Snowed in On Christmas Eve

I'm working from home this morning. It took us 1.5 hours to clear the driveway (WITH the snow blower. yikes!). We finished just around the time I would have to leave on a non-snowy day to make it to work on time. But... The road wasn't plowed yet. Still isn't, so I'm not going anywhere for now. We have about a foot of snow on the road and a nice big snow bank blocking our road at the end. We have to head out to Sister Sarah's this afternoon, so hopefully the snow plow will come by soon, if not, the neighbours have apparently said that they will help push us out of the snowbank when (not if) we get stuck.

I've been diligently working so far this morning. I am heading back to windsor from Jan. 5 to 8th so I need to get stuff organized for that, but after 2.5 hours of work, I'm mostly there. Funny how much more efficient you are when you aren't getting bugged by people all the time! I have some other stuff to work on that isn't high priority, but I might as well get started on it so that I won't have to worry about it later. When I was working, Arash played Snowblower Santa Clause and went around to help all the neighbours get out of their driveway. Now everyones ways are clear, we just have to wait for the city plow to come by our street!

And Now for Something Completely Different

No more political ramblings for this girl ;) At least for now.

So it has been a busy 2 weeks in Laura Land. I made the mistake of saying I wasn't completely busy on the 8th and I have been swamped since then. My Desk looks like a drawer expoded or something. The week of the 8-12 was busy scrambling to organize a field program for a Phase II in Windsor that has a short timeline and then last week I was in Windsor from Monday night until Friday night. Boo! Just where I wanted to be right before christmas.

The 12th was A's Christmas Party at work. I sometimes feel awkward around his coworkers since I have like 0 in common with most of them. His boss and I get along wonderfully, but she didn't go this year. My solution this year. Drink too much. Yep, totally mature. The 13th we planned to get our christmas shopping done, but I was nursing a hangover to end all hangovers and we only ended up getting a little done. I was feeling better by the evening though and managed to stay up for the christmas baking extravaganza which was fun as always. We missed QC and EK, of course, but EL, JC, and Robin were great additions. Sunday we cleaned the house and I think that is mostly it.

Last week I worked 60 hours. Boo! Test pitting Tuesday and Wednesday, Drilling Thursday and Friday. We still aren't done the work, but will be back in the new year to finish the work. We probably have another day of drilling and test pitting and 2 days for GW sampling and surveying. Fun.

Saturday we finished our christmas shopping. We ended up staying in Woodstock and hitting up a bunch of different stores - Winners, Staples, a local stero store, home depot, a local pet store and a local camera store. We ended up crossing everyone off our list, and avoided crazy mall parking lots! It actually wasn't too bad, and kind of pleasent. I'm glad we decided not to head into London/Kitchener.

Sunday we watched movies, shovelled the driveway (we are in a winter wonderland right now. There is about half a metre of snow on the ground. We shovelled the driveway this morning between 6:30 and 7 and by 7:45 we had another 5 cm of snow! ack!) and wrapped our christmas presenets, so we are almost ready to head off to Belleville. We just have to pack our bag and work another 2 days. Christmas plans are shaping up to be another busy year. 24-26 in Belleville, 27-28 in Ottawa, 28-31 in Quebec skiing, 31-1 in Belleville, 2-4 in Woodstock. Yikes!

The Coronation of King Ignatieff of the Liberal Party of Canada

I think the title speaks for itself. I’m neutral in this year’s leadership race. Kennedy came out to support Rae yesterday, and others from his camp have supported Ignatieff. I personally remain neutral. Why? Simple – I don’t like either candidate as leader of the Liberals.

Rae. I like Bob Rae. I always have (except perhaps in 1995 when he was defeated by a crushing majority of the Neo-Con Harris Conservatives who cared more about their own pocket book than the social wellness of Ontarians. Rae has a bad wrap, I think mostly because he was leader of the wrong party. He was a centre-left NDP in a party that had now room for anyone so close to centre. Yes, he was elected leader of the party, but the members of the NDP tried to overthrow him several times. The NDP didn’t like him because he was too centre; the Liberals and Conservatives didn’t like him because he was NDP. Long story short, Rae ruled Ontario in one of the toughest economic times in recent history, and took the flack. Much the same as Michael Peterson is still widely unpopular. Rae could not be as strong in Ontario as the Liberals need to be to win a majority government. He would likely do well in Cities, but I doubt he would be strong in Rural Ontario that has gone conservative the last two elections.

Ignatieff. I don’t like Ignatieff. I never have. Sure, he is an intellect. Sure, he has a smidgeon of charisma. But the guy does NOT no when to shut-up. He is smug. He feels he is entitled to the Liberal Leadership. On top of that he is a little too right for my liking and I think he would have been better suited with the former PC party than the Liberals. At the last leadership race, the Ignatieff supporters were so obnoxious in their refusal to work with the other leadership contenders should one of them win. They full out said they were joining the conservative Party the next day. They refused to believe that the party grassroots were strongly against Ignatieff and to a smaller extent Rae which lead to the selection of Dion as the leader in the first place. Based on my experience from the 2006 leadership convention I am certain that the Ignatieff supporters worked behind the scenes against Dion since 2006 and are partially to blame for the poor showing in the last election. My Liberal party has no room for those kinds of actions.

This being said, I was all ready to accept Ignatieff as leader. I think that he is more electable and I feel his supporters would again undermine the liberal party if Rae had been selected as the leader.

Now, the latest political gossip is that Rae is set to drop out of the leadership race this afternoon. The thing I like the absolute least about the liberal party is the elitism of the Party Brass and the lack of respect for the Party’s grassroots (myself one of them. I never belonged to the Federal Liberals until Gerard Kennedy joined the Leadership race). The fact that the party brass was going to appoint a leader without consultation with its members is absolutely mind boggling. I strongly suspect the Party Brass is also behind the strong arming of Bob Rae out of the Leadership race.

I have already mentioned this to a friend in e-mail, one who doesn’t like to make her political affiliations generally known, but if this is the way the Liberals are going to act, I’m not sure I will support them anymore.

A Few Thoughts on a Thursday Morning

As I sit at work organizing field files from projects over the summer that need to be filed away permanently, I’m anxious to see the outcome of the meeting between Harper and Jean this morning. Obviously, as a supporter of the Coalition, I hope that Jean will deny prorogration pending Harpers proof that he has the confidence of the house of commons. We will learn all that our great Country is to face within the next few hours. But it does give me cause for some thought.

1) What if Jean denies prorogation like the majority of voting Canadians wish? Will the conservatives attack the office of the governor general? Is this the beginning of the end of Canada being a Commonwealth Country? I have a feeling, that if prorogation is denied that conservatives across the land are going to rise up and denounce the office. They will cry, not for Senate Reform, but for abolishment of the Senate, the Governors General, and everything in the country that is Commonwealth. I think that they would have every right to this opinion, but I personally don’t support it. I think it could possibly be a future referendum question that divides the country. Then again, if Jean goes against the obvious will of the House of Commons and grants prorogation, the pro-coalition supporters might call for removal of the governor general.
2) I think all this week is doing in my mind is cementing the idea of proportional representation/mixed member proportional representation. I voted against it in the Ontario referendum last year mainly because I couldn’t wrap my head around it. This week is giving everyone a good idea of how it would work. Likely, the PM would be Liberal, NDP, or Conservative, but they would have to work with other members of parliament and represent the majority of Canadians, and I don’t think this could be a bad thing any more. Coalition governments would no longer be rare, they would be an every day occasion. Unless a party elected has greater than 50% of the seats, they will have to prove that they can work with other members to pass legislation before they are given power. It took a constitutional crisis, but I’ve finally wrapped my head around the idea of mixed member proportional representation, and I think I like it :).

My thoughts on the Economic Update and PM Harpers Lack of Respect

So, I'm guessing that most of you have heard by now that the federal government may be defeated on the first opposition day over the economic update. The Conservatives are busy spinning their spin, trying to convince anyone who will listen that the opposition parties are being undemocratic and that all this is a "power grab" by "backroom politicians".

For several reasons I believe that Harper and the Conservatives at the ones being undemocratic.

