Archive, April 2007

29 Apr 2007 Monday - AGAIN!?!?!? Lordy, lordy... time just flies! On Saturday, I spend the morning doing some housework, then Mom picked me up and we went clothes shopping at Dots. I love Dots - it's a big warehouse and they get in the end of runs, sample items and a few dedicated lines. You have to go when you have time and are in the mood to sort through aisles and aisles of stuff. I always try on about 100 things and buy a couple of things. This time I scored an army-styled jacket, a grey t-shirt for layering and a crocheted tank top. I had time to go shopping because Stuart abandoned me this weekend to do presentations for the AGM of the Junior Forest Wardens. I'm telling ya, the excitement in that boy's life just never stops. LOL The event took place in Leduc and although it's not that long a drive, the guys were put up in the hotel. I drove out Saturday night to go to the Red Shirt Ball, which was... well, it was probably really interesting if you are a JFW, but we were pretty much bored. I think I was there to keep Stuart entertained. Based on his info, I was totally overdressed, but at least he was able to pass the time stealing glances down my cleavage. The coolest things all night were the video on the 100th anniversary of Japser National Park and the seedlings that we all got to take home. On Sunday, Mom and Dad picked me up and we drove out to Red Deer to take advantage of Gerry. :) He's quite generous with his product and time to help friends get new flooring, so we went out to discuss options for the kitchen. It didn't take all that long to narrow down our options and he even loaned us the sample to take home and try out. (In retrospect, that may have been a mistake, as now, Mom's not sure she likes it at all. The only fix I can see is to go for the second choice product which was ruled out based on price. We'll see.) At any rate, we had a lovely lunch and then drove back into Edmonton. I helped Dad take real measurements of the kitchen (as opposed to the best guess square footage he'd done), then Stuart came over for a treatment. Afterwards, we headed home to have dinner and just hang out, since with one thing or another, we haven't seen each other much this week. And here's the song of the week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRxfOYFVjP4 Ciao! Currently listening : The Soul Sessions By Joss Stone Release date: 16 September, 2003 5:45 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove 27 Apr 2007 The pluses of being sick The one bright side of being sick is that I have time to post a new blog. Not that I'm dying this time around. I just spent the night in an unfortunately familiar situation. Everytime I relaxed enough to fall asleep, my throat would get scratchy and I'd start coughing. It's hard to sleep through that. My usual tricks to get past it weren't working and by about 4am, I still hadn't got any real sleep, so I broke down and tried some cough syrup. I'm not sure it helped and as a penance, I get to spend the rest of the day with a slightly spinny head. I eventually rediscovered the joys of piling up pillows and sleeping higher, but by then it was time for work. Unlike my mother, I think sick days are there to be used, so I called in and went back to bed. So, I'm ok now, but I know I'm short of sleep and I think if I was at work and someone was in a tizzy over the toner running out, I might smack them. I hadn't mentioned it before, but I went a little while ago and signed up with an employment agency. I hadn't really thought about doing it, but they were advertising a position that seemed interesting, so to be considered I had to be added to the roster. I met with one of their agents and we discussed my preferences in work and environment. Then I had to do their computer proficiency testing - I honestly wasn't sure how I'd do at that, and when I saw there was a standard keyboard, I thought I was toast. Who doesn't use ergonomic these days? So there were tests in Excel, Word, data entry and typing. I don't remember the numbers, but suffice it to say, I was well above average - phew! She had a couple of positions she was going to put my name in for, so we'll see if anything comes of it. Stuart and I had our first miscommunication. Not even close to an argument, just crossed wires. I've known for ages that he was doing presentations for the Junior Forest Wardens this weekend in Leduc, but he neglected to mention that they were STAYING there for the whole thing. Which means, when I stop to think about it, that I get the apartment to myself for two days - think he'll recognize it when he gets back? LOL Thing 1 found a new job, which makes us all happy. She started yesterday