The crazy storm that shook the city

I was sitting at work Monday afternoon when it started getting dark. I looked out the window and saw this:



I immediately called J at work and we decided to leave early to beat the rain. We made it to the car but we didn't make it home before the heavy rain started. The drive was incredibly slow. There was a lot of water on the roads.



I thought we were struck by lightning twice and thought my heart was going to stop.

And then the hail started. It was much louder than the rain and J was worried about it damaging the paint.



We finally got home and got out of the car in the garage. Our garage door opener has battery back-up, which was a good thing because the power was out and stayed out for about 2 hours. The rain and thunder and lightning lasted for hours.



Needless to say, we didn't go on the bike ride we had planned that night. We stayed inside listening to the rain and the thunder.

Big weekend

It was a big weekend for me. Friday night we met S&L downtown for dinner. We spent hours at The Metropolitan. It was a nice dinner even though the service wasn't all that great and we had a very obnoxious woman right near us. I had a salad but steak was the popular choice for the evening.

We strolled around downtown afterwards and made our way to Parliament where Light and Sound show was going on. They project images and lights onto the actual parliament buildings. It was neat, but probably could have been a little more interesting.



The national anthem was played at the end of the show. Growing up we heard the anthem every morning in school (I don't know if they still do that) but I hadn't heard it in a long time (probably the Sens game we went to back in September). This is a good shot of J and L during the anthem.



During the day Saturday J worked on the deck. Richard stopped by and helped a little though he was quite happy to lounge around with me while J worked.



I managed to suntan on the deck for the first timee. I did this after running, well, trying to run. I think it was a lack of protein that made for one of the worst runs since I started my training.

Saturday night we headed downtown with some of my coworkers and J's sister. We tried to go to one bar, but it had lost its liquor license the night before and was "closed for renovations", so we headed to another bar and set up camp there. It was an interesting night full of drinking and dancing and trying to avoid drunken boys and playing with a fire extinguisher and swollen eyes (poor SJ got a glass smashed into her eye by a guy on the dancefloor - her eye is a little swollen). We got home late and slept like champions.



I made up for my crappy Saturday run Sunday afternoon when I ran 16K and felt great. My body felt strong and fast, though I was running as slow as I could.

J worked on the deck again Sunday afternoon. A came over to help and brought his circular saw which apparently came in handy. They put up railing posts.



Sunday night we ordered Chinese food, watched some Olympics and the Disney / Pixar movie Cars (on lend from S&L). The movie was really cute, but I would have been happy had Owen Wilson not been the voice of the main character. I really don't like that guy.

We were in bed pretty early, which is a good thing because this morning was J's first day back at work after two weeks off. He had 750 emails to sort through. I had 4. I'm extremely popular at work.

Tomorrow I will tell you about the insane storm we drove through on our way home from work today. I have pictures and video of the craziness.

Worn out and run down

After going out every night last week I was feeling completely worn out. I was supposed to get my hair cut yesterday after work and I was supposed to run 7K. I did neither. I left work early (don't tell my boss) and went home. I did some internetting then went to Home Depot with J only because he promised we could get Swiss Chalet. Waaay better than cooking. I ate and then was in bed before 9pm. I think it's a new record for me. And I slept right through until almost 8am this morning. I'm feeling much better today.

J's still enjoying his time off. I think the cats like having him around though not when he gets out the camera and papparazzi-es Sandy with it. He did get a great shot of her though:



The deck building is still going well (see last post for a link to J's very own deck blog) with no more injuries, at least that I've heard. The plan is to frame up everything today so that all the boards can be put in tomorrow. He even recruited JP to help on his day off. They're bonding over the smell of Western red cedar. If you want to take part in the deck build and have some time, come by tomorrow. J will definitely put you to work. If you want to just come and hang out tomorrow, that's what I'll be doing, feel free to come by. I won't make you build anything, except maybe a drink for yourself.