1) The Canadian voters gave the Conservatives a minority government. Not a majority. They need to stop ruling like they have a majority, and respect the fact that almost 2/3 of candians who voted did NOT vote for the conservatives and did not chose Harper to be the prime minister.
2) At the first sign that Harper did something wrong, what does he do? He cancels opposition day so that the opposition doesn't have the opportunity to get their message across. How is this democratic? Not letting the people voted in by Canadians have their turn to speak?
3) Canada is NOT a two party system. There are checks and balances like the one being saught by the Liberals and the NDP to make sure that Minority governments rule on behalf of the country, not out of self interest.
4) This is not unprecedented. The Liberals and NDP formed a coalition government in Ontario in the 1980s to defeat the minority conservatives. The coalition served for a year and then called an election at a specified date which the liberals went on to win and practically destroy the conservatives in Ontario. (Obviously in that case the Liberal and NDP coalition pleased the Ontario public).
5) This kind of thing happens pretty frequently in European countries that aren't two party systems, including: Norway, Sweeden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Turkey, and Israel.


Top this off with the fact that the Conservatives failed miserably to provide any much needed economic stimulus to help protect Canadian Jobs. I understand that they are saying "We don't know where to spend it yet, so wait until March". But is that realistic? If we wait until March the Auto industry in Canada could be virtually destroyed as the american package will come much quicker and you can be guaranteed that there will be clauses for job protection and creation in the US. What I believe Canada should have done (and likely will do with a Liberal/NDP coalition government) is annouce an $X billion stimulus package with the details to be worked out over the coming weeks.

As for the public funding of political parties - the issue the conservatives are trying to make this about - the issue that even after it was removed from the economic statement failed to turn around the momentum of the Liberals/NDP.

1) Obviously this wasn't the issue that upset the liberals and NDP the most since even after it was removed, they are still going full steam ahead.
2) In my opinion is a little undemocratic. Yes, taxpayers shouldn't have to pay party subsides, but to announce overnight that these subsidies are going to be removed without giving the parties that rely on them time to recover financially? It is a power grab, pure and simple. The conservatives have made it no secret that it is their ambition to ruin the Liberal Party.
3) I don't believe that this issue would have even ruined the liberals. I bet from that one day alone (after the economic update was released), the Liberals probably recieved upwards of half a million in political donations from Liberals (myself included) that got scared and figured that it was time to support their party more.

Happy Birthday to Me!

So, 28. I’m old ;) Funny, I don’t feel that old. It is actually comforting. My office hires almost exclusively people with masters degrees for the professional track, so even though I was so late starting work (26 versus 22 had I gone to a different university and not done my masters), I am still considered a youngin’ here, even compared to others at my same level.

So, it’s been a month since I last updated. Woopsies.

Brief run down. First weekend in Nov. A’s mum came down. We had a good visit with her. Following week I was up in Sarnia doing stuff at a refinery, next weekend we got our furniture so spent most of the day Saturday putting it all together. Following week mostly in the office with one long day up in Thornbury. I liked it up there. I would move there in a heart beat if I didn’t have to work for a living. Following weekend, Sound of Music! Amazing. On Sunday A left for a week in Victoria for work and my Aunt and Uncle came for dinner and stayed over night. We had a good visit and I got to use our new china for the first time! Last week was a short week for me. Three days of work, then off Thursday and Friday to babysit D’s kids and their 12 week old puppy. LOTS of work. I was happy to be back at work yesterday since it afforded me a chance to relax. Let me run Thursday by you as an example.

Wake up at 6:30, puppy is whining to go out to the bathroom, I take her outside. M is awake. She colours for about half an hour before K wakes up. I get them breakfast, L (puppy) has peed on the floor. I clean it up, while I’m cleaning up pee, L steels dirty diaper (#1 only thank god) from K’s room and proceeds to rip it up. Clean up mess. Get kids dressed, teeth brushed, and hair done. L has peed on the floor again. Turn the house upside down trying to find hats and mitts for the kids, can’t find M’s snow pants for school. Finally about 5 minutes late, I have kids in Car driving M to school and L is locked in her kennel.

After dropping M. at school, I take K to my dad’s house for a visit before he goes off on vacation for a week and a half. I had a meeting with my financial planer at 2 pm. At 1 pm – right before I wanted to leave so that I could run some errands first, I realize K has a smelly diaper. I take off her pants to change, and poop is everywhere, all over her pants. Eew! I changed her diaper, washed her pants, put them in the dryer. 30 minutes later, my meeting is supposed to be starting, K’s pants are *almost dry* so we head off into town. Meeting went well, got myself set up for RRSP contributions. Everyone at the office though K was adorable (which she is!). After meeting we picked Maddy up for school and go home.

L got out of her kennel. Peed and pooped of the floor, tore apart another diaper, my book, and one of the drawings Maddy had done that morning. Ugh. Clean it all up. M and K colouring and playing. Cook dinner, play hide and seek, bathe kids, get ready for bed, done. Wash, Rinse Repeat, 2.5 times.
So conclusions from my foray into parenting.

1) Puppies are cute but a lot of work
2) Kids are cute but a lot of work
3) I’m not ready to give up my life for Kids. I like being independent. Every minute of my day from the minute I woke up in the morning to when they fell asleep (on Friday that was 11 pm for K), my life was devoted to them.
4) I want a puppy  I wish my job allowed for that, but alas, it does not.
5) Getting a puppy while I’m on Mat leave (my original plan) is NOT a good idea!!!

Other than that, not much. I will be posting pictures from this weekend on facebook – probably Thursday? Today is my birthday. Kind of sucks to be at work. In grad school I could just stay home, and last year it was on a Sunday. I guess the last time I had to work on my birthday was in 2003 at club H. A and I are going out for dinner tonight. Not sure where, most of the restaurants in Woodstock are chains, which I kind of feel Meh about, I would much rather go to a family run independent place. That is one thing I miss about KW.

*yawn*

I’ve been meaning to update for a while, but I really don’t have that much to say. More of the same I guess.

The first weekend after the honeymoon we hung out at home all weekend. On Saturday I unpacked some wedding/shower presents to find them homes and on Sunday I started to Winterize the garden – started, still have at least half a day left!!! I’ve taken out half of the annuals and cut down the perennials. I have to do some replanting – moving flowers around in a way that makes more sense, get rid of the golden rod (we let it grow this summer since we didn’t know what it was. As soon as it became obvious, we cut it down, but the roots were too deep to pull out), and cut down the tree in our garden – a really ugly over pruned pine tree that I have hated since day one.

Last week went by slowly. Only one day of field work, and nothing too exciting happened.

Last weekend – as I wrote on Burger’s blog comments – we went to see one of Arash’s favourite bands in Toronto (a Persian rock band). We just drove down for the evening. We also cleaned the house… not exciting.

It’s weird. Now that the wedding is over we have all this extra time on our hands. Weekends upon weekends with no plans, no project that I work on in the evening and on the weekends. There are a heck of a lot of thank-you cards to write, but the list of presents is at my dad’s house along with most of the presents, and we want to include a photo with our thank-you cards, and our photos aren’t ready yet… I guess what I should be doing is spending time working on the house – touching up the paint problems and stuff like that, but meh. I’m bored of house renovations. What I really want to do is organize another event… perhaps I will have a Christmas party…

In other news, we spent some of our wedding money this weekend. We went to Leons and got a new table, chairs and buffet (for our new dishes, glasses, and cutlery). I’m very excited to have a table that can comfortably fit 6 around it!!!

http://www.leons.ca/shared/product/product.aspx?ItemId=1377171&ChildItemId=1377171

Only difference is that we didn’t get the hutch to go with the buffet, so we just have the bottom part of the cabinet shown.

Well, I’m back.

It has been a busy two weeks. First the wedding. Then the Honeymoon. And then (well, overlapping really) the cold from hell.

Wedding went well. It’s more fun GOING to a wedding than actually being the one getting married, I have decided. I didn’t get to visit with anyone and wasn’t really able to relax and enjoy myself until 9:30. Arash agrees. He asked if we could get married again because the whole thing happened too fast and we didn’t get a chance to enjoy ourselves. Oh well, it’s done, it was nice seeing everyone but way too brief! I’m super sad that I didn’t get a chance to visit with Quinn and Rod and my Vancouver cousins longer. I think that was the most disappointing thing about it.

The good news was… and everyone who was at the wedding knows this by now! Was that my sister had her baby on Oct. 1 so was able to come to the wedding after all!!! Yay! Still didn’t get a great chance to visit with them though, hopefully in the next couple of weeks we can head down that way so that I can meet my new niece .

Honeymoon was good but with both ended up getting sick. I’ll run through the highlights.

