Pictures

Don't have that much to say today, but I got a pretty good connection going, so I thought I'd share a few pictures with you.

First off is the adorable little marzipan tiger that DH got me for my birthday. The picture is a little fuzzy, but isn't he just adorable?

Then I have two pictures of tulips. In a strange coincidence, this spring I received two sets of potted tulips, a week or so apart. I've been setting them up in different places in the kitchen trying to get the best picture I can before they wilt. They're not the most hardy of flowers, but at least in the fall I will be able to plant them in the garden, and then they will come back every spring :)










As for the summary of the weekend, it was busy but fun and pretty social. First of all, we were supposed to have a baby shower for friends of ours of Sunday, but apparently little Matthew couldn't wait and decided to be born on Saturday (over a month early!). Everyone is doing great, but imagine their surprise :) Just goes to show you never know when the big day will happen! Needless to say, no shower happened, and we will have to get the gifts to them some other time.

Friday night we watched "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", a film we both heartily recommend. DH had seen it previously, so it was nice to see it together. I would definitely watch it again. Saturday we started out with some errands. Then we went to the movie theatre, to see some opera. Yes, you read that right. It's this new thing that the people at the Metropolitan Opera from New York have come up with, where opera performances from the Met are broadcast live in HD to theaters all over the world. It's certainly an interesting experience, and you really can't go wrong seeing an opera for around $20! Unless you hate opera that is ;) Though DH, who's not a big fan of the opera, enjoyed the show nonetheless. We saw Puccini's "Il Trittico", of which the first act was by far the best! If you're interested, take a look at the website, there may be upcoming performances being broadcast where you live. In Canada, the shows are presented by Cineplex.

After that, we went to a friend's house for a birthday celebration of pizza and poker. I won a little money, but DH lost a little, so in the end we came out with 3$ less. A cheap night's entertainment, that's for sure ;)

Today we mostly puttered around the yard, finishing the pathway at the back of the house. I can't believe the day is almost over! The "Amazing Race" has just started, and that always means the end of the weekend. Back to work on Monday, slaving hard trying to meet the deadlines :)

Hope y'all had a good weekend!

Weekend update a few days late...

Another weekend gone, and still no blog update... I am really starting to slack in the blog department. Though I have a few good excuses, like a flaky internet access from home (and I was even going to post some pictures!), and overall busy schedule.

Just to prove that I'm not lying, here's a summary of our weekend:

• Friday night, we installed an outdoor thermometer on our bedroom window so that DH can tell the temp outside without having to turn on the TV in the morning (I kid you not, that has been his m.o. so far!); then we played around in the basement with the setup of the new projector that we're planning to use to watch movies; the consensus right now is that we need a screen (the old white sheet will do in a pinch, but it is suboptimal), but we can probably rig up a stand for it from some spare parts :) another weekend project I guess...
• Saturday we cleaned up the flower beds, pruned all the shrubs around the house, raked the remaining leaves off the lawn, then we replaced the clothesline (it was cracked and rusty, and was starting to poke my fingers and leave rusty prints on the clothes!), then in the afternoon we put together the barbeque that we had bought in the fall of 2005 (eek!), then we got a call from friends for a last minute supper invite, so we went out for supper with the adorable twins (A&E) and their parents - lots of fun! In the evening we went to see the concert given by a local amateur orchestra that our friend belongs to. That was very fun too (her 5 year old daughter was there, and we had some play time, which is always nice), and the music was very good - Peer Gynt amongst others.
• Sunday we first went shopping for supplies, and then we worked outside again (since the weather was fabulous!), creating a walking path behind the house with some old patio stones (it's not finished yet, but pretty close, I will post pictures soon!), right where we eliminated raspberry bushes last year; meanwhile DH cleaned the winter tires and wheels for both cars, washed the winter mats, vaccuumed the cars and put in the summer mats.

On top of that, I think I did something like 7 loads of laundry - with a beautiful drying weather like that, I finally got a chance to wash all the sheets that our guests used a few weeks ago!

So that made for a pretty full weekend. It seems like all of our weekends this year have been pretty packed. This coming weekend is going to be no exception: we're going to a friend's birthday party on Saturday, and then we'll be hosting a baby shower on Sunday.

Aside from that, work is getting pretty crazy busy. But I am getting lots of things accomplished, so I am feeling pretty ok with the whole thing. My project may be a little late, but I'm not expecting too many unsurmountable obstacles between now and the end. Ask me again in a few weeks, though :)

So here you go... Halfway through the week, and I'm only posting the weekend summary. Sad, sad indeed...

Hope everyone is doing well and taking advantage of the warm weather (yay for sandals!).

Gotta get high speed...

I haven't been writing here nearly as much as I would like to. I keep thinking of great subjects to blog about, things to ponder, and it seems like I never have enough time. But then tonight I realized, that if we actually had decent internet access at home, I wouldn't mind spending a few minutes online every evening or so. You see, only having dial-up makes the internet experience so frustrating, by the time I am connected, and I've checked my email, it's been half an hour, and I am tired of sitting and waiting for pages to load (which, BTW is a lot worse with Yahoo! than Gmail), I am in no mood to blog.

Tonight I happen to be staying at my parent's place, who have a high-speed connection, and I decided to do a quick email check (despite the late hour), and realized I could take a few minutes and write a quick note here. Something I can't really do on dial-up without a big time investment.

Lucky for me, the city of Ottawa is rolling out a project that will make high-speed internet accessible for anyone living within the city limits. So I have high hopes that some time this year we will get access to high-speed internet (without the crazy restrictions, and even crazier prices of satellite internet). And then, watch out! I'll be blogging every day :)

But now it's time to head for bed. It's been a long day, and I want to get up early tomorrow morning to head home.

Goodnight!

Bloggers unite!

Ok, I have to admit, I am a bit of a blog addict. I have 9 blogs on my daily blogroll (checked every morning when I get to work), and I have been known to troll the web for more blogs to read whenever time permits (which is pretty rare these days).

Today, on one of the blogs that I read regularly, which I had found through the blog of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend ;), I learned about this blog. My heart goes out to this amazing, courageous woman.


A candle for Snickollet.

Where does the time go?

I know, I know, I've been very quiet... And I had promised to write some stuff about happy times in my life... You can probably add last weekend to that list. It was great! We had a blast! The kids were so amazingly sweet and adorable, and I think everyone had a good time. DH's grandmother's 95th birthday was a great success, with tons of people attending. SIL's husband took lots of pictures, and as soon as I get them I will post a few. I was too busy coordinating food and everything else, I didn't even take one picture! There are a few pictures of DH holding his niece at the party that are just priceless.

Aside from that, work has become really crazy. I will probably have to work most of the weekend to do some catching up... DH has 4 days off for this long weekend, I'll be lucky if I get one... But I can't complain, I took Monday off, so I already had a long weekend :)

Even though we have had some snow today, you can see some signs of spring. Our yard looks a little sad, I can't wait to see flowers and plants sprout up all over the place. This year, we can hopefully do some home improvements on the outside. We need to re-gravel the driveway, and redo the garage roof, and I would really like to get some landscaping done as well. But that's all a lot of work, we'll see if I am a little too ambitious here (ask me again in November :)).

So that's it for an update. Short and sweet, maybe some time this weekend I'll find a little more time to write...

Enjoy the spring sunshine!

Today is DH's birthday! So please join me in song:

Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday dear DH!
Happy birthday to you!

And a Sto lat! for good measure!

And many happy returns!

M

Depression

My new theory (and I haven't done any research on this, so it could be someone else's theory, or it may have been debunked at some point) is that depression is simply a state of extreme connectedness. It's like you feel everything, only magnified. Or maybe that's actually more bipolar ;) I've just been finding that I respond emotionally to everything, just a lot stronger than usual. Sort of a super-enhanced PMS, withouth the aggressivity ;)

I find myself moved by most human contact. It sounds kinda silly, but I am amazed at the good will that people have towards me. People smile and say hi, or stop for a quick chat in the hallway. It makes me feel connected to the fabric of the universe, as those tiny little threads of human connections are an intergral part of the big tapestry.

I'd keep on philosophizing, but I got lots of work waiting for me...

P.S.

Forgot to mention in my last post: the one thing yesterday (and today) that really touched my heart was all the birthday wishes I got from people. I am not the best at remembering dates, so I am always so amazed that anyone would remember my birthday! It sounds kind of silly now that I've written it down, but it was really nice to be remembered I guess :) I am so vain!