"My First Deck"

Someone is really excited about the deck he is building and started a blog to keep you all updated on the progress.

Introducing My First Deck by J.

I'm having a very strange proud moment.

I am runner VS I run

I was running today and having a very hard go at it. I started training for this 1/2 marathon at the end of June and I have completed 6 weeks of training. I had a big debate with myself today while fighting to make it a mere 5 kilometers, cramping like nobody's business, about whether I should consider myself a runner. I decided that I can't. I'm just a girl who runs.

But, as a girl who runs, I decided I needed some new running stuff. And I had a coupon for the Running Room. I bought some running shorts, socks and a water bottle holder. All three things I convinced myself I needed.

So far I've only tried the shorts. They came with me today on my short run. They felt good once I got over the I'm-mostly-naked-in-public thoughts that were charging through my head. I do not know how people wear spandex comfortably.



I've been tracking my training on a little chart thing I made for myself. I looked around at different sources, combined the best from each and cobbled together a training program that I somewhat follow. The interesting thing is that I tally up the total distance for every week. Since June 30th, I've run a total of 119 kilometers. That's about a 1/2 marathon a week. Now if only I could do that in one go and under 5 hours.

BC's Wedding

Saturday afternoon we got all decked out and headed out of town for BC's wedding. The wedding was all outside which could have been bad considering the summer we've been having, but the weather started out great and the rain held off the entire day.

There were some unique things at this wedding. The bride and bridal party arrived at the ceremony by boat.



The centrepieces were fishbowls complete with fish. JP in the background was the one who won the fish. J named it Steve and then JP named it Fred Astaire and later Elmo. the poor fish is probably mega confused and borderline crazy.



As with all Sharks weddings, all the girls wear teal, our team colour. KP, the groom, was given a Sharks jersey and proudly wore it with all of us for this picture.



To get B and K to kiss, you had to go up to the mic, listen to a song, which would get cut off at some point. Then you had to sing the next line (a la Don't Forget the Lyrics). We went up there and thankfully the other girls knew the song because I sure didn't. JK had threatened to kiss me if we didn't get it right. Though so ended up planting a big one on my cheek later on.

Dinner was buffet style. The meat, beef and turkey, had been roasting on a spit all day. There was also a million kinds of cheeses and salads. The wine was homemade and a little strong, it gave J a really bad headache. He actually went and slept in the car during the slideshow and the fireworks.

The fireworks were set off by some of the guys in the wedding party at the end of the dock. By this time, it was pretty chilly so TS and I were cuddled together under her wrap, shivering.



Like any other wedding there was dancing. The Sharks definitely spent some quality time on the dance floor.



All in all it was a great wedding. Congratulations BC and K!!

Yay!

Yay!



If I waited for the sign to change and took another picture, it would have said "Monday 9:00 Lundi". The new road is SO close! I can't wait to drive super fast over the nice new pavement.

But for now I'm content with finally going to bed. S&L graciously hosted me tonight so I could watch So You Think You Can Dance with them instead of alone - J's in Mtl for the Radiohead concert. It's not that I can't spend time alone, it's that I didn't really want to and it's nice to have friends that somehow know that and invite me over. Even on a school night.

A wedding, a hike and a dinner

Thank goodness for long weekends. Work is too busy so having three days off in a row really is a life saver. J was on call so we had a weekend in town. Saturday afternoon, I sped off to CP's wedding ceremony. J stayed home to help the guy who was installing our central air (whoo! Central air!!) The ceremony was really nice. CP looked so happy.



I didn't realize I was invited to the reception as well but I heard it was a good time. I definitely thought it would be after meeting some of the crazy boys in the wedding party.



Instead we had S&L over and watched Vantage Point. The cats hadn't slept much all day with the aircon guy in and out of the house, so Rolo curled up with S after the movie and wouldn't get up. It was funny.