Sunday – Flight was delayed by almost 2 hours when a) Air Canada over booked the flight, b) they downsized the plane and c) there was a mechanical problem which meant than an additional 6 people were kicked off the flight and refused to get off. FUN!

Monday – Dinosaur Museum. Cool. Visit with Niki – extra cool. Little Logan is so cute! Not cool – hotel charging $16/day for internet! Boo!

Tuesday – Drive to Jasper via MEC where we spent too much money – we bought a new camping stove, and I got a thermarest. Camped in Jasper. When we were setting up our tent Elk wandered through our Campsite. Arash tested out the bear spray and it got in my face irritating my eyes, nose, mouth and face. Ended up going to the Jasper hospital. Very cold at night. Down to about -2. cough starting to get worse

Wednesday – hiked up Whisters peak in Jasper. My first mountain. Arash was proud. Cough getting worse in the cold thin air. Got very wet in hike with sweat and SNOW! And cold. Decided to get a room in the town of jasper instead of camping for fear of getting more sick

Thursday – Drive from Jasper to Banff. Stopped at: Mount Edith Cavell. Cool. Athabasca Falls. Very Cool. Columbia icefields. Downright cold! I remember when we were there in the 80s being able to walk on the bottom of the glacier but you are no longer allowed. Global warming has made it unsafe to do so. Boo! By the time we got to Banff Arash was starting to feel more sick. We had a nap and went to dinner and then to bed.

Friday – we puttered around Banff for most of the day. Found a place to eat breakfast, had a nap, went to the Cave and Basin (original hotsprings) and then to the new hotsprings. Then went into the Banff for dinner and passed out when we got back.

Saturday – had breakfast at hotel. $60 for two!!! Wow! Went for a hike in the afternoon. Got about 1/3 up Mount Rundle and had to call it quits. Both of us were having major difficulties breathing. At this point my cold was still in my throat and chest, but not good for physical activity. Went back to the hotel and went for a swim in the outdoor pool and then out for a nice dinner for a 1 week anniversary ;)

Sunday – woke up sick as a dog. My cold moved into my head and had a very runny nose. We checked out of our room and drove up to lake louise. We were both in pretty rough shape, but we got to see Lake Louise and Moraine lake (partially frozen – this was the lake that used to be on the $20 bill. We were both feeling way too lousy to do any hiking  how horrible!!! We went back to Calgary – got there by 5:45 pm. Our flight wasn’t until 12:15 so we decided to catch a movie – Body of Lies – not bad but no Syriana.

One word. Taking the Red-eye while sick = no fun. I was hacking up a storm the whole way back to Ontario so I didn’t get much sleep. I made myself stay awake on Monday and go to bed at a normal time to adjust to the time zone, but it didn’t help my cold any. Monday was miserable. Tuesday I called in sick and ended up sleeping for 5 hours during the day. Today I’m feeling a little more normal though everyone at work doesn’t think I should be here. At this point I think my cold sounds worse than it actually is thank-goodness.

Today isn’t so bad at work. I have a tonne of things to do so that is helping. I am sad though. My friend Mandy had her last day on Friday, so I miss her .

All in all a good honeymoon though. It kind of sucked that we were both sick but it didn’t slow us down too much and it was good that we were both sick so that the other one wasn’t disappointed in not doing as much as we wanted.

As for the election. I’m in denial, I don’t want to talk about it ;) Actually, I posted my thoughts on Jen’s Blog. I don’t think Dion was the problem, I think the problem was the idea of changing the fundamentals of the tax system when the economy is in such trouble. Also, the people who call themselves liberal but have gone to long lengths to make Dion look bad.

I have a new car!

Well, not new, and not yet, but I did come to my decision. My new car will be a 2005 Silver Camry with 37,000 km on it. It is pretty :) and it is in good condition. I should be able to pick it up on Thursday or Friday. Yay!

Wedding stuff is coming along well. We had a party for co-workers on Saturday that can't come/weren't invited to the wedding. All day saturday I spent preparing food. there was a lot of it. Fruits, veggies, nacho dip, cheese straws, lemon bars (I had memories of making them in Quinn's Appartment that one year at christmas!), chocolate chip muffins, nut burgers, scotch eggs, and deviled eggs. Oh my. Now we have all the leftovers... some items were more popular than others though, but I guess you expect that kind of thing.

All of the big stuff is taken care of for the wedding now, I've even confirmed with most of the vendors. There are still a few small details that we still have to figure out though. like wedding vows, and order of speeches and that sort of thing.

On the weekend we got our honeymoon all booked. before, we just had the flights.

Our itenerary.

Arrive in Calgary 8:30 MT on Oct. 5.
Oct. 6 - Either see calgary or drumhellar - I think Arash would like it - and then drive to edmonton, hopefully stopping for a visit with a certain awesome family in blackfalds
Oct. 7 - Drive from Edmonton to Jasper where we are camping. Do some hiking
Oct. 9 - Drive from Jasper to Banff where we are staying at THE BANFF SPRINGS HOTEL!!!!!!!! (Expedia had rooms for super cheap! more than $100 off the regular price!)
October 12 drive back to Calgary in the evening for the Red eye flight home.

We plan on doing quite a bit of hiking when we are out there and seeing the sights and what not. I'm getting really excited. This is my first vacation in well over a year, and I definitely need it. Now I just have to make it through 4.5 days of work... I'm almost at the point of counting down working hours left!!!

Two updates in one week. Oh my!

I’m actually sitting here today at work, and I’m a little light on work. Yay! This is the first time this has happened since, I don’t know, February? I don’t think I’ve had to ask anyone for work since Christmas. I’m going to relish in it for a bit. I’m sure there is stuff I can do (like clean out the equipment room and order stuff, and what not, since I’m supposed to be in charge of it, and haven’t done anything since July really. Ooopsies! I just compile one of my Huge @ss reports that we have to do every year. The report itself is 70 pages with all the figures, tables, and appendices, it is two three inch binders! Anywho, sent it off this morning to Mississauga for senior review. The other report I had to do for this project that has been hanging over my shoulders has been cancelled. Yay! We had to do interim and annual reports, and the interim got cancelled because the landfill has officially been closed and cover is complete.

Sure, there is stuff I could do, write PDFs for the appendices (boring! This would take like 2-3 hours, of printing files to a PDF writer – Last year I had a tech do it), Coordinate the fall sampling of a landfill that I’m apparently now in charge of, and work some magic in the equipment room, but I’m going to relax a minute instead. Bad employee ;). I was actually out at a site in Woodstock this morning and they didn’t have enough holding tank capacity to dewater the excavation to continue excavating and sampling, so I had work to do, just not anymore.

So Christine was asking how the car shopping is going? Truth – too many options. I think it is much harder to buy a used car than it is to buy a new car. Not only do you have to narrow down on which model you want, but you also have to decide between a dozen different cars with different mileage, different years, and different price tags. On top of that, do I buy a car in Woodstock? In London? In Kitchener?

We decided we wanted an ’04 to ’06 Camry with lowish mileage, but even then, there are half a dozen options. I went to Kitchener Monday night, Woodstock Tuesday night, and London Wednesday night. I have driven 5 camrys, 1 used matrix and the 09 corolla (I don’t want to buy it since it will cost more to get the things that I had on it last time and I don’t want to be paying for that for another 60 months… It did drive nicer than my 08 corolla, but still no comparison to a camry).

I have my top favourite at each dealership. There is an 06 Camry in London with 45 Ks, it is gold coloured though and I think it is kind of ugly. The interior is immaculate, but the exterior have a few chips in the paint, and the front bumper looks like of like it is was in a fender bender and wasn’t properly fixed which has me nervous. In Woodstock there is an 06 camry with 113 Ks, but is 3000 cheaper. Not as immaculate inside, but better outside and a nicer colour (grey). In Kitchener there is a 05 with 30 Ks, cheaper than London, more expensive than Woodstock. It is silver. We haven’t had a chance to look on the inside/outside yet though, so I’m not sure the condition it is in. We are going to see it tonight after work, so I have to leave a little early. Right now this one is the front runner, but that could all turn upside down tonight.

What a week.

So I guess the last time I updated was September 4… A lot has happened since then.

That weekend we went to Toronto to visit A’s mum. We took care of some wedding things and did some shopping. I got new contacts (not sure that I like them), and a new jacket (white trench, in hindsight, not the best option for me), and make-up for the wedding. Expensive make up. I shouldn’t have spent that much. Oh well, I never spend money on make-up, so once every three years, splurging isn’t a big deal.