and had a crazy first day. It's Admin Assistants week, so she got there and found flowers on her desk. Then they were all taken out for lunch. After lunch, they were told that this afternoon they are being taken for lunch, pedicures and then hors d'oerves and drinks. Life is hard! hah. Well, I think we're all caught up now. Life may be busy these days, but i sure can't say it's boring! Ciao! 4:37 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove 24 Apr 2007 Nature is cool All that typing yesterday and I forgot to mention the neatest thing. Stuart and I got to Concordia early on Saturday and went for a walk through the surrounding residential neighbourhood. For those of you not familiar with Edmonton, I should mention that Concordia is on the edge of the river valley. The North Saskatchewan river meanders through the middle of the city and we have lovely parks and walking trails that run the whole length of it. Considering that it's in the middle of an urban area, there's an amazing amount of wildlife: bats, deer, foxes, beavers... it's great! At any rate, on our walk we saw a pheasant roaming around in someone's front yard! It was perfect: bright blue feathers around the eyes, long striped tail feathers - definitely a male. It was a southern exposure and the tulips were putting up shoots, so we think he was looking for lunch. We both tried to take pictures with our phone cameras but no luck (not enough zoom and he sure wasn't interested in letting us get closer!) There's no doubt that humanity is changing the face of the planet and I do agree that our hubris is causing problems for everyone. However, seeing stuff like that reminds me that it's not quite doomsday. We don't give the other inhabitants enough credit for adaptation. Sure, they may not be the same as "in the good ol' days", but hey, we don't have dinosaurs anymore either! Ciao! Currently listening : One Chord to Another By Sloan Release date: 20 October, 1998 3:24 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove 22 Apr 2007 Life is good All in all, I have to say it was a great weekend! Friday was a long, long day at work, but it picked up almost immediately. Stuart was playing Flames of War, so I picked up ice cream and swung by the War Room to watch. As usual, being a girl in such a geeky environment leads to either flirtation or awkward silences, but I just find it amusing. I think it made things even more interesting because as usual Stuart has absolutely NO problems with pda (public displays of affection.) His first opponent was a bit put off his turns by Stuart alternating bites of ice cream with kissing me. LOL On Saturday I slept in until the absolutely hedonistic hour of 11am. It was great - the only thing missing was Stuart, since he'd hauled himself out of bed for a four hour run. Better him than me is my only comment on that one! I fed him when he got back and then we headed downtown to Marghie's to get his hair cut. Once again he survived, even taking into account that this time, she put *gasp* goo in his hair! After that it was out to his parents' for a very quick visit and to pick up his summer tires from storage. We had dinner at the Coliseum (I'd never been, but it's apparently an old favorite of his.) Then we went over to his alma mater, Concordia University College, where Thing 2's mother was performing with the Community Choir. It was actually a pretty nice show. It was set up like a cabaret and they did mostly show tunes. They managed to get in a lot of old favorites too: Am I Blue?, My Favorite Things, My Funny Valentine... plus opening and closing with the credit music from the "Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show". Awesome! The voice of the featured soloist was not to my taste, but I will admit that she interacted well with the audience. During Am I Blue?, she came up behind Stuart and put her hands on his shoulders. He jumped away and wrapped his arms around me, practically hauling me out of my chair. She shifted away with an very melodramatic surprised and hurt look, then shook her finger at him as she sang about the lover leaving, which made him hug me again. The audience found the whole thing incredibly amusing! She moved on to an older man in the audience and he did the same thing to his wife - then he and Stuart toasted each other with their water glasses and got another big laugh. I can tell I have to learn to be ok with being the center of attention when Stuart's around. LOL Mom, Thing 2, Stuart and I went to Vi's for Pies for dessert afterward and had a lovely chat. We got home around 10 and watched the beginning of The Princess Bride, but neither of could stay awake to the end. :) On Sunday, Stuart went