It's a Wrap!

I finished shopping and wrapping and mailing presents on monday night! This is unusually early for me as christmas eve is when I often finish up with these things. It feels wonderful and odd. I honestly feel like I should be shopping and like I forgot something. I also stayed on budget this year in buying A's gift, another thing that I am not used to. I actually feel a little bit guilty and may very well go out and get him a few more things. I cant help it, I just love spoiling him.
Work is nice a and dead, which finally gives me the opportunity to surf the internet and read things I havent read in a long time. And write on my blog obviously. Unfortunately there is not a whole lot I can tell you aside from the fact that I am really looking forward to christmas eve arriving this year, I am very much in a christmassy mood and can not wait for the holidays to start. Eating, drinking and good cheer with friends and family. What more could a person wish for :) Maybe some good books.

It's Alive!

Incredibly enough I came home and Granny Smith was working fine. unbelievable! I am so impressed and slightly disappointed since I wouldnt mind a phone replacement, although after all this I could not cheat on Granny. Well done!
Other than that, got a whole lot o christmas shopping done over the last few days. I am getting close to done and only have a few little things to pick. The main thing I need to do is finally mail these damn christmas cards. They have been sitting on my shelf for almost a week now. I am going to have to shell out extra mulla to get my greetings there in time, which is stupid on my part, but worth it non the less.
One week until christmas! Can't wait :)

Cool Brick Phone... literally...

My cell phone had been missing for a few days now. I remembered having it in the car on Monday evening after work, and after that nothing. I looked everywhere for it. In the house, in the car, in the garage and had started to think maybe our little fuz ball had decided to play with it and had hid it somewhere like she had done with my car keys a few weeks ago. Than, this morning, as I left the house to go to work, I noticed a funny shaped little snow draft on the side of the snow bank in our front yard, as I bent over to look more closely, I noticed a little apple green triangle showing… my heart sank a little bit… I had just found my cell phone. It must ahve fallen out ogf my pocket walking home from the car and it had been stuck in the snow bank for almost 3 days. The phone was almost completely encased in snow and ice. I ran back inside and upstairs to show Alan I had found my cell phone. It is currently sitting in the dish rack in the sink of the kitchen in hopes it will dry. I have removed the battery, and I have received some good suggestions from friends. I have not turned it on yet, so I do not know if it will work. Maybe I will have to ask Santa for a new phone….
Hmm, I just noticed this is the first year I have blogged at least once every month since I started doing this. Hurray for me!

Step 2 complete

Lots of excitement going on. I finally received a letter from the CIC saying they have received my application. According to the website it will take approximately 7 more months to complete the process. According to the letter it could take over a year. Who knows?!? Either way, they have received it and it made it through the first stage of screening. Hurray!
A and I had a really good time in Vancouver. Weather was as expected, fairly rainy, but it didn’t matter we had a good time. Some of the highlights include, going to a Canuck’s game, visiting with family, going to a craft fare where I got very inspired to do all sorts of crafts, visiting Granville Island, going to the aquarium which I really enjoyed, and eating all sorts of interesting and good food. We didn’t make it to the mountains as the weather wasn’t co-operating. I didn’t realise how many mountains were around until the very last day we were leaving. It was sunny and nice and the view was beautiful. It was great for our flight, as we got to see the Rockies from the plane. Hopefully next time we will be able to see more of them up close and personal.
We got snow tires put on the car while we were away, which came in handy as this week it started to snow. Tomorrow we might actually get 15cm, which I am really looking forward to. I am very pleased with the performance of the tires so far, and am looking forward to testing them out in really snowy conditions to see how much of a difference they will be making.
This weekend was busy with all sorts of baking. First, at mom and dads for the 2nd annual cookie bake and exchange. Mom, J and I each made three batches of 2 different kinds of cookies, which we then exchanged at the end of the night. I had a really good time baking. The next day I baked more cookies, this time for Ks 5th cookie exchange. I really enjoyed that. It was a smaller group of girls, which was really nice, and everyone did a good job on their cookies. The Boys and Babies spent time in the Basement, while we talked about a whole of things, while eating cookies.
A and I also picked up our Christmas tree, but we haven’t had time yet to decorate, hopefully we can do that tomorrow. That and start our shopping. I would like to get a lot of the shopping done around the weekend as I do not want to be shopping last minute again like I have been doing in previous years.
Work is pretty blah today, not for the usual reasons, I am hoping that will change soon.
Only two more French classes to go…

I finished my hat last night. I am happy with it, I think it turned out well, and it feels very warm despite of the open weave pattern. Very unlike me I picked a pinkish red sort of towards raspberry. I wanted a burst of colour since most of my clothes are dark. I am still in the obsessed stage of my project. I sort of go on binges where I cant get enough of something and then I am all of the sudden bored, I basically OD on my project and then I put it away for months until the next wave hits. Knitting seems to come back regularly though. I find it very relaxing to be creative. I wish I could knit tonight, instead I have French class. Not really looking forward to that but, I better practise in case I passed my interview and they would like me to do French testing. In fact I should probably do some studying on the weekend as well. I have anew teacher now. He seems much better than the other teacher even though he was nice. Last week they actually called around to get people to show up to class. I wonder if there will be more folks there tonight because of it...

Trip trip Trip!!

At the end of the month A and I are going to Vancouver! I am so excited; I have never been and have been curious to see it ever since I came to this country. I can not wait! A has a meeting for work, which is why he is going in the first place, and we decided it would be a perfect opportunity for me to tag along. We are leaving the last Thursday of the month and return in December. I am looking forward to sightseeing and family visiting as A has an aunt and uncle that live out there. I started browsing the Vancouver tourism website for some ideas of things I might like to see, and most of it sounds pretty interesting to me. I love that we can do this kind of stuff now. I love being a dink sometimes.

I found it difficult to prepare for my interview on Friday. Starting with the fact that I had to find two work references and brag about myself on two question sheets which the references than needed to be able to confirm. I found it difficult to decide who to choose for my references, and I found it difficult to answer the questions. I don’t think about my job, I just do it. Anyhow, eventually I felt somewhat prepared, I studied for the interview, references and other materials got finished and printed and fridayafternoon approached.
I met mom for Vietnamese food before hand as my interview was in the area. It was nice to see a familiar face right before the big event, but I may not have been very talkative as I was pretty nervous. The interview went well I think, it is difficult to tell as they don’t really tell you how you did either way, but I think there was a good atmosphere in the room and I think I answered most questions well. I am curious to see how long this stage will take to complete. Either way, it is out of my hands right now. Another experience under my belt. Hopefully things went as well as I am hoping and this will result into getting into the pool. Than the really tricky part of finding a job starts. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming… haha.

We celebrated by eating out again, chinese food this time, and making a big Banana Split, delicious! Food, how I love you.

The rest of the weekend was relaxing and spent mostly around the house. I did some shopping on Saturday, bought winter tires for our car, a new work top and some groceries. I made some food and apple crisp, and decided I wanted to do some crafts. I used to get together with the girls every week to do crafts, mostly knitting, and I have really been missing this. I therefore decided to start a new project, so I picked up some yarn and am making another set of a hat, mits and scarf for my work coats. Maybe I will try to get another group going, because I also miss the social aspect of our weekly get togethers.

Terrific Twos!!

I was supposed to go out with my friend K on Friday, but decided to stay home and take care of this cold that just seems to be sticking around. I think it was the right decision we continue going through our picture, which again was a lot of fun. Saturday was a productive day. It started very early with a call to our adorable niece V who was celebrating her second, yes that is right she is already 2 years old!!!! Birthday. I was a little bit heart broken that I couldn’t be at her birthday, I am not going to lie. I may have shed a tear or two when I had to decline her invitation, but don’t tell anyone about that. A and I bought our niece some duplo as we remembered she enjoyed shapes and building things. V told us it was her birthday and that she was going to eat cake and get presents. Too cute, we are such very proud uncle and aunt. What a character. My brother J told us afterwards that she was spoiled rotten and had a wonderful time. We can’t wait for the pictures J
The rest of the day was spent doing some laundry, some ironing, some cleaning, went shopping with A which was partially successful. We did not find everything we had gone out for, but we did end up with some hypo-allergenic sheets which are supposed to keep dust mites away from me while I sleep. I hope they will work. I put them around the pillows but haven’t had time to put them around the mattress. I figure I really need to start taking charge in this allergy thing, doing nothing wont improve my quality of life, so sheets is a start. The rest of the day was spent going through the rest of our photos. We finally finished the selection process in the early evening after which we started getting ready for the birthday party. Our friends K and R have a birthday around the same time and so we went out for their dinner to a small fusion restaurant down town. The food was pretty tasty, the service left something to be desired. It took forever to serve us our food, but I think the restaurant was just not able to handle 16 people at once, and would be much better if it had been a smaller group. Interesting food, but I don’t think I would really go there again.
Since we had finished dinner so late A and I didn’t really feel like going out late afterwards, so we went home, party poopers as we are.
Sunday I did some reading for a job interview I have coming up on Friday. It is for the job pool I wrote an exam for ages ago they have finally invited people so please keep your fingers crossed I make it into the pool, that would be huge for me and another step closer to actually getting a permanent job.
We had our friend B over for dinner, and I got my hair cut for said interview. B had brought Beatles Rockband. It was fun to play and see, but I don’t think it is worth getting it. I didn’t know a lot of the songs on there, and missed a lot of the big hits that I do know. I think my mom would like it, so maybe I will rent it when they visit.
Time to get back to work.

