you know, he's hilarious.

Regretfully, I didn’t get any pics with Jakob being cute [he was in the basement playing video games], next time though!

*sigh* - they grow up so fast.

As it turns out, I’m stressing out my Hibiscus! :(

2006-09-08T20:48:00.000-05:00

Not sure how many of you know this but I think I might be addicted to www.craigslist.com specifically http://toronto.craigslist.org/sss/ [blogger's links aren't working tonight so please ensure you type the spelling of the “craigslist” correctly in the url, because you do NOT want to end up at www.craiglist.com especially if you’re surfing from work ;) ] – anyway, like I was saying I’m addicted to the buy and sell website, so a few weeks back I was surfing and came across a really great deal on a Hibiscus plant, someone was moving and couldn’t take it with them. Now I grew up having this plant in the backyard of our home in Guyana so I thought I’d rescue it and give it a new home here with us, for nostalgia sake at the very least.

Fast forward to today, we’ve now had it for about two weeks, it’s budding and the flowers are gorgeous, but over the past two days we've noticed that some of the leaves were yellowing, so Kev decided to look into it tonight for me.

Turns out that I’ve been stressing out the plant because I’ve been moving it around trying to give it as much sunshine as I can... you’re apparently not supposed to twist them any more than a 1/8 turn per week – and only if necessary!

I feel like such a dope! In Guyana it grew outside and thrived well, and of course no one ever twisted it because it got all the sunshine and warmth it needed to survive.

Ah well, now that I know better I’m done moving it. I hope I didn’t upset it too much, Tanya mentioned to me when she was down that she managed to kill hers in the space of two days!

Wish me luck that all goes well because I tend to get really attached to my plants. :(

If anyone cares, presently has or is planning on buying a hibiscus plant, here’s the link I found: http://hibiscus-sinensis.com/hibiscus/care.html

Let me root, root, root for the home team!

2006-09-07T10:17:00.000-05:00

I'd hoped but didn't think it was going to happen, the Toronto BlueJays won last night. :)

After a shaky start where he walked a player or two, Ted Lilly came through for the team as the Blue Jays went on to win the game. No balls came our way but Kev had his glove just in case, all in all not a bad night for a free pair of tickets. :)

Various tidbits from my world

2006-09-06T12:40:00.000-05:00

- I'm back at work today, back at the daily grind. Roop is on vacation this week and so Kev drove us in, we got to his building a bit earlier than usual so I decided to skip across the road to check out the P.A.T.H connection from the CBC building to FCP - I'd been meaning to do this before the cold weather hits so that I have a general idea of the route to take. As it turns out, there's currently no P.A.T.H access to FCP as construction of the RBC Centre and the Ritz-Carlton gets underway, which means I am going to be SOL come this winter.

- Kev & I are going to a Jays game today after work. While at the dealership yesterday, they offered us free tickets, should be a fun afternoon out, here's hoping the game is somewhat entertaining at the very least - otherwise I suspect I'm going to start heckling just to keep myself entertained. ;)

- Gran's official move to Scarborough is on Thursday, we're are going to swing by after tennis to help her put her bed together, should be fun, I think they're working on her phone so hopefully she'll also have it by then - I'm not too keen on her being there by herself with no telephone access. :)

- Thinking about accepting and heading over to Leah & Matt's place this Saturday to see everyone and then to Ken & Liv's on Sunday for Dim Sum and poker. Those plans are still up in the air though as Kev might have to work this weekend so we haven't really confirmed with anyone one way or another.

- We met a few more of our neighbours, they all seemed like nice folks, older than us and very friendly. The ones directly opposite are moving and had placed a very nice solid pine table on their front lawn [among other stuff], after talking to them we ended up taking it. I think we can make a very nice home-made poker table out of it. I also rescued a plant, two mirrors and some photo boxes from being sent to the dump. They had some other nice stuff but I didn't want to take anything we wouldn't wind up using or have a place for, ideally I want to keep our place relatively clutter free - even if it means a sulky Kevin ;)

- Ruth & Dave got the keys to their place last Thursday so they're currently bouncing off the walls with excitement between that and their pending Caribbean cruise this weekend, pretty stoked for those two, I haven't been over to see the place as yet, but that's only because of the week I had preparing to host and then finally hosting our out of town guests.

That’s about it on my end, and other than me being very tired today, not a whole lot is going on. I had to drag myself out of bed this morning at 6am – my body is still in vacation mode I think. :)

Happy Anniversary!!

2006-09-06T08:28:00.000-05:00

Kev & I celebrated our second wedding anniversary yesterday, the 5th [we'd extended our vacation by a day so we could have the day off together] - I think the celebrations officially started on Monday night though as my parents took us out for dinner at the Mongolian Grill to celebrate both our anniversary and their pending acceptance of Canadian citizenship.

Then yesterday, on our anniversary, we spent the morning at the Scarborough Civic Centre attending the citizenship ceremony for my parents and brothers, this also gave both of us a chance to reaffirm our oath of citizenship - which was kind of cool. We grabbed a bite to eat after and then went to test drive a few vehicles that we're considering for purchase next year... we didn't manage to pin it down to any one car but at least we've narrowed our options a bit... we also got a chance to swing by the Scarborough Transfer station to grab new green and recycle bins before heading back home to spend the rest of the evening relaxing, eating ice-cream and watching CSI. We also got a few phone calls from some family members that remembered, some as far as the Turks and Caicos, to top off the night, so that was kinda neat.

Celebrating two years of marriage was a great feeling though, even after two years I still feel like the luckiest girl alive so that's a good sign, right? :)

What a week!

2006-09-04T09:17:00.000-05:00

What an incredible week I’ve had.

There was so much going on, first of all it took us an entire week of non-stop "GO" to get our new place looking and feeling like a home before Kev’s family came to visit, but all the hard work paid off.

Stefan came over on Monday and spent a few days helping me unpack and get organized, then Gran came on Tuesday night and even though I tried to have her just relax and enjoy her visit she was scurrying around sewing curtains and helping me get them up, cooking [which truthfully was a god send since Kev and I barely had time to stop and eat - much less cook!], sweeping, giving advice on what to do with some of the stuff I unpacked, she really helped an awful lot and I got to spend some quality time with her as we got the house together – once again I was awed by how much of a wonderful grandmother she is to me.

Meighen, Matt and Talon arrived on Friday night – and as it turns out I am going to be an aunt again!! Yippee!

Tanya, Bryan, Jakob, Paige and Kev’s mom arrived on Saturday around noon, we had originally planned on going to the zoo but we got rained out… so instead we spent the day visiting, going through a box of old photos that Kev had managed to save and getting all caught up on what’s going on with everyone. After dinner, Tanya and her mom helped me scrub the white porcelain kitchen sink that came with the house until it sparkled like new even though Kev & I insisted that we’d probably replace the darn thing.

The kids were adorable as always and they are both growing up so fast, both Talon and Paige are talking now so it was so cute to hear them put together sentences in their baby voices. Paige is as pretty as ever, I think she’s going to be a serious heart breaker when she’s older. :)

Saturday night came and it was a riot - after the kids went to bed on the upper level the adults moved two floors down into the basement and that’s where the party started, we played poker, drank, talked, laughed and got really loud until the wee hours of the morning, I called it a night at 4am but some of the others stayed up until much later, I think Bryan and Matt went to bed at 6am.

On Sunday we made everyone breakfast and they headed out around noon or so. It was great having everyone down but it sure made for an exhausting weekend... I think I’m going back to bed now. :)

Gran's coming to visit!

2006-08-25T12:15:00.000-05:00

Yay! She got back from Alberta about a week ago and she's coming down to Scarborough this Saturday AND it looks like she's gonna be spending a few days at us. She'll be the first to break in our makeshift guest bedroom. It'll be so nice to have her, I can hardly wait. :)

I'm just not feeling it

2006-08-24T13:35:00.000-05:00

Today is our quarter-end "celebration" and, just like every quarter before this, we're invited over to the Duke of Devon for food and drinks.

For quite a few people in our dept, however, [myself included] quarter-end isn't really over and it's a pretty safe bet that most, if not all of us, aren't in particularly celebratory moods when we've got deadlines looming ahead and we're short on staff.

Office protocol probably [according to Kevin anyway] dictates that I attend. I'm not going to - not after the week I've had, not after the day I'm fairly certian I am going to have tomorrow. To say it's been nuts is an understatement, last night I actually had to bring work home.

We've now got two team members that have left our group, and our boss has also bailed, his last day will be September 1. Everything is being passed down to the remaining few and there's been no word of a replacement for anyone, yet. So I'm going to pass on the lunch and pass on the drinks and try to get as much work done before I leave today... then maybe, if all the stars align I can actually leave on time tomorrow to start my vacation.

I can hardly wait for next week, I'm pooped.

Mornings are a b1tch!

2006-08-24T07:59:00.000-05:00

Things are slowly becoming a nice routine in the mornings, the break in period is awful though!

It was only last week that I was waking at 7am, leaving the house around 8 and getting in for 9. Now I'm up at 6, getting in around quarter to 8 and leaving around 4. I swear the only thing that gets me up at 6 is the fact that I can now leave at 4.

But it's working out well, we now have time to sit and have breakfast together before heading out the door. It helps too that we're commuting to work with Roop, one week he'll drive in, one week we'll drive in. With regular traffic we're downtown in about 35mins, then it's about a 10mins walk to my building, so altogether not too bad. Ask me again in the winter, though. ;)

Oh, and I'm STILL very much sleep deprived. I'm off next week and work is even more nuts because of it. It's like they know I'm going to be off and are trying to get every last ounce of sweat out of me before I leave or something. Ugh.

Totally exhausted...

2006-08-23T07:10:00.000-05:00

...but I'm back at work.

Things are [understandably] still nuts, but everything considered the move went pretty well, thanks to the help and assistance of all of our friends and family who turned up to help. The professional movers showed up about 20mins late, but they managed to do a lot in a short space of time. After they left we noticed that there was a tiny ding on the wall and a tile in the front foyer was also broken but that's about it, both are easy fixes as we have extra tiles and the ding on the wall isn't that noticeable. It really wasn't worth calling up and making a claim.

