Friday, January 30, 2009

Fishing picture



Here is the picture I was working on on the Houseboat. It is finally finished and i am pretty happy with it. I really like the colors, and I did stray a bit from the directions. See if you can see where. I have started my next one, it is the one I got for Christmas. Wilf and Henry went to Slave today and Boh is out so again I have the house to my self. Allison I was glad to see you posted on the blog, in your post card you mentioned that Lisa was trying to drowned you, so I don't have to call the RCMP any more. Lisa send pictures of your house with yourstuff in it. I find in my moving once I get the pictures up on the wall it feels more like home. It does take a while however. For the record I have moved 7 times, kind of middle of the pack. Stay safe. Laura

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Moved

Here I am sitting in our new house hooked up to internet.
Move went fine, though took long time. 8hrs with 3 guys from moving company. Where did we get so much stuff? There is still stuff in garage too for us to bring over.
Movers said this place is 'not moving friendly'. Meaning long flight of stairs makes hauling big things up difficult. I concur.
Kitchen is unpacked, (mom was big help with this) bathroom, bedroom mostly done. Living room-kind of. We are waiting to assess whether we are happy with bookshelves in current location and then when sure, will unload stuff for them.
So far, like house lots. But I feel out of place-like this isn't quite my home yet, but other home isn't mine either. Cats have adjusted quite well. Sebastian of course, found the whole thing more traumatizing, but Nick was all over the place right away, as soon as we let them out of the bathroom-Sebastian stayed a while in the pet carrier-pupils fully dilated with terror.
How do others move so frequently? I used to, but haven't for 15 years-and moving affirms that it really is wearing.

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

I'm Dreaming of a White January

Yep, it snowed again in Vancouver last night. I'm cautiously optimistic that this means that class will be cancelled. I mean, it's not much snow, just a skiff, really, but this is the West Coast!

The first week back to class went ok. I'm in six classes, and I think it might be a bit more week to week work this term, as opposed to all weighted in one or two papers. The worst thing is that once a month I have class Friday evening from 6 to 9, and then all day Saturday. The first one was this past weekend. Added to that, I have nine hours of class in twenty four hours from Monday to Tuesday. The bright side to all this is that once Tuesday morning is over, it means that the bulk of class is done for the week, and I can get on with the reading. My favourite class so far is Christian Ethics. The professor is a sessional, so he is not a regular instructor at the school. He spends most of class teaching us something, or explaining a concept, and then telling us either why he disagrees with it, or why we might want to disagree with it. He said this week that running screaming from class would be an ethical response, if we could justify it, and if one of us were to do that, and write a paper, he would consider it for credit in the class. No one took him up on it.

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Monday, January 26, 2009

This one's for Dad

This made me laugh really hard.

It's Here



I got my new furniture, yahoo. I waited all day, the truck did not get here until after 6, the delivery guys said that they had a flat tire. I am so happy. The furniture does seem bigger here than it did in the store, but I still think there is lots of room to have the two different seating areas I was thinking about.

I had a nice visit with Allison and Grace yesterday. It was the first time I had seen Allison since before Christmas, it is amazing how quickly the time goes by. Grace has got me watching Hockey, even when I am here by myself. I had forgotten how much I like to watch. And now that the Oilers have pulled up their socks and are winning more, it makes it even better. It was cool watching the all star game, there were old guys being introduced through out the game, Jean Beliveau, Rocket Richard, Guy La Fleur, nice to see people that I recognized.

And now I think I will enjoy sitting on my new couches, and watch a little TV.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

This One's for Scott

Grace says he's our #1 fanboy.

Actually it is Allison posting on behalf of Judith, Grace, and me. We are at Judith's watching the All-Star game and feeling a little sad that the West is not winning.

Judith is making her delicious spaghetti, although she seems to not feel that is as good a dinner as we think it is.

Don Cherry is wearing a hot-pink Chinese silk blazer. ?!

I was going to install insulation downstairs over our furnace pipes yesterday but it was too cold. I did go to the waterpark at the mall with Kirsten & Isaac and friends. We just sat on the deck chairs, drinking gin & tonics and yakking. It felt like Mexico revisited.