Happy Sneezoween

I have had a bit of a rough week. I caught this terrible terrible cold and was off work for four days again, and then it was Halloween. I felt much better on Saturday than I had been feeling the days before. A and I decorated the house, more than we usually do and had people over for a party in the basement. We had a lot of fun. We had more trick or treaters than any year before, with a grand total of 22! A and I dressed up in last years costume as the king and queen of hearts. I made a fake dead body in the front room which worked out really well. There was lots of food and candy a couple of really cute babies and some really great costumes. I think J’s beaker was my favourite. Halloween 2009 was a big success
I am still coughing up a storm. I feel so gross and leaky, yuck, especially while being at work.
Work is a bit rough as well. I find it more and more difficult to get motivated to do it. I don’t like writing about it though, because it feels like all I do is complain without taking much action. So I will not write about it until I have actually undertaken some steps to change things around.
I would like to congratulate C and S with the birth of their adorable little girl. She looks great in the pictures and we cant wait to meet her.
Tonight we are having supper at mom and dads. Looking forward to it already. Back to work.

Few more days before halloween.

I am looking forward to Halloween this weekend. I have never thrown a halloween party before, so I am really looking forward to it. Since Halloween is on a saturday it is going to be the perfect time for a party. I hope everyone has found their costumes, A and I will recycle the costumes we used last year, well A used his, I didnt get to use mine as I was sick during the party we were invited to. SO mine will make its debut this weekend. There is still a lot to do before then, I havent started planning much yet, which seems to be stressing out the people around me, so I guess I should get started on that. Maybe I will go buy some decorations tomorrow at lunchtime. The weekend after that we have a couple of parties coming up. It is starting to look like a busy and fun time ahead.
Saturday I will be writing a couple more government exams, this time for the post-secondary recruitment program. I hope the applications will lead to something, even if it is just getting into pool, that way it will make my applications a little bit easier. Keeping my fingers crossed.
I am going to use project planning software to plan the tidying, cleaning, decorating and renovation of our home. I find I say way to often, oh I wish we would do this or that, but never actually get to anything as there is always something else coming up. It will help us with saving money towards specific projects and reaching the goals that will get us the cozy nice home we want to have. Making lists seems to help me reach my goals in other parts of my life, so why not this?
I had a pretty nice weekend. It started before the weekend did with a call from mama en my cute niece V before work on friday. She has started talking and told me about the spider that lives in my parents backyard. Best of all, she sang me a little nursery rhyme I used to sing as a child. It was adorable and made my day! Work was nice. One of the girls had organized an international food lunch for the united way. People were asked to volunteer to make dishes commenly made in their cultural background and tickets were sold for people to attend. I made my signature apple pie, which turned out to be a big hit. The rest of the food was very good as well, some of it was unusual to say the least, but good.
Sunday mom and I attended a babyshower for A. There were lots of games, and lots of food, and everyone had a good time. I came in second in one of the games and won a prize. A got spoil nicely and looked so happy. She looked really good :) Yay A and N, cant wait to meet your little one.

ps..

I just followed up on my citizenship application, as I had expected to hear from them by now. Turns out they are still opening applications received on the 1st of may and expect to take about a 1.5 before they get to mine still! I know I shouldn't be too surprised, but really, that seems a little bit crazy to me... anyway..

Appearantly a whole month came and went...

... and I am not too sure where it went. We did a lot of stuff this month, it was a good month. I dont remember a lot of what we did, I just know we were busy. It involved french classes, meeting more new babies and lots of other things.
The weekend before last was thanksgiving weekend. We had family dinner on friday night as this was the only night we could all make it to mom and dad's house. Mom's friend J was there as well. Dinner was tasty, conversations went well, it was a nice evening.
Saturday we went shopping with mom and dad for some stuff and sunday was our first anniversary. I can not believe we have been married for a year already, well over a year now.. It seems like yesterday we were getting things ready for the wedding, and now we are no longer officially newlyweds, even though I still feel newly wed most of the time. I feel so lucky to have found this man. Life is good :)
We celebrated our anniversary by spending the whole day together, doing things we like to do. We went for a nice walk at the arboretum, made a nice dinner, at a table beautifully set by A. While I was tidying up after dinner, A made a fire in the fireplace and lit some candles, then we sat down with a purring cat on our laps and went through pictures of our time together as we are getting a whole bunch of photos printed as a gift to each other. It was really nice to see all the fun we have already had together and to realise we are going to continue to share fun times and go on adventures together. It makes me happy just thinking about it.
Monday we spent another day with family this time in Hawkesbury with aunt E and her family. We spent a lot of it outside getting her garden ready for winter.
What else, this weekend we met up with our friends C and A and their little boy O who is getting so big! We had not seen them in over 6 months as C was in school for that time, so it was wonderful to see them again. They stayed at our house, much to Izzy's dismay as she really doesnt like babies. She is afraid of them, and it is actually really quite funny to see her. O who is now 10 months, was very interested in the kitty and wanted to go and visit with her, but Izzy kept her distance at all times. poor furrball.
Sunday we had S,L and R and J,K and J over for a belated thanksgiving dinner party. It was a lot of fun, it had been much to Long since we saw our friends, so it was good to catch up. Everyone brought something to add to the meal, including sushi, which I was so excited about as I love the stuff :) The turkey looked amazing, must have been the new roasting pan we used ;) It tasted pretty good as well.
I picked up a french book from the library and I started reading it before bed. I read it out loud and A is helping me with pronunciation and meaning of some of the words. I think it will really help me, especially in terms of vocabulary, although I am starting to understand a little more each day.
Work is work. I am not too impressed with some aspects of it, but I am glad I get to do more work on projects, makes it a little bit more interesting.

Another weekend came and went

Yesterday I went shopping for Cs baby shower that was later in the day. I found some nice
books and some onesies for the little girl and a really cute card. I came home, wrapped the gifts and then left again to pick up L as we were carpooling to the Frew where the shower was being held. It was a busy shower. They had 3 tables with chairs set up in the basement. I think there were about 20 people there and there were a lot of games, including a singing game. Not really my thing, the things you do for your friends. In total I think we played about 6 games... There was lots of food and C seemed happy.
Today A and I slept in. I did some excersise, which after having been sick for a week was difficult to do, but I did my best, and I can really feel my muscles tonight. We got the house ready for company as A was going to show M and J their wedding pics.
Another thing we got accomplished was getting rid of our old couch and chair. I posted them on kijiji and used ottawa, and we had people inquiring after them within 3 hours. By the sounds of things, they will be out of our garage around lunch time tomorrow, so we can finally park the car in the garage again, just in time before the cold hits. I love freecycling :) I have never actually posted anything before, and it is very exciting and encouraging that we got rid of the furniture this quickly. I am already thinking about other things I might be able to post on there...
In the end, M and J were not able to make it over, instead we had mom and dad and their friend J over for a nice sunday night dinner. We had a pork roast, roast potatoes, carrots and a caeser salad. Yum!! We had a nice time, chit chatted and looked at our trip pictures. J gave us some lovely handsoap as a hostess gift, very sweet and thoughtful of her, and now it is now, time to go to bed, night night.

Last weekend was amazing. A and I spent pretty much every minute together and it was wonderful.
Friday night we celebrated two birthdays, for L and J at K and Js house. It was fun, A had made pizza dough for a `make your own little pizza` party, he had made a cake and we blew up some balloons. It was a good time and it was fun to cuddle with the two little men that have enriched our friend circle.
Saturday A first took me out for breakfast than took me out shopping, I usually really dont enjoy shopping, but it was fun shopping with him. I know he will tell me honestly if something looks good or not. Plus he spoils me rotten ;) I got home with two pairs of shoes, a nice new fall winter coat, pants and a skirt, it was great. We also researched a new laptop for him.
Sunday we did some tidying and cleaning, I read like I was planning to do, and A took me for dinner and a movie. We went to see the Love Happens. It wasnt what i had expected, it was nice though.
The rest of this week I have mostly spent in bed with a stomach flu and now it is now. Feeling better than earlier this week I should be fine by the time the weekend comes around.