On Monday morning I was driving in to work to do my timesheet and take care of a couple of loose ends before I went up north again for the week. I went around a bend in the road just 500 metres from my house, and the light blinded me. I haven’t driven that way in about 2 weeks, so I didn’t realize it was the time of year that the sun is blinding on the drive into work, so I was driving faster than I normally would. (40 in a 40 zone, but when the sun is blinding (about two weeks in September and two in April), I would normally drive around that bend at no more than 30). I got into the shade and all the sudden I see a parked truck about 5 metres in front of me. I tried to veer, but I didn’t have time. I hit it with the front passenger side of my car. The truck was a 1984 truck, in sustained not too much damage. Solid steel construction at what not. My car on the other hand was totalled. No worries about me though. I am relatively okay. Very shooken up, with a sore hand – my thumb got stretch back by the steering wheel, but no serious injuries. I got the call from the insurance person last week. $18,000 to fix it. Nice. So now I’m in the market for another car. I have to sort it out before Thursday or pay extra for a rental car. Boo.

I still ended up going north, but much later than planned. I wanted to leave Woodstock at 10:30 and didn’t end up leaving until almost 4! They sent another girl up with me to drive though, so that was nice.

I took last Friday off to get some wedding stuff taken care of. I did my trial hair run on Friday and then went for my second dress fitting (it still fits!). Made some head way with ceremony music and went bridesmaid dress shopping with D&M on Friday evening. We didn’t find anything, but D assures me she will find one this week. On Saturday I went to meet with the DJ, got presents for people in the wedding and picked up A from the train station. My sis came over that evening and got us all organized for the wedding. I now have a list of all the things I have to do before the wedding. Hopefully I can manage to get everything on it done!!! On Sunday we met with our officient for the second time and I have a digital copy of the ceremony. After that, we drove to Toronto and picked up a CD with our engagement photos on them on the way through Trenton. They are AWESOME! I’m going to post them (at least some of them ) on facebook when I get a chance. I’m so happy with they way they turned out. Last night we took my dad to see Spamalot for Father’s Day. It was actually his birthday yesterday too! He really enjoyed the show. I think A did as well. He was laughing quite a bit, but I think he missed some of the humor in the songs due to the language.

Le Sigh

I'm starting to sound like a broken record here. I'm busy. I have no time for wedding stuff, life, whatever. That is my life.

The weekend of the 23rd my sister came down from thunder bay. It was nice to get to visit with her. We also had a family picnic at my aunts and uncles in winterbourne. it was nice to see (almost) everyone. two of my cousins on Dad's side will be missing the wedding, so it was nice to get the chance to see them.

Last week there was a tanker roll over on the 402 in Sarnia and I got called out to it. 28.5 hours in 2 days. FUN. Insert eye roll here. It was definitely a morale low point to say the least.

Last weekend was pretty awesome. I got a good chance to relax. Saturday we went to kitchener and went shopping and finished our registry. We then went to a party at A's coworkers. It was an okay time. Not stellar because I didn't really know anyone there. The coworkers that A is close with didn't end up going.

Sunday we went to the beach. Long Point. It was great. Beautiful sunny day. Nice an hot, but not humid. The water was nice too. we took a bunch of photos, perhaps I'll post some if I get a chance. Monday was okay. we did a lot of house cleaning. Boo. I really want to hire a cleaning person. We make enough money for it. when I'm at home on the weekends, I want to be enjoying myself and relaxing not working. I do enough of that Monday to Friday!!!

Tuesday I found out that I have to go up to Mattawa again on Monday. So now I'm scrambling to get stuff done this week. Not fun. Particularily since I was out in the field on Tuesday and yesterday. Oh well, I can only get done so much.

Oh. I almost forgot to mention. Our photographer has posted a few pictures from our engagement session on her blog. Ignore the error in my name!!! I particularly like the last one. I have it as my desk top at work now, though I can't figure out what is on A's knee.

Break?

I’m so negligent of my blog these days. I think I might actually take a blogging hiatus which is basically what I am on. Thing is that most days at work, I work through lunch or I’m not in the office at all.

Funny me, I have to look at my work day planner to figure out what I have been up to for the last 3 (?) weeks since I updated.

1) Went to Montreal with C-dub and Nej. Had a great time even if our hotel left much to be desired. It was clean and we didn’t see any crawly things so we can’t complain too much.
2) The following week at work was crazy of course. That weekend we went to Belleville and had a family get together with my mum’s side of the family. My great aunt was here from England with two of her children and her grand children. We had a nice visit with them. I haven’t seen my great aunt since 95, her eldest since he didn’t have kids – 87?, and her youngest ever. Her middle daughter did not come over.
3) That weekend we met our photographer and had some official engagement portraits done. Haven’t seen them yet, but I will let you know if she posts anything on her blog.
4) Last week was very stressful. I almost cried several times at work
5) Last weekend we went camping with Arash’s groomsmen and went rock climbing. I drank way too much southern comfort and currently never want to drink again ever.

That brings us to this week. Busy again (of course). I have to get a report done today, but I have zero motivation to do it. I really am getting sick of that job. Tomorrow I’m out in the field all day, as I was yesterday. Monday I was in meetings all day in our Cambridge office. I’m hoping to leave early from work on Friday. Biggest Sis is coming down for a family get together this weekend with the other side of the family. She is staying at our place. Two of my cousins aren’t able to attend the wedding, so it will be nice to see them.

Oh, almost forgot to mention
a) Honeymoon – Will be to the Rockies. I’m hoping to get to see our Niki when we are out there since they won’t be able to come to the wedding.
b) A’s Grandparent – Visa not approved. We are trying to see if there is anything we can do. A’s mum is pretty upset. She was looking forward to seeing her parents again – she hasn’t seen them for well over 2 years. She is thinking about going to Iran for a visit before our wedding.

Well, there goes that Idea.

So A called the Iranian embassy yesterday afternoon. He has to get his passport renewed. He thought it would take a couple of weeks, based on how long it took his mum, but never called to verify with them. Um, no. 6 weeks. So he will get his passport back mid September. On top of that, because he is an Iranian citizen instead of Canadian, he will need a visa to go to pretty much any country. (except for iran, then I would need a visa). Visa’s usually take 2 to 3 weeks to get, could be longer though if there are any problems. Like being from an Axis of Evil.

So it looks like Hawaii is definitely out. Greece and St. Lucia are almost definitely out. St. Lucia *might* still be an option since it is a commonwealth country. That leaves… Canada. :( Don’t get me wrong. I love our country and I definitely do want A to see more of it, and to travel through Canada with him, but I’m not sure October is the best month for it. Also doesn’t seem to honeymoony to me and kind of boring.

I’m a little sad :( I was looking forward to seeing something new and going somewhere different. The last time I went anywhere even remotely exotic was three years ago now, and I want to travel. Not see the same sights as I have seen several times before.

I’m also a little frustrated with A. If he got his passport renewed (or started to) a month ago like I suggested, he would have it by now and we would have plenty of time to get a visa. Or, if he had his Canadian citizenship (like I have been nagging him about for over 2 years now) he wouldn’t even need a visa to go most places). I told him he should bribe the people at the embassy to process his visa faster. Or that he should explain that his fiancé is going to leave him for giving her a bad honeymoon (jokingly of course).

Good Bye Hawaii. Good bye Greece. Good bye St. Lucia.

Shocking

Another Blog update already that is ;)

Last week was pretty good. I only had two half days in the field. I think the last time I had a week like that was probably in April. Wow. On Tuesday morning I had to go out to dig a couple of test pits at the sit I spent most of June at, and then on Wednesday one of our main clients had a gasoline spill, so I had to go out with the PM for the emergency response. Really though, there wasn’t much point in my being there.

The weekend was good. A’s mum came down on Saturday and we took her driving. (She is trying to get her full license by the time of our wedding since if A’s grandparents come, she wants to be able to drive them around and out of TO on the weekends). On Saturday night we watched my sister’s wedding video so that A’s mum could see what a north American wedding was like. To be honest, the video was MUCH the same as our wedding will be ;).

On Sunday morning I took A’s Mum driving again, while A worked on the back door. We replaced the spring on the back storm door, the handles, painted the actually door (Hawaiian Cinder http://www.myperfectcolor.com/Match-of-Behr-S-G-710-Hawaiian-Cinder-p/mpc0080979.htm) and replaced the hinges and door knobs on the back door. It looks really good now.