Yay?

So yesterday was my birthday. The big 3-2. Not a milestone birthday by any stretch, and yet it hit me like a ton of bricks. This is most likely because I've been in quite a bit of a slump for the last month. Nothing serious, just a bit of depression coming back to haunt me. Never let it be said that you can get over depression... No matter where you get in your life it's always lurking around the corner waiting to pounce the moment it realizes that you are vulnerable. Sigh!

Now, don't you go and get worried about me. The fact that I am actually writing about it tells me that I am much better able to handle this than I've ever been. I am not looking for sympathy, and this is not some cry for help, I just thought I'd document a bit of what's going on inside my head (a dicey proposition at the best of times!)...

In all fairness, my birthday itself was very nice. Everyone involved did their best to celebrate the occasion with enthusiasm and flair. My family in Montreal threw a dinner party Sunday night, which was quite delicious and very enjoyable. I got beautiful gifts and cards, and even cake (though it was chocolate, so I didn't actually have any). We didn't leave Montreal until late, so we got home past our bedtime, but it was worth it :)

Then last night DH took me out for dinner, and then we had another cake at home. This one was a raspberry mousse, so I had a decent sized piece :) He also got me a very very cute little marzipan tiger. I'll try to remember to take a picture of him one of these days so I can post it here.

So you're going to say this doesn't really sound like such a terrible birtday, and you're probably right. Except maybe for all the people asking me about my procreation plans... And most of those people were not even aware that it was my birthday! What, do I have a tattoo on my forehead that says "Please ask me about babies!!!"? I mean, I expect that from my Mom, but casual acquaintances at work??? Just plain weird. It doesn't really help that the writer of one of the blogs I've come to follow religiously get some terribly upsetting news yesterday (and I find that she communicates it so well, you feel like you're there with her...).

So why the long face you ask? They say depression doesn't need a reason, and that's probably true, and sometimes small things (and at times big things) can give you that little nudge... And now every time I think about writing a blog, the only things that come to mind are dark and gloomy thoughts. Instead of giving into that impulse, I've decided that I want to sit down and write an entry about all the happy moments in my life, and I hope to be able to do that at some point this week. But I have to admit that it's turning out to be a lot harder than expected. I could certainly go for hours talking about the low points, but really, I am dubious about the benefit of that. I am long past the point where it would feel cathartic, it seems more self-indulging and whiney... Yes, the bad times deserve to be documented at some point, but I'd rather see them documented with a good dose of humour (even if it's black), rather than self-pity... So they will have to wait until my sense of humour is back ;)

Other than that, 32 feels fine. My Mom was recalling how old she felt when she was 32 (and on her second pregnancy), but I don't find myself feeling much older than last week. Or wiser for that matter ;)

That's it for my birthday ramblings... I promise to be more upbeat in an upcoming entry (though that may have to wait, as spare time is pretty hard to find these days - tomorrow nigh our choir has another performance at a retirement residence, so I am sure tonight's practice is going to go late...).

Oh, and just so that this post is not all gloom and doom, I am really quite excited about the end of this month, as most of DH's family is planning to descend on our house. It will be DH's grandmother's 95th birthday, so BIL and his pregnant wife and their twins, SIL and her husband, and FIL are all going to come over to stay at our place for the weekend. I'm sure it's going to be fun (though hectic). And it will definitely help pull me out of this slump ;) Babies have a way of doing that!!! I'll be sure to post plenty of pictures.

Another weekend bites the dust

Another busy weekend went by. Unfortunately, I had to come into work on Sunday, but it was such a beautiful day DH decided to go for one last skate on the canal. As of this morning, the canal is now closed, so it was his last chance. We toyed with the idea of going for a ski in the late afternoon, but the snow levels are pretty low. The sun has been melting the snow quite a bit over the last week...

In other news, from the wild animals at the homestead, yesterday afternoon I found a dead mole at the back entrance to the house (sorry, no pictures). Placed perfectly just at the door. Because I suspect no mole in its right mind would climb 7 steps of stairs just to die at our doorstep, I am assuming this is a present from our feline friend. She hasn't forgotten us! Even though she spent most of the winter in the neighbour's barn, she must still have fond memories of us, leaving us such a sweet (and gross) present! I ended up using the snow shovel to get it out in the yard...

Aside from that, we did some more tidying up around the house. We finally completely cleaned out the computer room. I wish I had taken a before picture, because the room is unrecognizeable now. We took out a bookshelf, and moved the old computer downstairs, so the room is a lot more spacious, and DH keeps complaining about the echo :) We need to hang up stuff on the walls, now that we've opened up so much space... I am not the biggest cleaning/tidying fan out there, but I have to admit that it's a nice feeling to get the place cleaned up like this from time to time. We now have at least 3 more useful rooms compared to what we had at the end of last year (1 unfinished room, and 2 rooms full of junk). Which works out well, since at the end of the month we will have a house full of guests, as DH's family is coming to town to celebrate his grandmother's 95th birthday. That means my FIL will be here, plus two couples (SIL+husband and BIL+wife), plus the twins. We better have lots of space so everyone can fit and not feel crowded...

Work is getting busier and busier all the time. I think it's only going to get worse, at least until the summer. I am in charge of a project that is going to require lots of coding, and there's only two of us working on it (the other guy being a new grad), and we only have around 10 weeks to get it all done. All of it. And I am still just working on the documentation for it... But I'm getting a fairly good idea of what we need to do, and if I need to work nights and weekends, then so be it. At least it's a very interesting project, working on something that's new to me, so it's kind of exciting. Ask me again if this was a good idea in 2 months :)

That's my update for today!

Animal video

This video just made my day! You need sound to fully enjoy it, so put on your headphones, or un-mute your speakers :)



Isn't it great? Certainly brightened up my day :)

So here we go again

Today is D-day for layoffs in my area. Everyone is pretty gloomy. It looks like most of the people were notified already, so everyone is gathering in the hallways discussing what it all means. I have to say, they always manage to surprise me. Some of the cuts were unfortunately quite expected, but others seem to come out of the blue. Then again, some people seem to escape multiple rounds of layoffs unscathed, though if this had been "Survivor", they would have been voted off long ago.

It's really hard to find the motivation to do anything at all when stuff like this happens. I know I am behind on producing my document, and I was really hoping to have it done today, but it's starting to look less and less likely that it will actually happen. Instead, I am chatting with coworkers and blogging. I think it's a pretty common thing, that a day of layoffs roughly translates into a week of lost productivity. Even though we're getting better and better at dealing with it, realizing that it's not the end of the world. Most people I know who got let go, ended up going on to do bigger and better things (one of my friends completed a grueling MBA program, and had just joined the Clinton Foundation, helping stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa - how cool is that?). Still, this kind of rejection is never easy, especially in the first few days/weeks/months. Everyone goes through all those stages of grief, though some faster than others. Those of us left behind simply shake our heads, and wait for the next round...

Told you things were gloomy around here!

Later!

Long time no post...

Sorry for the long silence, it's been a little hectic recently... To make up for it, here's a link to a test I found really interesting: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/sex/index_cookie.shtml

My result was at the 25 mark on the female side. I had a lot of fun filling it out too :)

We don't really have any plans for the weekend, just hanging out and relaxing. Last weekend we had some friends over, and next week we're hosting another dinner party, so this weekeng we're taking it easy. It's been a hectic two weeks, so we need some rest.

Last night we went to the movies and saw "Ghost Rider", which I would recommend you avoid if you can! I don't usually mind comic book based movies, but this one had absolutely no substance. Nicholas Cage didn't do too bad, but the lead female actor, Eva, was pretty one-dimensional...

Later!

Another weekend over...

Where does the time go? We had another super busy weekend. Friday night I babysat our friends' twin girls - soooo cute!!!! Had a lot of fun with the little tykes, they're getting so big, and so independant. And they're starting to say some words! It was my first time alone with the girls, and it went very well. I was introduced to the delicious snack of goldfish (yummy), interspersed with raisins :)

On Saturday we went over to a friend's place for an evening of card playing (the distinguished game of a$$h@le), and that ended pretty late. And this morning I had brunch with a few friends. In between all this socializing, we managed to do some more cleanup in the house, emptying out the closed in one of the guest rooms, using the handy new wardrobes that we have installed in the basement. So we now have a nice clean and uncluttered room, which is really good, as we haven't been able to use it much lately...