Congratulations K and J with Baby J

I cant believe a full week came and went already. Something exciting did end up happening on 09-09-09, as it was the day we found out K and J had become parents of a beautiful little baby J. Congrats to both of you! Baby J had been born the day before and both mom, and son were healthy and happy to get home.
What else happened? Well the allergy test happened. I had to sit in a chair while the assistant dropped serum on my arms, then scratch my skin. I sat back to wait and see if anything would happen, (ie whether I would get bumps on my arm) and it did. Turns out I am allergic to a whole bunch of different things including pollen, moulds, and unfortunately our little kitty. So eventually I am going to have to sit down and decide what I am going to do with all if this information. At this point I am hovering on the denial page.
Thursday we got pedicures done in lieu of the wedding, they were extremely nice and relaxing, just what I needed after my stress of the afternoon.
Friday was fairly uneventful, I spent a lot of time in the car, there was a detour, but in the end we all made it to M and J’s house for the ‘rehearsal’ dinner.
The wedding was interesting. I wont say too too much about it, there where the usual M and J hick-ups that happen whenever there is an event with them, but overall they were extremely lucky with their day. They has great weather, it was sunny and nice, the ceremony was short, sweet and intimate, the reception was a success, and A got some nice pictures of everyone. They seemed happy.
This week I started my new job. It has been fine, the division I am with right now is pretty small, and so I will have lots more time for other work, including doing research and policy work for the group, which I am very excited about. So far I think things are going well. I am on a one month trial, so today is week 1 complete, I think I got a passing mark. I will keep you updated on that.
Also, A and I got to meet Baby J on Monday evening. My goodness, what a cutie! He looks a lot like K at first sight, but when you look closer, you do see a lot of J in him as well. Very fun to see close friends so happy, and interesting to see them as something more than the people you knew them as, parents.
Next week is a day retreat from work. I am not looking forward to playing stupid icebreaker games.. gaawddd. I will keep you posted on how that went.
I started reading the twilight series, and despite of my expected boredom, I am totally hooked. K lent me the books Monday night. I cracked open the book on Tuesday night after my French class, (9:30pm) and today I am sleepy and already well into the second book. I brought it to work today so I could read on my lunch break, but I ended up going for lunch with a friend from work. I am itching to get my hands on the book to find out what else is going to be happening. Needless to say I have not planned a whole lot of weekend activities, I for see myself reading books in the fresh air… weekend here I come!

Cool date

Today is a cool day. Oh and why you say, is it a cool day today, well the reason is, because I am a nerd and it is 09-09-09 today. That is why. It feels like something exciting should be happening, but so far it has been a pretty blah day. I feel tired and mostly grumpy due to lots of little things that added up to me being quite grumpy actually.
We had a nice long weekend, mine in fact was 6 days long, which is almost a holiday, as I was sick last wednesday, thursday, friday. Saturday we went to the dentist (no cavities, hurray!), decided on a and purchased the gift for M and J's wedding, I dropped A of at L and S's to do some drywalling, held cute little R for a while and then went shopping for an outfit for the wedding. Found said outfit in the last possible store, but am very happy with it. It is funky, and seen as though I am terrible at explaining clothes, I am not going to bother trying. Picked up A from S&L&R's house, went home, went for dinner at mom and dads, saw M and J and gave them their gift early. They liked it I think.
Sunday was La Ronde day with B and J. We had a wonderful time, and didnt get home until after 1:00pm. Monday was a cleaning day. lots of laundry and window washing was done and the house now looks much brighter. This week is going to be shrot and sweet.
Tomorrow I have the afternoon of as I am finally going for my allergy testing. I am a little nervous about it, not for the actual testing, more because I really want them to find out if something is wrong or not. Friday I get to pick up Poppa for the wedding spectacular on saturday. It should be interesting.

Busy times

Work has been extremely busy in the last few weeks, so I havent taken a lot of time to write. I always find it difficult to back track in my blog, at which point I keep postponing to write in it, which brigns us to the last day of august already, with ahrdly any updates on what has been keeping me out of trouble the last little while.
Short summary:
excellent birthday, low-key and my birthday week lasted for a good week and a half, which is record breaking. Thanks to all my friends and family I felt very special.
I will be starting a new job within the same agency within a couple of weeks, which, if it works out will be alonger contract, but still through a temp. However, in this job I will get research and policy analyst experience as well as admin work, so it is a big step in the right direction. Things (ie money and signing of contracts) are currently being sorted out, so until that is set in stone I will not jump up and down too much.
I got a new hair cut and I have decided I Like it. It is called the 'broken inverted bob' I dont really care what it is called, it is easy to maintain which equals fab!
saturday we played the last soccer game of the season. It poored rain, only 6 people on each team showed up at first, so we played pick up soccer in the rain. I scored an awesome goal and played the best game of the season because we were all having so much fun and werent affraid to try things.
last but not least, I will be signing up for an french class this semester offered by the province of ontario to encourage new immigrants to become fluent in both official languages. Everyone can take the class including canadians, but people like myself will only pay $25 per season. I am interested to see how/if that pans out. I am supposed to sign up tomight. I will let you know how it goes.
Where did summer go? I blinked and all of the sudden it is the day before september :(

lots of wonderful things

This has been a very interesting summer. The weather in Ottawa has been terrible for the most part, but this week summer has finally arrived, and we are having a few sunny days. Amazing!
Where to start with my update. So much stuff has happened, it will be hard to capture it all in this blog unlewss you want to read a novel.
Camping part 2. The rest of our trip was wonderful. the men made a rain screen to keep us mostly dry, we visited the Lusk caves, which was really fun, ate good food, and didnt bike home. We had a really great rest of the weekend camping.
The next big ticket item was our honeymoon! Eeeeee.... my goodness what a trip, it was everything I was expeciting and more. It was a very emotional journey and it was amazing. I will never forget it. It really deserves its own post with pictures to illustrate what we have done.
After we came back from our trip we discovered our friends L and S had had their cute baby boy R. We got to meet him on the wednesday. it was fun to meet such a brand new little person. I got to hold hiim three times, and each time he cried. It was very funny, and he is really cute when he cries. I know I am terrible I pinch babies :)
The rest of the week off and on I spent some time preparing for K's baby shower which was sunday. I baked cookies and cupcakes which was fun. I love to bake. There were 7 girls in total and fun was had by all I think. It was very laid back, people chatted, played some games ate some food, there was some present unwrapping and And and I got to hang out with K afterwards and catch up. It was soo nice to see her, it had been much too long!
Tuesday after work I went shopping for some clothes. I was succesful and found capris, a skirt, shoes, earrings, necklace, a blouse, and two tops in an hour, and most of it was on sale, bonus!This is huge for me as I dont usually like to shop. I am getting much better at it and it clearly can be fun :)
We had L, S &R over for R's first photo shoot that evening. Little R had grown in the one week and moved around a lot more. it was really funny to see the shoot.
before we went on our trip there was a little bit of drama with regards to a government job. It was for a pool I applied to a few months ago. To be able to make it in there I have to write an exam, and the exam was taking place while we were gone. Eventhough I asked to write the exam another time, they would not let me do so, and I resigned to missing out on the oppertunity. However, my manager at work with a little help from the DG was able to change their minds, so when I came home I was informed I would be able to write it. I am really happy about it, even if nothing comes of it it is another experience. And if I do make it into the pool, I would have a descent shot and getting on full-time which would be wonderful!
Tonight J and K are coming over and I am looking forward to it. It is the weekend and it is beautiful weather, what more can a girl ask for. I am so happy!

Eventfull weekend - Camping part 1

A and I went camping in Gatineau Park this weekend and let me tell you, it was quite the adventure getting there.
Our plan was to leave our house shortly after lunch on friday and bike to the campsite which was at Lac Phillipe. It was about a 60km bike ride, and it was the first time we were going to try out our full gear, our big rehearsal before our Cape Breton trip this coming week.
Unfortunately we had a bit of a later start than planned and didnt leave until about 3:30 in the afternoon. We left in good spirits, with our bags packed and feeling very excited to be camping. The first part into Quebec was very uneventful. We made it to the park, had a granola bar and got ready for the rest of our trip. We made it to pink lake, then took a wrong turn and went all the way back to where we could see the Parliament buildings, then realised we had to turn around and do it all over again. So that added about 15Km to our ride. The second obstacle occurred when we realized that the road google maps was sending us down wasnt actually there. As we turned onto the road that is supposed to connect meech lake to lac phillipe, we noticed a cul-de-sac sign... oh oh.. When we stopped at a map to look, it turned out that that road doesnt exist on the gatineau park map, it stops about halfway. After a lot of back and forth, phone calls with A's cousins and talking to some cyclists that are in the park all the time, we decided to take a different route, through the park before it got dark. It was too far to back track and go around, so our only options were wait for As cousin to come an get us, which would be 2 plus hours, or try to bike what seemed like a reasonable path, that might be a bit difficult at first, but would get better soon. The avid cyclists were wrong... 7k of difficult level mountain bike terrain on touring bikes loaded down with gear... not such a good idea. The path was all rocks and loose gravel and since the sun was starting to set it was hard to tell where the rocks and roots where in the twilight. I cant tell you how happy we were when we finally made it to the easy two thirds of the path. We named the first half the path of hell and vowed to never "cycle" it like that again. And by cycling I mean, pushing my bike up the hill, carefully walking my bike down the hill, cycling 50 m of flat stuff to once again get off the bike and do it all over again. The path just would not end and I was really scared at times that I was going to fall and hurt myself, but I didnt. The last two thirds were mostly sand, washed out roads from all the rain and some rocks, but it was nothing compared to the first bit. I am sure ti would have been fine if it hadnt already been dark by the time we got to the path. When we finally made it to lac phillipe we were so excited and so impressed with the beautiful view of the moonlit lake. It was only 2k more to the site. During that 2k I managed to loose the chain off of my bike when I came barreling down a sandy hill with washouts, I think that was the closest I came to truly falling, but thanks to my crazy cycling skillZ I managed to stay on my bike. A fixed it up and we went back on our way. Seeing the campfires in the distance made felt like a huge accomplishment. It was amazing to finally reach our destination at 10:30pm. B had food ready to go for us so that as soon as we had finished setting up our tent we were able to eat. I have never tasted food that good, stuffed peppers with rice and mushrooms, ribs and garlic bread... Yum! We spent the rest of the night rehydrating, catching up with J and B who were very relieved we finally made it there safely, and sitting in front of the fire making smores. As we were getting ready for bed a crazy rain storm hit, so we fell asleep listening to the rain ticking on our tent...