Sunday we went in search of beavers on the Jack Pine Trail with S&L. We didn't find any, but we did see ducks and a heron (still trying to figure out which kind of heron), tons of fish, frogs, a feisty snake and deer.







(Whole Set)

We met A&S at S&L's house for dinner, wine, a walk and good times. It was a really good night. J and I both drank so we stayed over, something we've never done before. It was worth it. The cats sure didn't think so but at least now they have a cool house.

Confessions

Confessions are good for the soul, right? I have one.

I did something stupid last night. Something that when I see people doing exactly what I did, I wonder what they were thinking. Then I find myself doing it and not turning back.

I ran along an unlit, 80km/h road. With nothing reflective on. By myself. At night. Without telling anyone my route.

How's that for stupid?

But I'm fine. I got home just fine, though I definitely ran that whole way because my mind was racing and I was scaring myself.

Ever since starting my training program (which is going well by the way) J has come with me about half the time and the times when I've run alone, I've always Gmap'd my route and left it open on the computer for him. Last night, he wasn't home and I waited long enough so that it was dark when I left.

Did I learn from my mistakes? Not really. Will I do it again? Most likely.

At least I feel better now.

Batman was Awesome

We went and saw Batman on the IMAX screen with L&S. I was a little worried when I found out that the movie is two and a half hours long, but I made it through the whole thing. It was really good. I don't usually say that, but you should go see it in the theater.

Sharks Season Complete

Last night was the last night of baseball for the year. We opted out of the league playoffs because too many of our girls were out of town. I'm not disappointed. The league has been crappy for the past bunch of years. Not going to Provincials next weekend is kind of bittersweet after going for the past 15 or so and doing so well in the past 3 especially. The long weekend in town will be nice though.

I did end the year on a high note: I hit a homerun. Not out of the park, because no actual girl could do that at our home diamond, but definitely a homerun. And I raa-a-an, I ran so fast around the bases that my legs are sore today. It was such a nice feeling to hit the ball solidly, pull it to right field (I bat left), and touch home plate and look up to see all of my teammates on the diamond clapping and cheering and waiting to give me high fives. I haven't seen that for about 8 years. A nice way to end it all... except the crappy ground out I had the next inning. They wouldn't let me not bat and I didn't take my teammate's advice and bunt, because that wouldn't really count. Hmph.

Cottage Weekend

Work has been hectic with everyone taking holidays so it was super nice to have Friday off to go up to the cottage a day before our friends came. We went up Thursday night after a long day at work. I almost managed to stay awake for the whole 2-hour trip. I could make it to and from Kingston no problem, but the same time to the cottage is killer.

Anyways, we got settled in and watched tv and read. We slept in until the crack of 11:30 as J likes to say. We did the usual cottage stuff: J windsurfed and I read, we went into town for groceries, and lunch. We ran 6K and then we waited around for our friends to show. The finally did a little before 9pm. We had this weekend planned weeks ahead of time. It's the second year in a row A&S and S&L have come to the cottage for a weekend.

We had a bonfire Friday night complete with two guitars and songs that no one knew the words to... we have to work on that.

Saturday was a typical cottage day. There was sailing and windsurfing and tanning and eating.



The weather wasn't the greatest so we had to use towels to keep warm while trying to soak up some sun.



We went out looking for turtles. A and I paddled in the canoe while everyone else was in Flippy with the electric motor. We were not disappointed.



We decided to have our dinner of chicken and ribs on the fire. It went well, surprisingly. And almost everyone got to chop wood for the immense fire needed to have enough coals to cook 40 pounds of meat.



To cap off the night, a family of pre-teen ducks came around. I tried to feed them bread but they were having none of that. They sounded like baby birds (and then I realized that they are baby birds) chirping away the whole time.



Sunday was a pretty lazy day. I definitely wanted more sleep that I got after the beer-filled night before. We took our time packing everything up and headed back into town in the early afternoon.