I think the worst part about the move though wasn't the move itself, it was that Kevin had to work on Sunday [system implementation meant that he had to be AT work for 7am, he didn't get back home until around 12 midnight]. Thankfully my parents and brothers spent most of the day with me and didn't leave until around 9pm to go home. For some reason I was terrified of being in the house all by myself, so as soon as they left I locked all the windows and doors and went upstairs. I was tired but at the same time I couldn't sleep. It was really weird, I'm usually pretty tough, I don't mind the dark, I don't mind being alone -- but just the fact that I was in this strange house by myself totally freaked me out. It probably didn't help that I was looking at CSI. ;)

Things are slowly starting to come together at the new place. Rogers showed up [finally!] so we now have phone and cable internet again. The kitchen looks a lot nicer now that I've had a chance to play with it a bit. Yesterday I spent the day organizing the room in the basement that I'd like to turn into a scrapbooking area... I plan to strip the wallpaper off, paint and create a little craft and sewing workshop. For now though I've made use of the drawers and offloaded a lot of the stuff I was storing in totes.

We met our next door neighbours on Friday night and they seemed pleasant enough. I think Kevin also met another neighbour two houses over yesterday - that's probably because he's been outside more than I have - tinkering around in the garage and working with the cable guy yesterday. I've noticed too we've been receiving curious looks as we're driving in or out - but so far no one has showed up with any pie or wine for that matter. Hmph. ;)

Bored, yet?

2006-08-14T10:23:00.000-05:00

By now you're probably fed up of me yammering on about the house and what not, if you are, you'll probably want to stop reading now as this is going to get real boring, real fast. ;)

The topic today is locks, yes you read that right, locks, we bought locks for the new place. I warned you it was going to be boring. ;)

We picked them out on Friday evening and left them at Home Depot to have them serviced so that we'd need only one entry key. I think we got about 5 in total: front door, garage door, side entrance, basement door and bathroom door. We opted for the antique pewter finish, see pics below:

We chose this for the front door, but instead of the lever handle in the pic we got the round knob instead as the lever wouldn't accomodate a door that swung open to the right, even if the packaging said it would.

That's about it, tonight we get to go pick them up.

Tomorrow we're on break.

Wednesday we're meeting with our lawyer to sign final documents.

Thursday is moving-boxes-to-the-garage and inspection night.

Friday is installing locks and cleaning-before-moving-in night.

And then Saturday is the big moving in day.

5 more sleeps. :D

Happy Birthday, Ruth!

2006-08-14T09:08:00.000-05:00

Today is pretty special, it's Ruth's birthday.

Ruth's my go-to friend, I met her on the WB forum back in March of 2003, shortly after Kev and I got engaged and she's been a really great friend ever since.

She's also pretty darn smart and possesses a wealth of information [that's why I say she's my go-to friend], and while we don't see each other as often as we should, she's usually only an email or a post away and I'm pretty lucky to have her in my life. Happy Birthday, Ruth, please keep the lights on today. ;)

Old friends never change... too much. :)

2006-08-11T13:25:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had lunch with Bhumica and Leon, two university buds that I hadn't seen in over 6 years. You might remember me mentioning Leon from my earllier thread after bumping into him at King Station. Anyway they'd both recently immigrated here and it was great catching up with them.

Bhumica is the same old Bhumica, she wears her hair shorter, has lost a bit of weight and her overall look is more mature but talking to her she's still the same. She still has to eat at 12noon [on the dot!], talks the same, laughs the same and still dreams of finding her prince charming - hopefully sooner rather than later she says! :)

Leon looks the same, has the same sense of humour and still teases us mercilessly. [He reminds me a lot of Mo, our old roommate] - as was to be expected I got teased about my ear piercing [I went through 20 years of my life without pierced ears and it was the first time either of them had seen me with pierced ears]. It's okay though because Bhumica & I got our digs in about an old girlfriend that he use to have that didn't want him talking to us at all - [he could only hang out with us when she wasn't on campus], that is until he lost his bag of texts and notes two days before finals and came running to us to help him out. Inquiring after her yesterday - turns out she apparently broke up with him after "he decided to let her go". *laugh* That's Leon alright.

The lunch hour came and went pretty quickly, name after name kept popping up as we tried to get caught up. Roseanne is living in the US, and is married.
Her ex, Miciah is married and has a child. Kathy is here in TO visiting this week and Ayanna works somewhere downtown as well, Melissa [according to Leon] is also living here - we might get a chance to see them the next time we do this if we can coordinate this. Lots of laughs all around, next time we're going to try to get together after work... that way we have the afternoon and evening to talk our heads off.

Measurements

2006-08-09T15:59:00.000-05:00

Being the excited little munchkins that we are, we utilized our first, of two visits to the new place prior to closing, yesterday.

We've established that:

- we can comfortably fit the gazebo I'd like [if I go ahead with it], and still have space for a small veggie garden and a shed. Kev's a bit wary of the length of the deck combined with the veggie garden. If it becomes an issue and if I had to make a choice, I'd prefer to make the garden smaller rather than mess with the length of the deck. I'd like to add a rail to and keep the deck big enough to comfortably seat visiting friends, or to maybe have a hot tub one day [not likely, but at least the option is there] and I'd like to have breakfast out there on the weekends weather permitting.

- our desks are not going to fit as nicely as they do now in any room other than the basement or the living room. The basement's living space is pretty much Kev's domain for his entertainment centre so living room it is by default. I'm actually okay with this, when I'm home I spend a lot of time either online, watching TV or in bed so I want those spaces to be comfortable and cozy and this set up should achieve that.

- the couches are probably NOT going to fit down the basement stairs, which could potentially be a problem. We'll have seating downstairs, that's not the issue, as there will be a sectional in the basement, the problem is we're not sure where on the main floor there will be room for BOTH of them. I figure one will definitely go into the family room, but where we'll put the other one is going to be a question mark for the time being.

- we're going to have to get a gold lock to go with the gold trim embedded in the glass of the front door and also the trim of the closet door. Gold is not my preference but it's going to be cheaper than replacing the door and the closet trim. ;)

I'm also toying with a few ideas in my head including the addition of standing cabinetry to the "breakfast area" in the kitchen [against the wall only] as the breakfast banquet style seating area I'd dreamed about is not going to happen based on the location of the sliding doors. Something else I've been toying with is how to get the best use of our dining room window that opens up to our neighbour's brick wall, then it occurred to me yesterday that I could potentially lean a small trellis [with a climbing plant attached] against that specific window and instead of looking out at brick, we could be looking out at greenery.

That's about it for random thoughts on the house, things are coming together with the packing and we're still pretty excited. Oh and there are tiny baby apples on the tree overhanging our yard, I'm guessing we'll be there in time for the ripening. :)

Happy Birthday, Leah!

2006-08-09T09:23:00.000-05:00

I met Leah back in the spring of 1999. We were out to dinner with her and Cory at this little restaurant/pub place and I remember being a bit queasy and not too sure what to expect - it didn't help either that I was painfully shy and didn't say much during dinner [boy how *I've* changed since then, eh?] - but as I remember she was pretty, had a gentle smile and a quirky sense of humour and I liked her right off the bat.

Seven years later, she's still pretty, she still has a gentle smile, she still has a quirky sense of humour and she's still my friend. Happy Birthday, Leah.

They got it!

2006-08-08T15:28:00.000-05:00

It's an exciting day indeed!

Not only do we get to go visit our place tonight [I still can't believe it's our sometimes] and take measurements and stuff.

But I'm happy to announce that Ruth & Dave are the proud new owners of a cosy little nest egg, well not so little but it's cosy all the same. A very nice place, with a wet bar, hardwood floors, a HUGE backyard, spacious kitchen, huge lot - basically everything their little hearts had desired... but the best news yet [from my perspective of course *laugh*] is that they're going to have the room for a pool table! :)

Coolio!!! :D

Are we there yet?

2006-08-08T09:58:00.000-05:00

I think I got a lot done this weekend. This thread will basically serve as a checklist of what's been done and as a reminder of what I still need to do.

The kitchen cupboards & drawers have been cleared except for two plates, two cups, two glasses, two forks, two knives and one spoon [which will be packed on moving day]. All cupboards have been cleaned out except for Kamran's cupboard, the one under the sink and the one immediately to the left of the stove [if time permits I'm going to tackle these tonight]. I've been trying so hard to keep everything methodical and organized. Boxes containing stuff that we won't be using in the next two weeks are clearly marked, sealed and in the basement at this point, the other boxes sit open in the kitchen already packed but with items still at hands reach if we need them [this allowed me to clean out the cupboards without completely packing stuff away]. I will scrub the kitchen floor completely on the Sunday after the move, as again there's no point doing it before as people will be likely tracking in and out with their shoes - also, remember to replace the burner pads with new ones before we leave.

The washroom on the main floor [while pretty clean at this point] will not be given it's final scrub until after the move, I figure it's going to see a bit of action on the day of the move so in order to have it clean for when Mike takes possession, I'll clean it the Sunday after the move. I emptied the cupboards and packed it all away.

The dining room area, where our desks are. I've cleared out my desk, contents boxed, labelled and sealed. Computer speakers, steering wheels and the scanner have been dusted and boxed. I've wiped down the entire desk, my monitor, the CPU, the printer and the filing cabinet. The only thing left to do with my desk is for Kev disassemble it next Thursday/Friday, my monitor and CPU will likely be transported via car/van on moving day.
Kevin still has to work on his desk before disassembling it - box, label, seal, dust etc. - he also has to box/bag items currently lying on the floor including his hiking bag and tennis bag [are you reading this Kevin Hopp?]. Next Thursday night, after the desks have been taken apart I've got to roll up the chair mats and place them in the basement awaiting transport, also clear off the couch in the desk area and have it clutter free and ready for the movers.

The living room, coffee table to be cleared off and moved to the foyer/basement on Thursday night. Kevin to pack away all electronics and speakers.

The basement, on Thursday night ensure that all small misc. items are boxed or bagged, no loose pieces to be left lying around.