Here's a shot of the aligned wardrobes:


And now it's the end of the weekend again... I wish I could say I'm ready for another work week, but I think I could use an extra night of sleep ;)

As promised a few weeks ago, here's a shot of the latest basement renovations: notice the post cover, complete with the baseboard covers on the bottom, as well as the baseboards and quarter rounds at the bottom of all the walls:



Before I sign off, I'd like to recommend a movie we saw last week: Pan's Labirynth. It's a spanish movie released last year that's making the rounds in local theatres. It's pretty gory at times, we both looked away during a few scenes, but overall it's a great movie. Wonderful fantasy sequences, juxtaposed with civil war era Spain, it is beautifully filmed, with great acting. Hollywood quality production, with independent quality narrative. Highly recommended!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Gloomy wednesday

Here we go again... My company announced another round of layoffs... Not that it was completely unexpected, or that we shouldn't do any trimming... But it's always so unpleasant to go through another round. Was chatting with some coworkers today and we all agreed that it's hard to tell what the "best" outcome is, as getting a package sure has it's own attractions. So it's not so much being worried about losing our job that gets to us. It's the uncertainty, not knowing who goes and who stays, hard to get any work (or even worse, planning) done. People cancel their vacations, people hold off on major purchases... It's a big disruption. And then when the axe falls, it's always hard to say goodbye to friends and coworkers... Of course this year quite a few people have quit, so we've been saying lots of goodbyes anyway!

So that's my sob story for the day. Oh, and it's pretty darn cold outside too. Though luckily I haven't had to spend much time outdoors lately. Our wood pile is getting small, it'll soon be time to cut and split some more wood, but it's definitely not the kind of work I feel like doing when it's -25 outside :) Yesterday my car had the check engine light on, and I was starting to get worried, but I gassed it up and it's fine now, so I am assuming the cause for the light was just little gas in the tank combined with the frigid weather. That's my story and I'm sticking to it ;)

On the family side, still no news from FIL. He's stable and waiting. Hoping to come and visit us around March 31st, to celebrate his Mom's 97th birthday. DH's brother and his wife are also planning to fly in, with the twins, for a big family reunion :) In the meantime, my own folks are traipsing through Chile - sounds like a lot of fun: active volcanoes, lots of trees and flowers and lots of opportunities to practice their spanish!

Hope you're all keeping warm and having fun.

Football cake

Quick update on the football cake: the shape is a little less than perfect (slightly lumpy), but I managed to produce something vaguely resembling a football. I just hope it tastes good :)

And now I'm ready to sleep. Too much cake and icing and running around trying to get this thing assembled. But I'm glad I took a picture, so I can have a reminder :) This is the first time that I've attempted something cooky like that.

Welcome to February

And so it is February. Winterlude, Ottawa's yearly winter festival has started. The canal is filled with people on skates, taking advantage of the mild-ish weather. DH went skating earlier this week, but I haven't had the chance yet. Instead, today we went to the National Gallery, to see a traditional Haida dance performance. A friend from the McGill alumni choir had invited us, and it was definitely worth the visit. Both DH and I thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I'd never had a chance to see anything like this in person, and I found it very captivating. I was expecting to be entertained, but came out spiritually rejuvenated. I'd certainly recommend it. Although it seems like this is a fairly rare event, so unless you live on the west coast of BC you may not often get the chance to see something like this. I certainly gained a better appreciation for the Haida carvings. Seen in a museum, they may be interesting, but when worn in a dance, they take on a life of their own, and seem to communicate a lot more. Or at least that's been my experience... So I am very thankful to my friend for letting us know this was happening (it didn't seem to be a very publicised event).

Tomorrow we're going to a friends' house for a Superbowl party. I am attempting to make a football shaped cake - hope it comes out ok :O

Later,

More kittens...

Man, I can't believe February is almost here. Where does the time go? This Saturday, my parents are leaving for a vacation in Chile...

Not much time for posting tonight, but I just wanted to add another movie starring our favourite kittens :)



Later!

Kittens... soooo cute!

As promised, I'm posting a video of kitten sillyness. Nothing cuter than tiny little kittens discovering their world.



Hope you like it!

The saga continues...

Well, we fought some more with the video camera and the laptop on the weekend. We actually ended up using USB2 instead of firewire to transfer the video (with Windows Movie Maker), and that seemed to work fine. Of course most other video editing software requires firewire upload, so we may still have to configure that at some point.

So I spent a whole bunch of time downloading video from the 3 90-minute tapes that we have. All the downloading has to be done real-time, with the tape in playback mode, so as you can imagine it takes a bit of time. And of course after I'd done most of the transferring, I was surprised at the small footprint of all the files (I was expecting Gigs, but only got a few hundred Megs). Turns out I was downloading the video at a lower resolution/quality. Even though the option I selected was "Best quality for my computer". Sigh! So then I downloaded a few pieces of video at full resolution. That does take a lot of space! So I think I will download bits at a time, edit them, write them to DVD (gotta go buy a DVD burner first). I don't have enough space on my hard drive for more than one tape at a time.

Oh, the joys of video editing! Maybe tonight I'll be able to post a quick video of the kittens that I filmed last summer (too cute!!!).

Aside from all the playing around with the video camera, I had a pretty good weekend. Lots of stuff got done, I got caught up on laundry, did a bunch of cooking (first case of badly burned food in my brand new pot, seems to have survived ok), some sewing (I fixed up a set of sheets - that was a big job!), more basement work (we had to re-glue the post covers), some cleanup and tidying. But it wasn't all work no play, I also went to the NAC to see the Royal Winnipeg Ballet perform "A Cinderella Story". A new twist on the timeless classic ;) It was very cute, I liked the choreography and the costumes. Unfortunately they had a couple of issues with their props (a piece of cable tangled up in the main character's skirt, a curtain that stayed stuck in one of the four anchor points), which was a little distracting. But overall it was a nice evening. Though I spent all of my intermission in the bathroom lineup - with only 3 stalls in the ladies room, it was very hard to get in... I was impressed at the number of young people (not just small kids, but teenagers), and especially young men attending the performance. And most of them really dressed up! It was very neat! After the performance we went out for our traditional tea at the the Chateau Laurier. As usual, very nice!

I think that sums up the weekend pretty well. Oh, yeah, Sunday night DH and I watched a movie from 10 years ago called Thousand Acres. I really liked the movie, for some reason it spawned a whole bunch of thought processes in my head. I must have just been in the right mood, because I can see how it could also be considered slow, boring and a little melodramatic. Though DH said that it wasn't bad as far as chick flicks go ;)

Later,

Video camera saga

You just gotta love technology. With it's promises to deliver faster, cheaper, more exciting things all the time, you can't help but buy in to the hype. After all, they must know what they're doing!

Well, let me tell you the long and convoluted story about our China movies. We bought a digital video camera before going to China, because we really wanted to capture parts of our trip on video. We're really glad we did, because some of the footage is pretty awesome. However, when we bought the camera, we didn't buy anything to transfer the video to our computer, where we could edit the more than 3 hours of video we filmed. We figured we'd just buy all the hardware later.

You would think it would be pretty simple to buy what we need: a firewire card that can plug into our laptop, and a firewire cable to connect the camera to this card. Over the Christmas break, I ventured into Future Shop to get the combination of card and cable, and came home with both, pretty happy with myself. Well, it turns out the card works for some laptops, but not ours. Not that our laptop is anything special. It's not brand spanking new (around a year old, which in computer terms is pretty old), it's not very fancy or anything. It just uses a PCMCIA interface that apparently no store in Canada (or at least Ottawa) carries. I spent a few good hours on the internet that night trying to figure out what the specific interface is that we need. On our slow 56K connection, it took me 3 hours to download the user's guide for the laptop just to confirm that I had the right name for the interface... I ended up returning the card to Future Shop, thank goodness for their forgiving return policy!

Sigh! So you would think once I had the name of the interface (ExpressCard, for those technically inclined), it would be a snap to get the right parts... Well, as I mentioned, I could not find a local store carrying any ExpressCard cards. Not even the Dell store (we have a Dell laptop). So in the end we resorted to buying the card online. Straight from the manufacturer, to simplify things. We figured it would take a week or two, and we would have our card. Lo and behold, we get a card in our mailbox yesterday (more than 3 weeks after placing the order), telling us that there is a package at the UPS depot, and it will be held there until the 22nd (and we got the card on the 24th!). We raced to the UPS depot, where luckily they still had the package. I guess they were dragging their feet because it was an international parcel. Lucky for us! Though I still don't know why it took the little notice almost 10 days to get into our mailbox...

