One Year House-iversary

One year ago today we excitedly drove to the lawyer's office to pick up the keys to our very first house.



We drove to the same place we'd been vising for the past 8 months but this time was different. This time we held the keys to our future. The first time we put the key in the lock was magical.



We were on such a high. We'd worked hard to save up enough money to buy a house and were lucky getting the lot we wanted and the closing date pushed back so far. Everything came together and we were finally homeowners.



We've been through a lot in the past year. We got grass and a driveway, trees and a fence, more interior things than I can mention. And it's all ours.



And then the snow came and now we wonder why we thought a two-car-wide driveway with a teeny-tiny patch of lawn was a good idea. Oops!



Either way we're super mega happy with our house. We're loving being homeowners. Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner.

(Come to think about it, do they have different stickers for same-sex couples and singles? Hmm....)

My Ouch is Colourful

At my hockey game January 15th I was pushed and fell onto a girl's stick. I knew my leg was going to bruise because of the pain. I could hardly put any weight on my leg at first. This happened my first shift.

I played the rest of the game and I'm glad I did. I didn't give the muscles a chance to tighten up. The 45 minutes drive home was another story.

The next day, this is what it looked like:



And then a week and a half later:



It's healing and I played hockey again last week. My leg felt fine while I was skating but not immediately after and definitely not that night or the next day. I had to take painkillers when I got home. I haven't played again since but have another game this Thursday. We'll see how it feels tomorrow and the next day.

Pretty impressive though, eh? I'm impressive!

Successful Birthday Season

Birthday season has sadly come to a close for another year. It was a lot of fun, thought I didn't have the big going out dancing night I wanted. Maybe soon.

I cleaned up with the presents. Did I ever! The big ticket item was definitely from J who got me Lola. Lola is a bright red Dell laptop computer. Fancy fancy.



We had a laptop back when J was still in school and miss having one. I guess I mentioned it often enough that J figured my birthday was a good time. He even hooked up the wireless router so I'm currently lounging on the couch in front of the fire writing this post. Ah luxury. I'm spoiled.

Lola is not spoiled however. She's only been in my possession for a few days and I've already sat on her. Did I mention that I'm clumsy? Thankfully nothing bad happened, her case protected her pretty well. It's great being able to check immediately on imdb some trivial matter that comes up when watching tv. Because that's what laptops are good for. Believe me.

27 has gotten off to a good start and there are already some big plans for the year. Stay tuned.

Thank You

Today is not the most depressing day of the year, no matter what they say. It's my birthday and it was a great day. First of all, J let us sleep in, which is always nice. Work wasn't horrifically busy and everyone was smiley and happy-birthday-ey. We saw more birds than ever on the drive home. We went out for a great dinner with S&L and A (Sylvia was sick) then went back to our place and ate chocolatey cake and played RockBand until our muscles were sore.

It's getting late and I have to work tomorrow (someone is going snowboarding instead of working) so I haven't had a chance to upload my pictures. I will spend some time this weekend with the computer getting caught up on my life, and maybe some time dancing, but we'll see.

Exclamations Mandatory!

I was just reading my last post so I know where I left off, something I always do. Anyways, the point is that I noticed my last three posts have all had an exclamation point in the title. That's not exactly my style, but obviously I have things to be excited about. I guess that's a good thing.

Yesterday, in one of the free daily papers, I read that January 24th is the most depressing day of the year. Something to do with the winter blues/blahs, the fact that you get your credit card bill in the mail with all your Christmas purchases on it, and other things. Poo! It's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to, but I will disagree with anyone who says that it's the most depressing day of the year.

I'm also, for the most part, an optimist, so I would be able to look on the bright side of things. And yes, I do have credit card debt this time of year, and yes, I am getting mighty sick of all the gray I see outside BUT I have a good life so I'm happy. Plus, January 24th is the first day of the three quarters of the year that I am a year older than J. He loves that.

We watched neat show about hearing and music. There are people who do not hear music. Music to them sounds like pounding. I can't remember exactly how the person they interviewed described it but it sounded unpleasant. I read earlier that people can become addicted to music, even mega loud music, even if it physically hurts them to listen to it. I think I'm addicted to music, but not loud music. It's weird for our house to be silent - there is usually at least one radio on. We have music in the car and I always have my iPod with me.

The way my job is going these days, I don't use my iPod at work. People are constantly stopping by my cubicle so I never have five minutes to myself. You know what I do? I sing. Not loudly, but out loud usually. I work better when there's music playing. I fall asleep to music. It's everywhere.