The bedroom, final load of laundry to be done on Friday night and packed away, this includes bed linens. Also pack away all clothes currently on shelves in the walk in closet. Clothes on hangers will be hung into the portable wardrobe that the movers are bringing. Kevin to take apart the bed on Friday night.

Master bathroom, all cupboards have been emptied and cleaned. On Thursday night pack away all toiletries into the box sitting in the area, label and seal it. Wipe off counter and clean sink, clean toilet, clean shower, sweep and mop floor. Kevin to re-attach the door.

And the one big item on Thursday night, vacuum. Then on Sunday after all the furniture has been moved, return and vacuum spots that weren't easily accessible before. Kevin to clean out the oven completely on Sunday.

Heh. There. The end result of 3 days of packing and dusting and organizing and we're still not done yet.

Quit while you’re ahead

2006-08-04T22:11:00.000-05:00

Over the past year or so I’ve noticed an intolerance to lactose creeping up on me. However, being the defiant person I am, I decided to try to fight it… where I’d start off small and keep pushing my luck with it.

Gradually I found that I was able to have small amounts without a reaction, so [of course] I just had to start pushing myself even further... I started drinking glasses of milk.

Bad idea.

See for every 5 glasses I drank I had reactions at least 3 out of 5, even with those stats I figured I was getting better and could deal with the washroom escapades if it meant I could conceivably work my way up to having milk again, that is until today when I developed the worst stomach cramps ever, the kind that cripples the body and seem to last forever, I was doubled over on the carpet, lying down didn’t work, standing didn’t work, sitting didn’t work, I kept changing positions to try to get the sharp pain to stop but found I only got relief if I was on my knees and hunched forward.

Eventually, after many trips to the washroom, the pain stopped and I vowed not to do that to myself again.

I give up. Lactose Intolerance, you win.

Happy Belated Birthday, Snook-Ums

2006-08-03T15:19:00.000-05:00

With all the excitement of the last week or so, I just realized that I totally didn’t throw up a post wishing my wonderful hubby a happy birthday.

Kev, as most of you know, turned 29, on July 29th, celebrating his champagne birthday while at camp. He got a card, a cake and the promise of a garage makeover when we move so he was, literally, a happy camper. ;)

But all that aside, I celebrate his birthday, sometimes even more than he does not just because I’m thankful that he was born and that our paths eventually crossed but because each year with him in my life just makes life that much more fun and interesting and I look forward to many more years with him as we grow old together.

On the way to work I found an old friend!

2006-08-03T14:40:00.000-05:00

As I was getting off the subway this morning, I heard someone call out "Michelle!" - I spun around and there in front of me was one of my old university buds, Leon!! Before I knew it, he was giving me great big hugs and kisses... I think I was still in shock, we were both talking at the same time, something along the lines of --> wow, how are you doing, are you visiting, do you work downtown, how long, where are you living, how are things, have you been in touch with anyone else, have you heard from Bhumica, I thought she was in touch with you, what's your number, let's do lunch, let's not get run over by the cab, call me.

Turns out he's working at BCE Place, which is right across the street from me. I was, still am, pretty stoked, now I'm going to try to arrange a lunch with him and Bhumica, we've got about 6 years of catching up to do, should be loads of fun!

I'm back, did you miss me?

2006-08-02T09:44:00.000-05:00

Hello world. I’m coming to life slowly, trying to shake the post-camping slumber I’ve been in since Sunday evening. The trip was great, and I had a total blast.

We arrived shortly after 2pm on Thursday and decided to proceed with our setup right away, just in case the rains that paid a visit to Jen, Chris, David and Amanda on Wednesday decided to return. It was also their night to cook [they had started camping a day or two earlier than us so we figured it’d be easier if they cooked on Thursday night while we set up camp] so we had a chance to set up and basically just bum around until dinner. Our site was also deemed the party site [because the other sites had kids therefore not allowing for campfire and loud chatter after the kid’s bedtimes] so we got the fire going and everyone sat around it chatting into the late evening.

On Friday we got up, made breakfast and decided to go geocaching, we managed to find the cache without anyone getting hurt [including Kevin] so that was a bit of a relief. I think the best part of finding the cache was reading the logbook contained in it that told of earlier geocachers, who they were and the dates and times in which they’d found the cache. Once at the site I was already thinking about scrapping for this trip so I took the Gary and Mary Adventurers Card and left behind a little leather/cloth satchel bag that can be hung around the neck, while Bruce left a Scotia Bank hockey puck and took an eraser before we headed back to camp. We were a little more than sweaty by the time we got back so we had a quick lunch and headed down to the beach, the water was fantastic [i.e. not too cold and not too deep] so I think I spent about 2-3 hours wading around in it and then another half hour or so picking up rocks from below the surface and then trying to throw them as far as I can.

Friday was also our night to cook so Ken fired up the BBQ for the porkchops while Liv and I worked on the veggies, we did a combination of grilled and sautéed veggies and they turned out pretty well. After dinner we made smores and sat around the campfire chatting, then around 11pm or so Kev and I decided to head down to the beach to watch the stars, we brought a towel and laid it on the grass so we could lie on it and look up without hurting our necks - we found that a few other people were there as well doing the same thing, it was pretty neat, people were around but everyone was so quiet, talking on whispers and enjoying the night sky. We saw the milky way, the big dipper and countless shooting stars and satellites before heading back to camp.

On Saturday after breakfast [we made egg McMuffins], Ken wasn’t feeling well, and it looked like we weren’t going to do any geocaching that day so I took Xavier for a walk and Chris joined me with Daniel. It was neat being out with the kids, they stop and look at everything, they’re curious about everything [including washroom areas and other people’s campsites ;) ] so they made Chris & I stop and appreciate our surroundings. Xavier kept stepping in the mini potholes in the road, and if he happened to notice a bit late that he’d missed one, he’d stop turn around and go back to step in it. :)

It started raining on Saturday shortly after lunch, I didn’t mind the downpour [Kev and I were actually talking of playing in the rain if the downpour continued] so while everyone scurried for their tents or the cars, I decided to continue doing the dishes [in the rain!] – Kev stayed outside with me and started digging a trench to drain the water from our site. His system worked pretty well and within an hour or so the site was above water again.

Then on Saturday night Rene, Steph and Bruce made dinner and I surprised Kevin with a birthday cake after dinner, Ken still wasn’t better so he missed dinner and the cake and we never did get a real poker game going on this trip but altogether we had a blast.

Packing up and heading home on Sunday was a nightmare, we left the site shortly before 2pm but didn’t’ get home until 7:30pm or somewhere thereabouts. On our way home we’d decided to take a detour through the backroads after traffic came to a halt on the 400, but it ended up taking way longer than we expected. I think next year we’ll leave on a Monday instead, that way we can avoid all the folks heading down from the cottage on a Sunday. Our saving grace was our annual tradition of going to Liv’s parents place for dinner after camping, they made pasta for us and as usual it was incredibly yummy and very much appreciated. Since then I’ve been in this slumber… with today being my first day back at work. I think I’m going to need coffee to get me through it as my sleeping schedule is all messed up. :)

Signed, sealed, delivered!

2006-07-26T12:11:00.000-05:00

Okay, maybe signed, sealed and enroute to it's destination is more like it but good-fricken-bye to the regulatory return and hello camping!! :)

We leave for Algonquin tomorrow for four days of fun in the sun, and if you couldn't tell by now - I'm pretty excited.

As part of the trip we're also planning to do some Geocaching.

Kev got an early birthday present from my family yesterday, it included a bear knife. Yes, you read that correctly, a bear knife, and just in case you missed it, this is especially funny because he was just saying earlier in the day that this guy is his hero and wondering if he should buy a bear knife for our trip.

I'm just going to hope we don't encounter any black bears. Have a great weekend everyone! :)

Happy Birthday, Bunny

2006-07-25T22:49:00.000-05:00

The elder of my two younger brothers, Bunny, celebrated his 20th birthday on Wednesday of last week, actually I think he pretty much spent the entire week partying and celebrating the birthday but the two official celebrations included an outing at a new club downtown on Wednesday night and then a BBQ in his honour at my parent's place this past weekend.

No longer a teenager, yet not quite an adult in the eyes of my parents places him in a very weird predicament, but he's making the most of it, heck I got through it and so will he. :)

He's about to enter his second year at York U and is on the dean's honour roll, he's also been working at the Ontario Science Centre as a summer student and also part-time through out the year so altogether I'm kinda proud of what he's doing with his life, but don't tell him that! ;)

Team Mona Lisa

2006-07-24T15:03:00.000-05:00

By the time Friday rolled around I'd had about as much of the return as I was willing to take so it was a good thing that, other than tying up a few loose ends in the morning, the return was pretty much ready to be submitted to my boss for review. I submitted it around 9:30am, and sent him an email saying it was ready, he mentioned he'd be reviewing it on the weekend and will get back to me on Monday with his comments and any additional issues. Yay!

With that out of the way it was time to turn my attention to our floor group activity taking place at 10:30am - we had no idea what was involved but knew that it was going to be based loosely on a "Da Vinci Code" theme. Earlier in the week we were divided into groups and given t-shirts for all our group members, we were given $10 spending money (per group) and told we had to create a group t-shirt - we were also told that at the end of the competition there would be a prize awarded to the group with the best t-shirt. In the beginning we had all sorts of lofty ideas about transfers and logos and whatever else for our t-shirts that is until we realized that our $10 wasn't going to buy much... we actually ended up not spending the $10 and donated it instead to the BMO Fountain of Hope charity organization. :)

Coming up with a name for the group was easy, we'd ended up with 8 group members after a few people opted out of the group... so we decided to go with Team MONA LISA, we typed the letters into MS Word and using wingdings to determine the corresponding symbol we each drew that on to the back of the shirt with a fat-tip black marker. On the front of the shirts we had printed pin-ons of the Mona Lisa with various facial expressions - mine had her with her tongue sticking out, another had her pulling on her ears and making a face - the expressions created lots of giggles. We fastened her to the shirts with some decorative brads from my scrapbooking supplies and we were ready to play - the game itself was tons of fun... we had word searches, riddles, giant sudokus and a game of jeopardy - then it was back to the boardroom to use the letters we won from each of the games to solve the final puzzle. We didn't win the final leg of the puzzle but we did win best t-shirt and I got a $10 GC to spend at FCP.