So we were hoping this would be the end of the story. After all, we now have a card, and a cable, the one I had bought at Future Shop around a month ago... We were so wrong! It turns out that there are 3 types of interfaces for those darn firewire cables: 4 pin, 6 pin and 9 pin. As luck would have it, the cable I bought was a 4-to-6 pin (the camera has a 4 pin output, so that end has to be 4), but the new card requires a 9 pin. So we really need a 4-to-9 pin cable. A quick look at the websites for the various stores so far shows no availability of such a cable locally. There are 4-to-6 cables, 6-to-6, 9-to-9 and other variants, but no 4-to-9. We did find a 4-to-9 cable in an online store, but we'd rather not wait another 3 weeks to get this last part. We'll go take a look at a few local stores to see if there is maybe a way to get this locally.

Needless to say, this is a very frustrating process. All we wanted was two pieces of hardware to connect our camera to the laptop. We thought we knew the specs of what we needed. Turns out, there's more than one (or 2) types of PCMCIA cards, and more than 1 (or 2) types of firewire cables. The proliferation of standards is just such a pain in the behind for the average consumer, and there's nowhere you can find any resources to guide you with your purchase. Even most of the computer stores we went to had no idea what we were talking about when we asked for the parts by name. I can't imagine someone who's not working in high tech trying to get this stuff. Very frustrating!

Hopefully our last step in this unnecessarily long process doesn't take too long. Once I can get the video from the camcorder to the laptop, I will probably post a few short clips, to show you it was all worthwhile. Of course I will first have to find, install, configure and learn some kind of video editing software...

I think that's probably long enough of a rant for one day :)

Take care!

Still no news...

about FIL. Waiting for a meeting with the neurosurgeon, crossing our fingers! And sending positive vibes... We may have to go to London (ON) to visit sometime soon.

In the meantime, we're making a bit more progress on the basement front. We put brand new covers on the old ugly posts in the basement. Unfortunately the first glue we tried didn't work very well, so we'll have to re-glue... But in a few days, we should really be done with the whole basement renovation. And then I promise to post those pictures (the camera battery is needs recharging).

In the meantime, I thought I would post another barn picture, as promised in my profile, from a different season. Here's one from September 2003:

The good, the bad and the ugly...

Here's some good news: tonight I managed to touch up the paint on the baseboards and the quarter rounds in the basement. So as of today the basement flooring project can be considered done. Yay!!! Pictures to come very soon (once we move the furniture back to where it belongs).

Now from the adventure archive... Last week the driver's side headlight fried in the Audi. Which is doubly annoying, because the car has some kind of detection mechanism to diagnose it, and beeps loudly whenever you start it. It's not easy to access the headlight, so it wasn't something we were going to change ourselves. Luckily our mechanics are great and told us to drop by anytime to get it fixed. But I had been too busy to actually go there during the week. Then last Thursday, I was driving back home from my volleyball game downtown, at around 10pm, just so eager to get home, minding my own business. Some guy in an old beat up car with a makeshift back seat window made out of duck tape pulls out across the street, driving slightly erratically. As I am thinking "where are the cops when you need them?", I notice a police car on the side of the road. The cop pulls out, and starts to drive behind me. He follows me for a few blocks, and then puts on his lights... So I pull over trying to get out of his way, and he proceeds to pull over behind me. I could not believe it! I've never, ever been pulled over by the police, so I was very shocked. The cop comes over to let me know that I have a headlight out. I told him that the car lets me know about it :) He says he has to give me a "72 hour", which is basically a ticket that you can get cancelled if you show up at the police station showing that whatever problem has been fixed. And then he asks me for the papers. I found my driver's license, but couldn't find anything else (except for some expired papers). So I got another "72 hour", which was really lucky. Of course by the time I got home, DH showed me all the appropriate papers in the car (where I had looked, though I guess I was a little too nervous). Anyway, I got both tickets cancelled the next day (after a quick trip to the mechanics'), but it was still quite an adventure...

And in the not so fun news, one of my good friends at work decided to quit last week, to pursue a graduate degree. It's really good for her, and I am happy she's pursuing her dreams, but it will be kind of sad without her around. We've been having lunch together every day at work for years now, so it will be a big difference...

And just hot off the presses (DH just talked to his sister), FIL had a few other MRIs, and went through an epilepsy clinic, and they're now pretty much convinced it's a tumor. I guess in a way it's good news, because there's a diagnosis, but it's also very scary... We'll keep you posted!

Good night!

Basement weekend (again)

I am sure you're getting bored with hearing me talk about the basement renovations... The good news is that it only needs another weekend or so to be completely finished. This weekend we managed to cut, paint and install all the quarter rounds, so all that's left is touching up the freshly installed baseboards and quarter rounds, and installing column covers over the ugly columns in the center of the room.

This weekend, IKEA had some wardrobes for sale for $100 (it's called Alleby wardrobe, but there's no good links for it on their site). For such a low price, how can you go wrong? So we bought 3 of them, and even assembled one. They will provide storage in the newly finished basement room. They're not too hard to assemble, though they're not the most sturdy thing out there (but for the price, I didn't expect much). I don't think they would survive being disassembled and re-assembled very well. But they should fit our need just fine. So that's another thing that still needs to be done: assemble the two remaining wardrobes. And then I can start migrating some of the mess from upstairs into an organized mess in the basement :)

In other news, this morning we woke up to a beautiful carpet of snow all over the yard. Yes, winter has finally decided to arrive. It's very pretty, all pristine white everywhere. And lots of fun to be had in the all-wheel-drive, winter-tire claden and equipped with stability control vehicle. I had a blast driving in to work this morning :) DH had to drive the trusty old probe, but even his drive in wasn't too bad (not too much traffic so early in the day, and in town the snow was just starting). Maybe there's some hope for winter yet ;)

Time to get back to work!

Long time no write

Yes, I've been slacking... Well, at least when it comes to blogging :) We had a pretty busy weekend, and even weekdays have been pretty filled the last week or so. We've finally resumed working on finishing the basement. It's only been going on for 2 years now :O But the end is in sight! For over a year the only thing that was left to do was baseboards and quarter rounds. Well, as of Sunday, the baseboards have been installed! They just need a bit of touch-up paint, and they're ready to go. We need another free weekend to do the same with the quarter rounds, and the basement floor will be officially done. It will be a great accomplishment, although we do feel quite guilty for procrastinating so long on something that only takes 2 weekends to do...

I'll post some photos of the stages of our basement "upgrades" next time I post from home. With the fake fireplace, and some furniture strewn around the room it's starting to look like an inhabitable space, and not the ginormous cavern it used to be :)

To get the baseboards installed, we needed a nail gun, and so we proceeded to a Canadian Tire store to get it. Usually, I avoid shopping for at least a whole month after Christmas (being all "shopped out"), so this was the first time I got to see the Canadian Tire parking lot in early January. I could not believe the number of cut Christmas trees still in the lot, that never got sold. It's so sad that all those trees have been cut, and are now pretty much useless (well, except maybe for mulch or something). Christmas trees always present me with a dilemma. We always had fresh cut Christmas trees at home, as big as we could possibly fit into the house! So I always associate the smell of the sap and the evergreen with the Christmas season, and find it hard to imagine celebrating the season without a fresh tree standing in the corner. On the other hand, I have some concerns about buying live Christmas tree, mostly because of the environmental impact (big waste, and poor forestry practices associated with the business).

One year we went to a "cut-your-own" lot (where at least few trees get wasted, and some are left to grow to full size), but we ended up with an infected tree with bugs that were quickly eating up the needles. We had to throw out the tree a few days after Christmas, because we were afraid the bugs would attack our furniture or something. It was pretty gross, and I even had nightmares of the bugs eating through our floor for a few months after that...

Then another year we bought a tree in a pot. We figured we would use it as a Christmas tree, and in the spring we would plant it in the back yard. Sort of a slow re-forestation process for our back forty. Unfortunately, I was pretty clueless about this. We had been storing the tree out on our deck, and brought it in for the Christmas season. When all was said and done, I brought it back onto the deck. Going from the temperate climate of inside the house to the dead of winter killed the tree pretty much on the spot... This is probably an experiment worth repeating, keeping the tree indoors until the spring. But it requires andvance planning, because it's hard to find potted evergreens in November, when all the nurseries have closed...

