bits and bites

funny story. we checked the mail yesterday and had three pieces from our car insurance company. they all had to do with the new car and were all addressed incorrectly. without giving away my address all i can say is that, among other mistakes, instead of "circle" they put "curcl". i'm not even kidding!



as expected this week has felt like an eternity. i've been going to bed late, getting to work on time (somehow) and then napping in the afternoon. it's a bad cycle because the napping leads to the going to bed late, which leads to the being tired during the day, which leads to the napping. you get the point. it's a spiral that's tough to break out of.

and it's all the weekend's fault. the weekend allows me to stay up late and sleep in. i don't know about you but i can't get up early if i don't have to. i am not a morning person, but that doesn't mean that i need 3 cups of coffee to be coherent. i'm good to go without a jolt of caffeine and i'd like to keep it that way.

it's my opinion that tim horton's is trying to take over the world, one cup of coffee at a time. have you ever noticed that there is always a line up at tim's? always. it's incredible. and it's just coffee. i really don't get it. and i don't want to.

i'm taking part in an internet photography thing tomorrow. it's a flickr group called 070707 where 7777 members take 7 pictures tomorrow, the 7th day of the 7th month of the 7th year of the 21st century. the hardest part will be remembering that tomorrow is the day. the second hardest part will be taking 7 pictures of things that aren't my cats.

apparently tomorrow is considered a lucky day and is the most popular day this year to be getting married. in ottawa alone, 3 times the normal amount of weddings are taking place. imagine the actual number of weddings around the world taking place tomorrow. thousands? hundreds of thousands? either way, it's gotta be lots.

it's mine and j's anniversary coming up on tuesday, speaking of weddings. it rained a little on our wedding day, but that's supposed to be lucky. and we've lasted so far and that's more than some people can say.

and that's the end of my rambling thoughts for today. have a really good weekend and check back on monday.

paved road to mercury

i know the title doesn't make any sense. that's not so strange, is it?

we got home from work yesterday to a paved street. our street specifically. it was dark dark black and wonderfully smooth. and now the manhole covers don't stick up a foot past the pavement (we have two right in front of our house that were a little problematic). our street is finally looking complete.

and now for the mercury part: i went for a run last night and it was raining. the rain formed beads on the new pavement and looked like little balls of mercury. it was really neat.



the only other news i have is that i got an email about a written exam for a higher position at my current job. i'm excited but not too excited.

and am i ever looking forward to the weekend!

you know

you know how short weeks always feel even longer than regular weeks? why is that?

and you know how getting up on time for work on a monday after a long weekend is the hardest thing to do? i understand that one but i still hate hearing the alarm only a couple hours after falling asleep.

all that to say that yesterday was a long day but my nap after work was incredible. and then we went for dinner with a&s. it was really good food and great conversation. we definitely don't have groceries in the house, but we had a great time. and it was nice to see their little kitten again - she's grown but is nowhere near chester-size.

speaking of chester, i fed him and his sister before i went to work yesterday and j, who wasn't feeling well and stayed home, fed them again when he got up after 11am. oops! tricky cats can convince you they haven't eaten in days if they want. and they've learned that we come from upstairs so they'll wait at the top of the stairs, clawing at the door. our cats don't like that and patrol the door, even though it's closed.

and on an entirely different note, i'm frustrated with myself for not being active so i signed up for a 5K race in two weeks. it's the same weekend as HOPE so i knew we wouldn't be wanting to be out of town and it was only $20. $20 to get my ass in gear - perfect! anyone wanna run with me? it's sunday, july 15th at 9am.

there were some other races listed but i would really like to get out to the cottage or go camping at some point so i'm not signing up for anything else. speaking of the cottage, we have to find out if it's being used and when so we can work around that. ah the things to do.

fountain of youth

i'm not that old, but this weekend i felt young. like a teenager again.

a neighbour of ours went and bought $100 of fireworks and called us saturday night for a little preview. 6 of us made our way to a park a little down the main street from our houses. we set off 6 fireworks. just a teaser.

as we were walking to the park, i was feeling like we were teenagers. before we could drink and go to bars we used to walk around the neighbourhood lots. drunk, but that's not the point.

they were planning on setting off the rest of the fireworks sunday night after getting back from downtown. we didn't go out with them and were surprised when, last night, we got a call asking us to come to the park again. they hadn't set them off sunday. we were in luck.

so off we went, like teenagers again, joking at our rebelliousness (i'm making up words). this time, there were more people and we had over 20 fireworks to set off.

and then the cops showed up.

a cop car flew down the main road with its spotlight aimed at us, screeched to a stop at the park and the cop ran over. i couldn't believe it. he asked us all for id and got nervous about my hands being in my pockets. because i had a gun. obviously. at least that's what a concerned citizen called the cops about - the loud gunshots coming from the park. the day after canada day. with strange bright lights in the sky immediately following the bangs.

"hands out of your pockets!"
"show me some ID!!"

way to be contradictory. of course i didn't have id on me. we walked to the park. so he took my name and date of birth and everyone's names and ids and went and sat in his car for a while, no doubt checking us out. he finally came back out, gave our ids back and told us that it was a $400 fine for setting off fireworks in the city. of course we denied having set off anything other than sparklers, but the call about the gunshots and the garbage can full of exploded fireworks was working against us. but then he told us to be on our way. we took our time leaving.

and that is how to feel young again. walk to a nearby park. do something borderline illegal. get the cops called on you. give cops attitude. laugh about it the whole way home.

i hope your canada day had more fireworks and less cranky police officers.

on the integration of the herd

as you all know, we have currently four cats in our house. thankfully our little house comes with a basement, complete with a door. our two little cats are free to roam the main floor and the second floor while the two intruders, aka j's parent's cats, are living in the basement suite. this is working out okay and thankfully isn't a permanent situation.

without central air, our house heats right up. the basement is the coolest place in the house but our cats can't go down there so they're left to melt upstairs while we slink down there after work to hopefully not wake up in the pile of sweat that would be napping on the ground floor or second floor. if both me and j are in the basement our cats sit at the door and howl. it's cute at first but i break down and go back upstairs.

anyways, a minor inconvenience.

but, the bigger problem is that we can't physically spend enough time with each cat. the result? all four are starved for attention and shedding like mad.

it would be awesome if they could all live in harmony, as one big herd, so a couple of nights ago we let our cats into the basement. here's how it went:

- chester (big white male) was on the couch
- sydney (round gray female) was on the floor
- sandy (cute orange female) and rolo (svelt brown male) made their way downstairs

sandy got downstairs, realized something was off and stayed near the stairs, even going back up a couple. rolo made a slow and low to the ground beeline for sydney. a potential mate, we're thinking he's thinking. chester stayed on the couch, not seen by either sandy or rolo. rolo has eyes only for sydney.

rolo makes his way over to syd who is hissing and growling something fierce. rolo just wants to sniff her but she kepps slowly moving away. finally she runs around the couch. rolo chases her and comes face to face with chester who has leapt to the ground.



rolo and chester face off in a screaming match. you should have heard them - they were both emitting this high-pitched growl/howl without opening their mouths. after about 5 minutes of the howl-fest, we scooped up rolo and sandy and brought them back upstairs. seems like the herd mentality will take some time to form. we have just over a week left.

unveiling - the new car

lumi

almost right after i got my license i got my own car. it was a 1984 pontiac parisienne (think huge boat of a car). the way my family worked was that we had three cars, all pieces of crap, but 3. my brother and i had to drive ourselves to all of our sports and my mom was an on-the-road salesman. it worked out. the pontiac lasted a while and was eventually replaced with a 1992 chevrolet lumina, or lumi.

the saturn

shortly after j and i started dating, his parents bought a new car and the old family car was given to him, a 1992 saturn sl1. so, for as long as we've been together, we've each had our own car.

mazda 3

until 2005. at the end of 2004 i was starting to have trouble with lumi so we bought the mazda 3.



r.i.p. lumi

we didn't actually get the mazda until february but by then lumi was no more. the poor car would shut down while i was driving along and would sometimes emit a cloud of black smoke from the steering wheel - try driving with that in your way!

hello turbo

spring 2005 was when j installed the turbo in the 3. you know, zoomzoomzoom! after a solid week he got it working. all of a sudden we had to put 94 octane in the car and fill up almost twice as often.

good bye saturn

the summer of 2005 we decided that we didn't really need two cars, especially with the mazda being new (and therefore reliable) so we shipped the car out to j's sister.

having only one car was mostly okay, we learned to coordinate everything and bum rides when we both had things to do. this was easy once i knew enough people who lived near us.

welcome back saturn

there were times over the next year that having only one car was tricky. i know it caused some tension so we decided to start looking for another car. something good on gas. then j's sister gets a job overseas and gives us back the saturn.

r.i.p. saturn

only problem is that the saturn can't be safetied. we donated it the fire station about a month ago. there were tears in j's eyes as we drove off in the mazda.

goodbye turbo

j decides it's time to get rid of the turbo so him and a friend take a whole saturday in earlier this month and put the car back to stock. back to putting regular gas in the car less often. beautiful!

we drive to hawkesbury to sell it.

rex

we still wanted a second car and j was feeling sad without a turbo so he went on auto trader and found the perfect little car. introducing our new 1987 mazda rx-7:



we bought it before we left for bc but only picked it up this past monday night. it still isn't plated and is sitting in the garage. it is a two door, "2 cylinder" (aka rotary engine), turbo charged sports car. it needs no work to run and will be easy to sell when the time comes.

and there you have it, a short history of the cars we've owned.

trip wrap up

i am incredibly busy at work (it's always this way after spending time away) so this will be short. all of my pictures are up on my flickr site.

we flew to bc.



we saw titanica at the imax.



we surfed in tofino.



we saw colourful sea creatures.



we hugged trees in cathedral grove park.



we napped with kitties.



we* swam in the sooke river.