Turns out they had also ordered lunch for everyone so I had something to eat and then left the office at 2pm to start the weekend. :)

Paranoia

2006-07-21T09:37:00.000-05:00

The little voice in my head was telling me this morning that I should get ready a bit earlier and take a ride in to work with Kevin but after not sleeping well last night [it was odd, I woke up twice and I usually never wake up at nights] I decided to sleep in and take the bus instead.

I got to the bus stop and again the little voice said to wait for the Express bus, but I looked up the road and no bus was in sight so I jumped on the regular route bus. I went towards the back as I usually do and was about to take the only seat available [between a woman and a kid] when the woman motioned for the kid to sit in the seat closer to her, all's well the kid moves over and I take his seat - he's now sitting next to me, his mom to the left of him.

Now in the mornings I'm usually totally out, of it so I don't pay attention to my surroundings. About 20 minutes into the bus ride however, I notice the lady sitting opposite me staring intently at the little kid to my left so I look over, and that's when I saw it, the kid was covered in pox sores - he's got CHICKEN POX pretty much everywhere! Some of it are scabs, some are still wet and seeping and he's scratching it under the sweater than his mom is using to hide his feet [his head and upper body is exposed and when I say it's everywhere, it's everywhere]. Not only was I sitting next to him but I am also sitting in the same seat he was in a few minutes ago.

I freak out in my mind... but remain calm outside. I didn't want to just get up and walk away so I waited until the opportunity presented itself and I moved away. A lady on the bus probably saw what was happening and told me to be careful, not sure what I can do to be careful now though, what can I do, it's already happened.

So now I'm scared shitless than I am going to wind up with a case of chicken pox, I've never had it before and I don't want it either. Turns out too that my doctor is not in today - apparently if she were I could have taken a blood test to check for antibodies, if no antibodies, then I can take some kind of drug to prevent it, so with her not being in I'm probably going to go to a walk in clinic and see if they think I've been exposed long enough to warrant the test and some preventative medication.

This blows.

40,000

2006-07-17T11:07:00.000-05:00

I feel bad for civilians every time they get caught up in the middle of a war, but this most recent surge of events in the middle east has left me more puzzled than concerned - and for a number of reasons, not the least of which is why we are having an all out war over two kidnapped soldiers. Haven't the two sides [Hezbollah [I won't say Lebanon] and Israel] kidnapped and traded prisoners before?

With a Canadian focus though, and what also has me puzzled, some of the media have estimated that we have about 40,000 Canadians currently in Lebanon seeking evacuation. Now the total population of Canada is 33,098,932. In comparison with our American neighbours the total number of Americans currently in Lebanon: 25,000, total population of America 298,444,215.

If you did the math you'd probably be wondering why we have so many Canadians currently in Lebanon, are they all vacationing at this point? I hope so, 'cuz honestly I'd really hate to think that they are all holding Canadian citizenships merely for convenience, of travel or otherwise, or in times of sickness, all without working or paying into the same tax fund that will now be used to bail them out.

I hope a resolution comes quickly before this escalates into something that neither side is probably prepared for.

Coffee Time

2006-07-14T11:23:00.000-05:00

I organized a coffee break today for a dear older woman that's my cube mate at work, she's leaving to take up another position on the floor and I'm going to miss having her right next door.

She's like the mother of our group, she's got kids our age and she always has a treat of some kind for us, if she's not picking cherries and bringing us bags full she's whipping up some cool Filipino delights and bringing them for us. On my birthday she had given me a lovely vase with a pair of orchids, she's just a warm, caring woman.

We got her a gift and a card and I'm hoping that our group head will organize some kind of lunch for her, but so far nothing has come down the pipes - so with today being her last day officially on this job I wanted to gather everyone to give her a nice send off. We had a nice time sipping coffees and chatting at Tim's - for the most part I like most of the group that I work with especially the older folks, they always have the fun bank-stories to share about the good old days.

So yeah, Rose is leaving but at least she won't be too far and it means a promotion for her - one that she totally deserves.

On the up-side, given that my other co-worker is still reviewing the F/S and my notes, it means there's no point in me sticking around today so I'm heading out at 2pm [summer hours] - also, I've asked her if she thinks that she'll be done over the weekend, maybe we can come in then, she said she doesn't think that she'll be working the weekend, so... happy weekend to me and I brace myself for the sh*t to hit the fan next week. I can hardly wait until Monday morning when I'll have to literally drag myself out of bed to come in to deal with it all.

Those late phone calls

2006-07-13T10:41:00.000-05:00

Last night I spent about two hours on the phone with someone that I love and care very much about. A good part of those two hours was spent with her in tears or near tears as she recounted the ups and downs in the relationship she is in. They've been married for over 20 years, have grown children and are both working normal jobs to make ends meet - in a nutshell life can be stressful. It seems some days are good days where they can talk without arguing, but these are rare as the other 80% of the year they argue, heated words are exchanged back and forth - sometimes things die down after words are exchanged but other times he completely loses it and starts to use his fingers to jab at her face or head - which leaves bruises. This unhappy, constantly arguing living situation has been going on for years, but the physical abuse is once or twice a year at most, despite that, she hasn't confided in anyone - afraid of what people will say, she hasn't filed a police report as she's afraid FOR him. He doesn't know she's having the conversation with me. She's fed up of always having to put up a front for everyone that doesn't know just how rocky their relationship is.

I was/still am very distraught after talking to her, I can't help unless she wants me to help, she doesn't want me to say anything to him - yet. Talking to Kev about it after I got off the phone I was trying to explain the dynamics of the relationship she's in. For the most part the entire family is confrontational in their tone of speech, just the manner in which they may ask each other for a banana is enough to start an argument because of the tone and choice of words, hence it's not hard to envision why things can escalate to the levels that they apparently have.

I just don't know what to do about it, I told her last night that I would like to talk to him to - first of all tell him not to do it - and secondly that if I ever hear or see evidence that he has, I'll report him to the cops. But she doesn't want me to say anything to him, yet. What's she waiting for? The next time that it happens? I know they've been married for so many years that she doesn't want to get the cops involved, she just wants him to stop doing it. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that she's faultless in all of it, obviously the exchange of words provoke this kind of behaviour and she's capable of being vicious with her words but at the end of the day it doesn't matter who says what from dawn until dusk, if yelling and screaming is the way you communicate that's fine [you may need counselling but it's not a crime] but when it comes to physical abuse you've just stepped over that line.

I just wish, for her sake, that I could just talk to him to make it stop but I still have to respect her need for me to keep this between us until she's ready to accept some help.

Current Mood: Concerned

And breathe...

2006-07-13T10:05:00.000-05:00

So yesterday, after I'd gone about as far as I possibly could with the big regulatory return I'd blogged about last week sometime, I gathered it all together and took it over to my co-worker who was supposed to be working alongside me on it, I told her I'd gone about as far as I can go solo, that I had made a list of questions I had and can we set a time to review them.

We sat down this morning to review the questions, then decided that since she hadn't looked at the project in the first place and mostly couldn't follow along it might be best for her to take a look at the financials on her own then once she's familiar we can proceed. The problem with all this isn't that I have been working on it alone so far, the problem isn't that this return is due at the end of the month, the problem isn't that the reviewer [our boss] will be on vacation on July 24th and 25th and that I'm on vacation July 27th - 31st, the problem isn't that my boss [like us] has never looked at this return before and so will likely need at least 3-4 days to review this return which puts us at giving it to him on July 18th the latest, the problem IS that if she hasn't looked at it yet, then she's likely going to need the next few days to get familiar which means that she won't even have the time to look at the questions/issues until the 17th, which means that we have a day to turn around any correspondence with external parties and complete the return for review - which won't happen because turn around time with these folks is about 5 days or so - some of them are in the US and Ireland AND most of them might even be off on summer holidays.

So today, I get to sit around and work on other none time sensitive stuff while she looks at what I've done so far. I've done my part, I've told her to let me know if she has any questions or if there's anything I can do to speed up the process, beyond that my hands are tied. Yet I'm still responsible for us meeting the deadline and my camping trip is probably going to get shelved if this continues.

Yes, I'm frustrated, and just needed to vent.

Current Mood: Very annoyed

Zidane, I like the guy.

2006-07-10T14:41:00.000-05:00

I wrapped up the soccer pool today. It's not likely, but just in case you haven't heard as yet, Italy won.

Oh and Zidane head butted Materazzi - if it is indeed true that it was a racial comment that provoked it, then I have no issues with Zidane. The Italians always try to win the cup whichever way they can, but to upset one of soccer's great legends in the finals of the world cup show that they have no respect for anyone. I personally would have slugged him, and drew some blood. ;)

But back to the pool, Marcus and Kevin came out on top for the first round so we took them out to lunch today. Kevin, being true to form, decided he was going to MBCo and Marcus joined him... I think they ordered the steak sandwiches off the menu - $27 and 27mins later they both agreed that the food was way overpriced for what they got, oh and that they were still hungry - needless to say Bruce, Roop, Wotjek and I had a good laugh.

But at least now they can say that they've tried MBCo

Current Mood: Amused

Would I have been happier there?

2006-07-05T23:00:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I wonder what I gained from picking myself up and moving to another continent.

Sure, there's the argument that people around me have a better life as a result of me moving, my family can live a peaceful life here without the constant worry that they'll be robbed or killed, my brothers have better opportunities here to make the most out of their lives, but what really has changed for the better for me.

Before I moved here in 2000, I had finished university, finished my internship stint at Barcellos and was working on completing my ACCA. Within a few years I could've reached the top rung of the ladder career wise, bought a house, married and quite possibly become a mother... and all probably before the age of 25.

Instead I chose to come here, where your degree is recognized but it's not enough, where a designation is needed if you plan to reach the top of the ladder, where you're not given all the transfer credits you should receive because UK Accounting Standards are totally different from Canadian Accounting Standards - which is obviously a problem in Canada but not Guyana where most everything is still patterned after the British, where a third of your income goes towards taxes to help pay for services for which you don't even use, where a house and marriage doesn't happen until you're a few years shy of 30, where kids is out of the question for even more years because who can afford them really, and even when you think you can afford them, you can't, because inevitably they'll see the face of their daycare provider for more hours than they see yours... and that's not really affording them.