This year we cut a tree that was on its way out anyway, so that made the decision easy. We definitely have a bunch of adequate Christmas-like trees in the back yard, but I'd rather see them grow and multiply rather than cut them down. I would love to have more trees growing back there, though so far all our efforts to plant new ones have been thwarted (mostly by the animal population deciding to munch on the tasty new greens...).

So that's my rant about Christmas and evergreens and trees in general :)

Take care!

Guilty pleasures...

We just finished watching season 2 of the TV series Lost, that a coworker lended me over the holidays. It's not my all-time favourite TV show - that honour belongs to Buffy the Vampire Slayer - but it's pretty darn close. The writing of this show is really good, and trying to keep track of all the connections on the show, as well as guess what the heck is going on, is good mental gymnastics. We watched the whole 22 episodes in less than a week, which has to be a testament to the enjoyment factor of the show.

I'm really trying to reduce the number of hours I spend in front of the TV, so I generally try not to get hooked on new shows, but sometimes something falls through the cracks. Like when a coworker hands me a whole season of a show, telling me I have to watch it, cause it's just that good. How can I resist that? Of course that's also how the whole Buffy obsession started, when a friend loaned us season 1 on DVD. And now we own all 7 seasons ourselves, plus a few seasons of Angel. Speaking of which, we still have Angel season 5 to watch :)

There's no better way to watch a TV show with an arc than on DVD. It's faster (no commercials), more enjoyable, and you can really binge when you feel like it. I am speaking from experience here ;)

That's my guilty admission for the day!

Have a good one!

Happy 2007!

And so it is the new year! Happy New Year everyone, hope your wishes for 2007 all come true!

I have no idea what 2007 has in store for us, but I dare hope at least some of it will be good.

Last night we celebrated the arrival of the new year at our friends' place. We ate tons of homemade authentic chinese food (yummy!), and met a few new people, had interesting conversations about travel (one couple had just come back from a trip to Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong and a few other places - 10 different planes!). Then we watched the movie Talladega Nights, a very light fare! We came back home in the freezing rain, so the driving was a little dicey, but we made it back no problem, just took a little longer than usual. And today we just plan to relax, watch a few episodes of the second season of Lost, eat leftovers and not think too much about going into work tomorrow ;)

I'm leaving you with the latest picture of Tiger, the neighbour's cat. Isn't she cute?

Christmas puzzle

Just wanted to show off a bit :) DH and I just finished a puzzle that I had started with my family on Christmas day. Those 3-d puzzles have become sort of a tradition for us over the years. This year, it's a puzzle of Sydney's Opera House. It was pretty challenging, but it looks pretty good if I may say so myself :) Here are two shots of it (not my best camera work, it's getting pretty late...).




Ciao!

And so it's done...

Christmas is officially over. The family has gone back home, DH is back at work, and I'm sitting on the couch in my pyjamas, blogging. The house is still a mess (though we had done a great job getting it cleaned up before the big day!), and hopefully I'll gather up some motivation to clean it up later this afternoon... But for now I'm just resting. It's been a pretty exhausting few days, a whirlwind of activity, and food and crazy family stuff.

In family news, FIL is out of the hospital, and seems to have stabilized. He still didn't get a proper diagnosis, and should be going into an epilepsy center in the new year (the clinic is closed over the holidays), and understandably the uncertainty seems to be taking an emotional toll. But January is around the corner, and hopefully he can get a proper diagnosis then. In the meantime we're sending him all the positive vibes that we can...

On my side of the family, things are going pretty well. I was impressed this week by how much both of my sisters have grown up. They're both adult now, and getting more mature and adult with every day. It's really cool! I am so glad to see them becoming their own people. Of course, that's not without some growing pains... Which made for an interesting Christmas for sure. Lots of clashing opinions, some of them irreconcilable. I think everyone left with some food for thought, on top of the actual food. I think we have enough leftovers to feed everyone until the new year :)



I've attached a picture of the tree we decorated. It's a little unconventional, since it is one of the bushes around our house that had been broken by the recent ice-storm. It was so damaged, we cut it down and brought it in and used it as our Chritsmas tree. Of course it fell down (seems to be a family tradition for us) right on Christmas eve, but we managed to prop it up again, and secure it, and it seems very solid now :) Should last us for a while, which it needs to, since the Polish tradition is to have it up until February!

Ok, time to start tidying up around here :D

Hope everyone is having a great time for the holidays!

Later!

Christmas preparations...

First of all, the good (or at least slightly better) news: FIL seems to be doing ok, he's still at the hospital, but should be coming out soon. He was given some fairly strong drugs to stop seizures, and it's taking a bit of time for the drugs to wear out. It seems that he's now on the fast track to get all the required tests and doctors appointmnents... We're crossing our fingers, hoping to get the diagnosis soon. Thanks everyone for the good wishes!!!

And so it is the Christmas eve's eve (where did the time go?), and we've been busy preparing and preparing. Most of the day was spent cooking and cleaning, but it was pretty worthwhile. The house is pretty clean (mostly thanks to DH who ran around all day cleaning windows, vacuuming and washing floors etc), and there's plenty of food :) Well, it helps that my Mom is bringing lots of the requisite foods tomorrow, so I only had to make the traditional salad (even though that sounds easy, it's a big job, took me around 3 hours!), the traditional soup called barszcz, and I baked some cookies. I also wrapped all the presents (Yay!). Tomorrow I'm baking some breads, and some of the basic fixins, like veggies and simple salads. In no time it will be Christmas Eve dinner (traditionally the biggest celebration in the Polish culture). Looking forward to it!

In other news, I actually went to Montreal earlier this week, for a little less than 24 hours. I met up with old friends for dinner on Thursday night, and had a really great time. E-mail is nice, phone conversations are good, but there's nothing like getting together with friends in person, and talking the night away...

It's getting really late, lots of work still to do tomorrow, so I better go to sleep!

Ta-ta!

Life is full of zasadzkas...

Or in plain english, life is full of traps. Doesn't quite have the same ring ;)

So yes, there's a saying in Polish that goes "Life is brutal and full of zasadzkas". And at times it really seems like that is true. This morning we got news from my FIL (father-in-law). As expected, news that wakes you up is bad news. FIL was hospitalized overnight, with constant seizures. We don't really have much info, other than the fact that they gave him some medication IV, that basically knocked him out, so this morning SIL was waiting for him to wake up. The hope is that this will cause him to be bumped up in priority to get his next MRI as soon as possible. He's been waiting for almost two months, and was supposed to wait another month and a half. He had been put on new medication, and that seemed to eradicate the symptoms (seizures and blacking out), so we were hopeful that he would be able to make it until then without too much worry (well, except maybe for him getting restless staying at SIL's house - he's sort of an independent spirit). So much for that hope I guess...

So as you can imagine, our plans are currently in flux. DH will be talking to his sister tonight to get more information, and figure out a plan for the next few weeks. As of right now, I am on holidays until the 2nd (Yay!), so I am pretty mobile, but DH has to work until the end of this week, and then for 3 days next week, and he just started a new job this week, so it's a little more complicated for him to travel right now. Of course we'll do what we need to do, there's lots of options... but for now I know nothing, hopefully we'll have a better idea of the situation tonight.

So that's the zasadzkas for today!

Hope your day is going better!

Christmas letters

So it is this time of year again when I start getting Christmas letters from people. I really like that, as it gives me a chance to catch up on things I may have missed, or get a new perspective on things that happened in our friends and acquaintances lives. So I look forward to reading the latest and greatest sent to us on pretty paper inserted into cute Christmas cards.

In fact, one year I even wrote our own Christmas letter. I think that was the year we got married. But I found it way too hard. How do you find the right balance of sharing great news with pride, without sounding boastful? Do you bring up the less pleasant parts of the year for the sake of completeness, or will that put a damper on the happy holiday season for some of the readers? And of course then there's DH, who's a lot more private than me, and doesn't really get this need to take advantage of the opportunity of sending a card to innundate our friends and family with information they either already have, or else they don't want to know :) I guess having a blog is the happy medium for me: people don't have to read it if they don't want to, and I can still overshare all of my daily thoughts and activities ;) Maybe I should just send everyone on my Christmas card list a link to the blog :) Not sure I am ready for prime time yet ;)

So here you go, my perspective on Christmas letters. I think I was pretty succinct (for my standards anyway) for once!