Also, yesterday afternoon I booked our room for the night of our wedding. As D suggested, we are staying at the Montrose Inn in the Campbell Suite http://www.montroseinn.ca/bedrooms.htm. It looks like a really nice place. Plus, Road to Avonlea was filmed there ;) (when Cecily had to go to the Sanatorium when she had tuberculosis.)

In other news, it was decided last week that we aren’t going to Iran or Scotland for our Honeymoon. We have been convinced that October is not the time of year to visit Scotland, and Arash doesn’t want to go to Iran for our honeymoon since the visit would be all about visiting with A’s family and not relaxing and enjoying ourselves. We will save that for another trip. A is pushing for Hawaii , which I admit would be lovely. Personally, I’m pushing for St. Lucia or Greece.

Long time no update (AKA Wedding budget woes)

So it looks like the last time I updated was early June. Oopsies. Story of my life – Work is crazy busy. That is basically it.

On June 11th a dig an dump job started that I was doing the field work for. I was out at that job site every day between June 11 and July 4th. Long 4 weeks. In June I was 138% chargeable. Go me. It’s actually kind of sad. To date this year, I’m over 100% chargeable, my chargeability goal is 85%. Busy. Also, at the end of June I started pay roll deductions to be a shareholder in my company. Last year share prices increased almost 30% plus a 10% dividend. Should have bought shares last year!!! Hopefully we will do equally well this year. We must with all this overtime I’m putting in!!!

So if June wasn’t bad enough chargeability wise, on July 5th and 6th I got ready to and went up North to Mattawa to work in the bush from the 7th to the 14th. I came back down on the 15th. The first full week in July I was 180% chargeable. The second week (last week) I was 170% chargeable. Phew. I guess that is what happens when you work 17 days straight with no break :(. Hopefully I will be able to take a couple of days off later this month to relax. Well, at least one.

So basically. I have been busy.

Somehow in the insanity of the last month and a half, I have managed to fit in the following things.

1) Had J and C up for a weekend in June. Nice visit and the fabulous ladies helped me with the invitations. I’ve got so many compliments on them, but really, the kudos goes mostly to these gals who did most of the real work while A and I figured out the wording and babysat the printer so that we wouldn’t ruin many vellum sheets!!!
2) Had my aunt, uncle, cousin and her kids over for dinner on the long weekend. It was nice seeing them all again
3) Went to J&Ps on the long weekend and got to visit with EK&W, burger, J&P, J&G
4) Went to see Get Smart – Hilarious. I would recommend it to anyone. I was not disappointed!
5) Got invitations addressed and sent out (almost all) exactly 3 months before the wedding. There were a few that A had to find addresses for. Lazy boys ;). We still have to invitations to go out. For his groomsmen *eye roll*
6) My Dress came in! Dad has paid the remainder of the deposit.
7) Ordered MIL dress for the wedding (bad me, did this too late and have to pay an extra $25 for rush.)
8) Picked up my wedding ring. It is pretty nice, but it ended up costing $200 more than he quoted me which makes me a little mad. :( I think he used more gold than he expected he was going to.
9) Got my hair piece. It was about half of what I budgeted for
10) Booked toilets for the wedding.

I think that takes care of most of the big things for the wedding, though I still need to get a hair stylist (boo!) and arrange for the bus transportation to and from the wedding. I called a place at lunch today and it looks like it is going to be more than double what I had budgeted for it.

At this point it looks like our wedding will likely be about $1000 over budget. Not that we have an extra $1000 just lying around. Oh well. It sucks because a lot of the cost have gone up astronomically since S&Ws wedding – like tent rental went up about 40%, $5000 vs. $3500. Photographers 300% from $500 to $1500, DJ 200% from $250 to $500. Our wedding is going to be smaller and cost $3000 more. Everyone in the family was making fun saying that it is because I have more expensive tastes (which may be true), but that is so not it :(

So after another very hectic week last week, I am now back in the office.

I was out at the remediation site last week doing my air monitoring. I’m not sure if I wrote before, but on the days I have to be out there, I have to get to the office for 6 am to calibrate all the equipment and get to the site and set it up before work starts for the day at 7. They typically work to about 6 pm so by the time I take down my equipment, transfer/save data, and get it back to the office it is 6:30. Add ontop of that my driving and I’m gone from home from about 5:20 to 7:10. It also means setting my alarm for 4:30 so that I am awake enough to drive the 50+ kms to the office. I ended up working 59.5 hours last week and fell asleep on the couch at 7:45 on Friday night. I’m such a party animal.

Sure enough, 5:30 Saturday morning rolls around and I’m wide awake. I stayed in bed until 6:30 and then got up for a run. It was my first run in a few weeks, but I was able to make it 9 kms with little problem, so that was refreshing. I feel so completely out of shape these days.

Saturday we headed down to Toronto to help A’s mum move into a condo that she bought. And that took all of the day. On Sunday we went to Ikea with his mum to buy her a house warming present and ran into of all people… my dad and Nora. That was strange. But it was a pleasant surprise. Nora is getting an ikea kitchen in her Toronto Condo and had to pick out the handles for the cabinets. They ended up getting a fabulous deal – 75% off so they ended up saving them selves a couple hundred.

This week is pretty boring at work. I’m working on the most boring report ever and it is kind of hard to keep interested in it. It is the Liner monitoring program of the Keele Valley Landfill. Sounds like it could be kind of interesting, but a) I have next to no interest in landfills and b) annual monitoring reports are as dry as bread crumbs and with less flavour. (I have no clue where I got that analogy from, it just came to me, but I like it).

Today is 4 months exactly to the wedding. I spent some time at lunch starting to make address labels for the invitations which I hope to get out before the end of the month. I stepped on the scale this morning and it was pretty depressing. Since finishing my half ironman last summer I’ve gained around 15 pounds. I’ll need to lose at least 10 to comfortably fit into my wedding dress. It is just so hard to eat well when you are in the field all day long. It doesn’t help that my laptop has been broken since January so I can’t track my food on weight watchers in the evening. My laptop is fixed now though, UPS tried to deliver it yesterday and they try three times before leaving it at the drop off centre. I was originally supposed to be working at home this afternoon (I had a couple of jobs that would have taken half of the day in Woodstock and Brantford and rather than drive all the way back to the office I was just going to go home and work – it got cancelled last night at 9:30) so I would have been home to accept the delivery. I will just call UPS tonight though and ask them to take it back to the shipping centre which isn’t too far out of my regular drive to and from work so I should have it back tomorrow. Food wise today is going well, I just have to keep with it this time!!!

A long overdue update

Sorry for the long delayed post my loyal (are you still loyal?) readers. The last two months of my life have been a serious blur. At the beginning of March a big TCE remediation job that I am working on started up, and since the end of the month it has been go go go. Busy times. Also pretty hard on me sanity wise. When I have to be out there the day starts at 6 am which means I have to be up at 4:30. The day isn’t over until 6 or 7 pm, so it makes for a long brutal day, and doesn’t leave much time for doing other things like spending time with A, keeping in touch with friends, exercise, photography, and what not. The most hours I have worked in one week was 65. Horrid. I ended up getting the overtime I banked that week paid out to help pay for our basement renovations. Now, on top of that there is the fact that we are doing major home renovations in our basement. Last time I posted I mentioned that we had ripped out the carpet, in the basement. Since then we have: painted, put in dri-core, put in engineered hardwood, installed baseboards, and painted the trim around the doors and windows. We are now about 95% done the basement renovations, but A and are both thoroughly exhausted. We still need to caulk around the baseboards, paint one more coat on the door and window casing and baseboard, paint the doors, move everything back up stairs and install the doors. We could easily take care of that in a weekend, but we took all last weekend off of any worries and relaxed. It was long overdue. The last time we truly had a relaxing weekend would be Easter?

The wedding plans are coming along well. We have a caterer (yay!), and the tent rental is confirmed. I have bought the invitations, I just need to find the time to make them, and have bought the centre pieces. I have booked off hotel blocks. We have registered (Sears and The Bay). There are still a few important things we need to take care of, but I think we are finally in okay shape. I keep having weird wedding dreams. The other day I dreamed that instead of my father it was our office manager that gave me away. Kind of makes sense since I am working so much these days. I also have reoccurring dreams that my dress comes in, and I go and try in on, and it isn’t actually my dress. It has been black. It has been a pant suit. It has been short. It has been everything but what it is supposed to be! When I ordered it back in December the lady at the store said it would be in around April 14th, and after waiting for the phone call for a month, I called the other week to check on whether it had come in. Apparently when it reached the American quality control centre they found a pull in the material and the dress had to be completely remade! It’s a good thing I ordered so far in advanced!!!