* j swam. i did not. *

we took a harbour ferry.



we admired the sunset over the clouds from the plane on the way home.



and now we're home. the basement cats are no longer hissing at each other but all four are getting very curious about who's on the other side of the door to the basement.

ah vacations....

we're home

we're home and home is so nice. i can't believe we stopped smelling the new house smell because it's still here. it's so nice to be back. we came home last night (thanks for the ride, s&j!) to a paved driveway and a tree in front of our house. plus the super excited kitties.

we landed just before 11pm, got home just before midnight, dumped our stuff and said hello to our cats, dropped the other cats in the basement suite, and headed out for food. mcdonalds was one of the only things open so we crammed gluteny goodness in our bellies. we were parked in the mcdonalds parking lot, stuffing our faces, when two bike-cops came by. i guess there's been some stuff going on near our old place to warrant having cops on bikes. and i'm talking bicycles here. good thing we weren't drinking or anything.

we got home before 1am and decided it would be good for j's parent's cats if we hung out with them in basement. i didn't mention this earlier, but the new tree meant that we didn't have phone, internet or cable tv. love the tree, hate the incompetent tree installer guys. so with no internet to distract us, a movie sounded good. we sat down, our cats locked OUT of the basement, but didn't get very far because of all the screaming. our babies were obviously lonely. so i went upstairs and hung out with them. it was good because i was able to unpack everything and get the house cleaned up while j was able to stay with the newbies for the transition scary-new-house phase.

and now we're here. the cable guy came while i was out shopping. that's right - i went out and bought clothes for myself!! we have internet and phone and tv again so it will only be a little longer until i can get all the pictures onto my flickr site. sit tight!

home coming

we're heading home tomorrow and i have to say that i'm ready i'm ready i'm ready (spongebob reference). this has been an amazing week. we ended it off with a trip downtown today. we did some shopping and ate lunch then walked along the harbour. we went through the undersea gardens and saw the live show with the diver in the aquarium. then we took a harbour ferry most of the way back home and walked the rest of the way.

i was thinking that this week i've gotten outside more than normal and the air here is less muggy. it's refreshing, but at the same time i can't wait to be back in the hot hot heat of the summer in ottawa. victoria is pleasant and comfortable but just not summer-hot. the sweat-as-soon-as-you-leave-conditioned-air hot. you know, hot hot.

what i'm not looking forward to is going back to work. but you knew that.

wetsuits are actually wet

okay, i never knew that you got wet when wearing a wet suit. now don't laugh, i don't think this is intuitive at all. i thought it was a suit you wore in the wet, which it is. i just didn't realize what kept you warm was the layer of water against your skin. so, if you didn't know that, now you do and now you don't have to feel stupid - i didn't know either.

when surfing in canada, you need a wetsuit. all year long. the water was about 12 degrees but the air was a little warmer. we booked our lessons with surf sister, a little, female-run surf shop out off tofino. the surf was unrelenting but not too big. i was able to stand a bunch of times, but took a weird fall and hurt my back a little, just muscle though. we have a bunch of good pictures, some funny ones of us in our wetsuits.

victoria to tofino is about ottawa to toronto, but with more mountains. on the way out there yesterday, we saw lots of big birds and actually saw a cougar!! it was incredible - the cat was SO huge. in tofino we saw lots of anemones and starfish. i couldn't believe how brightly-coloured the anemones and starfish are - green, blue, purple, pink and orange. and then on the drive home we stopped at cathedral grove and saw a black slug and the biggest tree.. it was huge!

the best part of this vacation is that i feel like we've been here for weeks already. it's been so relaxing and that's exactly what i needed. we have some more things planned for the next couple of days, but nothing too big. i've mostly given up on whale-watching because we're not in the right season and it's super expensive. the cougar mroe than made up for that! so that's the story for now.

the titanic sank

we went downtown today to the museum to see the titanic imax movie. the movie itself wasn't great. it really seemed like they only had so much footage of the wreck so they had to fill the rest of the time - only 45 minutes - with fluff. the exhibit though was good. when you went in they gave you a boarding pass so you were one of the passengers. it made it more real.

there was a lot of walking and my feet are kinda sore but a big dinner and a nap solved that.

i'm finding that i'm really missing my cats. and that is all.

vacation postings

the title of this post just made me realize that i haven't finished telling you about our costa rica trip and for that i am sorry. but now, currently, i am in bc on another vacation. i always wanted to do this: vacation as much as i could while still getting paid for it. you better believe that everytime i get another vacation day credited to me, i promptly book it. i'm even considering taking unpaid leave just to get away from the day-to-day that i'm finding so very draining.

but back to the vacation. we arrived in victoria on time, which is a miracle considering i almost made us miss our flight out of ottawa. we got up on time and were ready to leave when the cabbie rang the doorbell at 5:50 this morning. we got to the airport just after 6am for our 7am flight. we checked in and got through security with no problems. i left j in the terminal to go buy a book and some orange juice. on my way back to him, we passed, apparently he was hungry and in search of food. that's when i realized i no longer had the sweatshirt i had brought. i went and found him and we argued about the orange juice for a while and then i left the orange juice with him and went back to the check in area and found my sweatshirt. this is all very intriguing, i know. i made crankypants j stand in line at the tim hortons to get a muffin hoping that it would make him chill out a little. because we had tons of time. obviously. the line was long and we ended up talking to some strangers for a while and on our way back to the terminal we heard our names being called over the pa system. apparently, boarding had started half an hour earlier and we were the last ones to board the plane.

then j fired me from being the trip planner. the best thing is that he didn't even tell me that i was in charge of getting us on the plane on time in the first place so i maintain that it's half his fault. ah the joys of travelling.

but all that to say that we didn't miss our flight and now we can laugh about my poor organizing skills. or my timing skills. or whatever i'm lacking. at least they pronounced my name properly. that was nice.

we had no problems from ottawa to toronto, no problems in the toronto airport and no problems from toronto to victoria. we both slept for part of the long flight but were still super exhausted when we got in. we ate some food and then napped.

the cats warmed up to us pretty quickly and are now acting as if we never left. chester, the big white male cat, is huge and SO white! sydney, the small but huge gray female, is bristly and sad looking, but friendly.

i've been reading up on some places we might visit but still haven't figured out actual plans for our week here. thankfully, we have free accomodations and food (fully gluten free for a week - watch out cheeseburgers, i'm coming for you when i get home!) so we have some money to play around with. i'm thinking surfing, whale watching and trail hiking. it is cooler here than ottawa but nowhere near as humid. i'm hoping for some beach lounging as well. beach lounging will hopefully lead to tanned skin. here's hoping. so stay tuned - these free accomdations have wireless internet ripe for the picking (who actually says that anyways?) and possibly for the picture downloading. we shall see.

honestly time, where did you go?

the time is flying by. all of a sudden it's the day before we leave and i'm not ready. i'm sitting at my desk, freezing because i forgot a sweater today, blogging instead of working. and there are things to do at home but once i get home i'm so tired that i don't do them. it's awful.

and that, my friends, is why i need a vacation.

so, vacation i will!

j's parents are flying us out to victoria, bc so that we can fly the cats home. his parents are moving back here but are driving across the country and don't want to take the cats with them. we will house the cats.

this is somewhat complicated by the fact that our two cats have food out all the time but the other two are fed twice a day. we will have them separated full-time at first, but will likely have them running as a herd by the end of the two weeks.

but before all that, we get to spend a week in bc. at first i really wanted to see everything i could, but now, in this exhausted state, i really just want to find a nice beach and lie on it for the whole week. is that so wrong?

but i'm guessing, i will spend a day or two lounging around and then be rested enough to want to do some things. i'm hoping so at least.

long (car) weekend

it wasn't supposed to be, but i didn't get out of bed yesterday and made it, a long weekend. i was tired. let me break it down for you.