for another run. I got some groceries and a few more things from the house before coming back to make fresh cheese and onion scones. He's usually starving after a run, so he got scones, sausages and eggs for lunch and despite what I thought was a big batch, didn't quite get enough. Sigh. We watched the end of The Princess Bride while I worked on the knots in his legs. Then we finally watched the last episode of season two Dr. Who. Wow. WOW! I can totally see how that episode evolved from a slightly drunken discussion in a pub somewhere... And at the end, I bawled like a baby. Thank god we have lots of other shows to watch, because if I had nothing to distract me during the wait for season three - I'd go insane(r). Once I'd collected myself, we headed to St. Albert to meet Terry and Christiana (sp?) for dinner at Sorrentino's. They are currently having their garlic festival, so we all indulged. I can still taste garlic this morning and I have leftovers to scent the air in the cafeteria with. I can't wait! Stuart and Terry work together at Campers' Village, so we had a lovely time. Then we came home and watched My Fair Lady before bed. Like I said, it was a pretty great weekend. As we discussed this week's theme song, Stuart suggested a show tune in honour of the weekend. I don't claim to have anything like an encyclopedic knowledge of this genre, but I do like this one, so here goes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hssXAp7UljM Ciao! 19 Apr 2007 Even the computers are tired Ok, this is weird, but I swear to god, it's true. My computer is freezing whenever I try to use Word, Publisher or Outlook. But it's perfectly happy to bop around with Internet Explorer. It's true! NOBODY wants to work today. Can I go home? Ciao! Currently listening : I Am Kloot By I Am Kloot Release date: 25 January, 2005 5:58 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Catching Up What have I been up to? Well, the journey to buy furniture was (mostly) successful. The apartment acquired four more pieces of IKEA furniture, so instead of looking like a poor student's apartment, it looks like a moderately well-off student's apartment. It turns out the Stuart and I work quite harmoniously together in constructing furniture (in my experience, this is not always the case - even with people you really like!) The only hang-up is that the MALM manufacturing plant apparently requires some re-tuning; the rails for the top two, side-by-side drawers are a little off, so they don't close nicely. Getting this fixed by IKEA would require transporting two, large-ish, fully constructed dressers halfway across the city and then somehow identifying two new ones out of a different construction batch. :P Instead, someday when we're bored or frustrated, we'll pull the drawers, drill new holes and ta-da! Monday night we sat down to map out the summer. Sounds crazy doesn't it? Trust me, with all the camping, festivals, family reunions, etc. - we had to get organized or it would be a complete mess. It looks like I'll be sleeping in a tent for three, four or possible more trips this summer. Considerably less than Stuart, who has insane plans involving running up and down mountains. This process also resulted in me accidently learning about Stuart's big, secret plans for my birthday. It honestly was an accident - it's not my fault he was scrolling through his Calendar one day at a time and I read fast. (If I was him, I'd be changing plans, but that's just me!) At any rate, since it involves dinner at a fancy restaurant it's a fantastic excuse for some shopping! So off Thing 1 and I went Tuesday night to scour WEM. I'm not sure of this mall's current ranking - maybe third or fourth biggest mall in the world? At any rate, a ridiculous number of stores and neither of us could find a damn thing to buy. (Insert standard rant about the insanity of fashion industry.) However, I did knuckle under to the pressure and buy two bras. Blah. Those of you who know me personally will know that since my reduction surgery, I have pretty much refused to wear the damn things. I have been forced to admit however that a few of my tops would really look better with a bit of support, although I can conclusively demonstrate that my breasts are NOT at my waist, so this will not be a daily part of my wardrobe. Last night was Pilates with the Things. And, as usual, we went to Red Robin's afterwards for dinner. I'm totally voting for Chinese next time; my stomach tends to be a bit queasy lately after RR cuisine. I don't know if it's me or them, but either way, just avoiding it seems like a plan. By the time we'd finished eating, it was raining, windy and quite chilly. This morning when I got up, this had transformed into snow. Bleah - who ordered that? Part of the reason that this post has been delayed is that I knew I owed you a song of the week. However, since I now have furniture and all the basics to survive daily life at Stuart's, I was trying to come up with a song about moving in together. I couldn't find one though, so instead, we're going with Stuart's choice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I5sixwOQlg Ciao! 6:11 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