ADHD Day

I am having the worst time concentrating on things today. I am not getting much done, it is unbelievable. Anythign from pretty coliours to unusual sounds get me distracted, oh and of course I have been roaming the halls, surfing the web as well. Part of this is due to the fact that I didnt sleep well last night. first I had trouble getting to sleep, then I spent the night having nightmares, then I woke up utlra grumpy annndd now it is now.
One really good thing about today is that I got to take a cab to first drop some important CD-roms off, but more importantly for me, to go and sign off on my secret clearance. It came through!! I am really happy about it as this should open new doors for me:)
When I told my manager about it she was really excited and said they were now going to be able to find me a better spot and keep me on... I have mixed feelings about it. My first reaction was, excellent! my second was, wait what if it doesnt happen again, and my third was, wouldnt it be better to explore new avenues. I really think she will follow through though, out of all the people that said previously they would help me stay, she didnt talk she acted. Plus she is well known for the fact that if she likes staff she gets them hired on. Soooo, it is pretty tempting to sit back and see what life brings. I am sooo tired of surfing job adds. I will probably keep trying to find something, but I am worried about temp jobs through agencies. On the one hand it would be good to make new contacts, but on the other they know me here, they like me here, should I try to work something out with a team I have more faith in than my previous devision, or should I just struggle my way through the unknown. Anyone got a magic ball?!?
Time for a nap...

Crappy weekend

I didnt really enjoy my weekend unfortunately. It was an overall grumpy experience.
Friday was the cousins barbeque As parents had planned weeks ago. The barbeque went pretty well, there was lots of food and almost all the family showed up and seemed to be having a good time. Unfortunately it didnt end until after 10:00pm, so it was too late to go to K and Js anniversary celebration , so I was pretty bummed out as I really wanted to go to that.
Saturday we had planned to go on a cycling trip to H-town, sleep over and than bike back. That didnt happen for several reasons, one being our timing not working out, getting organized took longer than planned, as well as the terrible weather, thunder and crazy rain. We were planning to park the car at cousins S and Cs house to shave off some distance, we had trouble getting our bikes in and out of the car and A and I ended up fighting later that night (read moodswings and lack of patience on both sides)
Sunday I had a terrible head ache and felt nauseated and ended up missing dinner with J and J whom we hadnt seen in a long time, so again bummed out. More moodswings on sunday as well, resulting in me feeling pretty sad for myself and my crappy weekend.
Today at least my mood seems to be more stable, and not much of a headache. Luckily my nausea has gone down some too, but I still needed to stay home. Today seems like a much better day so far!
Tomorrow is my french class. So far I am really enjoying it, and it is helping me come out of my shell a little bit. I doubt I will be fluent by the time I am done, but it is definetly helpful and I am considering taking another class in august. We will see.

Honeymoon excitement

I am having a lot of fun preparing for our honeymoon, it is wonderful shopping around for all the things we need. So far I haev purchased nice sunglasses for A and I from MEC. You can take the lenses out of the glasses and change them depending on the weather conditions. On saturday we also purchased some kick ass cycling bags made by Arkel, they are huge and will hold a whole lot of stuff. We got some really fun light weight sleeping bags and we got cycling shoes and shorts, so we are slowly getting there. We are also lining up some fun activities and are getting close to being decided on the route we will be taking. We have decided to take two days to drive back and we will be staying somewhere in Quebec City. So I spent some of my time the last couple of days researching hotels. I called a friend in the hotel business and she was able to hook us up with a pretty great deal, so now we get to stay at Le Chateau Frontenac. I think the contrast is going to be hilarious, going from roughing it, camping and wearing the same cycling shorts all week, to spending our last honeymoon night in a place like that. I am really excited, yay Quebec City here we come!!

Sunday A, his parents and I went for a bike ride to Carleton Place and back. We brought a picnic which we ate in a park right on the river . It was a nice day, but I was having some problems with my 'allergies'. My eyes were burning and my head hurt. When we got home, I had a swim in the pool and we stayed for supper at A's parents and decided to watch the movie Bridget Jones' Diary. I hadnt seen that movie in ages, and someone had lent mom the dvd as she had never seen it. I really enjoy simple girly movies that you dont require a lot of brain power lately, so I was up for watching it. The thing that struck me most about that movie though, was my completely different perception of Bridget. I remembered last time I wachted the moving thinking that Bridget was pretty chunky, and I could totally understand her desire to loose a bunch of weight... now I am her weight, but I dont really perceive myself as all that much bigger then when I first came here, even though I must be seen as though the scale tells me so. It was really weird, and I have to say I felt pretty fat after watching the movie. I am over it now, but it was a really weird experience of my european and canadian self image colliding. And I am pretty motivated to get back on the health train track.
On a different topic, I signed up for a french course and I had my first class last night. It is three nights a week and I am pretty excited about it. I felt like i understood much of what was going on in class, but I found it extremely challenging to do the speaking excersises. I also find it hard because french is stored in the dutch compartment of my brain, so sometimes I have to think of a word in dutch before I can translate it into french. I really feel this course will improve my oral skills, so I am very excited about it and I hope I can find enough time to study and get the most out of the course.
Last night when I came home there was a surprise for me. I and J had sent me a package with little Ns birth anouncement and a tranditional dutch treat that you eat to celebrate the birth of a child. It was such a great surprise, I teared up and felt so happy that they did that, just what I needed.
Other than that, work has been frustrating as our systems have been down, I have no access to email or to any of my drives, which makes it very hard to do work. they say it may not be back up and running until next week, grrr... I am not looking forward to that, so I hope they will surprise us.
I think that is mostly it for now.

Great birthday party!

Yesterday was Canada's 142nd birthday. So A and I decided to celebrate this feat by cycling through some beautiful landscapes in preparation of our big Honeymoon cycling trip at the end of this month. We decided to bike to Renfrew to visit one of the staple restaurants we used to go to when we visited grandpa and to eat an ice cream cone at our favorite dairy, that is, if we made it that far. Since we figured it would probably be too far to cycle there and back as well, we asked A's parents to meet us their for lunch, our treat, and drive us and our bikes back to town. They agreed so we were on!

We got up early yesterday morning, at about 5:30, had breakfast, got our stuff ready, changed into our new cycling shorts, (which by the way are awesome!) and prepared for a rainy day. There was a 60% chance of rain and thunderstorms and the skies looked pretty threatening. A attached a Canadian flag to the back of his bike, and we were ready to go. We left the house around 7:20. We had picked a route through a some of the small communities between here and 'the frew', places I had not been to before, plus that way we could avoid the main (=busy) highway. It was an excellent experience, not only do you get to enjoy the country side that much more when you travel through it more slowly, the exercise and fresh air gave me so much energy!

Aside from lovely landscapes we saw an old car show in Arnprior and a fun looking parade (I believe it was in Braeside). We saw this man pass by on a ride on lawn mower, he had red and white balloons and canada flags stuck all over it and he himself was decked out in Canada paraphernalia as well. When we turned the corner there were a whole lot of them, clearly all going somewhere to line up for a parade. It seemed like everyone in town who owned a ride on lawn mower or something else small and motorised, little dirt bikes, atvs, what have you, were going to be part of the parade, entire families came by. It was very funny, and it looked like the kids where having a blast.

The most iffy part for me was when we were riding on a tiny dirt/gravel road somewhere, surrounded by deer and horse flies whom as soon as you slowed down tried to land on you, and we didnt know what path to take. We turned right but after following tat road for a little bit we realised we were going the wrong way, so we turned back. A was able to ask 2 local guys working in a garden where we were and they were able to point us in the right direction: Down an even narrower dirt/gravel road. I had a hard time speeding down hill on that road. On the one hand I was afraid to fall with my still broken rib, on the other hand I didnt want to slow down too much due to the deer flies that seemed to be swirling in an eddie behind my back. A mentioned there where probably about 20 of them coasting along behind me, I believe him because when he passed me on the hill there were a lot behind him too. All this to say I was happy to reach an open field and asphalt.

We made it to Renfrew without getting wet. We did notice a lot of areas that were completely soaked, water was running down the road in streams, as they obviously just got pored on. At one point we were riding in this blue sky patch surrounded by very dark clouds. It felt really special, as if the clouds could tell how happy we were feeling and felt we could use some sun to match our moods. We made it dry to renfrew. We got of our bikes to take a couple of pics at the you reached renfrew sign, and then we got rained on... big time! We finally found out why there was water streaming down the road. Luckily we had brought a change of clothes. Unfortunately A had forgotten to pack extra shoes, so he was swushing away in those, but at least most of him was dry.

We had an excellent lunch, followed by a delicious icecream cone from the dairy. A got vanilla icecream with peanut butter cups and peanutbutter swirl, and I had madawaska mud, of course a chocolate based flavour, with brownie bits and caramel swirl. Yum! We spent the rest of the day at A's parents, swimming in the pool and socialising with some family friends that were visiting from out of town. We had a nice supper and a nice relaxing evening, and now we are back to reality of life: work. I cant wait for the weekend!

June is flying by, were did it go?