friday
we went to m&m to meet up with some mazda people. i hadn't been since last year so it was nice seeing some of those people again. i would like to say it was nice meeting the new people, but i really didn't do a whole lot of socializing. we did play with a guy's camera and took some long exposure shots of the car while j ran around it with his blue led flashlight.



saturday
we went to my family's annual cottage party saturday. it was fun like always and j got to break out his windsurfer for the first time this year. the wind wasn't strong enough but he was in the water so he was happy.



sunday
sunday was de-turbo the car day. me, being a smart cookie, decided that we should rent a car before getting started so that we could get to work monday morning if it didn't go well. (this is not me being pessimistic, this is me learning from experience... the putting-the-turbo-in experience.) so j, with the help of d, took the turbo out and put the car back together and had it working in only 9 hours. we were able to take the rental back that night and only paid for the one day.



monday
well, like i said, i slept in and didn't go to work yesterday. work has been charging ahead, day after day, leaving me tired. so i spent the day at home, with my cats, in my pyjamas. beautiful. later on, we were out and about, looking at lawn mowers and patio furniture, when j's cell phone rang. j found a 1987 mazda rx-7 for sale on auto trader and had been emailing the seller. he could finally have us over to see the car. we raced over and ended up buying the car. we can't pick it up until after our holidays (we leave friday for bc) but j's super excited.

and that sums up our weekend. we've had a whole lot going on related to cars but soon enough things will settle. we have the mazda 3 back to stock and we will have the turbo sold and the rx-7 bought. and we've already thought of a name for the new car. i will wait for the official unveiling.

you didn't think they could actually win, did you?

so the sens lost. i can't say i'm all that surprised. i was more surprised that they did well for as long as they did.



and then i did what, i'm guessing, not a whole lot of people do, and took pictures of my tv. but really, let's pretend i was actually at the game. i wasn't. i'm not very good at pretending.

r.i.p. saturn

this little blue car is a 1992 saturn sl1 that j's family bought new. it has been in the family ever since and was the first car j drove and the first car he owned. he bought it from his parents in 2003 and a couple of years later, when we got the mazda, he sold it to his sister. she signed it back over to us right before she left but it can't be safetied (or would be too expensive) so the decision was made to get rid of it. j looked around for options and learned that fire stations accept old cars - we would donate it to our local fire station.

last night, we arrived at the station unannounced and knocked on the back door. the firemen were all very happy and laughed through all the paperwork. i don't think it's often they get cars donated.

i asked what they would be using it for. this particular station has the jaws of life on one of their engines and will be using the car to teach firemen how to use the jaws of life and make them better at rescuing people. the car will go through 5 or 6 different situations and will be unrecognizable by the end of it.

we are both super happy with all this. it's such a nice feeling knowing that the saturn will be used well and j is happy knowing that it was always in his family. r.i.p. little saturn. you were a good car.

finality

you know that feeling when you finally finish something? the sense of accomplishment. a job well done. well, i finally finished the scrapbook i made for my wedding.



in my defense, i've been doing other things... things like watching hockey. unfortunately the sens are down 3-1 in the series. it could all be over in a couple of days. but it could turn around for them and they could play more than one good period of hockey. you never know.



there was a letter at our front door when we got home yesterday. it was notice that they are going to be paving our driveway next week, weather permitting. paving! our driveway! with that done, our house will look complete from the front. well, from the whole outside too, because you wouldn't think of eavestroughing and a deck and a fence and things like that, would you?

i have to admit that i think about them. i even started sketching out deck ideas last night. i think the idea of a deck seems much closer with the sale of the turbo. and the fact that we won't need a new transmission on the mazda (no turbo, no need for a better transmission), and the fact that decks are awesome! so we're at least going to look into it and see, roughly, how much a deck would cost. we'd both rather do it right the first time instead of spending less but settling for something we aren't 100% hapy with.

cause that's just how we roll.

comings and goings

comings

our new barbeque was hooked up saturday. now all we need is somewhere to put it so that we don't have to drag it between the garage and the back of the house everytime we want to use it.

goings

j's sister left saturday evening for afghanistan. she is on a 6-month rotation, providing fitness and leisure programs for the troops. or, possibly, working at the tim hortons.

comings

we got the saturn back. we picked it up sunday evening and dropped it off at canadian tire to get it safetied. as long as it doesn't cost too much. it will be nice to have two cars again.

goings

my brother left sunday. when i'm not sure because he didn't call me. he's gone for a year-ish in prague for work.

comings?

we looked at trees yesterday. we really want to tree-if-y our backyard. did you know that trees, delievered and planted, are expensive? also, in our house contract, there are trees that we are not allowed to plant. none of the ones we like are on the no-no list so we're okay.

goings

late last night, j sold the turbo kit. as soon as we know the saturn works, we (and when i say that, i really mean "j") will take the turbo off the mazda and zoom our way towards 87 octane and a fist full of cash.

(future) comings

a fist full of cash just might become a nice deck in the backyard. or an air conditioner. or a boring extra mortgage payment.

goings

we might have to kick rolo off the island for pooping in the closet. no joke, i went in to hang up some cothes and almost died from the smell. i did some detective work and found two poops in the back of the closet. not his fault, they were locked up saturday morning while the gas guys were over. what IS his fault is the brand new poop that was in there this morning. rolo, you are this close to being voted off the island. THIS close!

running with the pictures

this has been a long week but it's finally friday. friday friday friday. something i ate yesterday or the night before didn't sit well and i was in a world of hurt yesterday afternoon and evening. i got home from work and went straight to bed. it worked out because i got to finish the book i was reading but it was not fun. i was finally feeling better later on and ate something around 10pm.

since i slept and stayed in bed so long i wasn't tired as early as i usually am and found time to upload pictures from the race last weekend. i made a whole set on flickr but here are some of the good ones.

before the race:


during the race:


ending the race:


we also are the proud new owners of a front lawn:


and a new scratching post for sandy, who just loves the carpet on the stairs:


tonight i will take a picture of the new barbeque to show you all how pretty and fancy it is. it's big and shiny and new. i hope everyones weekend plans are coming together. we have a family dinner saturday night after a farewell to j's sister. i still can't believe she's going. isn't this a great picture of us?

green green grass!

before:



after:



they still have to do the front yard but does the backyard ever look good! we need to get a sprinkler and start watering the new lawn, soaking it twice a day.

and, not sure if i mentioned this, we bought a barbeque last thursday. it's being delivered tomorrow and the natural gas is being hooked up saturday. all i need is a "chaise longue" and i'll be all set for the best tan ever. and full belly i guess. i'm hoping ng bbqs won't be as scary as propane ones. did i mention that i hate barbequing because of the explosive nature of propane?

tanning, barbequing... best. summer. ever!

i run you run we all run run run

title is definitely not as good as the ice cream chant. oh, the ice cream chant....

i ran on saturday. i'm hurting now but i was pretty much okay for the race. i was really worried about my calf and how it would feel (ie. hurt) but it was fine. my time was a little slower than last year, just over an hour total, but i finished and i didn't hurt myself more. so i'm happy. and i do have pictures, some really good ones, but i haven't taken them off the camera yet.

it was a busy weekend and i'm guessing this will be a busy week since it's the last week in the country for my brother and for j's sister. not sure exactly how that will make us busier than usual though.

okay, more later when i can post some pictures.

where did the time go?

has anyone else noticed that it's the end of may already? honestly, what happened? this year is flying by. maybe by not playing baseball this summer i'll have a chance to spend some time relaxing and actually notice the time as it passes. maybe but maybe not.

my race is tomorrow. it actually snuck up on me too. maybe it's because i haven't been thinking about running lately and actually haven't run in two weeks. i'm going today after work to switch to the 10K and maybe look at shoes. they always have tons and tons of shoes there for real cheap. the past two years i've been able to find my kind in my size for about half the regular price. good deals.

for some reason, the week after the long weekend is always a tough one and this week was no different. i was getting about 5 hours of sleep a night and finally crashed last night. my big plan was to go to bed early without napping after work. i was doing fine until i went to read my book in bed. it was hot and i was obviously super tired so i fell asleep. for two hours. but was it ever nice! and i was still able to fall asleep at night, about an hour later than usual. not bad.

so today i'm feeling good. we got to work pretty much on time and get a little break for a funeral (j's grandparent's neighbour and good friend) and then it's the weekend. i have some friends coming to town for race weekend so i'm hoping to see them and catch up. it's been too long, like always.

but only because time passes too quickly.

so tired

okay well, there's more to say. i still can't quite remember everything we did this past weekend even though i was sober the whole time. j sealed the garage floor so all of our stuff was on the front step and in the hallway inside. stuff everywhere. thankfully, we were able to put everything (except the car) back in the garage tuesday after work with the help of some new shelves.



we ended the long weekend with a bbq at our neighbour and j's coworker, jp's house. we sat and talked and ate and talked more. it was nice to finally spend some time with jp's girlfriend.

we got home that night and started the week off with very little sleep because sleeping properly after a weekend of staying up late and sleeping in late is impossible.

tuesday was a regular work day, but i yawned more than any other day i'm sure. i had hockey late tuesday night so the bad, no-sleeping continued. yesterday we slept in and got to work 2 hours late (note to us: maybe we should start work later so we can actually work a whole day) but only stayed one hour later than usual. -1 hour. i had baseball last night, late, and guess what? i'm tired today. but the plan for tonight is to go for a run and then go to bed early.

i have no updates on running because i haven't been for the past two weeks. i wish i could say that my leg is feeling much better, but after my warm-up run last night at baseball, it was killing me. even the 10K is looking a little long. i'm going today or tomorrow to switch my race so we'll see what i do about that.