I guess the Cat is out of the bag and I can finally share the news I have been holding in for a few months too. My sister S is preggo again. I’m very excited for her, but the only bad thing about the news is that her due date is Oct. 2. Exactly 2 days before our wedding. I recently found out that one of my cousins is also pregnant and due on Sept. 20. S is going to try to make it to the wedding (and is still planning on buying a bridesmaid type dress), but my cousin is not planning on coming. Which kind of sucks, but it is a happy occasion, so I can’t dwell on the positive now can I!?!

Speaking of Cats, Jenny is doing well and is loving going outside. She gets to go outside for about half an hour or so most days, but she stays in her harness and is tied to a post. She is a bit of a scrappy cat, so I don’t want her to get into a fight. In the evening she spends most of the night in front of the door howling to be let outside. It is actually quite funny and is more dog-like than cat-like. It gets annoying pretty quickly though.

I guess that is it for now. I promise to be more diligent about updating from now on!

Doctors, Rust, and asebestos oh my!

So last weekend I went to the walk-in clinic. Like I thought, they don't do female exams, but the doc did write me the perscription I need and I start taking it as soon as I get my period (should be any day now). Hopefully my skin will be clear by the wedding. He also refered me to an ob/gyn so that I can get my exam.

So this weekend we got started on our basement renovations. The first thing we noticed was that our ducts in the downstains are rusted. For some reason, they ran them through the concrete below the slab, and water has got in and rusted out ducts. So all winter we have been literally heating the ground below our house. After much discussion, we are going to fill in the existing vents with concrete (with the exception of the bathroom, and then put in new vents off of the main bulkhead which runs through the ceiling in the den downstairs. hopefully this will result in lower heating bills and less humidity in the downstairs.

The second lovely thing we noticed after pulling up the carpet was old tiles. we pulled the nail strips up for about 90% of the area breaking several tiles before it occured to me that the tiles could contain asebestos. Apparently like 95% of tiles pre mid 80s contained asebestos. Nice. A and I have to talk about whether we want to test the tiles for asebestos or not. We can leave the tiles in place and just cover them up, but we will have to dispose of the dammaged tiles. Actually they recommend that if you have asebestos containing tiles that the best thing to do is cover them up so that they won't be dammaged. The asebestos in tiles is non-friable which means fibers won't be realeased unless they are damaged.

So all in all, I had a pretty stressful weekend, but it sounds like everything is sorted out and we can get to work on finishing the basement up.

Doctor Shortage

I’m so frustrated.

So there are no family doctors accepting new patients in Woodstock, so for the first time in my life I am without a family doctor. Go figures I actually need a family doctor too.

So I used to have pretty horrible acne. Back in first year it was the worst it had ever been. I ended up going on medication to get rid of the acne – Diane 35 which was a form of the pill that was actually prescribed for acne and not for the general purpose of the pill. When my dad retired I switched to another form of the pill that was supposed to help with acne. While I was on that I would get the occasional break out, but nothing too horrible. Nothing like it used to be. Well, now I no longer have a family doctor, so I can’t get a prescription, and my skin is getting horrible. In another month or so it will be back to where it was when I was 19 years old. Something I really don’t want. Particularly with our wedding coming up. Basically in order for it to be cleared up in time for our wedding, I need to get into see a doctor now, but I don’t see how that is even possible.

Um. Hello.

*Sigh*

Ah. Slowness.

The last month or so at work has been Go, go, go. Not so much fun. Most of my lunch hours I have worked through in an effort to get through the backlog of work. Well. Finally, as of right now, I don’t have anything majorly pressing that I have to take care of. Well, there are things, but everything I am waiting for someone else to send me information, review a report, etc. There is stuff I can do to keep myself busy as I still do have a backlog of work, but it all has deadlines well into the future. I think I will spend some time this afternoon clearing off the mess that is my desk. That would be good.

So what is new in the world of lj? Not much to be honest. I have just been working my but off for the last month. I have also been fighting a cold since Christmas which keeps on threatening to get worse, but so far hasn’t been that bad. I have a feeling that with my new found slowness at work, it will come charging on next week.

One exciting thing that I am starting to work on is a big remediation job here in London. The site is contaminated with chlorinated solvents and they are using soil mixing to lower the concentrations (dilution IS afterall the solution to pollution ;)) and then excavating the soil out. It is a pretty big job that is supposed to take until the end of May. My job is to conduct air monitoring to ensure worker safety (part time, not every day) and to go out there with a drill rig to take samples of the mixed soil for classification (haz vs. non-haz). Fun stuff. I wish it were an in situ job (ISCO anyone ;)) but the land belongs to the city of London and they don’t want anything in situ.

Any who. Not much else going on here. I will update my wedding blog as well for wedding related stuff.

A real update

So It's been a while since I did a real update.

January has been an intersting month. Pretty busy here at work, but not busy enought to stress me out. My major stress as you all probably know is Jenny. She is back to her normal piggish self and meow's constantly at you until you feed her. She is a lovely cat though ;). She had her follow-up appointment at the vets on Saturday and all of her blood levels came back normal and the vet thinks that she won't have any lasting side effects. She won't have to be on the kidney food forever (thank god, it is expensive!) but she will have to switch to "mature" cat food. Normally cat's would be 8 before they would switch (Jenny is 4 or 5) but apparently it is easier on the kidneys and lower in calories than the normal kidney food.

In other unrelated news, my laptop screen died yesterday and A can't fix it. He looked up things online and it could cost as much at $200 + labour to have it fixed. I don't have that kind of money (mostly due to Jenny's Vet bills), so I don't know what I'm going to do. A is going to call HP and see if they will fix it for me for free. It is just a few months out of the manufacturer's warantee and apparently they will sometimes fix things like this. I did nothing wrong, it was probably just a bum part. For now I have it set up with my old CRT monitor so at least I have a computer at home.

I got some sad news last night. My dad's Cat that we got when I was in highschool died last week when he was on vacation. She was sick over christmas, but when dad was going to take her into the vet she was better. She took a down turn right before he went skiing when he didn't have the time to take her into the vet (like friday night before leaving sunday afternoon). She was truly a wonderful cat and I will miss her dearly. She was the first cat I ever really loved and was the one that made me turn into a cat person. When I had my knee surgery and was feeling VERY sick afterwards she would curl up on my lap and stay with me all day. She was cuddly and kind, and a killer. Seriously, best hunter I've ever seen. Not afraid to kill the odd weasel (including the week of Sarah's Wedding). She had a wonderful life and lived to the ripe age of 11. Lizzie, I will miss you.

100 Things about me.

I saw this on another blog and thought it was cool. I've been working on it for a couple of weeks. kind of hard to come up with 100 things!!!