I wasn't feeling the best so I napped for a bit and then laced on my shoes to run 12K. There was a huge storm and J said I was safer running through the community instead of on the roads around so I ended up doing about 10.5K in the rain and lightning and thunder. It was not the best run I've had but it was interesting with all the weather happening around me. A good end to a great weekend.

Happy birthday, Little Brother

My little brother, who isn't little at all, turned another year older yesterday. Here we are at a wedding about a month ago.



He has european hair, that a prospective new boss told him to cut but his super cute girlfriend likes. He drives me crazy because he's terrible at staying in touch and not very talkative when he does make contact. He was always the brother that all my friends liked and they would beg to come over and "play" at my house. He's done so many stupid things over the years and asked me to cover for him more times than I can count. He had better watch out when his time to walk down the aisle comes.

No matter, he's still my brother and still gives me the hugest bear hug whenever we see each other. He has a way of making people laugh and making people love him. Hopefully his 26th year will be his best yet.

Happy birthday, little brother. I love you but you're still a jerk.

Hoppy the Toad and Running Birthdays

After the enormously packed weekend last weekend, J took the day off work Tuesday. I should have, but I had things to do at work so I went in. I felt sick and miserable all day. J was home - he slept in and did what he wanted to do. He was outside in the backyard doing whatever he does in the backyard when he noticed something moving in the grass. It was a little toad that J named Hoppy.



He went inside to get the camera and was able to find Hoppy again. He got some fun pictures. Who knew this little guy would be in our backyard.

Wednesday I was smart and stayed home. It was obvious I was exhausted when I was able to sleep 13 hours straight. That night was the 20-Minute Challenge at the Running Room. I screwed up and thought it started at 7 instead of 6 so we were late. No matter, we got our hats and coupons and ran almost 4K together.



Then it was SJ's birthday dinner. We ate good food and amazing cake.



Our two little cats share a birthday with SJ so I paparazzi-ed them when we got home.



I stayed home the next day too and absolutely boiled in the house. Thankfully the cats have asked for central air for their birthday so we just might be getting one. Smart kitties.

HOPE-ing and Cottage Partying and Finishing Up the Weekend

Let me start this post by saying that our last partyers Friday night left at 3am. We arrived at the beach at 7:30am so neither of us got much sleep.

This past Saturday was the HOPE Beach Volleyball tournament.



J's games started at 8 so we were there bright and early.

I played on a corporate team with T and C. We didn't do so well, but had fun.



J's team did really well. They were in the competitive division and won all five round-robin games. They lost in the court final.



After 10 hours of being at the beach, we headed back home for quick showers and then drove an hour to my family's annual cottage party. It's always nice seeing my family but I think the highlight of the night was when Kong, my cousin's pug, was shown a fish and he started licking it. Hilarious!



I lasted until 1:30am or so and then went and collapsed in bed. I got up kinda early Sunday morning, J was woken up later. We had to rush back into town so J could make the Rapids (the new Lynx) game. I had BC's wedding shower to go to. The wedding shower was fun - lots of great food, the games weren't too cheezy and I got to see all the girls. I think the highlight (sorry girls!) was JP's bunny.



After the baseball game and the shower, we had a BBQ at L&S's place. We got home at 10:30pm, more exhausted than I can remember being, and went to bed. That was probably the busiest weekend we've had... ever. I'm very much looking forward to this weekend with nothing planned. But first I will continue to update you on the goings-on of this week. Soon.

L'Anniversaire

Happy four years to us!



I just went back and re-read what I wrote about our past anniversaries (2005, 2006 and 2007) only to realize that we are creatures of habit. This year was a little different. Our anniversary fell on a Thursday so we took that afternoon off. We didn't make any plans for the free afternoon which turned out to be a good thing since I wasn't feeling well and napped for 3 hours.

I redeemed myself by getting up so we could spend the evening together. We went to dinner at Baton Rouge. My chicken and fried apples and J's roast beef were really good. We walked around the Centrum for a while and found ourselves in Walmart. We bought some blinds and J installed them when we got home. Precariously.