3 weeks tomorrow we fly out to bc. i'm looking forward to the trip and, hopefully, the sleep.

stayin alive stayin alive

i'm still alive - i just took a break from blogging. it was a long weekend afterall. and a busy long weekend at that.

friday night we had some friends over. it was really nice to see m&r after so long. and i really thought the 8 of us got along well. definitely some of my favourite people, all in one room. it was nice.

j left a little early to go see permanent daylight's last show. he called at 1:45am asking if i wanted a junior chicken. he was drunk. i said no. then, around 2:30, when i had just gone to bed, i hear the key in the door. and then the hugest, not-stealthy-at-all hiccup ever! and then about 10 more of them. j was convinced the mcdonalds gave him the hiccups. i think the rum and cokes might have had something to do with it.

saturday was the going-away party / family sees my house for the first time party. not everyone could come, but we had a good time with the people there. my family is a good bunch of people. but really, i can't believe that this guy:



is actually smart enough to have figured out how to leave the province and the country (and the continent!) and actually survive. he has (almost) everything sorted out. he leaves on sunday. i'm guessing mine and his relationship will be much like it is now. i don't call him and he doesn't call me and we see each other the odd time. sad but true. he's a bad communicator and i'm stubborn. don't get me wrong though, we do get along, we just don't see each other much.

anyways, that little get together was early saturday afternoon and then j and i went next door for a bbq with the neighbours. their house is the mirror image of ours so it was fun to see it and for j to try and pee in the garage (the bathroom and garage are across from each other and obviously opposite in either house) and to get to know our neighbours.

i can't remember if we did anything else saturday night. in fact, i'm going to sleep on it and update this post later. sorry!

can't go the distance

this post has nothing to do with my relationship and everything to do with running. i simply cannot run 21.1 km - the length of a half marathon - the way my leg is feeling. the drugs are working, but that doesn't mean that i won't hurt my leg if i attempt to run that far, i might just not FEEL it. and that scares me.

so i'm running the 10 km instead. 10 km is so much more attainable and possible and likely and safe. i like safe when it comes to my body. i don't want to make myself run the half marathon because it's something i think i should do when i haven't trained hardly enough and i have this leg thing going on. plus, i can always run it later.

i really like the saying "i run because i can" but right now, for me, 10 km is all i can run.

*huge sigh of relief*

pink!

every now and then, i get a little bored with the appearance of my blog. and so the pink. i kinda like it.

long weekend - not soon enough

this week has been a long one and i can't wait for our day off on monday. we've been really bad this week at making lunches and at getting up on time. so bad that yesterday we didn't get to work until almost lunch. we were four and a half hours late. incredible. and then today we were 2 hours late. but we have an excuse for today. last night, i woke up at 3:45 to rolo puking. i followed him around the house and cleaned up his puke more than 10 times. and when he was done and we could finally go back to bed, i couldn't fall asleep because i wasn't sure if he was okay. yuck yuck yuck. at least he seemed like his normal self this morning.

in happy news, with the new drugs, my leg has been feeling much better. though it could be that i just can't feel the pain anymore. and that's why i'm scared to run the half marathon and have asked the race organizers if i can run the 10km instead. i haven't run for almost a week so i'm going to try tonight and see how it feels.

but we also have stuff to do around the house. we're having people over friday night. at first it was only going to be s&l but then it made sense to open it up to a&s and m&r as well. good thing we have chairs or else there wouldn't be room for everyone to sit. i'm definitely looking forward to seeing everyone, especially m&r who have been gone for the past 6 months (maybe more?).

and then saturday afternoon is the going-away party for my brother, who is leaving june 1st for his year in prague. we have most of the family coming over. again, we're thankfull for the extra chairs.

but then sunday and monday are open and hopefully will be relaxing. i need to relax.

if only

if i could access my flickr page at work i would post the picture of the huge bruise on my calf but you'll have to settle for a link - it's my picture of the day from may 10th. i can't believe i haven't mentioned it on here. last sunday (may 6) i ran 16 km. my left calf was bothering my after the run and for days. well, actually, it still is, but monday night i noticed a huge bruise on my calf right where it was hurting most. i was a little relieved to know that i wasn't making up the pain, but a little worried because the middle of the bruise was a large bump. so i went to see my doctor yesterday who said that i had a major muscle pull and prescribed some anti-inflammatories and then confirmed that the bruise was a bug bite, most likely a spider bite.

i almost swore at him i was so mad! what are the chances of me getting a bug bite right on my calf where it hurts right after running longer than i've ever run? slim to none, except that it happened. gross.

so that's the running/calf/soreness/bug bite story.

but another, more exciting, story is that yesterday after work, j went with his work friend, steve, to pick up a little puppy. it's a cross between a pug and a beagle and is teeny tiny. j wants him to call her puglie but i doubt that'll happen. (puglie link until i can access my pictures). the little dog was a little scared and was having some tummy trouble and apparently stunk up the whole car! such a little dog, such an awful smell.

now, the beef of the post: my ex boyfriend got married this past saturday. and, thanks to the geniuses at facebook, there are already pictures up. and yes, i looked at them. i had some things hit me real hard. 1. i'm very glad he's happy. and it's so obvious that he's happy and i'm happy for him. lalala. 2. i'm very glad it wasn't me. we dated for over two years and i know things could have turned out differently if this and if that, but they didn't and i went off and found j and seeing the ex on his wedding day makes me so very happy about all the choices i've made and with j and my little family and with how far i've come since then.

there is no doubt that x and i had a good time together and got along well. but there is also the fact that we weren't meant for each other and i'm so glad i figured that out. there's nothing like a starter marriage these days, but it just isn't for me. and neither was he.

catching up

this weekend i spent a lot of time catching up. lately i've been finding that my days are dragging on but the weeks are flying by and all of a sudden it's may. it's already a third of the way through the year and i could have sworn it isn't even my birthday yet. time to slow down and smell the roses.

and i wish that was a seguay (or however you spell it) to a grand story of me going to see all the tulips, but it isn't. i didn't see the tulips, but i do plan on it. just haven't figured out when.

friday at work, i made a little sticky note for myself with the things we had to do on our way home. on it were catfood, drugs and stools. sounds bad, but it isn't. the catfood that our little cats can stomach was recalled so we had to switch to another sensitive diet food, which is a big hit, but we needed more. so we got that, and then we picked up some "drugs" for j, which is really protein shake stuff. and then we picked up our two lovely stools.



we are very happy with them and have already eaten two meals at the kitchen counter. on the way from the stool place, we had to go by the place we got our dining room light fixture and we knew they were having a sale so we stopped and got the matching wall sconce for the hallway going down to the basement. perfect!



and then on saturday we went to ikea and bought the dining room chairs but not the table. the table, in the colour we want, isn't in stock yet. but the chairs are on sale and likely being discontinued so we got 6 of those. then we had a race to see who could put together chairs faster. i lost. big time. and, just so you know, i signed the bottom of the chair i put together so that when it breaks and someone falls and hurts themselves, once we're sure they're okay, we can laugh at me. i'm a good sport.

chairs but no table:



we also got an extra mat for the front. it took two trips to ikea for me to convince j and now he's talking like he thought of it. he does that. finds something he likes and then claims to have invented it. it can be annoying, but he's cute so it's okay.

and finally, we got some curtains for the upstairs bedrooms. the house gets super duper hot when it's hot and sunny out and then the upstairs stays hot when you're trying to sleep. dark curtains are the answer. no pictures of those yet because they aren't all up and pretty yet.

i also caught up on being social. friday night we went to a bbq with some of j's work friends. i had the best pasta salad ever and then sucked hard at guitar hero (am i good at anything?) but blamed it on my left-right-handedness. i maintain that being ambidextrous is a good thing, but sometimes it's a curse. come to think of it, my terrible guitar hero skills could be blamed on the mojito i had. hmm... saturday, we did our shopping-for-house-things and then went for pho with pike and watched the hockey game with him and his little dog. crazy little dog. and, because i can't run, i had a beer. one extreme to another for me.