1. I’m engaged to a wonderful man
2. I have a masters degree in Civil engineering
3. If I didn’t go into Engineering, I would have gone into either physics or Music.
4. I played the piano and flute well in highschool but rarely touch either now
5. I lost my $2000 flute on one of the many co-op moves in undergrad
6. I love photography. It is by far my favorite form of visual art.
7. My Iron Ring is my grandfathers and was the first titanium cast in Canada
8. I’ve almost lost my Iron Ring 3 or 4 times now. The most recent being last night at the gym.
9. I’ve only ridden my bike once since July.
10. As a kid I had aspirations of being a world class skier, but my parents never let me race
11. I lost my first tooth in Kindergarten on a class trip to the zoo. I was eating an apple on the bus and it fell out.
12. I love almost every kind of fruit there is. Except the ones that I like to call Vegetable fruits – tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, etc.
13. I’ve eaten a banana almost every day since my first co-op term.
14. I dislike most cooked vegetables when they are on their own.
15. I hate beans. Except chickpeas.
16. I get upset when A eats the last banana and screws up my week.
17. In 99% of my habits I’m a classic Type A, but I can’t keep anything tidy. My desk, my home, anything (I do keep it clean though).
18. Once I get in the habit, waking up at 5:30 am isn’t hard for me.
19. My perfect Sunday would be going for a run in the morning, coming back and snuggling up with a good book and falling asleep on the couch.
20. I would much prefer to nap than sleep in.
21. I love love love being hot. I don’t ever have trouble falling asleep when it is hot outside.
22. I find myself cold every day at work and they keep the heat set at 72F whereas we keep our home set at 68.
23. I was the 5th grade champion at my school in the shot put.
24. I was decently good at shotput and made it to the county level in grade 8 but didn’t continue in highschool because I didn’t want to be butch.
25. I was the last kid cut from every team in elementary school. I ALMOST made the soccer team, I ALMOST made the basket ball team, I ALMOST made the Vollyball team, etc.
26. I quit trying for team sports in Grade 7 because I babysat after school when the practices were.
27. I had three cabbage patch kids – Sophia Manda, Lauren, and Elmira. Sophie was my favourite.
28. I hate American spellings – color, neighbor, favorite, etc.
29. My favourite comfort foods are cottage cheese with cinnamon and sugar and bologna and ketchup roll-ups (has to be schneiders blue ribbon).
30. I was the worlds pickiest eater as a kid.
31. Number 27 was the basis for 75% of my dinners as a kid.
32. In grade 1 my teacher thought I was hearing disabled and made me get tested. I had perfect hearing, but just didn’t listen.
33. In grade two I had to get my eyesight tested. The teacher thought I couldn’t see because I always had my book propped up on my desk. It was to keep the kid next to me from copying.
34. I was a mediocre student as a child until about grade 4 or 5 when I started to excel at math.
35. I almost had to have eye surgery as an infant. My tear ducts were blocked so my eyes would weep. I still get watery eyes now sometimes for no reason.
36. My cat also has weepy eyes. The vet said the only way to fix it would be for her to have the surgery I was supposed to have when I was 3 months old.
37. When I was 6 I got lost skiing and had to hike up a 3 km run to get back to the main mountain. My sister (8 at the time) abandoned me to save herself.
38. When I was 11 I got lost skiing off piste and had to hike out in waist deep snow. I left my skies in the woods and the ski patrol resuced them.
39. When I was 12 I got stuck on a chairlift for 2 hours in -30 degree weather. I got frost bite on my feet and ever since then my feet have been super sensitive to the cold.
40. I had my first kiss after my 19th birthday
41. I have only kissed 4 guys and the 4th will be the only one I kiss for the rest of my life (god willing).
42. I’m agnostic. I believe in the whole big bang thing but I’m not sure I believe in superstring
43. I’m a science geek. When I was in kindergarten I watched science shows on TVO during the day. I remember asking my mom how big an atom was.
44. I hated reading until highschool. I thought because I was slow at it, it meant that I wasn’t any good (despite scoring really well on reading comprehension tests because when I read I have to make sure I understand every single word.
45. Highschool English taught me one thing. How to BS.
46. I quit the highschool cross country team in favour of the swim team. (practices at the same time).
47. I was a pretty good swimmer. My stroke was the breast stroke which does nothing to help me with front crawl in triathlons.
48. I quit the swim team in favour of the rugby team (practices at the same time)
49. I tore my ACL playing rugby.
50. After teaing my ACL I can’t do breast stroke well anymore.
51. My grandfather held the British record in a breast stroke event in the 1940s for a few weeks. He would have gone to the Olympics in 44 but they were cancelled due to the war.
52. I lived with my torn ACL for 5 years due to being misdiagnosed by a stupid doctor in Belleville.
53. I lived in the same house from the day I was born to the day I went off to University.
54. I love dogs, but I have a cat.
55. My cat’s full name is “Jenny-any-dots” but no-one ever calls her that.
56. My favorite fast food is a McDonalds Quarter Pounder. So greasy, but oh so good.
57. I started doing triathlons as a stepping stone for Adventure Racing. 7 years later I’ve only done one adventure race.
58. Up until the Winter of 2000 I had never run more than 6 km. I remember feeling very proud of myself after running for 7 whole kms one night.
59. I haven’t run by myself at night since 2002 when I promised my mum I wouldn’t anymore.
60. If I were independently wealthy I would train all day long.
61. I would love to be on the biggest loser although I don’t have that much weight to lose. I just think it would be FUN to train with the trainers on the show.
62. I’m an extrovert in most ways, except when it comes to dating I’m an introvert.
63. I love Microsoft Excel.
64. I’ve had lice twice once in grade 1 and once in grade 10.
65. My Mum volunteered in my grade three classroom.
66. My first crush was on a boy call Mark in the 4th Grade.
67. Donnie was my favourite NKOTB. The only time in my life I liked ‘the bad boy’
68. My favourite Authors are JK Rowling and Minnette Walters
69. My favourite TV shows are Ugly Betty and Grey’s Anatomy.
70. I like the mean girls. My favourite characters are Amanda on Ugly Betty and Christine on Grey’s anatomy.
71. I have a tattoo of a sun on the inside of my left ankle.
72. I would only get another tattoo if I did an Ironman. I would get the Mdot tattoo.
73. I’m a people pleaser. I don’t like to make decisions that other people might have a problem with.
74. Model Calibration is the bain of my existence.
75. I never kept a journal consistently until I started blogging.
76. I have a love hate relationship with Wedding Magazines. They make me feel like I’m the worst bride ever.
77. I love to bake, but I end up eating way too many sweets when I do.
78. Everyone who has ever eaten my gingerbread cookies compliments me.
79. When I go to Subway I often eat more calories worth of cookies than I do of sandwhich.
80. My favourite colour is red.
81. By grade 10 I was lead flutist in our highschool band
82. My grandma had the highest scores in Ontario in standardized testing when she was in highschool.
83. I get complimented by total strangers (men and women alike) on my glasses.
84. When I was a kid I used to want glasses so I would read in the dark.
85. I had braces in grade 9 and half of grade 10 to correct an overbite. I had nearly straight teeth before hand. I also had to wear head gear at night for a few months.
86. I love aspartame sweetened products. I’ve been having them since I was a kid since we didn’t have any sugar drinks in the house. We made Koolaid with half sugar and half equal.
87. I learned to ski a few months after my third birthday.
88. Despite be a good swimmer now, I had to take my yellow badge (the first one) three times before I passed. Twice I wasn’t technically old enough then the third time I was afraid to put my face in the water.
89. I clearly remember moments of my young childhood. Like when I was 3 and 4.
90. I have a pretty good memory. I read something once and it sticks with me for ever.
91. I tried out for my highschool’s version of cheerleading – the Dance Squad. I did it because D didn’t want to try out by herself. I had no interest in joining.
92. I like to eat my skittles and m and ms by colour. But not in a certain order. I eat the colour I have the least of first leaving the one with the most till the end.
93. Except, I don’t like yellow skittles as much, so I always eat them first.
94. I have been to: South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Domican Republic, England, Whales and the US.
95. My dream trip would be to go to Patagonia. Partly so that I could say I was “living like a king in Patagonia”
96. I never skipped a class in highschool. I was a good two shoes. Well, more accurately, my father taught at our highschool and would find out in a heartbeat
97. I get frustrated and distracted when computers are slow.
98. I get corrected on English grammar by my ESL fiancé. Who knew “boughten” and “gotten” weren’t words? That being said, spell check isn’t picking up gotten. Perhaps I was right all along.
99. My favourite flower is the daffodil.
100. My guilty pleasure if fluffy novels.

Update on the Kitty

Still isn't eating a whole bunch, but she is feeling much better. Back to her normal self I would think. We have to take her back next weekend to get her blood checked again. Hopefully, her levels will be 100% back to normal and she can go off the kidney diet then.

I'm playing around with my blog format right now, so stay tuned, I will hopefully get something I like soon.

Jenny...

Ate all the food that was given to her this morning and seems to be getting better.

A and I are going to visit her this evening - the vet is open until 8 pm so we should be able to get a good little visit in :)

update on any-dots

So I am at home now. I was a wreck and wouldn't get anything done this afternoon. I talked to my boss and have come home. Good thing I have some banked overtime.

I stopped at the vets on my way home and cuddled with Jenny for about half an hour and talked to the Vet for a bit. Basically there are two types of Kidney failure in cats, Acute and Chronic. Based on the symptoms the vet is positive that Jenny has Acute kidney failure. I have read over the symptoms and I agree 100%. I think she must have got into something at my dad's house that she shouldn't have.