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Saturday, January 24, 2009

Leaving. This House.

Rest up so you can go back to work and retire Geoff.
Then you can come here and help us with a few electrical projects we have. Nothing major, just some reversed plugs and a ceiling fan whose lights flicker off.
2 days until we move!! Really nothing much left to pack-a couple plates and coffee maker, that kind of thing. Now, I am no longer anxious and irritable-just excited. Talk to me on moving day and am pretty sure that I will be irritable though.
No renters for this place yet. I blame all the condos that are for rent right now. It is kind of annoying me I would like to get it over with and rented, but this is not a major stressor.
I have a cold and so have called in sick the last 2 days. I am considering calling in for tomorrow as I sound terrible and am still coughing which does not sound good when you are a nurse trying to promote health. Though I hardly ever call in sick and thus do not feel really guilty, there is always a small part of me saying, 'you are costing our healthcare system money that should be going to patient care'. PLus the attitude of entitlement some nurses have disturbs me and I don't want to be like that.
Here is the link to the book I made for Mom, if you should like to see it. There are a couple typos, which I plan to fix for the next edition.
I would really like to do some stuff here today, like clean a couple windows and go to the dump. This is probably not advisable when sick, but being home sick for 2 days is boring.
We went to see Defiance-alright, Curious Case of Benjamin Button-pretty good, and watched The Visitor on DVD-which was good.
I have not seen the sun since Mexico, Okanagan winters can be difficult.

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leave

Geoff is on medical leave until the middle of February. He's hoping to get himself straightened around enough to be able to stand that place until retirement time but I don't know if that's possible. However, it's nice having him around. Everyone needs a wife to keep things together at home. Here is the apropos poster Sam gave Geoff for Christmas.

warm weather

I love Alberta you can almost count on the weather. By that I mean that it changes very fast. It is cold...... -37 something you can expect but I am glad that I am not going to work today. The four block walk to the mill from the parking lot is very trying at times. Oh well, what we will do for money.

Got Henry proofs of his grad pictures. They are very good, he takes a nice picture. I have order copies so if you want one let me know. He did not get his heavy duty rap opportunity, things had slowed down at the company. He is taking automotives next term now, so something good comes out of everything.

We went to the movie Grand Torino the other day, it is the best Clint Eastwood movie I have seen. I was extremely impressed not his typical movie (can't tell by the previews). Wilf and Henry are both at work right now. Boh is with his dad so I have the house to my self. That does not happen very much seems a bit strange.

Hope all is well with you guys and I am counting down to shoes weekend. Love and kisses L

Friday, January 23, 2009

Not much new in Rocky. It has become winter again, with -30 temps-I like last weeks +5 better. I did get the Christmas lights down from the eaves while it was warm- Will took the rest down after I was back to work after Christmas. Theresa is enjoying having me home, and I enjoy the house-husband sort of life. I have pangs of guilt every now and again for leaving everyone at work with more to do.
Tim phoned earlier tonight. He is going to NWT to be the start-up foreman for the generator package that he built in the yard here. Another company is doing the site electrical, but they were so pleased with the package that was built in Rocky (Tim was the main man on that) that they want him and a programmer to go up for the start-up. Pretty nice to be recognized for the hard work that was put in.
I have been sleeping lots, but not getting much else done. I did post on my website a bit ago though.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

When we were in England in April we went to visit Peter Ferrey, a cousin of Aubrey's and visited with Peter and Diane's son Hugo and his wife Linda and their two little boys. We sent a Christmas card with pictures that we had taken during our visit, and got an email back from Peter the other day. He said that Linda died in June. We couldn't believe it. I guess she had meningitis and died only a couple of days after she got sick. Peter said that the picture we took of Hugo and Linda and boys was probably the last family picture taken of them.
I have been watching Mad Men. What a good show. Thanks for the tip Will.
Talked to Anne last night, sounds like things are going well. Also talked to Will, he's back safely after his 5-week break. Tim has been working lots, he put in 86 hours last week. Grace called the other night, too, but of course we didn't hear from Sam.