sunday was family day, well mother's day, so we saw a lot of family. we went to kanata to see my parents and then picked j's mom up at the airport and had dinner and the coffee with her and j's sister.

it was a good, long, relaxing weekend lacking in stress and not-fun things and full of friends and family and fun. absolutely perfect. oh, and by the way, i caught up on uploading my pictures so head on over to my flickr site.

anorexia understood, kinda

i use this blog as a launching page. i open it up and visit most of the links on the right every day. i told you i blogged for myself. anyways, i have to scroll down if i want to go to all my friend's blogs and i keep seeing the pictures of me with the kitten. i also see them when i log into my flickr page. and i'm skinny. it hits me every time.

i've never been a big girl. i was bigGER in first year university when the frosh-15 hit me, plus 5, but even then i wasn't big big. but i still don't consider myself all that skinny. i see all sorts of other girls and think they're smaller than me. seeing these pictures of me makes me think that maybe about half of those smaller girls are actually smaller, but that half of them must be bigger.

and then i get it. i can kinda understand the aspect of anorexia where the person thinks they're fat. we really have a skewed perspective of ourselves and i believe that it's because we are mostly looking out from ourselves and never really see our bodies the way other people do. to me, my feet always look super big but it's because i see them from the top. most people don't even notice my feet, let alone how long they are.

it also has to do with what we hear from other people. people tell me all the time that i'm skinny but i never really HEARD it until i was at my doctor's office and the admin, who is a very petite woman, said i was a "teeny thing". i'm shrek-sized compared to her. and then i realized that we both look at each other and think the other is smaller. why do we do that? how do i change how i see myself? is the media to blame or is it ingrained deep within me to see and exaggerate my flaws?

and really, i'm comfortable with my body and never get on a scale. i don't know where my perception of myself comes from but now that i understand it better, i'm going to do what i can to change it and to remind myself that it really doesn't matter. really.

take a seat

friday recap: i spent most of my work day friday bumbling through, doing my normal whatevers, but then i felt really sick so i went home around 1 and left j to find his own way home. i'm nice that way. i managed to sleep from about 1:30pm until almost 7 and then woke up for a bit, ate, ran and internetted, and then back to sleep for almost 12 hours. apparently, i wasn't feeling well AND i was exhausted.

saturday recap: the 12 hours of sleep took me until 1:30pm so i had a pretty lazy day. j had left early that morning for a car thing where we had our car detailed for free. it is so sparkly and shiny and clean now (thanks jamie!) so i was left to do whatever almost all day. i can't say i did much - some laundry, some tv watching, some showering (well, just one shower), some eating - and then j got home and we went to ikea and found a dining room table we like (didn't buy it though) and headed to kanata for a bbq and hockey game watching at j&s's house. s's parents had just moved out so it was celebratory in that way. and there was bbq'd food.

we left after the first period and headed downtown to catch our friend landon's second last show. his band, permanent daylight (remember them?) were playing at cafe dekcuf. he was given two beer tickets and gave us one. so i drank most of a beer. incredible. it was a good show and we were home pretty early so that was good. plus, j kept telling me i looked nice. apparently brushing my hair makes me look nice. (a little history: once, a bunch of years ago, i got my hair cut and when j saw me he asked me if i brushed my hair! a little brushing goes a long way!)

recap sunday: i woke up early sunday (early for me) and started making pancakes. it's the batter in a box kind of pancakes and i was a little weary about this box because my saturday pancake was disgusting. so i actually looked at the box only to find out that it wasn't "add water" like the last box, it was "add milk and an egg"! oops! so i put the batter and the milk and the egg in the bowl and was stirring the incredibly dry mixture when i realized i put twice as much batter as i was supposed to. i read 300ml of batter and put in 3 cups. i don't understand me either. so i made a double batch of pancakes, but at least they tasted good this time.

after my breakfast settled, i geared up for my long run. since the race is fast-approaching, i need to start putting in the distance so i tried for 16K and i'm proud to say that i made it 15.8 and was only gone for about an hour and 40 minutes. it was hot and my face got sunburnt and my body was killing me (and still is!) but i did it! that is 5.8K longer than i have ever run. this sunday: 18K. the sunday after that: not as far. and the sunday after that: race day! 21.1K!

i also had baseball practice sunday night. yes, i quit this year, but i also told my team that i would come out if they ever needed players. well, they need players this week and thought that maybe a practice before stepping into a game would be a good idea. so not only are my legs and feet killing me, my arms are in pain now too. c'mere, advil!

monday recap: i went to a workshop on the 7 habits to a healthy life at work and learned some neat things. because of my bad memory, i can't tell you what those 7 habits are, but i was given a website to go look at. the thing i do remember though, is that we are conditioned to think negatively. you ask someone who has back pain, for example, how they want to feel and they'll tell you that they "don't want to feel pain." exactly, that's what you DON'T WANT to feel. now, how do you WANT TO FEEL? get it? they want to feel "great" but they can't say that. it was interesting to have that pointed out. i've caught myself a bunch of times saying things like that. weird.

we stopped by staples on our way home from work and bought a new desk chair. the one we had was mine from university. a $40 walmart chair that lasted since second year but was finally falling apart. actually, falling apart. so now we have a brand new and very comfy desk chair and rolo has a new box to play in.

i went to baseball last night. we won and i played okay. i went 1 for 3 and had a good catch in the outfield. plus, i almost threw out a girl at first from center! that would have been great. and if j had a blog, he would tell you about his friend, pike, and pike's dog. this dog apparently smells like nachos but sat with j while he played games / watched tv and j was a happy camper about that. too bad we have cats, j, but at least they smell like nachos... is that a good trade off?

kitten!

we went over to see the new kitten again last night. poor a&s are having people coming over all the time now. the little cat ran around the whole time we were there and passed out right before we were leaving. she passed out on the couch so sylvia put her in my lap. she was happy to stay asleep.

pictures!

day off

i took yesterday off from blogging. mostly because i had nothing to say. will today be any different... not sure.

because of my back, i didn't play hockey tuesday night. i have no idea how my team did, but am guessing that they won since that's what we seem to do. my back is feeling better though. i'm still not sure what exactly i did to it, but i was able to run last night. i think it might just be that i'm getting older and don't recover as well as i used to. but i'm okay now and that's all that matters.

oh, and about running, i'm raising funds for the ottawa hospitals this year. i have a page all set up if you would like to donate online (i also accept cash or cheques) but don't want to link to it here because it has my name (i need to feel like not just anybody can find this blog) but please please please let me know if you would like the link. i will be sending out an email soon. (and asking for the link doesn't mean you HAVE to donate. you can always just look at the page.) i'm hoping to raise $150 and will see how the next couple of weeks go, if i have to up that amount.

in other news, my brother leaves june 1st for prague. he is spending a year-ish there for work. i'm very proud of him. we are not well-travelled and for him to be able to pick up and move across the world is amazing to me. we are hoping to have a little going-away party for him.

and at the same time, a little going-away party for j's sister who is leaving june 2nd for afghanistan. she is going on a 6 month rotation (look at me picking up the lingo! it's actually just a "roto" in deployment-speak) as a civilian. again, super impressive.

i would be huddled in a corner, wimpering. probably. but that's just me.

so may is proving to be a busy month full of stuff to do. at least we get a long weekend because i don't think i can handle this month without getting more sleep.

finally

i finally know what it feels like to throw ones back out. i don't know if it was my run or the stretching afterwards, but my back, the lower left part specifically, is in agony! i had a hard time sleeping last night because no matter how i lay, my back was bothering me. thankfully, once i was asleep, the pain didn't wake me up. but now that i'm at work, i'm not a happy camper. i can only sit up straight straight which isn't as comfortable as slouchy slouchy. whine whine whine.

i got to see a&s's new kitten yesterday. i had a doctor appointment just down the street from their place and it went quickly so i decided i had time to stop by. what a cute little cat!! it's very fluffy and bouncy and clumsy in the little-kitten kind of way. very cute. she makes my little cats seem huge.

that's about all i have to say today. well, right now. have a happy first day of may, only 3 weeks left until the long weekend!

random ramblings

a bunch of weird things happened this weekend. i had a call thursday about some suspicious activity on my credit card. i called about it friday after work and found out that there had been two more book purchases after the one i had made last wednesday. so they cancelled my card and were sending my file to the fraud department. great, except i don't have a credit card for 7-10 business days. i'm happy they caught it though.

and then we had a call from the vet (through j's sister) saying that our cat food had been recalled. we had to go and swap the stuff we did have for a new kind of food. we only bought a small bag in case they didn't like it. they have the weak little digestive systems so i was picturing fun times coming out of both ends for a while until they got used to the new food. but no, no problems at all. they love the new food and don't seem bothered by it at all. a big relief for us.