Happy belated Birthday Irene!!
Last night we invited B over for dinner. We hadnt seen her in a long time and it was good to catch up. We decided to go for a walk after dinner, and A and B were nice enough to go along with my plan to walk to DQ and get some icecream relief from the heat. It was an excellent walk, but on the way home something I have been worried about ever since I sneezed with a broken rib finally happened: I got the hiccups! I even thought about it while biking home from work yesterday (which by the way was mostly fine as it doesnt put tention on the soar spot unless it is bumpy). I am telling you, Not fun! However, luckily they only lasted for a couple of hiccups, thank goodness, I was able to hold my breath and get them out of my system, but I almost cried. So, from now on I will eat my icecream more slowly. Chew every bite well, and drink with caution in the hope that this will not occur again in the next few weeks... Sigh...
Now that I am done complaining, I got a call from the temp agency yesterday; they may have found me a 3 month contract with Health Canada in a bit of a different type of position (read not booking meetings and travel) which would be awesome, I really hope they pick my resume, I feel I need to move on to something new, and gain new experience. I do really like the spot I am in now, and if I could work here as a junior policy analyst or researcher or something like that, I would be very happy to stay, but I dont want to get stuck as the admin assistant. Once you have that label it is so hard for people to see you as something different. So I am crossing my fingers. If it works out it will be at a different location, so new people, new contacts. It will definetly change my commute, I may be able to bus now and I wonder what it would be like to cycle there.... I am trying to stop thinking about it, and not get my hopes up too much but it is hard not to.
I noticed I really need to shop for some summer professional attire. Most of my clothes are dark and wintery, and I want a few light and colourful pieces for my wardrobe.Also, A and I will soon be shopping for some cycling gear we will need for our trip. We are planning on cycling and camping along the Cabot Trail for our honeymoon at the end of july!!! I am sooo excited about it, it should be fantastic, really hard, but fantastic!

Crunch - another random injury

What I didnt mention in my post last week was that I had a minor collision with one of the players on the other team. I fell funny and winded myself, but was fine after and kept playing. The next day it felt very bruised and sore, and the days following I didnt sleep all that well as I kept waking up when I rolled over. Sunday A finally convinced me to go see a dr. I did, and it turns out I broke my rib right where it attaches to the sternum at the front, te examination was very uncomfertable, and definetly created a bit of a set back. I again didnt sleep well a few nights in a row and I was so tired at work today that I had to leave early to go home for a nap. After my nap I felt soo much better, hopefully this is a turning point and from now on I will sleep more so I can function a little better at work.
A and I are the happy uncle and aunt of another lovely little girl. My sister-in-law I gave birthday to Nina on sunday, fathers day. We are thrilled that mother and daughter are doing well and the first pictures show that she looks a lot like her cute older sister. I really wish I could go over to see her, but we wont be able to do that for a little while. We first have some travelling of our own to do, to start with our honeymoon.
There are new developments on that as well, but I will save that for a different post. I am hoping to sleep early tonight and biking in to work tomorrow.

Random fact

I just realised a random fact about myself, I appreantly really like using highlighters to colour code tasks or calendar entries... huh... who knew? Wheeee pretty colours! I feel like I have had way to much sugar even though I have not, it must have been that free employee appreciation tea I got this morning :)

I have been super moody this past week. I had a lot of things on my mind, and I couldnt deal with them well, so I ended up feeling really stressed which turned into me being really bitchy at home . Luckily I finally managed to straighten stuff out in my head and I am now feeling a whole lot better and able to enjoy my life more again. I really need better stress coping strategies. I have definetly improved, but I am still not close to where I want to be.
Work is going really well. I enjoy working with the new teams, It si really nice to work with people that want you there and appreciate the work you are doing for them.
Saturday was our first real soccer game. I had so much fun. Our team this year is really nice, we are definetly not very skilled yet, but we had a good time loosing, because every tried their hardest and the other team, even though much more experienced seemed to be enjoying our fun too. That is why I like that rec league, most teams are very supportive of people learning the sport.
Sunday was S and L's baby shower. Even though it didnt turn out the way I expected it would, it still was a lot of fun. People enjoyed themselves and the couple and baby got spoiled with lots of fun gifts. I was happy to be part of it all.
Yesterday I took a rest/mental health day, I think it was the best thing I could have done for myself. I feel so much better now. We topped it up with date night. I ordered sushi take-out, which we ate on our fancy japanese dishes, watched an episode of long way round and we had amazing talks.
Today I took my bike in to work, which means I get to bike home, I am really looking forward to it as it is a very nice day out. I hope I remember to actually time myself this time, so I have an idea of what time I need to leave to actually bike into work and not be late. Yay biking!
Life is good :)

A lot can change in a week

Thursday was my last day at work. They took me out for lunch at Kelseys where they gave me a nice bouquet of flowers, a card signed by lots of people wishing me well and a chapters gift card, all very unexpected. Then they took met to dairy queen for dessert. When I came back from the lunch and about 5 minutes before I was going to leave I got called into the office of one of the directors here. She asked me if I would mind working for them until the fall as they needed help with their administrative work as their regular girl was acting in a different postion. So, I am working here until I find something different. Friday we called the temp agency and got everything sorted out, and monday I was back at work, this time in a different cubicle on a different floor. I am really happy with the move. This time my cubicle doesnt have a huge pilar in it, so it feels much bigger and brighter. I really like it. The walls are super bare though so I am going to have to bring in some pictures to liven things up, it doesnt look very cozy at the moment.
I am very relieved I dont have to worry about money while I find myself something better. Yay!
The weekend was nice, we did some gardening, so A's aunt from BC at a family dinner and went to a barbeque at K and Cs. We saw a lot of friends we hadnt seen in a while so it was nice to catch up. We brought Rockband and it was so much fun. I may have had a little to much to drink, well, it wasnt that much, I just drank really fast, so everything was pretty funny to me. Sunday we got up early to meet the K, C and K at Lincoln fields for Sunday Bikeday. We biked from Kanata to lincoln fields and to parlement hill and back. It was a long ride, 57K, but it felt great.
I am hoping to start biking to work again this week and I have decided to sign up for a french course to improve my chances of finding a job here in town.

Lots of things on my mind

I cant believe I havent written in so long! it seems that whenever I have a lot on my mind i dont take the time to sit down and write. Which is really too bad, because there have been three really great weekends in the last little while. No point in rehashing what I did three weeks ago though.
Main reason of thought distraction is my impeding joblessness. as of thursday I will be unemployed unless I find something before then, which is doubtful at this point. At first I was very upset about it, but I am perfectly ok with it all now. I really need to move forward with my life and on to something different, and hopefully better for me. I am working hard on not letting the stress of it all get to me. I am really hard on myself when it comes to stuff like this. I tend to feel like I am letting my loved ones down because I dont have everything sorted out yet, which I rationally know is not reasonable, but feelings sometimes have a mind of their own.
Because I was starting to become obsessive about job hunting, i decided to take this weekend of and relax, do fun things that made me happy. And therefore A and I spent saturday shopping around lots of different furniture stores to look for couches for the family room and basement. And we found some! We are going to be the proud owners of: a love seat and chair fpr the basement and a couch and love seat for the family room. I am really excited about them. The basement set arrives Friday, (comfy movie watching here I come!!) but we will have to wait for 8 whole weeks before our family room furniture arrives. I cant wait! this is the first time I have bought new grown up furniture and I am anxious to see what it looks like. We didnt find a coffee table we like yet, and we will be looking for a rug of some sort as well, but couches are a great start. I hope they fit!
Sunday was also a very exciting day for me. I spent most of my time gardening. After breakfast I got into some old clothes and made my way to the gardening centre. I spent a good chunk of time and change and came home with a whole lot of veggies, as well as some perrenials and annuals for the front yard and I was thrilled. Mind you, it wasnt the warmest day yesterday, and it also rained quite a bit, but I put on my splash pants, rubber boots and old winter coat and started digging and weeding. I am focussing on one little project at a time, as there is sooo much to do out there, on the bright side, I will have lots of time to garden in the next little while :D The veggie garden looks great, I cant wait to see what it does. I will let you know how that goes!
On a different note, this past week I sent in my aplication for canadian citizenship. It was a pretty big step for me. Now it is a matter of waiting and seeing what will happen. Appearantly the process takes about the same time as permanent residency applications do, so I am going to put it out of my mind completely for the time being.

I did it!!!!