So the other part of any good medical diagnosis is bloodwork. Her blood levels of Urea and Crea-whatever are definitely elevated above the levels that you would see in a normal functioning liver but actually well below what the average cat has with Kidney Failure.

Now. The prognosis with Acute Kidney Failure is usually worse than with chronic failure since the levels of the blood markers are usually much higher. But, in Jenny's case they aren't. Here are a description of the normal symptoms: suddun anorexia (check), listlessness (check), vomitting (only once), diarrhea (nope), strange odour (nope), seizures (nope), frequent urination (a bit, not enough to have raised alarm bells - I was keeping track of it because of Smokey. And here is the clincher... Many cats are in systemic shock by the time thy reach the veterinary hospital. Jenny definitely wasn't in systemic shock. So given that the vet thinks it is acute, but that the levels are relatively low (her "crea" measurment was around 460 which is higher than the normal range that caps out at 330, but the vet said most cats with kidney failure are in the 600 to 700 range and that she has seen as high as 1100), the prognosis is good. She is on an IV for 48 hours and they are going to recheck her blood levels on friday. If they are still high, then she will probably have to go to a 24 hour clinic.

Jenny... the New Smokey

Kidney Failure it is. She is at the Vets right now and they are going to put her on an IV for 48 hours. The Vet is hopefull, but she will likely have to be on Kidney Diet for the rest of her life.

I'm devestated. Sitting here at my desk at work crying my eyes out.

Can we talk about the Weather?

What the heck is going on? The temperature in London yesterday reached a day time high of 14.8 degrees. No joke. This morning I ran outside in a long sleeve shirt and shorts and wished I had a short sleeve shirt on. Today at work we had the “First Annual Global Warming Barbeque” a bbq in January. What the heck. I mean I love warm weather as much as the next person. In fact I would MUCH rather be to warm than too cold. I can sleep no problem in 30+ degree heat, but when it’s a little chilly out come the fleece PJs, down duvet and socks to bed. But 15 degrees in January? That is a little excessive. For the heat not to come on at all in the night in January? Bizarre.

And yet people STILL don’t want to believe in Global Climate Change. The federal government STILL refuses to do anything significant to reduce greenhouse emissions. And people STILL drive one person in an SUV on the 401 at 8:15 am where I know that they are commuting. Drives me NUTS!



Other than that. Jenny is Sick :(. Has been for about a week. She seems to be doing a little better but she still doesn’t want to eat. If I can’t get her to eat anything meaningful (i.e., not chicken off my dinner plate) by tomorrow morning I’m going to take her into the vet. Poor Kitty. She has gone from 14.5 last week to 12 something this week. Funny thing – she stopped eating all out last week – around New years day, so we have been joking that she decided to lose weight as her new years resolution ;). The reason why I haven’t taken her sooner is that a) she is starting to get back to her normal self and b) Dad’s cat lizzie was sick over Christmas and she is back to normal now.

A Year in Review

So first things first… My Christmas vacation

21 – drive to airport to pick up sister K
22 – Drive to London to show K London Dress, A buys Tuxedo. Drive to Belleville
23 – Drive to Ottawa
24 – Drive to Castleton to Sister S’s. S&W have food poisoning, need to take care of E.
25 – Merry Christmas and back to Belleville
26 – Was going to avoid boxing day madness but watch breaks and we made our way to the mall. Saw I am Legend. I too cried with the dog bit, A made fun of me.
27 – A wakes me up in the middle of the night to ask for the garbage can. He has the flu.
28 – Go in to Belleville to make a purchase (see my other blog!) Go to Toronto to pick up future M-I-L after S-I-L birthday party. Back home at last.
29 – Lazy bums. But we did get new blinds for the bay window.
30 – Partay Chez L&A. Q&R are back in Southwestern Ontario and we had a get together.
31 – By to MIL, open joint account. Lazy Lazy Lazy. A fell asleep at 11:00. I stayed up, but was reading.
1 – More lazyness.

January
I was very lonely at school being the only one left. Burger had a Goodbye party for Q&R which was really Sad :( I also had my first real bout of the flu. It wasn’t all that fun let me tell you ;)

February
I searched far and wide for a job. Ha! Just joking. I kind of fell into interviews with my current company through Burger. Didn’t even really apply to them. Just sent her my resume one day. And Bam, here I am 8 months later ;).

March
The only two things I remember from March are finishing the chilly half marathon which was, well, chilly and going to Vancouver. Although Vancouver wasn’t much of a “just” thing. We visited with Kelly and Quinn and my cousins, went to Whistler, the Sunshine Coast and Climbed a mountain. Ah. Perfect!

April
April was a good month. A very good month. Did my Seminar, went to visit Kate, got my thesis submitted to my readers and started working. A busy month, but so, so worth it.

May
And I’m Done! Finally. Almost three years, but I’m done. Who cares that I had to use 2 of my precious 10 vacation days to get there. Also starting to get settled in my new job. Liking the job, hating the commute. Pressure is on to start house hunting. Also got my half marathon PR that I’ve been pining for after years. Sub 2 hours baby!

June
We bought a house! After searching hard (for two weeks) we settled on our current house and got it. It is beautiful  well, I think so anyways ;) I also did two triathlons in which I placed first in my category. I’m a rockstar ;)

July
Two exciting things – and on the same weekend! On July 7, Dear Dad tied the knot and only July 8 I did my first half Ironman. I was sure afterwards it would be my last, but now? Who knows. The rest of the month I was fending off illness, which wasn’t very cool.

August
August was a busy month in Laura Land. At the beginning of the month we went to New York for C-dub Bachelorette weekend. Then it was moving into our house complete with plenty of renovations. A and I also got engaged on August 17, which also happened to be 1 year and 8 months together (we didn’t realize this fun little fact for several days).

September
Was C-dubs wedding which was beautiful. The rest of the month kind of passed in a blur of working. I went to Windsor for work for a week which took up a good chunk of the month.

October
Was the month I started trying on Wedding dresses. On thanksgiving weekend my sister S and D went shopping with me to some stores in Belleville. I found one dress that I loved, but wasn’t ready to commit. Late in the month C-dub and Nej came down to go shopping with me in London. Again found one dress that I loved, but wasn’t ready to commit because of the first dress. Argh! Decisions!

November
The beginning of November My dad had an engagement party for us. Sister K surprised us by coming down, which was nice. We also went dress shopping at more places in Belleville and I tried on the first dress again. The rest of the month was a blur of work.

December
More blur of work. I was insanely busy for the first half of the month and very much enjoyed my 10 day Christmas break, although it was also pretty busy.

Goals for 2007
1) Goal Races - Spring half marathon, summer half ironman, fall full marathon. well, yest on the spring half marathon – did two and PR’d (personal record) in both, and got my time down below 2:00 which has been a long standing goal, another yes on the summer half ironman but a big fat no for the fall marathon. After the half Ironman I needed some time away from working out. That lasted a month, then we bought a house and fall field word was crazy so I never really got back on the boat.
2) Finish school for good and get the hell out of here. I'm SO ready to be done. YOU BET!!!! I don’t even think of it anymore. I actually haven’t even picked up my bound thesis. Oops ;)
3) Be a happier person. I think school is really starting to get to me and bring me down. It is always this stress in my life and it doesn't help that people ask me all the time "So, when are you going to be done?" I think I heard it 10,000 times over the break. dude's it's a touchy subject, if I want to talk about school let me bring it up. Working on it. I’m not really a stressed person anymore, but I guess there are things we all struggle with. Right now my two man struggles are money and being away from home. I was away from home a LOT this fall – it made it really hard to get into a routine (healthy eating and excersize) and left no time for wedding planning. Moneywise I am struggling a little bit, between the Christmas season, buying a house, and a car, I feel like I’m living pay check to pay check. Actually, scrap that. I AM living pay check to pay check. I think I have $63 in my bank account right now (this is actually lower than it should be but I will explain that one else where). Hopefully I will be able to get out of this hole soon though.

Goals for 2008
1) continue to work on happiness
2) Get my ass back into shape. I hope to do a late spring marathon, but we’ll see how this goes. Next summer I want to focus on short triathlons again.
3) Lose the weight I have gained over the last 4 months (and it is a lot) and perhaps get down to my goal weight. The problem last time is that as soon as I got to within 10 pounds of my goal weight I felt I was content where I was, and stopped trying honestly.
4) Have a great time planning our wedding and enjoy the day as much as possible