So yeah, sometimes I do wonder what I gained from leaving home in the first place, maybe it's the whole peace of mind/safety thing, at least here I don't usually spend alot of time worrying about a break and enter and possible loss of life of those that I care about, or maybe it's the fact that I did right by my brothers, Bunny's in his second year at York now and Stefan got 13 A's and 4 B's this term at school. At least some amount of good came out my move, right? What does it matter if I gained anything out of it or not.

Happy Birthday Canada

2006-07-04T10:20:00.000-05:00

Kev & I decided to join the gang for the annual trip out to Hawestone for Canada Day this year, it looked to be a very promising day for fun and relaxation and I even brought Stef along to get him out of the house for a bit.

As expected we had a good time, I even braved the water and stayed in for a bit. The day was also insightful, I discovered that I’m probably the only girl in the group that loves very bright and colourful underwear [read: LaSenza’s summer collection addict] and that I've never stopped to consider whether any of the clothes I buy will actually look good with my skin colour. I’ll usually wear anything, as long as I’m comfortable and the style appeals to me. I mean, I think I look good in brown, but I’ve never stopped to think what colour might actually look hideous on me, this is something I’ll probably stop to ponder the next time I try stuff on, but back to the outing –sorry about the tangent - we headed over to Brewery Bay after, and I had the Chicken Parm meal and the famous Cookie Skillet [which I shared with Stef]. The cookie skillet didn’t disappoint, it was yummy. Matt’s parents joined us for a while and we left a while later, managing to make it back to the cars before the storm hit.

We got to my parents house around 8pm to drop Stef off and I got to take a peek at the work my dad has done so far on their bathroom, it’s coming along nicely, he’s finished the cupboards, changed the toilet and completed the walls except for a bit of trim. I think he plans to do the floor next.

Mom packed me up with some curried fish [she even saved me the mango seed :) - and lots of ochro] and we were off, I was pretty pooped and just wanted to be home, plus I’d started cramping really badly on the way home, I did the math in my head and realized I was going to have a visitor for a few days and she was probably showing up tonight. Great.

So anyway we arrive at home and Kev heads for the couch saying he’s not feeling well, I didn’t take him seriously because I figured it was probably because he’d spent the day in the sun and he was probably just fatigued. About 10 minutes later I realized that I was wrong, he started throwing up and that continued for the entire weekend. I got on the phone after the first bout and rang my parents asking them to bring me some Gravol – they brought Andrews, Gravol, Kaeopectate, and Gingerale. He took the Andrews and then promptly threw it up, gave him the Gravol, it stayed for about 4 hours then at 2:30am it came back up – I decided to call Telehealth Ontario at that point – diagnosis --> mild food poisoning or a stomach bug – stop all medications, let him hurl, one sip of water every five minutes.

Now I usually brace myself for the cramps and head to bed lying in the fetal position to deal with the pain, but I realized with Kev being sick I didn’t have that luxury tonight so I popped an Advil and went back to concentrating on him.

By Sunday night he was doing better, and he’d started having solids again, the vomiting had stopped and the fever was broken but the diarrhea didn’t check so I called Telehealth again, 24 hours having passed. They recommended that I introduce Gatorade and bananas, and brace ourselves for a spell of 4-7 days. Thankfully we’re both out at work today, he’s doing better but still uneasy... and I've made a mental note to buy a thermometer as I couldn't tell the nurse what his temp was, just that he had a fever.

I don’t think we’ll be going to the Ontario Science Centre tonight after all but they’ll be other opportunities. For now I’d just settle for one good night of sleep. :)

Ugh.

2006-06-29T12:47:00.000-05:00

I'm a bit stressed today. A few things have contributed to this, it appears that while our group looks for a replacement for a co-worker that's leaving, most of her stuff is going to be piled on to me.

Usually I'd be okay with taking on the additional work - the only problem is that in addition to this news, there's a big return that's due before the end of July that two of us has been assigned to - it's the first time either of us will attempt this return [it's an annual return and we're both new] - and based on the information needed it's going to take about a month to put the binder together for this - the last person that did this return started mid June and submitted it in August - the reason is that alot of subs are involved and a lot of explanations and definitions are usually required. We've asked for an extension to the end of July which is good, it's been granted, that basically gives us one month.

But back to the co-worker leaving, most of her returns are due in July - which means she'll start training and transferring her stuff over to me in July, which will leave very little time for anything else, including the big return. And this doesn't even include the upcoming quarter end.

I've told everyone my vacation is not negotiable, I'm taking a few days at the end of July and the latter part of August, I've sent my boss a detailed list of the days I plan to take off. Something tells me though that it's going to be a tough fight for August. :(

Fajitas followed by Fasting

2006-06-28T14:56:00.000-05:00

Went out for some yummy food at Jack's last night with Ruth. It was great catching up on all the stuff going on with her, chatting about all the stuff going on with me, all while downing Jack's famous garlic pan bread.

Things are working out well with Dave's little mishap, but given the little curveballs they've had thrown at them this past year, they are definitely looking forward to their totally deserving cruise in the Caribbean.
-----------------------

I went to the lab this morning to get the blood work done after a night of fasting, the guy took about ten vials... yes, ten... I was tempted to ask if he was *sure* he had taken enough, but he was friendly and cute and well he did do his best to make me relax, so I decided against it.

Busy weekend

2006-06-27T13:36:00.000-05:00

Got to spend some time with Caty, and everyone else at her going away party last weekend. I'm so stoked for her, it's going to be a really awesome experience. The afternoon went pretty well, Leah's aunt made some to-die-for spring-roll type thingies which were beyond delicious, I got caught up on everything that's going on with the gang and just had a very relaxing time overall.

Next on the agenda was Gayner's birthday/housewarming party which we dropped by for a few minutes. Kevin had a close encounter with Dr. Love and I got to meet a few of her guests before we said our goodbyes.

Then on Sunday we finally got around to making a second trip out to Wonderland - this time we brought Kristel, Leah and my parents along. Stefan & Bruce came out too but Bunny had to work.

What can I say, the guys had a blast and they managed to convince me to get on two rollercoasters before I called it a day - which was a major improvement over my one rollercoaster ride last time - but that didn't quell the teasing from everyone. ;)

The first was Minebusterand the second the Italian Job. I was supposed to go on Drop Zone but I lost my nerve after the first two coasters. I'm just not big on heights, but I'll probably convince myself to try it next time. Probably. We didn't make it to the water park segment of the park so I told Stef that we'd try to get out to Wild Water Kingdom before the end of the summer.

Other stuff that's going on:

- Went to see my doctor yesterday, she's going to recheck my iron and run some other tests.
- Dave got into an accident [his car got tangled with a Crown Vic] but he's doing okay.
- Did some more packing and cleaning yesterday, cleaned out our entire washroom cupboard, packed what we needed, tossed the rest and wiped it out. So that's done.
- I'm currently tied for last in the Group of 16 world cup pool, if this keeps up I am very likely going to be stuck buying lunch for the winners again. But it's fun. This afternoon Spain plays France. It would be nice if Spain won, it would be even better if they won 2-1. *fingers crossed*

P is for Packing

2006-06-19T14:07:00.000-05:00

Ok so I got a few emails asking for details on how things are progressing with the purchase of our new place so I thought I'd throw a post up to update everyone. Things have been coming along pretty well, there's really not been a single hiccup so far [which basically means I'm still bracing myself for something to go wrong - eternal pessimist, I know].

In a nutshell:

- we've changed the closing date to a week earlier [the difference in prices between moving mid-month as opposed to the month-end is ridiculous] so it means we'll be closing on 18th instead of the 25th.

- the sellers had the chimney swept by a certified WETT professional, so that's good, they've got that certificate, they've got the the property tax assessment notice and now we're just waiting on the warranty information for the roof.

- I've started packing, and packing, and labelling and shredding and packing again. I think I've got no less than about 20 boxes/totes all neatly packed and sitting in our foyer so far. Yet it seems like nothing much has been moved around the house, but it's been fun. It's going to be a struggle to get Kevin to part with all the crap/junk that he's managed to pack away and collect over the past decade or so here in Toronto but I refuse to bring any unnecessary junk to our new place - we just won't have the room to store it and I don't want car parts sitting around my house, I put up with it now but once we move, game over... so I'm basically bracing for a good fight. ;) And if he insists that a lot of it has to come, then the onus will be on him to store it in the garage, it's that simple, really. :)

- we got the letter from our lawyer, we just need to pin down an evening to go through it and provide him with everything that he needs - oh and we need to tell him we've changed the closing date.

- I've asked Leah [and Matt & Caty] for help with the choice of paint colours for our breakfast area/kitchen given that the family room is green. Now I'm wondering if I should repaint the family room as well. I'm very much a brown, cream, green kinda girl, preferring earthy colours for these two rooms. I guess I'm hesistant to use other colours because there's going to be such an abundance of blues in the basement and laundry room that I almost don't want it in any other common area - but we'll see as there's also the issue of the greenish/tealish carpet. Once we've moved and settled in, I'm going to have "LMC and Company" over to help me visualize just how things will look with the various options. :)

So that's where we're at folks. Packing is at the forefront of everything at this point but I'm TOTALLY looking forward to painting. ;)

Happy Father's Day!!

2006-06-18T18:17:00.000-05:00

Just came back from a nice afternoon spent at my parent's home for father's day.

Dad's doing well, he looked well rested and he seemed very happy that he got to spend the day hanging out with all of his kids - joking around and watching soccer together... which in itself is interesting as dad is rooting for Portugal, Bunny is rooting for Brazil and well, I'm hoping Argentina wins the final - they've looked pretty good so far, and even though the eye candy is not as good as years gone Messi sure is easy on the eyes. ;)

Well we went and did this crazy, crazy thing...

2006-06-01T09:32:00.000-05:00

... we bought a house! :)

Yay!!!