Doesn't sound like a very romantic day, but it was an "us" day and we had a good time. Two very funny things happened. 1) We were sitting in the computer room. Rolo was lying in the hall and I told J that Rolo wanted J to go pick him up. J says OK and gets up, knocks my metal water bottle over making a loud noise and by the time he got over to where Rolo was lying, Rolo was long gone. J: "That didn't go so well" in a defeated little voice. I laughed so hard! 2) After installing the blinds, we were in the kitchen putting the stuff away. J grabbed a bunch of plastic and spare pieces and went to put them in a plastic bag. They fell right through making another loud noise - the bag was actually a sleeve. I laughed so hard I had tears streaming down my face. We may not be romantic but we definitely have lots of fun together.

And we still need to decide on what to get. We always get something for the two of us: years 1 and 3 were new sheets and year 2 was a tent. What will year 4 be?

Friday night we had a party that was well-attended even though it was planned at the last minute and Bluesfest was going on. Thanks to everyone for coming!

Downtime

Work has been slower than usual the past couple of weeks, but I am not complaining. It was so busy from January - April that I developed a nasty eye twitch that has only recently left. I'm using this downtime to, well, relax a little. Things are going to get hectic again real soon.

And besides, I cram full my personal life so I still don't get anywhere near eight hours of sleep a night. Does anyone?

Monday night was an early baseball game and if you can remember Monday at all it was a scorcher. It was one of the first Mondays that it didn't rain so that was good, but I was as wet as if it had. It was gross. Last night was beach volleyball and again it didn't rain but it was so muggy that a little rain might have been nice.

I cannot believe the weather so far this summer. I heard that it rained 22 days out of 30 in June and now it's more humid than ever. And somehow I have the best natural tan I've ever had. I really like being tanned and I know that it's bad for you and skin cancer and everything, but there's something so nice about spending some leisure time outside and having some colour....

I've been good so far with my 1/2 marathon training. I'm keeping track of everything I've done using Google Calendar which also has my personal schedule on it. It's all very handy. What isn't handy finding my shoes - we went to the Running Room last night only to find out that no RR store in Ontario had a pair in my size. But today when I phoned a local Sports 4 I was told that they not only have a pair and will hold it for me, but that the shoes are mega on sale. Awesome! New shoes for me!

So with my new shoes and my lack of work to do, I'm a happy camper. A tired happy camper.

You might be happy to know...

You might be happy to know that I finally got around to making all the pictures from our trip to Italy public. I still need to go through them and get rid of some of the bad ones so the warning is this:

1) There are a LOT of pictures.
2) There are a lot of pictures of the same thing.
3) Proceed at your own risk.

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Pictures of Italy

The usual weekend update

This past weekend was a little strange because J left Saturday morning for a cottage party with the car. I've been away the past 3 weekends and desperately needed some time at home, but time at home WITH car is much different than time at home WITHOUT car.

It was definitely nice to wake up and not have anything planned. I went for a bike ride around the neighbourhood.



I can go farther on a bike than on my feet so I was able to go down streets I've never been down before. I got to peek at other people's houses and backyards and gardens... something I love doing. After 15K though it was time to head home. At home I cooked myself some KD and read my book out in the sun.

SJ came over bearing a bright blue slushy to hang out for a while. Then we went to test drive a City Golf. Pretty nice little car but after some internet research, I found out that the gas mileage isn't as good as our current car, the Mazda 3, or as good as the Yaris. I guess we won't be getting one of those.

Our whole goal for the day was to go shopping. We finally made it to the mall sometime after 8pm so we didn't have much time. We both found some things but the whole trip felt rushed. We have to go back sometime soon since everything is on sale.

I was shown some Oakley sunglasses and now want a pair. Oakleys are expensive though and I would need a bigger purse to lug them around with everything else that I currently carry with me. I need some more time to think about such a big purchase.