I am sooo excited, last night I went for a jog and for the first time ever, I was able to run the 5K in one chunk!!! It may not seem like much, but to me it is huge. I never considered myself to be an athletic person, but I am starting to feel like I can be. It was already starting to get dark last night, and I had run walked 6K with J the night before, but I felt like going for a jog. So I did and it felt great. My time was just over 30 minutes, but I think I can easily shave off a bunch of time on that. Yay!
For the last while I have been sitting at someone else's desk to cover for them while they are down working in the emergency centre. I am so happy M is coming back tomorrow so I can sit at my own desk again! Her keyboard is aweful, and her computer is sooo slow, no word of a lie, it takes 13 minutes to boot the computer and start up email. No wonder she often leaves her computer on when she leaves. i am interested to see whether that means it is going to be busier up here, or even more quiet than it already is... only time will tell. It will also mean I can come in at 9 again, yay more sleep for me!
I haven't lost any weight since I started last week, in fact I gained some, but it does seem that I am decreasing in circumference a bit. And that is really all that matters, it shoudlnt matter what the scale tells me. It is possible I gained due to increased muscle mass, as I have started to excersise more. I weigh myself once a week on mondays, just to keep track of progress somewhat, so we will see what next monday brings me.
Tonight A has invited his baseball team for the annual practise and Barbeque at our house. He stayed up late to make a crazy amount of burgers, Yum! Hopefully we will have lots left for the freezer so we can cook up some whenever we feel like it. It should be a fun time, I am looking forward to it. Back to work :)

Beautiful spring

So far it has been an absolutely beautiful spring. Theweather has been perfect, the trees are showing of their new fresh crisp bright green leaves, especially the birch trees look gorgeous at the moment. Their leaves almost look like flowers. Spring flowers are popping up everywhere, and our wedding tulips are blooming, I love spring!
One thing I like less about spring is that roadkill starts happening again too. On the way in to work you see animalsthat have been hit all over the place. I know a lot of people here dont really think about that very much, because there are so many animals any way, which is true, but having grown up in europe, where nature is pretty much non existent anymore in terms of wildlife, especially compared to Canada, I feel sad every time I see a dead fox, or raccoon, or groundhog, or even skunks. Earlier this week, on the way to work on one of the busy roads I drive on, a skunk was hit. Now it is barely recognizable as a skunk as so many people have hit it since, and it just lies there like a piece of trash in the gutter. I know that there is little that can be done about road kill, but I cant help but think that was a living creature once, and I feel sad that it is just sort of lying there getting mushed up...
Last sunday A and I took part in the CN cycle for CHEO. We did the 30k tour and it was great fun. It was perfect weather for cycling, and it was through a partof our area I dont go very often, soit was a nice bikeride. As we still had to getto the start of the tour and back home again, we ended up biking just over 50k that day. We were both pretty tired, and ourbums were alittle sore, but the next day we both were pretty much back to our old selves. This is a promising start to our bike touring plans. We will see.
I have started to eat more healthy again and I have been exersising more too. My pants were starting to get too small, and I didnt like it. So I am currently trying to do something about it. So far I have been doing pretty well. I am writing down what I eat as I read somewhere it seems to help people stick to their goal better as you holds yourself more accountable. I am not being super hardcore about it, I dont want to be obsessive, just good and healthy. I find it helps me to decide in advance what I am going to eat, so that if I get hungry I dont get tempted into unhealthy choices. I am also keeping track of my excersise. I started off well this week, but there is room for improvement. I am going to treat myself to something once I reach my first goal.

My 150th post!

I didnt think I would ever get this far. This year my blog posting has really started to pick up. Really in the grand scheme of things, seen as though I have been blogging for a few years now, 150 really isnt that much, but it sounds pretty cool all the same. See if I can keep it up, 300th post here I come :)
This weekend was a lot of fun. On friday night we went to see our friends K & C and met their friends M & J at a barbeque. The food was mostly tasty (the garlic mashed potatoes I brought where a bit of a failure as I made them in a rush, they were lumpy :S) but that couldnt spoil the night. We had a nice time catching up/meeting new people. M &J just got a new kitten, and since they also live close, we walked over to their place to meet the new little one. Sampson is 8 weeks old and really cute. He looks a lot like Izzy when she was little, not quite as cute of course, but he is sooo tiny! He makes Isabelle look huge. Now I want another kitten :) They are so much fun when they are small.
Saturday was bike day. I borrowed a couple of old bicycle bags from a co-worker of mine who does a lot of touring, to see what sort of features we might like in bicycle bags. I prepared a bunch of snacks for lunch, and filled water bottles and packed them in the bags. We had a snack and right around lunch time we headed out. A had a meeting with for his soccer team at college square, so we decided to bike there. We had ate in the park and then went to the meeting. I did a bunch of window shopping while A attended his meeting. Afterwards we werent biked-out yet, so we decided to hit one of our favorite outdoorsy stores in Westboro and bought a bicycle computer which will be logging our distance, speed etc.
Sicne we were close we decided to call J & B who met us for drinks and nachos at the pub. We then bike back home and made it right in time before the storm hit. Hurray! Overal we biked just under 50k. Not bad for our first ride. My bum was a little sore, and so were my arms as I am not used to keeping my upperbody support while biking. Overal it was a wonderful experience. The weather was warm, and a cloudy, but lovely for biking.. sigh.. I am officially in love with my bike and I am seriously considering biking to work... havent worked out the logistics of it yet at all, but it would be great if I could..
Sunday was a little less exciting. I bought and iron, as ours broke weeks ago and I am starting to run out of clothes to wear as I cant wear any of my button up shirts due to wrinkles. I dont enjoy ironing, but I also dont want to go back to looking like a student at work, so I had to make the purchase. We had supper at mom and dad's, delicious steak.. yum.. and went home early to get ready for work.
Everyone around me at work is pretty busy due to the Swine flu outbreak. Hopefully some of their busyness will blow over to me...

I am feeling much better today than I did yesterady. I am not back to normal yet, but things are looking up in the world. I still didnt sleep as well as I normally do. I kept waking up and so I still feel a little slugish, but at least I am fine with being at work today, which is sooo much better. I went to the Dr monday night and she agreed we should look into why I have been feeling of so regularly. We are starting with a referal to the allergist. They are going to check whether I am allergic to something, which could account for pretty much all of the symptoms I have been having, including catching every single cold or flu that comes my way. I am waiting to hear back from their office to make the appointment. In the mean time she has prescribed a nasal spray which should help me feel less congested in the upcoming weeks. I will keep you posted on how things are going.
I did end up going to the office get together for a little while yesterday. It was pretty fun, but I wasnt in the right frame of mind to socialize at all, so I was mostly quiet and listened in on other peoples conversations. I went home, had a light supper and went to bed pretty early yesterday.
We went to see M and J's new great dane puppy and she is already pretty big. She is 10 weeks old and already weighs more than 31lbs. She is a nice grey colour with black spots and white patches. My favorite part about her is her loose skin, she has lots of room to grow, and therefore sometimes looks like a wrinkled old lady. Which is really funny. She also is clumsy on her paws, which are enormous, and that is pretty damn cute as well. It will be very interesting to see how fast she grows!
A and I both got Devinci caribou touring bikes. They are blue and they are awesome! We dont have any specific plans made, the only thing I know is that we are going to be bike camping at some point this summer probably in the area at first for a couple of test drives as we are new to this and are still learning everything about it. Our first goal is getting our legs bike ready, so we can actually go more than 10k without collapsing. So that will envolve regular trips out on the bike hopefully starting this weekend. I cant wait to do more research and start planning our trips!

sniffles once again

It has been about two weeks, so time to be sick again.. Bleeghghh I have a nasty cold once again. I left work after only a couple of hours on monday and didnt go in at all on tuesday. I made it in today, but am wishing for my bed. I have been away from work so much already that I didnt want to take another day to be sick.
I havent been for a run in a couple of days, and for the first time in my life I actually miss it. I cant wait to go out running, but I think I will probably go straight to bed when I get home today rather than go for my scheduled 6k run. There is a get together for work this afternoon, I really dont want to go, I dont feel in the right mind set to socialise. I think I should probably show my face for a few minutes anyway.. maybe I will just go straight home... I will let it depend on how I feel when that time comes around.
This weekend was fun. A and received a wedding present from his parents in the form of two brand new touring bikes that we can use for our cycling/camping vacations. I am super excited!!We are now researching bags and what stuff you should be bringing etc etc. All very exciting! I really want to go out on my bike, and they say it will be beautiful weather on the weekend. I am thinking a long bike ride somewhere and a picnic on the way... That will be great! oohh bed where are you..

Run run run

I love my new Ipod and the Nike plus sensor! I took it for a run after work on tuesday, and it was great fun. I tried out the distance setting and went for a 3k run/walk to get started. It tells you every 500m how far you have gone. It tells you when you are half way there, and the last 500 meters it counts down per 100 meters and cheers when you are done. I also love how it keeps track of everything you have done, your totals etc. Overall it was off by about 450m so I am going to try to calibrate it so it is more accurate. It is nice to think you have gone further, but it is better to be accurate. I am going to set some goals for myself and aim to accomplish them. I want to run at least three times a week. I am also considering entering a couple of races this summer to further encourage me to keep going and keep improving. My number one goal is to stay active and enjoy myself, I dont need to go huge distances, I just want to get in shape and keep improving. It would also be great to run further than I have ever before. I will let you know how I am progressing. So far this week I have been twice, once tuesday night and early yesterday morning with A. We are going to try to get up early and go for a 15-20 minute jog regularly. I think this is going to be one of my biggest challenges, because getting up early is difficult for me. It would really make my life easier if I can get into that habbit though, as it would free up my nights for other things. On top of that I have been jogging with my friend J, once or twice a week, so if I keep this up I should be able to reach my first goal.