i was talking to j's dad who said that the half marathon was at capacity and that i couldn't sign up anymore. i went online to check it out and was waiting for an error message telling me the race was full, but it never came, and so i am officially registered in the half marathon. there is no backing out now. good thing i can run a whole 8K. and j was talked into running the 10K race with his mom. i hate to say but he doesn't seem all that enthused. i'll try and get him out.

and i guess the last piece of news is that we picked up my bike from the old house last night and so i will be biking again soon.

nothing as exciting as a new kitten though.

to bathe or not to bathe

i came up with this last night and i was all pleased with myself. for about two seconds. then i realized what it sounded like. here goes... i think i finally like to bathe. get it? it sounds like i only bathe because i have to when in reality i have nothing wrong with being clean and actually prefer it to being dirty. but what i mean is that i took a bath last night and enjoyed myself.

i started showering as soon as i could. i never liked lying around in the tub. just not something for me. and then, when i was 19, one day near the end of the summer right before leaving for university, i mysteriously had all sorts of huge mosquito bites all over my legs. i went to the walk-in clinic not far from my house and sat in the waiting room scratching my legs until the bites turned into huge, distorted welts. i was crying so hard because i had never ever felt such pain. i was so itchy and i was convinced my legs would never go back to normal.

i got in to see the doctor - they put me ahead of other people because of all the wailing - and was told that the mosquito bites were in fact hives. and hives are the body's way of telling you that something isn't right inside so they did a throat swab. could be strep, could be mono. doc told me to go home and take a baking soda (or powder, whatever it is) bath. still crying, i head home, pour the soda/powder into the tub and get in. a little while later i woke up. still in the tub. still covered in hives. and crying once again. people drown in bathtubs.

and that was the beginning of the worst month of my life. the throat swab came back, positive for mono. to make a long story short, i spent the next 4 weeks not training for hockey as planned, but in bed. and three of those four weeks, when i wasn't sleeping, i was puking. i'm not exaggerating. and i wouldn't puke in anything other than the toilet so everytime i had to puke, which was about 25 times a day, i would wake up and run to the bathroom down the hall. one time, on my way to the bathroom, i fell over (i was obviously a little weak) and my head hit the wall. that's what broke my fall. but i still had to puke, so i got up and wobbled to the bathroom, crying of course. i was a mess.

i lost 40 pounds that summer and didn't make the hockey team in the fall. and then the cruel frosh-15 came and hit me hard giving me the frosh-20 on top of the 40 pounds i gained back once i started eating again. your skin just can't forgive you for that.

all that to say that i don't like taking baths. never have, but after falling asleep in the tub and (possibly) almost drowning, it took years for me to even consider taking one again. but now we have a big tub and i chose to take a bath last night. and i liked it. seems like i finally beat mono. at least there were no hives involved this time.

oooh questions in the comments!

be still my heart (i don't think i've ever said or written that before) there are questions in the comments and i haven't thought of anything to write about yet for today so i'll go about answering some questions. or maybe just elaborating on some of my previous statements so that it will be more clear and there won't be any questions. i don't know.

okay, the trip to bc is so that we can fly j's parent's cats back to ottawa. yes, they are the same breed as our two. back in april 2004, we flew them out there. i had just just finished school and moved my stuff back to ottawa. we were getting married in a couple of months and heading out for our first major trip together. i had a job lined up to start right when we got back. it was a whirlwind.

we had a pretty uneventful flight out to victoria. it was strange having the cats. they were in soft-sided cat carriers (think duffel bags with mesh sides for the cats to see out/ us to see in) so we each had a cat (j got whitey, the male, and i got stinky.. errr, i mean smelly... errr, i mean sydney, the female). one lady in the ottawa airport came up to me and asked if i had a rabbit. i said no, it's a cat. she asked if the cat was soft. i said no, she's not soft at all. truthfully, her hips are fluffy and soft, but she is mostly bristly-feeling. like a toothbrush. anyways, the woman left me alone after that.

the airport security wanted us to take the cats out of the carriers so they could check them, for drugs i'm assuming, but they wanted to do it right at the security thingy, where there are tons and tons of people, lots of noise and access to the entire terminal. like we want to let two scared cats loose in a huge airport. no thank you! finally some smart thinking security person thought to take us to the personal room where we took the cats out, one at a time, and had the bags checked. after that, we were off.

on the plane (you didn't think the fun ended there, did you?) we were sitting in the emergency exit row and had the attendant come to give us the little speech about how to use the doors. check. then she told us that, in the event of an emergency and we had to evacuate the plane, we were to take the cats out of the carriers and leave the carriers. she obviously doesn't have cats. let me spell this out for you, cats each have four paws. each paw has five little toes. each little toe has a sharp little claw with which to shred the skin of anyone disturbing the little pussy cats. that's 40 sharp little claws. again, we disagreed and said we would be jumping out of the plane with the cats IN their cases whether they liked it or not. we were hoping the cases would float. never did check on that though.

we had a four-hour layover in the calgary airport. right after getting off the plane, we wanted to check on the cats, so we went into one of those family baby change room thingys. we must have looked so strange: two people with school bags and duffel bags head in the family washroom for a quickie. it wasn't like that. we gave them some water and that was about it. they were a little stressing and so was j. i was just excited. we were almost all the way to beeeeseeeee, where i'd never been.

so, that's what happened on the way to victoria. we got there okay and the cats were let out of the cases and went a little nuts exploring their new surroundings, but settled in relatively quickly.

and now it's time for the kitties to come home (j's parents too, just so you know). we'll fly out there, spend a week in the warmer-than-here climate, maybe explore that area a little (head down to seattle perhaps, or over to vancouver or banff, or up vancouver island to check out the surfing.. don't know yet), and then come home with the cats.

j's parents will be driving across the country so the cats will (most likely) live with us until they're back (possibly around the second week in july). we still have to figure out how to deal with having all four in the same house. ours eat whenever they want but the other two have a strict feeding schedule and they eat different food. thankfully we can close off the basement if needed. anyways, we'll figure it out and everything will be okay.

and we get a trip out of the deal. works for me! if only it was sooner though. after my tuesday-feels-like-friday-but-really-is-just-tuesday kind of week i'm having, i could use a vacation. i did give in and napped after work last night but i napped for way too long and couldn't fall asleep until late. and i've been dreaming about the next day so when i wake up it's always such a kick in the pants that i haven't already gotten up, brushed my teeth, showered, whatever and am at work. i'm still in bed and already exhausted. i wonder if they have anything i could take for that. super sleeping drugs? i don't think i sleep for long enough at a time to take sleeping pills, don't you need something like 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep time?

maybe that's what i'll take up this summer instead of playing ball: sleeping enough. is that a sport? will it make me fit? i need to do some reading up on this activity.

not-friday

did i ever disappoint myself yesterday. i was terribly confused and thought it was friday. i kept thinking about what i had to do this weekend and what i was going to do last night. i kept reminding myself to bring my carrots home so i could eat them this weekend.

and then it hit me: i have hockey tonight so it's only tuesday. and you know what that makes today? the worst wednesday possible. and then tomorrow is the worst thursday, and finally the worst friday has to come and go before i get to the weekend. what a cruel world.

i am melodramatic.

my news from yesterday: i booked our flights to bc for this summer. we'll be going from june 15th to the 23rd and will have two extra cats in-house afterwards for a couple of weeks while j's parents trek across the country. don't know yet how we'll sort that out but we will. i'm envisioning all-out cat epic cat brawls (not just cat fights for these four. oh nono! cat brawls!) let's just hope all four cats survive and our furniture and carpeting come out unscratched.

given my melodramatisy (and my making-up-word-isy) i've been treating today a lot like a saturday in that i've hardly done any work and i've been talking and talking with my coworker all morning. take that, wednesday!

now it's off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of oz.

of note

1) my brother is leaving in 6 weeks for prague. he is spending a year (give or take) there for work. i'm very proud of him. i'm almost positive i couldn't just pick up and go across the world for that long.

and since he doesn't read this i can tell you that i got him the lonely planet guide book for prague. j and i really liked having the costa rica book for our trip so i'm hoping he will find it useful. (j, by the way, i bought a book.)

2) crazy aunt purl, a friend of mine (where friend = stranger whose blog i read and who doesn't know me from eve), wrote a book. i feel like i know her because i read her thoughts every day or two and see pictures of her cats and plants and such, but i really don't know her. it's probably a super funny book though.

so while i was buying the lonely planet book for my brother, i pre-ordered crazy aunt purl's book. (j, by the way, i bought more than one book.)

3) umm, i also bought a latin american spanish phrase book. but j really wants this too. plus i had a gift card (maybe from my birthday?) so it didn't cost full price. (j, surprise! more than two books!)