After I was dropped off at home, I spent the night watching tv with the cats. Sunday played out much the same except exchange running for biking. I'm toying with the idea of running a 1/2 marathon near the end of September. I've made myself a training plan with this past week being week 1 in a 12-week lead-up to the race. 12 weeks is just long enough to build the distance up to 21.1 K so I started with running at the gym twice last week, the bike ride Saturday and then an extremely hot 6 K run yesterday. Extremely hot in that I thought I was going to puke right afterwards but instead I ran the water as cold as it went and lay in the bath for a while then showered and was still sweating for about an hour. Gross. But I made it 6 K and actually felt pretty good.

The rest of the day was pretty lazy: I watched some tv, I vacuumed, I looked around on the internet. J finally got home just after 8pm. We talked for a bit and then I took the car and got some groceries. And that was my weekend.

This is probably going to be a pretty busy week and weekend with lots going on but that seems to be the way of the summer.

Construction and Canada Day

The weather this July 1st was better than in the past who-knows-how-many years. It was sunny and breezy and in the high twenties - beautiful. I rewarded myself with a four-hour lie-in-the-backyard-with-a-good-book. The plan was to bike downtown to take in some of the festivities but I was completely zonked. Instead I had a nap and afterwards we had S&L over for dinner. We walked around the neighbourhood in search of fireworks and were not disappointed.



A lot of our area is still under construction which means that there are random construction vehicles scattered around. I cannot pass up an opportunity to get in one so when we came across a pretty small diggy guy, I jumped in. It had an amusement-ride type bar thing that I lowered over myself. It was so small that while sitting there you have to straddle a jerry can at your feet. But I loved it!



Those construction vehicles can apparently be pretty cheeky too.



It reminds me of two things: 1) the I'm a little teapot song, the part about tipping it over and pouring it out, and 2) I'm sure you've seen this teeshirt that biker guys wear. The one that says: If you can read this, the b!tch fell off. I do love me some construction vehicles. The wee-er the better.

I was mentioning hotdogs...

I admit that when writing my last post I was cranky. Cranky happens.. they should put that on a t-shirt. Anyways, the thought of free hotdogs and pie was the silver lining in my not-so-great day last week. Well I did have my hotdogs, two of them. They were part of the annual BBQ at work. It was nice to have free food and nice to sit outside in a park instead of in the lunch room like I normally do. There were also events happening but I didn't take part. I had a meeting that afternoon that required I stay dry and not heat-stroked.

The meeting went well. Work overall is busy but going well. It's going to be a packed summer with a lot of things coming due and not a lot of time when everyone is at the office at the same time for meetings and things. But I guess that's typical of summertime.

The big news from last week was the arrival of our new cellphones. We were with one company and wanted to switch to another. We were waiting until our contract was over, but turns out it was over last fall. So we got sparkly new phones and were able to keep our old numbers.



My new phone is an LG slide phone and is pink. With SJ's help, I've named her Scarlett. I've already read the entire user manual and scratched the screen. That's just how I roll.



J's phone is the same but silver. I don't think he's come up with a name yet. We're both excited for the new phones but I will definitely miss Ruby. Almost 4 years together.. that's a long time.



Friday night, after stopping in to help a friend move, we headed out to the cottage. The weather forecast wasn't great and turned out to be surprisingly accurate. It rained a lot of the day Saturday and wasn't that great Sunday either. But it was nice to be away from the house and responsible for absolutely nothing. I read through the entire user guide for my new phone and read a lot of my book. J loved being in the water and doing cottage-y things, including windsurfing, putting in the dock and swimming raft, getting attacked by leeches and teaching his sister how to windsurf. He was in heaven.



I have more stories but no more pictures to accompany them. I went to upload the pictures only to find out that the video card in the desktop is fried. So we'll start the week (for the second time, once before Canada Day and now afterwards) with the promise of more posts and more pictures and more stories. Let's just hope this week isn't as full as last.