It's been in the works for just about a week or so, but we kept it on the down-low until everything got confirmed.

The inspection went smoothly, the financing went smoothly and they accepted our offer so we confirmed everything last night. Woohoo!

We're pretty stoked. And I can finally sleep well again. We close in three months, and I can hardly wait. :D

Here are some pics. Yay! Yay! Yay!

Front of Our Home

Master Bedroom

Living Room

Kitchen

Breakfast Area

Family Room

Dining Room

Basement

Basement 2

People SUCK!

2006-05-19T13:28:00.000-05:00

So yesterday I got on the train at King Station around 5:10pm, as I have for the last ten months since working downtown. It's mostly empty but there's usually a lot of people at King Station heading out from the core at that time... so within seconds all the seats are gone and I find myself standing shoulder to shoulder with a train full of people - that's normal, that's to be expected, I can live with it.

I grab a pole with my right hand, ensuring that I stand on the left side of it thereby leaving lots of room for other standing commuters to use the pole. I pull out my Metro and continued to read from where I'd left off that morning just as the train pulls into Queen Station. I didn't look up, there was no need to, I wasn't in anyone's way who wanted to leave and was clearly out of the way of anyone entering the train... suddenly something pokes me in the side, it's a bag, I look up and there's a woman standing to my right, she looks at me, we make eye contact, no apology or anything so I shift a bit to my left to avoid being prodded by this bag of hers and continue reading.

A few minutes later, she starts bracing against me, possibly trying to get me to move even further left... I can't, not unless I want to end up standing on top of the nice lady to my left so I hold my ground and resist her brace - all this while I continue reading as though I hadn't even noticed her.

We get to College Station and the seat in front of the lady to my left vacates, she doesn't move to sit... so under normal TTC etiquette either the person to the left of her or the right of her takes the seat next. Seeing that I am standing to the right of her, I politely ask her if she'd like the seat she shakes her head a polite no, but she looks tired so I ask "Are you su.." - [I never made it to "re" part of "sure" and I'll explain in a second] - now usually at this point if she says she's sure, I'll take the seat. But just as the last part of the word sure was about to come from my lips the fat cow to my right does the unthinkable, she shoves past me and the poor woman [who looked like she was about to keel over] and fastened her fat a$$ into the seat. Now usually I don't call people fat or cows or anything like that but I was/still am very pi$$ing made at the lack of courtesy of this woman. Just who the hell do people think they are that they can shove and push their way into seats not remotely meant for them. Then to make things worse, she looks up from the seat at both of us with this very casual look. I honestly wanted to smack her, I think it was a good thing I was distracted long enough by the poor woman next to me almost keeling over and me trying to help her regain her balance - otherwise I'd have gotten myself arrested for slapping the cow.

So TTC cow, if you're reading this, know that I think you're absolutely despicable, and the next time you try that shit - I AM going to tell you what an inconsiderate PoS you are.

Too... much... energy...

2006-05-19T12:08:00.000-05:00

I'm hyper today.

*boing*

*boing*

*boing*

It's possibly the Chai tea... or maybe it's because it's only a few hours before the starting of the long weekend!!!

*boing*

But back to the tea, I tried it for the first time a few months ago and have been hooked. It's really good, especially with milk [not to mention I manage to sneak in one of my servings of calcium with each cup].

Try it sometime. :)

Happy Mother's Day

2006-05-16T10:51:00.000-05:00

I invited my family over for a late lunch on Sunday, for Mother's Day --> Mom, Dad & Stef (Bunny is still in Quebec on his french learning course). Most of you probably know that my love for Thai food knows no bounds, what you don't know is that I armed myself with some Thai cookbooks last week, went grocery shopping and attempted to make some Thai dishes for Mother's Day. :)

By now you're probably thinking, "well isn't SHE ambitious", and you're probably right. I WAY underestimated the amount of time it would take to prepare everything!!

Here's some of the items I tried together with their ratings based on taste after preparation:

Rating Scale:
1 - You couldn't *possibly* have followed the recipe
2 - Ok, but something's just not right here
3 - Good, but you've got to tweak this one a bit
4 - Pretty darn good!
5 - So good I can't stop eating!

Appetizer:
Green Mango Salad - Rating 4
This turned out pretty good. I was a bit worried at first as the mangoes that I ended up with weren't as green as I'd hoped and so they made slicing through the mangoes as suggested in the book damn near impossible, but the in the end the mangoes were just near perfect. Next time I am going to try to get a cross somewhere between the green ones I wanted and the ones I ended up with.

Cashew Nut Chicken with Steamed Rice - Rating 2
Well the rice turned out well if that counts for anything... *laugh*

Bah! I followed the recipe exactly [well I made one substitution, I used chili powder in place of chili paste - where the hell can one find chili paste I ask??!], but something wasn't quite right with this one. The soy sauce turned everything a dirty colour so presentation was the first thing to go, also I think the orange wedges I used were a bit too big, but that aside the flavour never came through that I was expecting - ah well next time I'm going to tweak this one a bit.

Grilled Coconut Salmon - Rating 3
This turned out okay, a change from the asparagus, lemons & onions salmon that Kev usually makes, but finished in half the time - yet I still managed to over grill it - altogether it was good.

Pad Thai - Rating 2/3
I couldn't decide how to rate this one, a few things went wrong, the recipe called for the noodles to be soaked in cold water for at least an hour [instead of boiling on the stove] - I soaked them for about 70mins but it wasn't enough, next time I'll do about 2 hours. The next problem was that it seemed to be missing some kind of sauce for the noodles - I'm wondering if it's peanut sauce of some kind... but it WAS a very tasty dish once you got past the not-soft, somewhat dry noodles.

Chocolate dipped strawberries - 5
I used dark chocolate for these and they were smashing. The key to heating chocolate is to take it out of the microwave before it melts completely, stirring it to finish the melting by hand. The key to perfect strawberries is to pat them completely dry before dipping them in chocolate. If you're going to try this, resist the urge to add liquer to your chocolate, this kills the texture of the chocolate.

Almond-Eggwhites-Sugar cookies - 4
These were so simple to make. I got them out of the "Heart Smart" cookbook by Bonnie Stern. There were four ingredients --> almonds, egg whites, sugar and vanilla. These turned out really well, but next time I think I'll stick to white sugar instead of brown sugar as the brown sugar burned around the edges.

What I learnt:

1. Some fresh herbs and spices such as Basil, Mint & Coriander SHOULD NOT be frozen in an attempt to keep them fresh - even if their packages are sealed. Bad, bad idea. Red peppers, green onions yes, the above list not so much. See I thought that by washing and preparing some of the items ahead of time I'd save on prep time the actual day... let's just say it's a good thing I'd left a good portion of the herbs in the fridge afterall.

2. You can make chewier cookies if you reduce the baking time on the almond cookies.

3. That the next time I think it's going to take 2 hours prep time, give myself 3 hours instead.

Everything considered, my parents ate it, no one had to be rushed to the hospital and we had a very good mother's day at home, relaxing and conversing with the folks. We also spoke with Granny ( she's in Saskatchewan) and Bunny (who had apparently spent the morning watching Scooby Doo in french - the poor kid, he has to speak french for his entire six week stay, even when they go out on the town, one thing's for sure he's probably not going to pick up any girls like that! *laugh*)

Fun times, fun times.

Budget

2006-05-03T15:54:00.000-05:00

Well the Conservative budget came out today and as expected the lower tax bracket got raised. It's now sitting at 15% until June 30th after which time it will go to 15.50% - which levels things off to about 15.25% for the 2006 tax year. The full 15.50% to take effect in 2007. It could be worse I suppose, it could have been reinstated to 16%.

There's a few other things thrown in that affects me:

- a transit credit for employees [so basically your lowest tax rate times the amount you paid for transit passes - the catch is that you'd have to buy a monthly pass for this to benefit you, so if you're like me and using tokens sometimes works out cheaper to commute to work, you're on your own.

- a Canada Employment Credit - basically $1000 per year times your lowest tax rate, but for this year it's only $500, we won't see the $1,000 until next year... but the real kicker is that because it takes effect from July 1 this year we'll only get half of the $500 so basically it's at $250 which equates to a lousy $38 this year. This one smelt like a "re-elect me please" tax cut as Canadians look forward to their $155 for this same credit next year.

- 1% cut in the GST, this will more than likely do squat to affect my life BUT I figure if they can start the mentality that maybe the 7% is too high then they MIGHT work that mentality down to about 4%? Wishful thinking, I know.

The budget had other items, none of which will affect me including the universal child care policy that the Conservatives ran on which basically promotes the at-least-one-stay-at-home parent lifestyle; the removal of the cap off scholarships and bursaries [previously at $500 for non related courses and $3,000 for related courses]; some kind of deduction for tools [which dad might actually like hearing if he's going to start his business up].

Oy. It should be an interesting year for accountants and their clients alike but an even more interesting year for the Conservatives.

The goldfish died

2006-05-02T14:40:00.000-05:00

We rescued it from Leana's birthday party on Saturday night, brought it home and placed it in a bigger container and was planning on getting food for it on Monday, but it passed away on Sunday night.

We came home and he looked like he wasn't doing so well so I went on the computer to look for home recipes for food as I thought it was because we hadn't fed it right away, about two minutes later, as I was still sitting on the computer he died. Stef told me his died around the same time even though he'd fed it so I don't think lack of food is what killed them, they were probably just traumatized from the banging of the table or the loud music. :(

I'm not good at dealing with the loss of life so I didn't go look at it, Kev took care of it. Thank god the fish had only been in the house for less than 24 hours, otherwise I'd have been a complete mess. Poor fishy, rest in peace. :(

Racing in the City and Poker!

2006-05-02T14:24:00.000-05:00

On Sunday morning I got up around 7:00am and started prepping for the "Race in the City" event that I was participating in that day - Sandra had asked me to be her teammate a while back and even though I had no idea how involved it was I was totally looking forward to it. Kev and Steve were still asleep as I snuck out to meet San. The race turned out to be an absolute blast!! :)

Some of the fun and interesting challenges included:
1. Busking at the Spadina station with the requirement that we get at least one coin of any denomination - San sang "Sesame Street" while I played [possibly very badly] the tune on the flute.
2. Standing on a wooden podium at Nathan Phillips Square and giving a joint 30 second dialogue about what "Race In The City" is all about to passersby [even though what we really wanted to do was score some Indian Food from the Sikh Festival that day].
3. Finding a typo on a plaque at a museum which features an old fashioned printing press.