4) i would really like to be able to call myself a runner, but i'm more of an imposter in the running world. i need some inspiration (a running book maybe?) i went to run last night, hoping to get in 5 or 6K before the rain started, but wimped out way before then because the wind was so strong it was making my ears hurt. i'm such a wimp. (but not as wimpy as j who complains the whole time we're running.. when he comes running that is.)

5) we're thinking of getting another car. we're not sure if we'll lease or buy (new or used) or what, but having one car is proving to be a little more difficult now that we don't live in such a central neighbourhood. plus, we both came into this relationship with a car and have since downsized to only one and it's trying at times. did i mention that i don't get to drive all that much? did i mention that i kinda feel like my freedom died along with lumi (my 92 chevrolet lumina, lumi, who i loved until he started dying while i was driving along. yep, that was awesome)? well, some of my freedom anyways. (j, don't worry, i still like you.)

6) lists are good for some people. personally, i am a list maker. i make lists for everthing. (drives j crazy.) and yes, the house list is a huge long list that just keeps getting longer no matter how many things we buy, but how else would i know what we need without the list? but talking about such a list got comments and comments are good.

7) complaining about deliquent bloggers on facebook got at least one blog updated (thanks, skinnykitty!) but i do understand that some people, lots of people actually, don't blog often. i get it. personally, i feel weird if i haven't blogged in a couple of days. but that's just me. plus, i can blog from work, just don't tell my boss.

8) alan and sylvia, my good friends (for real this time), are getting a kitten! it's possible i am just as excited, or more excited, than they are. their house came with cat doors already installed (or just cut out of the doors) so i'm not sure how they held out for so long, but i know they're going to have a great time with a little ball of fluff and energy running around. (ps. sylvia, update your blog!) (pps. or alan, maybe you should hijack it and update for her. she has exams afterall.)

9) should all lists end at 10? can i possibly have more to say? is this cheating? did i mention that i like to make lists?

10) yep, ran out of steam. plus, i really do have to get some work done. bah, responsibility!

list lengthening

we have a list of things that we need/want for the house. this list gets longer and longer and so when we get the chance to cross something off the list we feel a huge sense of accomplishment. we've already purchased (and installed) central vac and a garage door opener, two things that are pretty major in that they are costly and we use them often. but the list also has things that are smaller and less expensive. things like a broom for the garage/front porch. done!

but i feel like we will always have some sort of list. things that need to be done or need to be purchased. owning a house, even a new one, is like that.

one thing we need is seating in the dining room. we don't have a dining room table and chairs or stools for the counter. but on saturday, after helping s&l move into their (really nice) new house, i convinced j to stop at the stool store (honestly, this place has lots of stools). the stool store keeps really odd hours and so we've been twice before only to find the place locked up tight. but we went while the store was open and looked around at all the stools. we were really at a loss as to what would look good in our place. so we talked to a guy there and told him what we were thinking and the colours in our house. apparently this store lets you borrow stools to see what they look like at home. incredible! so away we went with two stools. we set them up at the counter and sat in them and looked at them and patted them... okay, i'm only kidding about the patting part... and figured out what worked and what didn't.

we went back yesterday, brought the stools back, and ordered two for us. we're happy because we're one step closer to having somewhere to sit to eat and i'm happy because we decided on a fun fabric. and, as luck would have it, the fabric is being discontinued and yesterday was the last day to get it. the guy had already thrown the sample in the garbage. it was that close.

enough stool talk? okay. after work friday, we went to the tire shop, a sponsor of the ottawa mazda club, to get the new wheels mounted on tires. after 2 hours we had the wheels mounted and on the car. the car is sexier than ever:



j was super happy too because he got to take the new wheels to the first meet of the year. i'm sure he got glowing reviews because even the guys at the shop liked the wheels. after the meet, he met up with his work friends and did work-friend stuff. i was at home catching up on the hours and hours of pvr'd tv shows. i'm fun that way.

saturday we helped s&l move and then the stool stuff happened. saturday night i was super fun again and stayed home while j went out with the guys and sang karaoke at a korean internet cafe downtown for vlatko's birthday (happy birthday, vlatko!) i split my time between doing laundry, watching tv, internetting and making freezer paper stencils.

i made two onesies for a woman at work who's last day is tomorrow. she's having her second, a boy. hopefully she likes these:





i have lots of ideas for more stencils and two more pregnant coworkers.

last night we had dinner with j's family. his uncle, who i hadn't seen in almost two years, was in town. there was a lot of reminiscing.

changes

before baseball season for the past 7 years i've always thought about not playing. but i always do because i always have. i've been playing since i was 3, maybe 4... for 23 seasons. baseball is what i do. baseball is what i'm good at (at least i like to think so).

but last night i quit.

my old team folded and some girls are looking for a team and i figured i could not play and not leave my team scrambling looking for players. but i feel sick. absolutely sick about it.

i'm really worried that i won't do anything with all my free time and then i'll feel like i wasted my summer. and i don't know what else to do. there are tons of things i could do but i don't know where to start. i'm feeling overwhelmed.

and sad because i just ended the thing that i've been doing longer than anything else. except breathing that is. did i do the right thing?

employee of the month gets new music

i had nothing to do last night. we got home from work and i jumped right away into comfy pants and after a little bit at the computer settled down in front of the tv. it was all part of the master plan to get to bed early. i saw the last bit of the manhattan project cause j was watching it and then we watched employee of the month with jessica simpson. with the exception of a line or three, it was a pretty bad movie.

instead of going to bed right after the movie, i went to update my ipod. i've had the same music for months and i'm tired of it. but i don't exactly know how to update anything so i showered and waited for j to come and help. sad, i know. but then end result is that i got a ton of new music and am happily listening away. but i didn't get to bed at a good time. it was after midnight when i turned out my light. ooops.

at least i have good tunes today.

lack of sleep and spring

ever notice how pretty the snow looks for the first couple of snowfalls of the season. you know, back in OCTOBER!! why is it snowing now? we've been through this. it's time for spring and time to move on. why is winter holding on? the snow isn't pretty this time of year. you know what's pretty? tulips and crocuses and whatever other flowers usually bloom in april.

let me tell you about my weekend. friday night i had my work hockey game. it was fun but painful. i got knocked down a couple of times - i'm sure it's just because of size though. i'm used to being the biggest player on the ice and not playing against big 240 pound guys who just have to bump into me and i go flying. also painful because i blocked a shot with my forearm, specifically my non-padded forearm. half the time i feel like my arm is broken. thankfully typing is in the other half.

we went out for beers afterward and i had a pint. i haven't had anything alcoholic in a long time. i don't even know when was the last time i drank. that's just not how i roll. so i had my pint and then switched over to diet pepsi, ate my salad, and talked and talked and talked. i got home around 1:30am.

i proceeded to sleep in until late saturday. saturday wasn't much of a day. we went to home depot because we had a gift card for there (thanks d&t!) and bought a garage door opener (now i don't have to jump out of the car when we get home) and then went to j's grandparent's place for swiss chalet.

i was going to run saturday, but it was late and dark by the time we got home and i convinced myself that running sunday would be okay.

sunday comes along, after about 13 hours of sleep, and so does the rain. come along i mean. it poured all day. ALL. DAY. so i vacuumed, watched some tv, hung out with j's mom (j's dad was helping j install the garage door opener), watched more tv, ate food, watched more tv and finally went to bed.

only four hours of sleep later i woke up this morning to tons of snow and a work day. i'm tired and a little grumpy and full of p&v apparently. and now i have to work.

our phones like to gossip

we needed a new cordless phone. this was a while ago. so we went to futureshop and picked out a nice one that came with two handsets. handy. then the guy at the cash asked if we had or were thinking of getting wireless internet. why yes, we answered, because we were thinking about it. eventually. so, he said, you really should get this phone instead. it was $10 or $20 more but wouldn't kick us off the internet if we were to get wireless. thanks, we said, we'll get it. and that's the story of us buying our phones. wow, never thought you would be so bored, eh? moving on. our phones can talk to each other. you press a little button and the other handset rings. it's called intercom or something. i tried it today for the first time and i couldn't stop giggling. see, our house is pretty little, and i was sure i could hear j all the way in the basement talking to me. well, i could hear him. through the phone. but i mean that i'm sure i could also hear him not on the phone. and that's the news about my phones and how they love to gossip. such girls.

fancy and free

if i can get even one of you clicking each day, it's worth it: funding free mamograms. there are also links on the page (after you click the pink button, scroll down on the next page, there are similar buttons in different colours) for other things you can fund just by clicking on a button. it takes about 30 seconds a day. i do it every morning when i get into work. you should too.

i went running again last night. i powered through an insanely sleepy time, ate well and ran my 6K. i took j with me but he didn't last the whole 6, maybe only 3 or so. not sure, he took a shortcut that i haven't mapped out yet. the poor boy is sore and cranky.