But then there are people who never have music playing. Friends of mine, their house is absolutely silent, even though I know they are musical people. I notice when I'm over there and I wonder if they notice the sound when they come to my house.

I wonder if music-addicts are attracted to people like themselves or to silence-addicts. I wonder if that even factors into the whole courting thing. Is it an introvert/extrovert thing? That's something the show never once mentioned. I'm always curious about the introvert/extrovert thing because I don't know which I am. For me it really depends on the situation, but in a course I took recently I learned that it has to do with where you "get your energy" which I don't get, and your internal stimulus level (whether you have lots going on in your head or if you need your environment to be highly stimulating). Interesting stuff, but I can't apply it to myself. At least not now.

So whatever kind of 'vert I am, I'm one that needs music. Music and my depressing birthday I guess.

Euro-Trip!

Last night we booked our trip to Europe. I think I'm addicted to traveling because it felt like we hadn't booked anything or gone anywhere in a long time. That's not true at all. Two months ago we were in Cuba, and two month plus a couple of days we booked it.

This trip will be different. We've done the backpacking thing (Costa Rica), we've done the visit family thing (Victoria), and we've done the all-inclusive resort thing (Cuba). Europe will be with friends and for a purpose: our friend Chris is having a huge wedding reception there to make up for the shotgun wedding he had here in November. There will be four of us traveling together and 4 we'll meet in Turin.



We're flying in and out of Frankfurt, Germany because it's the cheapest. We have the wedding in Turin and that's it. We have to figure out everything we want to see, the places we want to visit between now and then.

You know what I'm most looking forward to? The anticipation. That's definitely what was missing from our last trip. We haven't had anything like this to look forward to since booking our Costa Rica trip. We have three months to think about it. Fun.

Yay EuroTrip!

Yay!

Awesome news: Alan and Sylvia are engaged!! I couldn't wait to break the news, but wanted the okay from the happy couple first. Sylvia doesn't update her blog hardly enough and I knew I couldn't wait forever so I finally broke down and asked. They have a really cute story too, but that I will let Sylvia tell you that one.

I went looking through my pictures and realized that I only have one picture of the two of them. Apparently I don't think much of taking pictures of couples. Who knew.

Anyways, congratulations to the two of you. I'm really happy for you guys and can't wait for the wedding. (I'm invited, right?)

It's Official - Birthday Season is Here!

It's 10 days until my birthday so that means that birthday season has officially begun! Birthday season is the time immediately before and after your birthday where you get to celebrate getting one year older. It's wonderful.

I still haven't figured out exactly what I want to do for my birthday yet, but stay tuned. I will come up with something. Something spectacular.

Wooo!

That Was a Long Week

Now that it's the weekend it seems like the week passed quickly, but during the week it felt excruciatingly long. Just like that word.

It could be because that was the first five-day week in a while. It's getting brighter out and with the warmer temperatures, a lot of the snow has melted so goodbye winter blahs. Until next snow fall I guess.

I'm not even sure what to tell you about the week. Work was typical and therefore boring. Hockey went well even though we lost our game. I have three new bruises. I have to get used to being banged around again.

Nothing else is new with the house. Our spring cleaning / rearranging has slowed. The house is still a disaster from half-finished organizing jobs. It'll get better.

We've been thinking a lot lately about our next trip. Hopefully it'll be Italy in May. I've never been off the continent so it should be interesting. I know a lot of people who have been to Italy so I might be picking your brains in the next 4 months. I hardly know anything about the country and where to go / what to do. I'm still waiting for the Lonely Planet book that I ordered to get here so I can start reading up on things.

Speaking of ordering things, J ordered GH 3 and it showed up last night. I spent a couple hours hammering away on the guitar and hurting my wrist in the process. But now I've finished the game on easy with the guitar. That makes me a two-time guitar Hero. Heroine perhaps.

I need to go make some plans for the night or my weekend won't be hardly as spectacular as last. Too bad all I want to do is put on my comfy clothes and watch tv. Hmph.

The Corpse Bride

On the way home today we checked the mail. I was excited to see an envelope from the province - either my new driver's license or my health card. My excitement was replaced with disgust upon opening the envelope and seeing my picture. I think J's comment describes the picture best: I look like a corpse bride.

Laugh away:



Wow. I'm stuck with this thing for the next five years. I'm just hoping my license picture turns out better.

Deja Vu

December 28, 2007



January 7, 2008



And, for good measure, September 28, 2007



Apparently I really like this tree.