What I learnt:
1. That E.J. Lennox spelt out his name and the word "Architect" in the corbels under the roof of the Old City Hall building at Bay and Queen... and that if you look closely enough you can actually see the letters mixed in between the other decorative elements.
2. That my little brother knows how to use google image search. :) Thanks to him we got the last flag with the lion on it.
3. That there is a publicly funded film house right across the street from "Paramount Theatres"in downtown Toronto!
4. That people would not give you a single penny, no matter how nicely you ask/explain what it is that you're doing and why you need it. Unbelievable!
5. That people cheat, we could ask others for help but we were supposed to use the TTC to get around, one team had their own personal driver that day, another team which phoned in with the wrong answer, stood at the pay phone and listened to others give their correct answers rather than going back and looking for the answer themselves.

All in all it was a good time, and even though I was totally exhausted by the end of the race and my legs felt like I'd been beaten with a stick... it was still a blast. :)

I spent the rest of the day visiting at Ken and Liv's place chatting and playing Poker. I played badly and was the second person out but it was still a good time. :)

A Newfie came to visit

2006-05-01T15:29:00.000-05:00

It’s been a while since I posted, all for a lack of time, as its truly been incredibly busy at our home in the past few days. Steve Smith [aka “ramairsedan” - Kev’s friend from Newfoundland] arrived in Toronto on the 21st. I met Steve for the first time late in the evening on Friday as the guys stumbled home from a night of hitting various pubs in the city – they brought with them stories – including light banter and teasing – apparently the Newfie was camped in the washroom after having a few pints of draft beer. :)

I liked Steve right away, saying he’s a great guy is an understatement, even though he’s younger than the rest of us by a few years you wouldn’t know it, he was a perfect gentleman and very well mannered.

Kev threw a party at our place on Saturday night so as to give the PreciZion members a chance to come on over and meet Steve – it was a small crowd but fun none-the-less. I missed most of the party though, as I wanted to get through a few outstanding tax returns before partaking in the festivities, when I finally joined the crowd… I, [along with many others] was made an honorary Newfoundlander [I even got an official certificate] – I had to eat the hard bread, drink the screech, wear the hat and say, “long may your big jib draw” as Kev and Steve snapped photos [photos that had better not make it on to the internet!!]. It ended up being a late night, but all had a good time. Rene, Bruce and Steve were spending the night so I got fresh linens for them, towels and bath soap and went to bed shortly after the last guest had said goodnight – by then I was totally pooped, as it had been a truly long day.

In the morning, Sunday 23rd, I came downstairs around 11:30am to find Rene and Steve chatting in the living room – turns out they had been up since around 10am and Bruce had already taken off as he’d had prior plans for the day. I went to wake Kevin and then got started on breakfast - we ate, showered and then Rene took off – he was heading back to Barrie and had about an hour ahead of him.

We were thinking of bringing Steve down to the Beaches for the day but it was pouring rain so we brought him to Vaughan Mills mall instead – it was our first time at the mall as well so it was a little adventure, and as it turns out we also found that Bass Pro shop that Ken was telling me about – he’d said they have the camping fans that I was looking for. We spent about two hours at the mall and then left to drop Steve at the hotel so he could meet up with his parents. When we got to the hotel he invited us up to meet his folks and we got to chatting with them [they are super nice folks] – they ended up inviting us out for dinner and as we dined at “Tony Romas” http://www.tonyromas.com/files/home.asp we got a chance to learn a bit more about Newfoundland and the way of life there. We also found out that his dad had taken part in the 29th Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival, held in Bannerman Park in the town of St John last year where they attempted to set a new world record for the number of accordionists playing. We’d read about it in the newspapers here in Toronto so it was cool to actually meet someone who had partaken in the festivities there. His mom also scrapbooks so, of course, it was neat talking to her about some of the stuff she’s done. I promised her to take quite a few pics of Steve’s trips around Toronto with us, thanked them for dinner and then finally bade them g’night. Looking at my watch I realized I’d missed “Grey’s Anatomy” but it was worth it and besides I figured I’d get Kev to do a download. :)

The next day I met up with Ruth for lunch at Markel’s place, which is always fun, the guys [Kev, Ken, Bruce, Marcus] joined us as well and we got to talking about houses and the ascending prices. Ugh. We’re thinking of moving up our start-looking date but we’re not sure as yet, we keep saying that we should… but we keep procrastinating. We really should decide one way or another.

Friday night was a blast -> Steve, Ken, Liv, Marcus, Bruce, Kev and I went to the Armadillos Restaurant & Pub after work for dinner and drinks. And by drinks I mean that I had a fruit juice or two as the guys went through seven pitchers, yes, SEVEN pitchers. It was a good time; we talked, told stories and watched the hockey game in HD. Steve, having learnt his lesson with the draft, stuck with rum and coke… and everyone was still in good spirits when we left the bar around 10:30pm or so. [We brought Steve & Bruce back to our place where they crashed on the couches for the night.]

The plan was to head to Wonderland on Saturday with Bruce, Steve, my parents and my brothers, for BMO day at the park, but my parents ended up not being able to make it as they wanted to help Julie out with transporting stuff for the party that evening so at the last minute we changed the plans – we picked up Bunny and Stefan in our car and Steve rode with Bruce as we headed to Wonderland for the day [I’d managed to score last minute tickets for the guys]. I had a funnel cake and got as far as the Vortex before calling it a day, the guys tried a few other rides including the Tomb Raider ride [which they totally underestimated], Drop Zone & The Bat. Top Gun wasn’t working at the time but the tickets I scored give us entry again between the months of May and June so Kevin will definitely have his share of thrills once again.

We had a "Sweet 16" birthday party to attend on Saturday evening... so we left the park [and Bruce and Steve] early to drop Bunny and Stefan off and to head home to get dressed, we got to the party totally exhausted, spent a few hours taking pics of the birthday girl and mingling, rescued a goldfish that was a centrepiece and headed home shortly after 10pm.

Can you spell exhausted?

I must be doing something right! :)

2006-04-20T21:26:00.000-05:00

So today was the big day... and I warn you, only a fellow fan is going to appreciate the following words... but... I got to meet Debbie Travis today!! :D

It was so cool, she's just as witty in person as she is on the show and spent a good portion of the show joking around with the crowd at FCP. Jim and Peter were also in the crowd [Kev's convinced that they're gay, I prefer to think of them as a good combination - as I really don't want to imagine the two of them going at it] .

But back to Debbie, I got to collect my copy of her new book "Facelift" that I'd won... and she signed it and chatted with me like we were old friends or something - I know I'm gushing, but it was so cool to meet her after being a fan of her show for such a long time - we even got to talking about what colour I should paint our walls. :)

And in other news, I also got a pay raise today, nothing to scream at the top of the mountain about but it's not too shabby either, it worked out to be about 4.56%... and it came when I was least expecting it, turns out that they were planning to raise our dept's salaries by about 2% on average, some people got 2%, some people got more, some less and some people nothing at all. I figured at 4.56% I must be doing something right. And though my pay is not where I'd ideally like it to be it's a step in the right direction, if it says anything at least it says someone is starting to see the effort I've been making since joining the company.

So altogether, I'll say it wasn't too shabby a day at all. :)

Middle of the week... but there's good news! :)

2006-04-19T14:18:00.000-05:00

I get to go see my orthodontist today for yet another tightening session. Yay! Not! :(

These are SO not fun, it usually involves quite a bit of sensitivity for a few days after each session, but I'll live. I've been wearing the braces for about seven months now, so with at least nineteen more months to go... I'd better get use to these regular visits. Ugh.

The good news is that just after my appointment I am likely meeting up with mom and Stefan to do a bit of shopping before heading home, rewarding and totally deserving type of shopping of course. ;)

AND in even GREATER news I got a message from Leah late last evening - her and Matt are engaged!! :)

I'm so stoked, so happy, so delighted... I could go on and on and on!! Those two make a great couple, now I'm already looking forward to their wedding and their kids. :)

And speaking of kids, I also sent Anita an email today, I'm hoping we can go visiting with little Kaileigh sometime soon - preferably sometime before she outgrows the gift I got her! :)

Happy long weekend!

2006-04-18T10:52:00.000-05:00

Happy long weekend!

The weekend started on FRIDAY. I was so exhausted from work during the week that my good intentions of waking early on Friday and working on the basement before Good Friday church at 2pm went straight through the roof. I came to life shortly after 11am and opted to make breakfast while Kevin continued working on cleaning out his section of the basement, then once breakfast was ready we sat down and had a long lazy breakfast which included multiple cups of coffee – before we knew it, it was time to get up and get ready for church.
We got to church about the same time that my parents did and settled in for the Good Friday service, which as it turns out to be was mostly an abridged version of “The Passion of the Christ” – I’m still not sure how I feel about them using a Hollywood movie in a church setting, the two just don’t seem to go together – not in my mind at least, but I will admit that I may be slightly biased as I HADN’T planned on seeing “The Passion of the Christ” as a movie, because of it’s reported graphic scenes.
I saw about half of the version shown that day, not only was a lot of it was too graphic for me, but I found that for a good portion of it my eyes were downcast, welled with tears, but it did have the effect of making one reflect on the life and trials of Christ, which I presume was the intention of the church folks.

We got home around 4pm or somewhere thereabouts. Aaron and Andrea were supposed to hang out with us that evening but something ended up coming up and they couldn’t make it, so we invited Bunny and Stef over for pizza and a movie instead, as they had wanted to see Narnia and King Kong on our TV. I watched Narnia and a bit of King Kong in between working on our basement clutter and chatting with them. Stef helped me sort out the tulle and flowers from the wedding decorations so I can give the flowers to mom for her use or to send to Guyana. When it was all said and done we got to bed around midnight.