13 Apr 2007 Spinning out of control I know, I'm ridiculously overdo to post. I have no excuses, just lack of time. And it's not like I'm doing anything INTERESTING for the most part, just stuff. Work is keeping me busy all day - I'm just eaking out 15 minutes before lunch here. Stuart has a 3 month dry erase Calendar that was still showing last fall when I started dating him. I cleaned it all off and set it up for both of us, since I have trouble keeping track of my own life, let alone his work/play/training! By the time we'd written everything down, I was exhausted just contemplating everything to do before the end of June. Stuart put his arms around me and said, "It looks like we have a life together, darlin'." To which I responded, "Yep, it ought to fool everybody, since we both know this whole thing is based on sex!" One of the things on the list was our trip south-ish for Easter weekend. We drove to Banff for Friday afternoon and what a trip. The weather got progressively more winter-ish the farther south we went... until we hit the National Park border, at which point there was sun, blue skies and almost balmy temperatures. I love the mountains, but I have never seen anyone so thoroughly change temperament as Stuart did once we hit the big rocks. He's generally a happy, easy-going guy, but in the mountains, he's just... relaxed, excited, beaming. I hated to say we had to leave. But before we did, we had a lovely soak in the hotsprings then drove to Lake Louise to meet Kaylene and David 1 for dinner. We ate and talked and played games, then we crashed in their hotel room. It was lovely to see my sis again and I was very glad that they seemed to like Stuart. David hit the mountain early, but we had breakfast with Kay before she headed up slope. Then it was time to get fudge and have another soak in the hot spring before heading out. We stopped in Canmore for lunch at the Grizzly Paw which I adore for it's home made sodas - so yummy! Unfortunately, this visit was marred by some slow and not particularly bright service. Oh well. We got into Calgary with time for a little break before going to Stuart's friends place for dinner. It turns out that his best-est friends live on the next block from Kay and Dave. The world is Way Too Small. Mike and Angie seem really nice and their 3 year old twins Calvin and Matthew are completely adorable. We had dinner and then played Guitar Hero and a great card game called "Killer Bunnies". The next morning Stuart went to the gym and I hit Kay's for a soak in her tub. (No, I can never get enough hot water!) We went to Nick's for the All-You-Can-Eat Sunday buffet and then headed home. Since then it's been work, fighting with my allergies (and what I'm beginning to suspect is another cold I've picked up with my depressed immune system, bleagh), Stuart's frustration with work and his gear seminars. Tonight is a treat though - we're going to IKEA to buy some bedroom furniture. Soon, I can move my clothes and stop living out of bags. YEAH!!!!! Ciao! Currently listening : Jimson Weed By Nathan Release date: 21 September, 2004 8:04 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

09 Apr 2007 One more holiday down So, Stuart and I had a lovely weekend, spent in the mountains and with friends. Full details when I have time, but since we survived our first road trip in peace and harmony, I give you the song of the week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybd1B5ThGR8 Ciao! 2:00 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