Very Good Weekend

It feels so good to have full weekends where you get lots done and you see people and you forget for a couple of days that you have to go back to work on Monday. That was the kind of weekend I just had.

We slept in a little Friday so we could go to dinner right from work. We had dinner with J's parents and sister and his cousin, G, and his fiance, JW. They're a cute couple.



We hadn't made any plans for yesterday or today, but managed to throw together a nature hike with S&L and A Saturday afternoon. We remembered to bring birdseed and were able to feed the chickadees and took lots of really good pictures of them.



The funniest part was when S went off the trail and was hip-deep in snow. We were all laughing and taking pictures.. poor guy.



We went for pho afterwards and then decided that we'd have dinner together too. We went home and got ready (including napping and showering and cleaning - oh, the cleaning! Our house was so messy, but this forced us to tidy. Perfect!) We had fajitas and then played Guitar Hero for hours. A nice Saturday.



I woke up today wanting to organize stuff. I had my eye on the computer / craft room so we got to it. We emptied the whole room, vacuumed and dusted, then put some things back in. The computer desk is all nicely set up along with the craft table. We need to get some drawer thingy for all the office-y-type stuff and hang something on the walls, but it made a big big difference and it feels good. There's still tons of stuff in the hallway and in the spare bedroom and our bedroom so the job's not done. Either we figure out a spot in the room or we throw it out.



In the middle of the big organizing day, J's parents and sister stopped by for a bit. We kicked them out after not to long because I had a hockey game and J wanted to shovel the snow off the roof. We won our hockey game and J didn't fall off the roof. Everyone wins!

After my game, while I was waiting for my dinner to cook, I went through our change pot and separated out all the pennies. We're going to take them to a bank. I also took all of our foreign money and put it in my Afghan-box, fitting I think.

The last thing is the duvet clips. We clipped the duvet cover to the duvet using these little clips so hopefully the duvet won't slide down inside the cover. Bonus points if you know what I'm talking about.

Now that was a FULL weekend. That's exactly what I needed to get through the whole 5 days of work coming up.

And I'll leave you with a picture of Sandy. It's one of my favourites.

my exciting life

i don't normally have more than one thing to say in a day. i mostly do the same things every day and that's not all that exciting: woke up, went to work, went home, ate food, watched tv / played guitar hero, went to bed. repeat. but it seems these days i have more to say. and it's only half because i'm going out more.

the going out more portion of my exciting life took me to the annual sharks christmas party last night. i know christmas has already come and gone but last night was the best night for most of the team. i wasn't sure i wanted to go because it's been really hard getting enough sleep with the erratic holiday / work non-schedule the past couple of weeks, but i'm so glad i did. the gift exchange was a highlight for me. on my way to the party, i stopped at the little mall near our old house and picked out a necklace and some earrings (i know, so NOT me but that made it more fun in a way). em ended up with them and i think she liked them. i got four fancy mango wood tray/bowl serving/decorative thingys.



they're soft to the touch and very light and just look at the colour - i'm gushing. i really like them. thanks tina!

and here's the group shot that jessp's dave so gracefully took for me (along with pictures on four other cameras):



when i got home from the festivities, j was so proud of himself - he had successfully set up our new universal super remote. it does everything and totally took over duties from five other remotes. now if it will only do the laundry. here it is after beating up on the other, lesser remotes. what a bully!



after work today (which i'm happy to say went well for my second day in charge) i found out that a picture of mine was used in a youtube video thingy. check it out for yourself: the flickr calendar 2007. compelling design put it together using pictures from the project365 group that i'm a part of. i don't particularly like the picture of mine they chose but it fits in with the overall theme (theme - listen to me!) of the video and they credited me properly so i'm happy. plus, i think it kinda fulfills one of my 101 things by getting a picture published. what do you think?

everything's coming up batman.

i have to end with a picture. i just have to.

nothing essploded and the beginning of a new year

nothing essploded

i'm all done my first day as the boss and nothing went wrong. i wasn't expecting anything to go wrong, but you never know. my big boss isn't around and neither are half of the people in the building, including the person i like least who i also happen to sit very close to. it's nice not having her around.

plus, i recently set up google reader so i can now check out all my normal sites inconspicuously. perfect.

i have a thing to go to tonight where i need to bring a $20-30 gift and some food for the potluck. i don't have either. and it's cold out and i'm tired. this isn't looking good. i'm trying to motivate myself so we'll see what happens.

the beginning of a new year

we went to a typical new years party: lots of people, lots of alcohol and noise makers and hijinks. i'll leave you with some pictures.