On SATURDAY we’d planned to pick up Granny around noon from Aunty Estelle’s place but again we woke up a bit late so we hurriedly got showered and dressed and after making a quick pit stop at Timmy’s we headed out to Etobicoke. We picked her up, stopped at Harvey’s for lunch and then headed to the Ontario Science Centre {OSC] to meet up with Bunny and Stefan. Bunny wasn’t working that day so we got a grand tour of the OSC including the architects and engineers area as well as all the other exhibits they currently have running. After about 3 hours I wanted to leave, part of it was fatigue, but a big part of it was hunger. I knew Kevin wanted to see more so maybe we’ll go again another time.
We then headed over to my parents place for dinner and a relaxing evening, we had late lunch/dinner outside in the sunshine and then played a game of Monopoly. After Kevin and Bunny exited the game, it came down to Stef and I… with Stef eventually bankrupting me.
A bit later in the evening it was time to head home, Granny was spending the night at us so she came back to our place. I saw her settled in for the night and then went to bed, it was around 10pm – which was probably the only evening all that week that I’d gone to bed before midnight.

The alarm went off at around 7:30am on SUNDAY morning, signaling that it was time to get up and get dressed for Easter Sunday service at church. Kev had already mentioned that he didn’t want to go… so I got up quietly and went to wake Granny – turns out she was already up and dressed, so I put on some coffee and went back upstairs to get ready. Gran and I had a nice chat while we waited for my parents to pick us up, turns out she’s going to do a bit of visiting with her sisters and won’t return to Brampton until mid-August or so after which she is probably going to look for a place of her own and a new job closer to a proper transit system. After church we dropped Bunny off at work and then went back to my parents place for a bite to eat before heading out shopping, we didn’t know it at the time but most of the shopping places were closed for Easter Sunday so other than the flea market we couldn’t find anywhere else to bring Gran, so they dropped me off at home and I went back to cleaning and clearing the basement until it was time to get ready for bed.
After all that, it’s no surprise that I woke up on Monday morning saying “Weekend? What weekend?” :)

Happy Cross Buns Day! Oh, and I won a curtain! :)

2006-04-13T15:12:00.000-05:00

It’s holy Thursday today, also known as “Cross Buns Day” in Guyana, and in keeping with tradition my mom made a batch of cross buns last night. Talking to her around 10:15pm she mentioned that they didn’t raise as well, but I’m probably going to sample them anyway ;)

On Tuesday, I organized a little Timmy’s break for our work group to distribute the presents for the birthday celebrants for the period Jan-Mar, it was our group’s first attempt at this and it worked out pretty well, I think. Fanyi, Rose and I tried our best to match the giftcards we picked up to the individual tastes and it showed as everyone seemed happy with their wittle presents.

By now you’re probably wondering what the hell I’m talking about in the above title regarding a curtain. Well I went to a FCP event today at work, they were running the sessions during my lunch hour so I signed up for it. I’m not sure how many people actually know this but I’m a home décor/decorating shows junkie. I can’t get enough HGTV it seems, so when I found out that Jim Connelly and Peter De Sousa from HGTV were making a stop at FCP I just knew I had to register to attend the session.
The theme was Asian, African, Moroccon and the Caribbean, perfect I thought, as I love earthy colours and also the rich colours inspired by Morocco. So after spending about 5 minutes trying to find the room where the session would be I finally get there and they’ve got a big audience, over 120 people I’d say.
The show gets underway and the demonstrations begin. They showed us how to turn a simple Ikea placemat into an African inspired work of art and how to paint a regular box to achieve an antique Moroccan finish, but the project I was most interested in was the transformation of a regular Ikea curtain into a work of art using tint, water, spray paint, a dollar store placemat and some embellishments, the colours they chose were blue and gold and it was stunning – everyone was oohing and awing over it - I made some notes intending to try this at some point. Imagine my surprise when a few minutes later they started giving away the door prizes, as it turns out I won the curtain, I was stoked. :)

As part of the package I will also have the opportunity to meet Debbie Travis next Thursday, ask her a question and receive a free, signed copy of her book. I was ecstatic, I was also feeling a bit lucky so I bought a lottery ticket [I usually don’t play] so here goes nothing. :)

Well that’s about it for now, this week has been moving along well but it can’t seem to end fast enough for me and I am SO looking forward to the long weekend that commences from tomorrow, especially because it means I’ll get to catch up on my sleep, the weekend however, does still promise to be very busy… with Gran planning on visiting us… should be fun!

In other news...

2006-04-09T12:51:00.000-05:00

we got Nathan's room rented! Yay! Our new roommate's name is Kamran and while he's Pakistani and went to flight school he's promised us that he's not a terrorist ;)

We've also decided that we're going to start scouting for a place of our own now that summer is almost here... our intention will be to purchase in January 2007 but if something good comes along before then we may just snap it up. I really like the Military Trail area, especially the houses that back out on to the ravine... and while the area has the potential to be out of our price range I'm really hoping by some strange twist of fate that we can still pull it off. If not, I higly suspect that we are going to wind up in Pickering or Mississauga or something.

One thing is for sure this is going to be a really exciting time for us, driving around neighbourhoods, reviewing listings on www.mls.ca - I think as long as it has a two car garage and some kind of land where Kev can work on the car he'll be happy.

I've thought about what I want, and the list is usually pretty long, great big windows, high ceilings, at least four bedrooms, main floor laundy facilities, a huge basement area big enough that we can have a game room and entertainment area in it yet still be able to rent out a separate-entrance portion to a student at UofT... but really those are all *wants*, my one *need* is to have a huge kitchen.

So this is going to be an interesting journey as we pick out our very first home together. Kev's pretty excited, I on the other hand... welll I'm just bracing myself so that I'm not disappointed... most homes are now $375,000 plus in and around the GTA! We were hoping to have at least 25% down on a $300,000 home so if we wind up paying more than $300,000 for it we're going to fall short of our 25% down and may wind up having to give CMHC some of our money. Ugh.

Birthday celebrations are officially over

2006-04-09T12:14:00.000-05:00

Kev & I went to the mall yesterday afternoon with the hopes of finding me a nice spring jacket.

I wanted something lighter than my winter coat but still capable of withstanding April's cool drafts, stylish enough that I can wear to work, yet casual enough that I can throw it on over a nice shirt for a less dressy look - preferably in taupe or chocolate brown. I know, I'm a bit particular about these things :) -- anyway after quickly skimming the stores at STC I found what I was looking for at both Mexx and H&M... and then just couldn't decide between them! I ended up buying the one at H&M and Kev surprised me by picking up the one at Mexx for me, so now I've got two jackets and both are pretty cool :)

Mom, Dad, Kevin, Stefan, Bunny & I went to Millie's for pool and then to Bowlerama for bowling last night. It was a pretty relaxing evening out, I got to see Mom and Dad play pool for the first time so that was kinda neat :)

Bunny won the first game of bowling by just one point over Stefan and I came in third - poor Kev wasn't having much of a good game as his shoes were too tight and neither of us could find balls with holes that were just the right size for our fingers, they were either too small or too big.

Into the second game at Bowlerama Kev got to change his shoes, and he went on to bowl over a 100 , I think Stefan came in second and Dad third, I on the other hand wasn't having such a good scoring night. :)

Bunny & Stefan both bowled well. With Bunny there seemed to be no middle ground it was either all or nothing, so either a gutterball or a strike\spare. With Stefan his aim was dead on almost 95% of the time and I think as he gets older and can manage a heavier ball he'll find that he will get a strike almost every time.

I didn't do so well with bowling or pool but I did kick some serious butt at Air Hockey!! :)

Sooo tired

2006-04-07T21:34:00.000-05:00

For a while it seemed like the weekend was taking forever to arrive. I feel very sleep deprived, yet I'm not sleepy. It's like my body is tired but my brain won't go to sleep, probably because there was so much going on this past week.

Only eight more months... at least that's what I keep telling myself about the length of time we have left before we can start shopping for our own place. We've been doing this for way too long, and I'm reminded moreso of this every time a roommate leaves and we find ourselves looking for someone new. Currently, we're searching for someone to take Nathan's room as he's done school and will be moving at the end of April, I've thrown an ad up on www.easyroommates.com and lined up a few appointments for tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

I got a voucher thingy in the mail to drop by Yves Rocher and pick up a free pedicure set today, it turned out to be a cute looking set in a bag, I thought that was kinda neat... of course it probably had something to do with my birthday being this month or something as I also got free stuff from The Body Shop.

I got another new client for tax preparation today, heh, one thing's for sure I do get more and more new clients every year. At some point I am going to compile a list and then determine whether it will be feasible to continue doing returns in the future though as the software isn't exactly cheap. I think it will work out to be feasible, but after I crunch the numbers I'll feel better.

Gran is home!

2006-04-06T22:08:00.000-05:00

She flew in from the Turks and Caicos yesterday afternoon, I spoke with her this morning and she is already talking about flying out to Saskatchewan later this month to visit Aunt Lillian - sounds just like Gran alright! However short her stay in Ontario is, it's nice to have her home. I plan on getting her taxes done by next week, providing she can get everything to me this week, that way she'll have some extra spending money for her trip :)

On a totally different note, I think I'm still in 10,227th celebration mode, [though I should probably tack on the additional days since then] as I still haven't put away any of my presents as yet. Of course it could also be that I am just not at home long enough to get it done, and speaking of birthdays and not at home, I should probably check my voicemail, Kev mentioned that Aunt Nadine left a birthday message for me. I'm going to make an effort to call her back tomorrow, lord knows it's way too late to do it now.

Approximately 10,227...

2006-04-05T15:14:00.000-05:00

... that's how many days I've enjoyed roaming the earth as of April 4th, 2006.

Happy Birthday, yesterday... and my first blog entry, today.

Alot of what I may come to post, certainly will have the potential to wind up being just an untidy heap of random thoughts, that may or may not make sense to the reader, for that, I offer no apology. This is meant as a way for me jot down the events and issues that I deal with from time to time and at this point I am still unsure of how often I will be updating it.

It's been a good 10,227 days, now let's see what the future brings, here goes nothing...