Later,

Feeling better

So I am slowly recovering... I've been eating ok since Friday, but it's been a slower recovery than I anticipated... But next week I only have 3 days of work, so I'm not too worried :)

Despite it all, we had a pretty good productive weekend. We sent out the presents for DH's family (I spent most of the day Saturday sewing Christmas stockings for the twins), and finished and mailed all the cards that needed to be mailed. It turned out to be a really big job! We also got some new outdoor Christmas lights and installed them! So the outside of the house is finally ready for Christmas. We just need to setup the inside :D

Tomorrow I have another busy day: it's the last session of JA before the end of the year, and also another sampler at the work gym, called "Yogalates", some kind of combination of Yoga and Pilates. In between regular sessions, our gym puts on these samplers for free to get us to try something new (and hopefully get hooked on it). That's how I started doing yoga over a year ago. So this session I decided to try out all of the samplers available, just for fun. Last week it was Spinning with Djembe, then Body Burn and last but not least Latin Jam. I never thought much about spinning, it always struck me as a very static activity, but I thought that maybe with the Djembe drum it may be more interesting. But in the end, my initial impression turned out to be correct. Needless to say, I won't be registering for the regular session.

On the other hand, Body Burn was really good. It's basically a toning class, where the only weight used was our own body weight. Our instructor was quite pregnant, and it was amazing to see her do all of the exercises (well, except for the ones where you're laying on your belly :)). I could feel the burn for a few days after the session! The third sampler, Latin Jam, was the best one of the three. Latin beats, choreography, what could be better? It barely even felt like exercise (except for all the sweating ;)).

All that to say that I'm looking forward to the Yogalates tomorrow, since so far the trend has been upwards :) Here I go with my verbosity again!

So this week it's 3 days of work, one day in Montreal, then two days prepping the house, and then it's Christmas eve! My whole family is going to come and stay with us for a few days, and that should be lots of fun! Then DH goes back to work, and I will get a chance to do some more cleanup around the house. I am hoping to really organize our pictures, because we have thousands of them all over the computer, with no apparent order to them. Any good finds, I will post on the blog :)

Later,

Food poisoning sucks!

So I was going to write a post about all the different exercise classes I've taken this week at the gym at work. But then last night I got a bad case of food poisoning (at least that's what I'm assuming). We had dinner at McDonalds - a friend suggested the place. The food seemed ok, if a little on the heavy/greasy side. I came home with a lump in my stomach, but figured I would manage to digest it by the time I went to bed. Turned out that wasn't the case: DH got really tired of my getting up every few hours running to the bathroom with McChicken and fries coming back up... Every time I thought I was done, and then a few hours later I'd have a repeat. A pretty unpleasant experience, all in all. I usually have a pretty strong stomach, so I am not used to such upheavals from my digestive system.

The good news is that so far I've managed to keep my breakfast down, so I think the worst is behind me. I'm just a little exhausted from the feverish and frequently interrupted night. And the lack of nutrients I suppose :)

So that's my story for today. When I feel a little more awake, I'll write up a post about the exercise classes...

Shopping mall weekend

This weekend the Junior Achievement companies are selling their wares at one of the local malls (St. Laurent mall for those familiar with the area). Which means that us, the advisors, have to drop by from time to time to provide some adult supervision. Which means I get to spend a good part of my weekend in a shopping mall... Yay...

But it's not all bad. Even though our company started the weekend a little shakily (3 hours late on Saturday), things seem to have picked up a little, and the sales seem to be going well. I'm looking forward to seeing the weekend's totals!

In other news, I finally got a few more pictures of the new batch of kittens. Aren't they just the cutest? Because they were weaned fairly early, and our neighbour still feeds them from a bottle, they are very friendly to humans. If you drop by, they walk over shakily (they're still learning this whole walking thing) and meow and start grabbing your ankles, hoping to get picked up and fed. So cute!!! Hopefully I can get the pictures up today (it's a little iffy from home), if not, I'll try to add them from work tomorrow.

On a completely unrelated note, for some reason, I've been listening to a lot of different music all weekend (multiple drives to a mall at the other end of the city will do that to you I guess), and was reminded of a conversation I had had with a coworker earlier this week. He mentioned he didn't understand why people quote music lyrics, as it mostly seems very trite and unoriginal. On the spot, I couldn't really think of good examples of why quoting music would make sense. I myself sometimes struggle trying to understand poetry. But when it comes to music, I have to say that I get the whole quote thing. Especially with the more thoughtful music (i.e. not so much pop). I just think sometimes what makes music so powerful is the ability of the writer to capture a thought or a feeling in a concise few words. It seems that it always takes me paragraphs and paragraphs to express what I'm thinking and feeling, so obviously I am awed by the ability to capture something like that in a few simple words. And listening to music over the weekend, I managed to hear a few lines that really resonated with me. So in the end, I think I feel sad for people who don't "get" music quotes, because they are missing out on a certain deeper level connection with the artist. Or at least that's what I think anyway.

On this note, I leave you, as I have to head back to the shopping mall! Take care!

December came in with a bang

So Friday was December first. And also the day of my company's Chrismas party. This was the first time we had an actual Christmas party for the company since the year 2000. But as DH remembered, every time we've had a Christmas party, the weather has been horrible. And so true to the form, Friday we had a great big storm. Nothing too terrible, but our road had a few feet of slushy snow. I went home after work to get changed, and found out that our house had lost power. I had less than 30 minutes to get ready, and it was already dark. It was quite an interesting experience doing my hair and makeup by candlelight... But I managed to get ready and drive downtown to pick up DH, and despite all the slowdowns on the road I got there on time.

The party was really nice, there was a good band from Montreal playing (jazzy standards during dinner, and then disco, dance and rock classics for the after-dinner dancing). Dinner was delicious, and so were the coctail time appetizers. We danced for hours, leaving just around midnight. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the camera (power outage and all), so I there are no pictures :)

Today we installed a set of lights on our deck. We've had the lights for a few years, and this is the first time we actually managed to get them set up. I think we need to buy another strand, because they look a little lonely! Once we get the other set installed, I'll post a picture.

And now the weekend is almost over, and it's time to get ready for another work week. We just watched our weekly dose of "Amazing Race". I'm never happy to see anyone be eliminated from the race, but I have to say I wasn't too heartbroken over the elimination of the "blondes", as they had been pretty arrogant during the race, and very manipulative. Still not sure who I want to see finish in first place... The model guys have been playing a fair and good game, so I won't be upset if they take first place. And statistically speaking they're most likely to win. If the ladies from Alabama took the top prize, it would be the first all-female team to ever win on the Amazing Race, so that would be cool too.

Anyhoo, gotta go, hope you all had a great weekend as well. The holidays are just around the corner!!!!

As long as one keeps one's expectations in check...

So, today was the day where the Junior Achievement company I am involved with came to my workplace, to try to sell their products to our employees. All of the Ottawa JA companies were invited. This happens every year, and the last two years our companies did very well. This year turned out to be a wee bit disappointing... Our company only sold 2 products, for a total of 10$ in sales. Sigh... I am not much help in the marketing department, so I feel partially responsible for not reminding them of the importance of getting things done right and on time. Case in point, some of the achievers showed up wearing jeans. This is a fairly big no-no, as they're supposed to look professional. And they had all the training and documents reminding them of it. But I didn't remind them :(

Oh well, at least it gave them some motivation to make some changes, and maybe be a little better prepared for the next sales date. Time flies so fast, it's hard to believe that we're way past the mid-point of the program. Our sales in general are going fairly well, but our lackluster performance at group sales is certainly not a good sign.

I think I take this stuff way too seriously ;) I don't really care whether our company gets awarded company of the year or anything like that, but I would certainly like us to achieve full potential, and not miss opportunities because of fotgetfulness.

Monday will be a new day, and hopefully we iron out some of this stuff then...

Now it's on to volleyball (yay!).

Catch up with y'all later!

Weekend? What weekend?