02 Apr 2007 One step closer to my dream I have so many friends who are in the music and literary industries, I always said I was going to ride someone's coattails to riches. My plan? Wait for someone to get famous enough to tour the world in style, then get hired on as their tour masseuse! And now that dream is one step closer to reality, as my dear friend Leela won a Juno last night. YEAH!!!!! *kermit the frog arm waving* ..> ..> Aboriginal Recording Of The Year .. START ARTIST NAME AND TITLE--> ..> ..START ARTIST DESCRIPTION & IMAGE--> ..> Sedzé - Leela Gilday Diva Sound*Festival www.leelagilday.com Leela Gilday was born and raised in Yellowknife, NWT. A singer-songwriter from the Dene Nation, whose songwriting reflects her northern roots, she sings about identity, death, love and life from the urban Indian perspective. Her first album, Spirit World, Solid Wood, earned her a place in Maclean's Top 50 Under 30 list, plus three Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards and a JUNO Award nomination. Her second album is Sedzé. I am SO proud of her... even though I'm at work, I'm bouncing around with a big ol' grin on my face. If you don't know Leela, check out her webpage or myspace site. Her voice is astounding. It's also time for the song of the week, and although I love Leela to bits, I've been planning a song for Stuart all week. He is hands down the most generous, sweetest guy I've ever met - it continually blows me away and despite my vague fears, seems to be an intrinsic part of his personality, not a facade to impress "the new girl". And so, the song of the week, dedicated to a guy that I don't think I'll ever get enough of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m30p09OrCnk Ciao! Currently listening : The Ego Has Landed By Robbie Williams Release date: 04 May, 1999 2:34 - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

01 Apr 2007 How come things going well is still frustrating? The good news is that I survived the dreaded dinner with Stuart's parents. Or, at least, I have so far... I can't help thinking of the story of how Napoleon was killed slowly by adding ground glass to his meals. Brrrr... Actually, it was fairly pleasant, although Stuart insists on holding my hand whenever possible and I'm always a bit scared that they're going to take offense. Talk about nerve-wracking! However, I got a hug from both of them when we left, so I suppose that either I'm over-reacting or they're super-sneaky. I also survived the office move, and more of concern, so did everyone else. Now it's just a matter of Deanna and I trying to sort too much stuff into too small a space, while simultaneously learning to work together in a new capacity, keeping the work going and getting ready to introduce three new people to the mix. What fun! This weekend is finally the much anticipated TOSS. Once a year, Camper's Village and the Fishing Hole host The Outdoor Show and Sale. Since Stuart is CV's Head Receiver and possibly one of their biggest gear geeks, it's a busy weekend for him. I went Thursday night to drool over Ecco shoes, try on packs and marvel at the palatial tents. I also stopped by on Saturday to watch Stuart's presentation on Backcountry Camping. Apparently, his co-workers were giving him a hard time later about being all lovey-dovey (which is only fair, because he totally is!) so at least I'm not the only one getting teased. In the meantime, I've been hanging around the apartment. On the one hand, it's good - I've done some basic cleaning, I made super-yummy white chocolate, macadamia and cranberry cookies, I've had a lot of naps. On the other hand, I also went shopping yesterday for a few basics - flour, sugar, containers for said goods... lol. And I'm fighting a very strong urge to start re-organizing. We've talked about this, Stuart and I. His place is set up for one person, which is only fair, but if I'm moving in - won't work anymore. It's not that he's against it, just that to date we have not had any time to do it. But now I'm here, I have time and space, I could crank up the tunes and just dive in! But, it's not my stuff, so I can't. Sigh. I'm getting tired of being good, being patient, resisting temptation. Maybe I'll eat too many cookies instead! lol In entertainment news - skip "Premonition". I went because it was Thing 2's birthday choice, but it was just awful. I stick by my original comment to Thing 1 and her husband, "Did it seem to you like there was a lot of eerie music and strange camera angles to cover the fact that nothing was happening?" On the other hand, I took Stuart to see "Oh Susanna!" last night and even though Suzanna wasn't even there, it was still a great show. Watching Julien Arnold get a pink foam hair roller to stick in a girl's hair with no hair wrapped around it, just using hair spray, was classic. Oh yes, I was taken to task by one of the David's for not adequately indicating which of them is which. Is it my fault that so many parents seem to be lacking in imagination? So, from now on Kaylene's David will be One, Miranda's David will be Two and "Christmas" David (his description, not mine!) will be Three. This does not indicate any level of appreciation on my part, it's just the order in which I met them! :) Have I now provided enough text to make up for my lack of posting lately? If not, too bad - I have other stuff to do! Ciao!