i'm not all that sore but i'm starting to feel sick. i really hope it's just a little thing that will never develop into a full blown whatever or it's tiny and passes quickly. i'm thinking it has to do with the fact that it's mid-april and it's snowing. we can't deal with the hot then cold temperatures, nature, so smarten up!

i'm in a hockey pool and have to say that i did well last night. being in the pool is a weird feeling because it's like gambling - something i rarely do - and it's about hockey - something i never watch. so it's putting two things that i don't do/care about together and all of a sudden i want to know who scored last night. who did score last night?

this is a short week, the second in a row, but it already feels like a long week. anyone else get this feeling? is it because we have to cram 5 days of work into 4? (yes, some government jobs require actual work.) i don't know why it feels like this but it sucks. sucks the big bucks, like my coworker would say.

but tonight i get cake and tomorrow i get to play hockey and saturday i get to not go to toronto. good times.

random tuesday night thoughts

first, let me wish alan a happy birthday. i hope you had a really good day, alan. there just may be some cake in your future.

second, i keep thinking about easter and i always come back to the same sad story. when i was growing up, we weren't religious so easter meant only one thing: chocolate. we didn't have a lot of money and so our last easter egg hunt was not for chocolate. it was for nickels. my parents kept a change jar with all small change (this is before the loonie and twoonie) and so my dad hid however many nickels around the house. and we hunted with glee. and then we put the nickels back in the change jar. that was the last easter egg hunt i did as a child.

third, did i ever mention that i saw a coyote? we were driving into work one day maybe two weeks ago and i had gotten a ride home with some of j's coworkers the day before. they had told me about the wild turkeys you can sometimes see on the way home and that they'd heard there were also coyotes but had never seen one. so i'm telling him this story and right when i get to the part about the elusive coyote, i look over and see one, right near the side of the road. incredible! very wolf-like. i was thinking it would look more like a fox, but not so.

fourth, because i haven't been watching a lot of tv lately, the pvr is full of k-shows. i've been doing my best and watching when i can, but this means that i never ever watch live tv. i had no idea that prison break is done for the season! i found out after we watched the season finale this afternoon. i'm really not happy where they left off. the story is very up in the air, nothing was concluded. is that the point?

fifth, you would think i know better, but apparently i can still eat too much chocolate and give myself a stomach-ache. 26 years living with this body and that's what i do to myself. amazing.

catching up

easter to me means i get a long weekend. so i slept. lots.

thursday night was recovery night. my week was short - only three days - but it was long. friday night we went out with j's work friends. we had dinner at the outback and then played guitar hero. my forearm was killing me! saturday we had a housewarming party. thanks to everyone who came. sunday we had family dinner at j's grandparent's place and monday was a gym/shopping/running/watching tv day. we are now all up to date on 24 but not prison break because we're missing an episode.

boring! i'll give you a better post soon.

day 100

today is day 100 in my project 365. there have been some days that have been tough - no inspiration or time = no pictures. but most days i've been completely happy to tote around "my camera" (i've adopted our little point and shoot) and take pictures of things.

i'm actually quite happy with how this is working out. i'm finding i see more things. i'm always looking around and noticing things i wouldn't have seen before. and it's nice looking back through the 99 pictures to see what my life was like.

and then there are the flickr groups dedicated to the project where i've met some really nice people. it's interesting seeing pictures from all around the world. i've learned that what might seem uninteresting to me is something fresh and new to someone else. and maybe in a couple of years it may be fresh and new to me so i should try and capture it so i can have it forever. isn't that what pictures are for?

gmaps pedometer

thanks to gmaps pedometer i know that i ran almost 4K today. that's a good start.

r.i.p. spider solitaire, you will be missed

someone was obviously paying attention to my thinly veiled cry for help and removed all games from the computer. now i can concentrate on blogging my life away.

absolute comedy was tonight. i am maybe a little in love with the mc. he was hilarious. and hot. such a good combo. thanks to everyone who came out. my baseball team appreciates your support.

tomorrow is essentially friday and i'm especially happy. even though it was a super short week for me with monday off and everything, it was a long week and this long weekend is a nice break. and i have good news: i will start running soon. the plan, which i formulated at work, had me start my 8-week half marathon training today, but i napped instead. off to a stellar start, my friends. stellar.

so now it's time to positive-think myself into running, even though it's raining and possibly flurry-ing out. i am going to start running and i am going to love it!

every runner needs goals (or so i've read) and here is my goal, with some background first. in may 2005, i ran my first race since highschool. it was a 5K and the longest i had ever run before. thankfully i am a moron and didn't realize the treadmill on which i was training was in miles and so i was training at 8K. the race was a breeze after that. last may i ran my second race, a 10K. again, the longest that i had ever run (seeing the trend yet?) and i was happy i finished. this year, the goal is to run a half marathon. and eventually, you guessed it, my goal is to run a full marathon. but i'll wait on the marathon for a bit. focus! so the half marathon that i'd like to run is sunday, may 27th, which is 8 weeks away, hence the 8-week training. and my only goal is to finish the race. i don't mind if i have to walk half of the 21.1K, i just want to finish.

so i guess now i really just have to get out there. wish me luck!

neglect

i promise that i am not neglecting this thing because of facebook. i'm neglecting my blog because of facebook AND other things. other things like flickr and spider solitaire (who invented spider solitaire anyways?) and work and sleep and eating and sports. imagine that.

that and i don't really have much to say. for a second time this post, imagine that.

i've been thinking lots lately about running. and biking. i miss both. my plan was to run a half marathon this year. back in 2005 i ran my first race. it was a 5K and i was happy with my time and the whole racing thing. then last year, i stepped it up and ran the 10K race. again, i was happy that i finished (and somewhat surprised at myself because, until that week, i had never run that far. ever.) and then i just fizzled out.

but that's going to change. i'm writing it here so i can't back out. i'm going to start running again. it's going to become my life. hello, new life! goodbye, couch potato batman.

wow

this was a long weekend. i worked 9-5 both days at the wedding show. it went well though and actually went by pretty quickly.

friday night was the make-up birthday night for a bunch of the girls on my ball team, including me. it was an exhausting week so i left before everyone went out to the bar. i had a good time though.

saturday night i stayed in and watched tv.

last night we had dinner at j's grandparents house.

and then today i slept in and spent the day doing house stuff. party this saturday!

if you're sleepy and you know it clap your hands

*clap*clap*

this has been a long week. monday night i went out with my volleyball team (only baseball girls showed up but whatever) and tuesday night i had hockey - both normal occurences for me. last night though, i said i would play volleyball with a coworker whose team needed another girl. the game was downtown and started at 9. what was i thinking?

normally i would nap and be fine to stay out a bit later, but i wasn't tired after work. i felt weird. j wasn't home. he got called into work at 2:45am and stayed until 6pm. ridiculous. so i did groceries and organized some pictures.

i'm paying for it today. you know the feeling when you're awake but you're so tired that simple things seem so complex and take so much effort. so i'm not doing anything tonight. i'm going to get home, put on comfy clothes and plunk down in front of the tv and watch tv until i fall asleep. now if only i had a cook!

now i know

you always hear about the poor fools that hit reply all to a work email and say something nasty and it gets sent to everyone. well, today i got a taste of what that must feel like.

we got an email about a meeting about our new directorate, whatever, point is, this email went out to about a hundred people at my work. like the good little employee i am i immediately went to put it in my calendar. i do this with most meetings. so i add it like normal and am going about my work when i start getting emails from people accepting my meeting invitation. turns out, with our new email/calendar system, the default setting is to put all the email recipients in the required invitees to any calendar dates you set up. why??

so my request went out to about a hundred people. after i got five emails, two phone calls and one frantic admin in my office, i quickly went and changed the meeting in my calendar and took everyone off the invitee list. that sent them all another email! just my luck! so then i was getting more emails and calls asking why they were no longer invited.

all this to say that i felt like an idiot and i just wanted to leave. go home. get away from all the phone calls and emails and smirks. laugh it up because it wasn't you.

now, i can kinda imagine what it must feel like to send a nasty email to only your buddy but instead send it to the higher ups. oops!

but to top it all off, i get home and j tells me he can see through my pants. the poor boy isn't feeling well so i kinda laughed and asked him what he meant. turns out, i had two holes in the bum of my jeans. the ones i wore to work all day. good thing i wasn't wearing bright blue underwear. oh wait, i totally was! where is the rock i can crawl under? where?

surprise surprise

we had a surprise party for my dad on saturday. he was very surprised.



his whole family was there and the beer was flowing. this is a picture of the shirt i made him:



he was also gifted a 24 of beer and gift certificates to a fancy restaurant and home depot. the man was in heaven!

and now i have all the left over cake. i brought it into work with me so i won't have to eat it anymore.

but work. sigh. i was really hoping today was sunday. again. i know. no such luck.

other news from the weekend: j managed to set up and wire the central vac!