And just like that, the weekend is over. I was really looking forward to a nice weekend (the weather was unseasonally nice), and to getting lots of things done. As it is, I am not sure where the time went. Well, when I think about it, we went to a concert where my choir (the Ottawa McGill Alumni Choir) sang a few songs on Friday night, I went to a dance show on Saturday night, and we had dinner with friends on Sunday afternoon. The rest of the time, I did a few batches of laundry (we were running behind), and a bit of cooking and cleaning. I guess the major accomplishment was replacing bulbs in the christmas lights that are installed on the barn. There were lots of burned out bulbs, and the top of the barn is over 40 feet tall, so this was a big job. But now we can have a fully-lit barn:



The Friday night concert went pretty well, it was quite a long show, with all sorts of performers. It put us into the Christmas spirit, since many of the songs were seasonal. I think we managed to sound pretty good (although my voice was at times squeaky, not being properly warmed up). We messed up in a few spots, but I don't think the audience noticed. We have three more performances before the break, so we'll get a chance to iron out those little issues.

On Saturday night, the show we went to was by a Belgian group called "C. de la B.", which is ostensibly a ballet troupe, but the performance was very modern, and so much more than just ballet. I was reading the biographies of the artists after the fact, and many of them have a circus background, which showed. There were many moments where we were shocked to see what these people were able to do with their bodies. I was mostly impressed with how accessible the whole show was - I am not usually one that "gets" dance shows all that well, but I actually felt all sorts of emotions that (I hope) the choreographer was trying to invoke. It was a very stirring, and at times even disturbing performance.

Hoping all our friends on the West Coast are somehow digging themselves out of the piles of snow! I can't believe the weather reports I'm seeing from out there!

Buy nothing day

So tomorrow is apparently the International Buy Nothing Day. I won't have time for shopping anyway, since I'll be at work all day and then singing in a concert with my choir, so it won't really be much of a stretch to not go into a store :) So I guess I will buy nothing on Saturday. I don't think I can stretch that to the whole weekend, because I suspect we will need some kind of food before Monday :) But I will try to not buy anything other than food all weekend.

On Saturday I am going to the NAC to see another ballet! Really looking forward to that.

Gotta go, hope to write a little more very soon!

Back to the grind...

Long time no post (or at least it feels like it). Another weekend is behind us... My folks were here and helped us re-build the wood pile. It's back to its former glory of around 7ft hight. Lots of work, but also lots of fun...

In other news, I have a bunch of pictures for you... Mama-cat had another litter (yes, I know, don't get me started, she's getting "the operation" this week). The neighbours called us over on the weekend to show us the 3 week old kittens. They are pretty cute (very fuzzy), although they still look so tiny and helpless... Unfortunately the lighting in the barn was pretty poor, so I didn't get too many good pictures (either they're washed out, blurry, or too dark to see anything...), but I can show you the few that worked out :)

There are five new kittens: one orange one (just like Mommy), one grey one, and two white ones (which we suspect is the colour of the Daddy-cat, as we've been seeing a white cat hanging around...). We now have to try and find homes for at least 6 cats... The neighbours certainly don't need 8 cats hanging around the barn :)

I also snapped a picture of one of the other kittens (I think this one is the boy-cat, Tim). The older siblings are getting so big, they're outgrowing the Mom. They need to visit the vet as well, otherwise they will soon be having their own litters... But they're becoming very friendly and they're as curious as ever, so they like to hang around people. Even when we were chopping wood, which causes a lot of loud banging noises, the girl-cat (Bits) came over and didn't seem bothered by any of the wood noises at all. Now on the other hand rustling leaves or grass gets her attention right away. Go figure :) I even managed to pick her up a few times - can she ever purr! But she's an independent cat, and jumps out of my arms after a minute or so :)

I also managed to snap a picture of our neighbour getting a kidss from his youngest horse. Isn't this cute? The picture is a little fuzzy, but it was the best I could do with the abysmal lighting (as far as photography is concerned anyway). I'll try to go over sometime this week, and snap some more pics so I can post them here. I need more kitten pictures for sure!

Aside from that, on Saturday we went over to our friend's place for the 20th annual Beaujolais Nouveau potluck. As always, it was an excellent evening, with awesome food and great company. After we got home, we played a few hands of bridge with my parents, to end the day with a bang (as usual, we lost, but I think we played fairly well).

It all made for a very busy weekend, but a very enjoyable one, with lots of time spent outside, great food and company.

And now it's back to the grind. I have to go chasing after a problem that seems to be really hard to reproduce, so I need to put my thinking cap on :)

Later!

Found profound...

So today in my yoga class I had a flash of insight. I came up with a "profound" quality: compassion. It's not my highest quality, so I will not be using it when the instructor asks us to think of our "highest, most profound quality", but at least it tells me that there are qualities that I consider profound (as opposed to the shallow ones, like good sense of humour). From now on, my mission in yoga class is to come up with a new profound quality every time, until I find one that applies to me :) I like a good challenge!

On the good news side, had a chat with my manager yesterday again, and things are back to good :) He was surprised at my disappointment over the last meeting, as he thought he'd given me mostly positive feedback. And he agrees with MB (see comments at last Friday's post) that he needs to give me more visible/important work in the future ;) So I am feeling slightly better on that front as well.

Things are pretty busy at work this week, so I think my posts will be short and sparse!

xoxo

A new city

Well, it's a new day in the city of Ottawa. Yesterday we had the municipal elections, and we now have a new mayor: Larry O'Brien. He's a former high-tech CEO, which could be great news or terrible news. We'll just have to see.

I am happy to report that I voted in the elections, though we barely made it to the polls. My Junior Achievement meeting ended shortly before 7, and DH picked me up. We didn't have our voting cards, but figured we could just head to the voting place. Unfortunately they couldn't find our street there, so they sent us to another place, which was a bit closer to our street (but further from our house). They couldn't find us there either. So we ended up going home, finding our voting cards, and making it back to the first place (go figure), with something like 10 minutes to spare. Well, at least we did our civic duty :)

Today also marks the release of Stephan Moccio's new album "Exposure". I saw Stephan a few weeks ago, and really loved the music. I have the CD sampler (signed by the artist himself), but I will definitely be picking up the whole album as well. It's good, moody piano music. You can hear a sample on the website.

Aside from that, not much else is new. Our JA company is finally catching up. We doubled our total production yesterday, and things should go smoothly from now on. We also had 2 executives drop out, but two other students stood up to take over. So the company lives on, though in a slightly different format :)

That's it for the news today! Later!

Quiet weekend

Well, it's Monday, and the weekend is over. This was a quiet one, since DH was feeling quite a bit under the weather, which meant he slept half the weekend away. It also meant no work got done outside (most of the jobs that are left are two-person jobs). So we stayed inside the house, and I did some much overdue house cleaning. On Saturday we did manage to get out of the house for a few errands, and to go to a party hosted by a coworker of mine (it was a blast). On Sunday, we just stayed in all day.

The good news is that we finally started cutting the baseboards for the basement. They've been lying around the basement for almost 2 years now, just waiting to be cut, painted, and installed, and now we've almost completed step 1 (there's probably around 7 cuts left). Hopefully sometime later this month we can pick up a can of paint, so we can finish this job. It would be so nice if we could get it all done before the holidays! Not sure how realistic that is, though :)

Aside from that, last night we watched a movie (Catwoman - wouldn't recommend it), and of course our weekly installment of "Amazing Race" - it's down to 5 pairs now, and that's when it starts getting really exciting!

And now it's back to work. I have a pretty full plate today, but it's all stuff I like doing, so I expect the day to just fly by. Of course there's JA this afternoon (we finally have a

website

!), which makes the day even shorter :) And today is municipal elections day, hopefully I can get to the poles in time...

TC!

Friday blues...

Sigh... It's Friday, and you would think that is a good thing (what with the weekend being just around the corner and all). Instead, I seem to be all gloomy...

In our Yoga class, our instructor always asks us at the end to think of "the biggest, most profound quality" that we posess. We do this every session, twice a week, and usually I can come up with something (and it's not always the same quality). Today, I just drew a blank. For the first time in a year of yoga classes. I mean, I can think of qualities, maybe even come up with a most important one, but "profound"? I couldn't think of anything that I would qualify as profound...

Maybe I'm taking this a little too seriously (probably). Maybe I am still getting over my so-so performance review yesterday (very likely) - well, it's not like it was bad, just not as good as it could have been I suppose. Maybe I just need a swift kick in the behind so I get over myself (definitely!). Being depressed is definitely no fun :(

On the plus side, we're going over to a coworker's house tomorrow afternoon for a party. The Christmas related festivities are starting early this year :) That promises to be lots of fun, and it should at least get my off my gloomy couch...

Later!

Musing in multiple dimensions...