easter weekend

This weekend felt extremely long. Of course it was afour day weekend, but I mean it felt longer than four days, and it was really quite a nice time off, mostly relaxing. On A's birthday we had our friend B come over. We hung out, went for a nice walk, washed her car, had supper and as birthday dessert we had dairy queen ice cream. We rented a movie calle Ghost Town, which I really enjoyed and then we played rockband.
Saturday was our 6 month wedding anniversary. We celebrated by eating some of our left over wedding cake. We had 1.5 cakes left after the reception which we froze. We figured we might as well try to see what it was like, and no word of a lie, best cake ever! The outside was a little dry, so we cut that off, but the inside of the cake was moist and delicious. We started on some garden projects, including raking the back 'lawn'. What was left of the lawn is completely taken over by creeping violet, so we ripped out the entire lawn and reseeded it with new grass seed (we finished that on monday because it was a pretty big job), so hopefully that will take. I also ended up buying a new pair of running shoes that were on sale. I needed some as I have started jogging again and didnt have any good shoes to do it in.
Sunday was family birthday-easter-day. It started with a birthday lunch for A at his parents house, followed by a trip to Hawkesbury to celebrate easter with his family. It was a very nice turkey dinner, and most of us slept on the way home
Yesterday I got to treat myself to some new toys. It all started with my purchase of new the running shoes. I noticed the information brochure in the shoe box about the nike plus monitoring sensor and got intrigued. Turns out you can by a sensor which you can place in your shoe, which connects to your ipod. It will tell how far you have gone,how fast you are going, how many calories you have burned, etc. You can tell it you want to run a certain distance or time and it can even coach you and encourage you. Online you can map out your routes, chart your progress, keep track of all your distances, set goals for yourself, which sounded super cool. I have been wanting to get a smaller ipod to run with for a while. We have an older model, but it is pretty bulky, and its battery isnt what it used to be. Once I read about this gizmo I was sold. A thought it was super neat too, so I went out and bought myself an Ipod Nano along with my nike plus sensor. I am going to try it out for the first time tonight after work and I am really excited about it. I will let you know how that goes.

Happy lots of things!!

Well really only three things. First things first, Happy (belated) Birthday to my lovely husband! Happy 6 month-a-versary, wow time flies, I cant believe we have been married for 6 months already, time flies when you are having fun :) And Happy easter everyone! Technically I suppose easter isnt until tomorrow, but why stop now.
This week the weather has just been terrible, but this weekend is looking absolutely unbelievable. I will therefore not spend a lot of time behind this computer, but will finish up my housework and then move my but outside to enjoy the spring weather.
I finally got an official confirmation that my boss is going to be extending me. I had a chat with him about me leaving in a couple of weeks which seemed to shock him more or less, so he said he would get people working on that right away. He didint say for how long, I would be extended, but for now it serves the purpose, as I am applying for jobs I have money coming in. Hurray! He also mentioned that he wanted to give me more responsibilities, which would be great.
Tomorrow we are celebrating As birthday with the family over brunch and are then going to have a big easter dinner at Aunt Es house. I am looking forward to it, it is always fun to see the family and the food is going to be delicious, that reminds me, I should make buns this afternoon. Other than that a lot of stuff happened this week, but the day is too nice to tell you all about that. Talk to you later!

I reaslly feel like writing in my blog, but I am pretty busy at the moment, so I will wait until I have all my work done and my applications in and maybe then I will have a moment to write.

Happy April!

I totally overslept this morning. A woke me up before he left like he usually does and I honestly thought I was awake enough, but I just wanted to do one last stretch before I got up. Next time I looked on the clock it was an hour later, pretty much when I had to leave for work, so I had a really quick shower, got dressed, had an even quicker breakfast and ran out the door. I am going to have to buy lunch today, but didnt really want to be even more late than I was already going to be, so I only grab some fruit and off I went. I was only 20 minutes late...
Yesterday our good friends publicly announced they are expecting their first. We are soooo happy for them, and I am really excited we can openly talk about it now. It is really hard to keep a secret that exciting. Its on facebook, so therefore it must be true, Hurray!!! Congratulations again, we cant wait to meet the little one.
Last night we had our friends C and A over with their baby O. He is such a funny little guy, he cracks me up. He is super strong, loves to stand and he is getting into the baby giggle stage, very cute. We had them over for dinner and I made Barbequed pork chops, wild rice with green onions and pine nuts, peas and a salad. I had a lot of fun making it. Sometimes I really love cooking, especially when it turns out well. I might make the same thing again tonight or tomorrow, seen as though we still have some chops left over. Yum...
Tonight is running night again. I am going to come up with a new route to run, to spruce it up a bit. If we keep this up, maybe by the end of this summer we will be crazy runners! I really want to buy a pair of actual running shoes. I am tempted to go at lunch time, but I am not going to. I want to take my time and actually find shoes that fit really well and not rush into things. Besides, I probably shouldnt take a super long lunch seen as though I was late to begin with.
I heard yesterday that I will most likely be extended for at least 3 probably 4 months where I am. They did interviews for the position, but it sounds like they dont want to chance it and stick with me for now.. This might just give me enough time to tide me over until I get permanent somewhere. However, if this does happen, I am going to continue on looking and applying at the same rate as I am doing now, so I for sure have something lined up by the time that term comes due. We will see what happens, and whether this is actually going to take place, but I definetly am pretty excited that we have a good shot at continued income for a few more months. Hurray!

Still thristy

I can not get over how much water I have been drinking in the last two days. I am parched, why you ask, well, to be honest I am not too sure.
Yesterday I found out I have been driving around without a liscence for the last week. I had to show photo ID for my job interview, and it turns out I had left my liscence in padfolio, instead of putting it back in my wallet. Oops! Luckily I didnt get pulled over :) It is back in it's spot behind the little window in my wallet, safe and happy. Work has been slow today, so I am glad I brought in one ofmy french grammar books, I might as well use my time useful right, so I have been doing some of the excersises. I am planning on working my way through the book to refresh my memory on some of the grammar I learned in high school. So far it has been easy, just plural stuff, but I figure I should start at the beginning and stick with it.
Tonight I am going for a jog and I am looking forward to it. I am still wanting to get in shape, but I have been having a hard time motivating myself. I am glad I found my friend J willing to take me on as a jogging buddy, that will be a bit more motivating I hope. Other than that I am trying to decide what hobby to take on this summer. I am still hoping to play Tennis with A, but we decided I should take on a hobby, and so now i have the fun task to sit down and decided what I would like to do. There are lots of options, its just a matter of picking something.

Thirsty girl

I have been sooo thirsty today, I cant believe it, I have been drinking water like there is no tomorrow. There are worse things in life.
I have been feeling pretty low energy the last week and a bit. I have been feeling down about my job and the hunt for one, but mostly I have been feeling quite home sick. On the weekend I have started to feel a little bit better about things. There are so many things to be happy about that it seems like a waste to get so work up about stuff.
This saturday was absolutely gorgeous, it really felt like summer was right around the corner. I did some of racking in the front yard, basically emptied one all the leaves out of one of the flower beds and started on a second. I also managed to remove some massive crawling weeds left over from last year in one of the side beds. I reallise our garden is quite large, and if we want it to look good we are going to have to come up with a strategy, and a good one at that. I think it would be good to decimate the front side bed and mulch it, it looks aweful right now, and until we make a decision on fencing, I really dont think there is much of a point to make it all pretty, when we may be getting rid of it all together.
I also spend some time studying french, I got my test results back, and wasnt disappointed with my reading and writing. I know I can get those up to speed quite quickly. My oral interaction has something left to be desired, so I am going to have to do a lot of work to get it up to speed. Which is also do able, all this to say, that I borrowed french materials from work, and am now giong to try to regularly study, so I can get my french back up to speed, pass the language tests at the level I need and be happy with that. I am actually pretty excited about learning again, but I havent found the right plan of attack yet. I want to incorporate it in my weekly schedule along with regular excersise. Which hasnt really been going so well as of yet.
Alright, time to go fill up my water mug and then it is back to job applications.

yummm oatmeal

I was feeling very hungry about 15 minutes ago, and then I realised I forgot to have breakfast this morning. Luckily for me I keep a few packages of instant oatmeal in my cubicle, so I always have a back up for afternoon munchies, or like in this case breakfast.
Yesterday I spent the day at a conference at the Chateau Laurier, our deparment hosted the event, and I was there to hand out name tags. Nothing too exciting, but I got to sit in on the presentations and got free lunch out of the deal. Some of the speakers were really interesting. It was a nice experience.
Today is friday and I am really looking forward to the weekend. I am hoping to get some fresh air and relax this weekend. That and taxes, weekend here I come!