So I was driving home last night, coming back from my choir practice, and I was thinking about blogging. Trying to figure out why I find it so useful. I mean, of course there's the whole aspect of keeping a record of what's going on in our life (cool), keeping friends and family up to date on what's up (very cool), and generally keeping in touch with people (very cool). But I realized there was an additional aspect to this, that's really beneficial to me. It's kind of weird, and it's possible that it onl makes sense at 9pm on a dirt road in the dark, but I'm going to try to explain it anyway.

I think writing in the blog forces me to linearize my thoughts. When I write here, I try to keep a certain flow, a logical progression of things. Which I believe is the easiest way to communicate something to others. Unfortunately, it looks to me like the thoughts in my head are multi-dimensional. It's like I have multiple processors in my head, all taking my thoughts in different directions. Which is why I tend to use (and abuse) parantheses all the time, just to capture a fleeting thought that's going in a completely different direction. It reminds me of my university days, when in conversations with my friend J-L, he would keep track of the nested parantheses that I introduced. I think he once got to 10 parantheses (or 10 different subjects, all originated from the same starting point). I would always close all the parantheses, and eventually bring all those separate thoughts to a conclusion, but I can imagine that kind of conversation may be a little hard for people to follow. Just because it makes sense in my head, doesn't mean it's interlocuter-friendly :)

So I am hoping that writing in the blog, being an exercise in thought linearization, will improve my conversational skills. Maybe it's wishful thinking, or maybe I'm simply a little crazy (I'm wondering if the description above makes sense to anyone else - I guess we'll see).

This concludes today's peek into my crazy brain :)

Take care!

Back to the wood pile

Yay! Yesterday in the mail we received a few chainsaw parts that I ordered online a few days ago. This is my first "real" online purchase, from a small company somewhere in OHIO. There are only two local places that sell Ryobi parts, both with very short hours, and when I actually dropped by, the guy working there was extremely patronizing. I suppose they don't get women showing up there very often... So instead of going through the whole rigamarole of trying to order parts locally, I just looked them up on the web. All I really needed was a little rubber cap for the oil tank - it's gotten worn out over the last year, and it kept falling off the chainsaw (hard to find a little thing like that in a mountain of sawdust). This part costs less than 3$ on the website, so I grabbed 4 of them, and a replacement chain as well, just in case. We should be good for a few years to come.

Which means we will probably get back to wood pile maintenance on the weekends. Since late September we've been burning wood as our only source of heat for the house. It's great because we don't have to run the oil furnace (which hasn't had its yearly maintenance done yet), but it also means that we're putting a dent into the stacked wood pile. We still have plenty of logs to process, though :) So as we burn the stacked wood, ideally we should be replacing it by cutting up and chopping the big logs. And now that the chainsaw is back in operation, we can do just that!

In other news, last night I went over to visit our friend with the twins. They are so cute!!! They're now crawling, and are learning to walk with support (like a coffe table, or preferably an adult whose hand you can hold on to). I think they vaguely remember me, as they seemed intrigued by my face, but it may just be wishful thinking :) I had a lot of fun playing with them (well, mostly E), walking, jumping and crawling on the floor. I have a feeling that their first words are coming soon, which is a good sign that they're adapting well!

That's it for updates for today. I'm about to go to my choir practice (Yay!)

Busy busy weekend

What a busy weekend... As you can see in the pictures, today we decided to clean out the loft in the barn. There was a thick layer of 5 year old hay all over the floor, and we'd been planning to get rid of it since we bought the house. But those things take time, I guess :) Even though they were predicting rain today, it turned out to be a fairly nice, pleasant day, so we figured this was our chance. Plus, for once there are no cars in the barn - the neighbour who usually stores his cars with us has taken them out for a few weeks.



So we suited up into our hazmat suits (we were covered head to toe, with eye protection and breathing masks). Since there always seems to be some mice in the barn, we just wanted to be safe. And we were really glad we did after the fact - the breathing masks were just filthy with grey-brown dust, and we would have breathed it all in otherwise. Yuck! Of course all that clothing and masks made us really hot and sweaty, and it wasn't very easy to breathe, but that's just the way it goes...



We made a lot of discoveries in the hay of the loft. Newspapers, plastic bags, abandoned hornets nests, weird old Halloween masks (?). We were raking everything out through the big opening at the front of the barn. Once thrown out, the hay ended up in a huge pile, that we carted out into the woods, one wheelbarrowful at a time. We were hoping to get everything done today, but unfortunately we only managed to do half of the loft. Hopefully, next weekend will be nice enough to continue the work (and maybe even finish it!). We've been talking about this for so long, it would be awesome to have it finally done.


But that's just the story of Sunday. Friday night and Saturday were just as busy, if not busier. Friday night we dropped by Home Depot to pick up an electric fireplace for the basement (no payment and no interest until 2008 - yahoo!). The thing came in two boxes, which we were hoping would fit in the wagon... Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, only one of them fit at a time. So DH had to go home with the one car (and one box), and come back with the other car to get me and the second box. Luckily we live fairly close to the store... Once we got both boxes home, we realized we weren't able to carry the big box up the stairs into the house (and then down the stairs into the basement). According to the figures on the box, it weighed 193lbs... No wonder we had trouble carrying it... Luckily DH suggested we open it then and there, and it turned out there were smaller boxes inside, much easier to carry... But after getting all the pieces into the basement, we were pooped, and just went to bed.

Saturday morning, we put the fireplace together. It turned out to be a pretty easy job, just 8 pieces and 20 screws. It's electric, so there is no chimney, and it has a granite top, which makes it look really sharp. We already placed a couch and a coffee table in front of it, and it creates a nice cozy corner in the big empty basement room. We've also tested that it will warm up the room pretty well (it can get a little chilly down there in the winter).

After the big assembly job, we had a quick lunch, and then I left the house to go meet some friends for coffee. We had a fantastic time catching up and having very interesting philosophical discussions. We talked about finding purpose and meaning in life, while at the same time staying true to oneself, and taking care of what matters most to us. It's a pretty vast topic, really, and we probably could have discussed it for days... Well, maybe not in a coffee shop ;)

After the get-together, I ran a few errands, then re-convened with friends for supper. I had sushi for the first time in my life (the real thing, raw fish and all). I wasn't too adventurous, and didn't touch the octopus, but the stuff that I had wasn't nearly as weird as I was worried it would be. In fact it tasted kind of nice. I guess I am finally growing up (when it comes to food anyway), and I can finally appreciate the more exotic cuisine. I used to always be very much a "meat and potatoes" kind of girl, but I am glad I can be a little more adventurous, at least from time to time.

After supper, we went to see a concert. We saw a young jazz singer by the name of Sophie Millman, performing songs from her self-titled debut CD. It was a very nice assortment of songs, Sophie has a great voice and lots of talent, and she's very beautiful to boot. But for me, the opening act stole the show. Just a guy with a piano, Stephane Moccio managed to capture my imagination and tug at my heartstrings with his haunting melodies and lively delivery. The anecdotes between the songs were great too. His debut CD is coming out on November 14, and I certainly plan on getting it.

Before I sign off, here's a picture that DH snapped of me, writing this blog:


'til next time!

Thoughts about parenting

Yes, I know, I am not a parent, and I'm sure it's a lot different than anything I may imagine. But that doesn't prevent me from having some opinions on the subject (though I do try to keep most of them to myself). And sometimes I can't help but voice my thoughts :O Last night DH showed me an article that made both of us shake our heads in disbelief. The article was written by a teacher complaining about the current trend in the Ontario school system to force all the students to pass their class. In the particular case described in the article, the teacher recommended that a student who had missed 2/3 of the school year (and hence did not master the knowledge required) should repeat that grade. But the parents of the teenager insisted that repeating a class would be damaging to the kid's self-esteem, and he was allowed to pass to the next grade.

So basically, the message being sent to kids these days is "you can't do wrong - skip classes, ignore your homework, and if your parents love you enough, they will make sure you still make it to the next grade". Sometimes I have to wonder if people really think that self-esteem comes from having everything in the world handed to you? Somehow, I don't think it's that simple :)

So today DH sends me this gem of an insightful thought: it seems that a lot of parents nowadays justify their behaviour by saying "I want my kids to have the best/everything they can". But shouldn't we be focusing instead on "I want my kids to BE the best/everything they can be"? It would seem that those two goals are almost orthogonal in the way you would go about to accomplishing them. Not saying that either is easy, or obvious, but I think that DH really hit on something if not deep, then at least interesting to ponder.

After all, the saying doesn't go "Have all you can have!" :)