Lots and lots to tell you

Happy Spring everyone!
Since we've gotten back from our trip, and I am almost afraid to say it in case I jinx things, it has been great weather. It has been above zero almost everyday, most of the snow in our yard has melted, and in the front yard the first tips of spring flowers are starting to poke through the ground. I am thrilled!
Our trip was a busy one. We spent a lot of time visiting with family, and made an efford to see our little niece as often as we could. We had so much fun with her, she was soo cute, I wanted to take her home, but for some reason my brother wasnt really up for that, I dont know why ;)
We celebrated my biggest borther's birthday, we did a little bit of sight seeing, and ate lots of food! We had a little get together for my relatives to come and see our wedding video and album and we visit with some close family members who couldnt make it to the get together. Now that this is dont it really feels that the wedding book has been closed, aside from a honeymoon. It feels nice to have all the formalities dealt with.
It was hard to come back to Canada this time. I am pretty homesick even though I am really happy to be in our home and see all our friends. I have therefore decided I should try to see them a lot as they make me feel a whole lot better.
Now that we are back we are in ready to tackle new projects. First items on the list are house decoration and yard restauration. This could be the year our yard actually looks like a yard and not a complete overgrown jungle. We will see, haha, one can always dream. That and continueing the hunt for a permanent job. This term is coming to an end soon enough, so I have intensified my search once again.
First step was getting my french testing done. I had my oral test on thursday and yesterday was writing and reading as well as a job interview in the afternoon. It was a really busy day, and the tests seemed very long. The oral test was aweful, I am sure I didnt do as well on it as I could have done if I hadnt been a nervous mess, and if I had practised. I have no idea how the writing went, a lot of the questions I answered on gut feeling, so I have no idea how that went, and the reading test I think I did alright on mostly. So I will keep you posted. The job interview went really well, I have a really good feeling about it. Unfortunately to be accepted into the job pool for the position your french pretty much ahs to be at the highest possible level, so I am fairly certain I didnt make it in. It was a really good experience for me though, to have gone through the whole process once, and I am very confident that I can be succesful in a competition with lower language standards, or once I have practised more. I am fully intending to start spending some of my time at work practising my french. I might as well use my time to learn something while I still can right?
Other than that no significant job leads. I will keep you posted.

getting really excited

I havent felt like writting very much the last few days, I have been feeling sick again, which stinks, this is getting silly. So I went to the dr yesterday, but wont really hear anything back for a little while until after we get back from our trip, which I am getting super excited for! I cant wait to see everyone and I cant wait to eat croquetten, Yum! and I cant wait to go for a walk on the beach, and I cant wait to see grass and hyacinths and and and... Only two more sleeps!!

It has been a very busy week. I have had this draft post sitting here for almost the entire week, but I just didnt have time to write on it. So, I am finally taking some time to finish it.
When I woke up on saturday I noticed we didnt have any water in the house. Turns out a watermain broke, so we were out of water for the day. We therefore decided to go for breakfast with A's parents. It was really tasty. Afterwards A and I went shopping for snowpants and snowboots on saturday. We had a lot of fun driving across town. Our shopping sprea was long but succesful. We came home with new boots for less than I was planning to spend, new pants that were a bit more than I was planning to spend, and some waterproof gloves. We were all set for the next day's big event: snow tubing at Edelweiss. We met up with J and B at their place and were going to meet up with some of their friends at the hill. From their we went to the hill. I expected it to be super busy, but fortunately it wasnt bad. We drove up, found a spot to park relatively fast and were able to walk up to the ticket counter to buy our passes. We then went ahead to the tubing. There were about 8 tubing slopes there, but only 5 or 6 of them where open to the public. To slide down you had to go up with a skilift onto a hill that definelty was less high than most of the skihills there, but still high enough to give me butterflies in my stomach. The lift had an extra bar at the back where they put the tubes. The tubes were basically tractor tires. You could slide down the hill by yourself or in groups, so the first few times we went down the four of us. It helped me get over my fear a little bit. It was a lot of fun, and the tubes went pretty fast. The best part is when they spin you at the top so you go down the slope spinning around. fun times. After the tubing we had poutine at the cafeteria, and we decided to go for some drinks and pub food, and then Wii fit afterwards. We had a really good time.

Happy Friday the 13th!

Today was a pretty average day, not lucky or unlucky, although I have to admit i was extremely happy it is friday today and the start to what could be a really fun weekend.
In the car on my way to work I was thinking about it being friday the 13th, and people's superstitions. It is strange to think old ladies could get lynched for selling herbs and owning a black cat, and I was wondering if we have moved on from doing silly things like that. On the surface it seems we have, but when you look at society there are still a lot of things that make me believe we really havent evolved that much from our medieval ancestors.
Oh well, I have to admit I occassionally get a little superstitious, and I am trying but nothing out of the ordinary happened to day. Next month will be another friday the 13th, we will see how that one will go.
Wednesday prooved to be an expensive day. First I went out for lunch, A ordered a new camera, which will hopefully come in early next week. This camera will be a level up from the one he has now, and we now we will be able to go on photo trips together. I have been wanting to learn how to use the big camera for a while now, so this will be a great oppertunity. Plus there will be a video option on the new camera as well, which can always come in handy. A is super excited about his camera, and it is fun to hear him talk about it. After work A and I met our friends S, L, K and J at a new local pub for some food and drinks. We did a bunch of catching up and it was a really nice time. And last but not least, we booked our tickets to Holland that evening after we came home. We will be going for just over two weeks, and I am really looking forward to it! There are so many good reasons to go, and we found reasonably tickets, so it wexcitedorks out well.
Tomorrow I am going to go shopping for snow pants and boots and get all set for snow tubing on sunday. I havent decided yet where I want to go for snowpants. I am going to do some shopping around locally and hopefully find a descent deal somewhere. This weekend is going to be busy I think.

I'm the queen of procrastination

I am in a super gidy dreamy mood right now. I can absolutely not focus on work, so what better use of my time than writing in my blog. Plus, lets be honest, I already got every thing done that I needed to get done, and I am on the ready if something pops up.
A and I are going snowtubing on the weekend, and I am super excited about it. I have never been, but I have been wanting to do some kind of winter activity for weeks now, and so I am stoked to go. I am planning on purchasing my very own snowpants and snowboots for this (and other) occassion, because I dont own these, and I feel I would go out and do more stuff if I had them to stay warm, who cares about fashion anyway.
Today I went out for lunch with people from work including my boss. I think it is interesting to see how many people are intimidated by him. I dont get intimidated by people very easily, which I think is helpful most times. It is L's birthday today, so we went to an all you can eat sushi restaurant. It was alright, not as good as the other place we usually go to, and I managed to not over eat. I was proud of myself.
I think part of the reason I am so giddy is the warm weather outside. I just want to go outside and play, I feel like i cant sit still for a minute. Who knew working in an office could be so hard.
Also, my boss and I are having a cereal stand off. He claims his Fiber one can beat any other cereal however, I think Kasi Go Lean is better in overal nutrional content and definetly when it comes to taste. I will keep you posted.
Ps. I am really looking forward to going to europe soon to see my little niece!

Monday I woke up with a scratchy throat, which developed into a cold that kept me busy most of the week. I have been feeling low energy most of the week and am still not back to my usual self. The week has been mostly uneventful. Thursday night we went for dinner at the inlaws and discovered they had purchased a new flat screen tv, which is huge, they havent bought a new tv in pretty much 30 years. Mom was really excited about the mute button and volume control, it was super cute. While A and mom went to costco to exchange roomba I made my first scones ever, and when they came back we settled down for some tea, scones and flat screen tv. It was a nice evening.
Friday evening we had S and C over for dessert. We still had some of their stuff we had used to decorate the wedding hall with, so I was going to drop it off at their place. Instead they came over to ours, so they could see our place. I made caramel dumplings, and i realise they are super easy to make and really tasty. Which is too bad, because now I am going to want to make them all the time and they are realllyy not that healty for you.
Saturday was pretty lazy. A and I are trying to plan our Holland trip, so we surfed the internet for some flights. I heard back from my government testing last week. I passed the test, so now i am going to be going for French testing. I dont know when this is going to be however, so that makes it slightly difficult to plan a trip, if I decide that I want to continue in this competition.
Today we went for a walk with S and L on one of the trails close to where we live. It was a really nice walk, and it was nice to catch up with them. Before we went for our walk I went to change my clothes and discovered my jeans dont fit me anymore. To many christmas cookies? I guess I better eat a bit healthier in the next little while.

Cars and other stuff

Friday wasnt a good day for driving for me as I had a couple of close encounters. I am perfectly fine and nothing happened to me or our car, but I was a little shaken up non the less. It was still a little slippery on the road from the last snow fall. On my way in to work that morning I came around a bend in the road and saw a deer just finishing crossing the road, I slowed down a bit even though the deer wasm pretty much already across on the otherside. However, there was a car coming on that side, and I guess that startled the animal, because it did a perfect 180 and came back across the road and ran right in front of my car. Because I knew nobody was behind me I slammed on the brakes, and missed the deer by a hair, but because it was slippery the car definetly did a bit of sliding around on the road, which in turn caused an almost accident with the car that was approaching from the otherside. Luckily nobody got injured, except for my nerves, which were shaken up. On my way home from work, an oncoming driver tried to turn into a lot somewhere and completely slid into my lane of traffic. I again was able to avoid this car, but needless to say I had had my fill of driving for that day.
Friday night we had our friends A and C with their little boy O over for dinner. A and I have been trying to make gluten free brownies, back and forth, it was her turn to try. They tasted good but not like brownies. We named them Beigies, and I think the beigies are a keeper.
Saturday we had a party in gatnineau with some of A's work friends. It was interesting to finally meet a lot of the people he has been talking about for years now. I had a pretty good time and didnt get too drunk on martinis,
Sunday we met up with A and C again for a superbowl get together. The game was pretty interesting for a football game. But the most exciting thing that happened that night again had to do with our car. No almost accidents this time, but an almost ticket instead. As we pulled up to park A noticed a dont park snow removal sign, eventhough there were lots of cars parked. We decided to follow suit and parked in the middle of the row, where there was one spot left. A kept thinking about the car and decided to go and park it elsewhere. As he drove off he saw a van pull up from the bi-law officers, who started ticketing all the cars. About half an hour later the cars started to get towed away. Good thing A followed his gut feeling and moved the car :)