Pecked to Death by Ducks

That phrase is from that biography of Ann Landers Mom had that I read about 50 times.

I'm feeling a lot of work frustration due to peers being anal retentive and crabby; I'm not your dang secretary, librarians. The non-crabby peers agree that working with librarians is like being pecked to death by ducks.

In other news, I am going to start a yoga drop-in class this week. I am hoping it encourages me to pursue other forms of exercise, in the cardiovascular and strength-building genres.

I just watched a good Australian movie called 10 Canoes, in which a white Australian director worked with a little Aboriginal community to make the movie. Almost more interesting was the documentary on DVD about the making of the film, and how difficult it was for the 2 cultures to communicate with each other. I am sometimes baffled by how hard communication can be -- but I guess it's a lot of work to do it really really well and not assume other person is making your same assumptions.

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Sunday, January 18, 2009

Sunday afternoon

Isn't there a song from the '70's with that title? Lazing....on a Sunday afternoon...da, da, da.
I went and got more boxes. Where did all this stuff come from? There seems to be no end to our things.
I just finished reading an autobiography of Slash, the guitarist from Guns 'n' Roses. He sure got up to some shenanigans.
Next up, I'm reading The Shack, new in from the library.
My 3 days back at work went well. I was charge nurse for 2 of them, which adds stress, but everything went well, so who can complain?
Now I am off until Friday, work 3 days, then off to move!
Whcih means that I should be packing right now.
We need some bar stools for our nook, but they are crazy expensive-I am looking at online ads for used ones. Someone is asking $250 for used ones that they bought for $300 last year. Come on, no one wants to pay that for your used junk. Pfffffttt-wave hand in disgust.

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Saturday, January 17, 2009

Ivanhoe

This last week was Ivanhoe, the Mackenzie tower competition. It was a lot of fun. The week felt like it went on forever, but that was probably because there wasn't much sleeping involved. Every night there was a sword hunt in the middle of the night, like at 2 or 3 in the morning. They are like treasure hunts, where you get a clue and have to go find the other clues. Then when you have them all you tape them together so there is a picture of a sword on the back, and the first team back wins. We won two of those. Other events were a tug of war in the field, we had to build a sled out of materials they gave us in one hour, and then race them, there was a relay race through the tower, with something different to do on each floor (we won that), and lots of other things. In the end we came in first after all the events of the week, but then they added on the points for the crusades, and we ended in fourth. The crusades are things you do for points. The ones with the most points involved going to Vancouver and the US, and other trips. We didn't do many of those, because no one wanted first of all to pay to go on one of those trips, and also no one wanted to miss that many classes. And we couldn't do the shorter trips because the only car that belongs to someone on our floor broke down on Monday. So everyone on my floor feels very ripped off.

Nothing else is new with me. My classes all seem to be going pretty well, if a little boring. My math prof doesn't really speak English well, and he can't say most of the letters of the alphabet. The rest of my instructors all are fluent in English, so that is a nice change from last semester.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The Lingnan on TV

I was watching TV on the weekend and came upon a show on the Food Channel, called Family Restaurant featuring the family that owns the Lingnan. It was really funny, the family was getting ready for Chinese New Years at the restaurant, complete with a Chinese Dragon dance. If you get a chance everyone should watch, the mother is hilarious.

I talked to Leeann at Bauers, and my furniture is in progress, I might even get it this week. That makes me feel pretty excited. I can't wait to see if it looks as good as I remember it to be. I think this should give more motivation to get moving on the renos.

It has been snowing a lot this week, and I am very happy I don't have to shovel it. Every morning when I come to work, cutting through the Leg grounds, the sidewalks are already done, I think those guys must start around 7:00 am.

Not a lot new here, Grace came over on Sunday, the Amazing Race is over, but there was a hockey game on, so we cheered the Oilers to vistory, and looked for Will and Tim in the stands, but did not see them. Sam and Will are coming over tonight for supper, (Grace and Allison are busy and can't make it). It does feel as though it has been long time since I have seen Allison, looking forward to hearing about the trip when we do finally get together.

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Returned; Applied; Tidied

It's good to be home. I super enjoyed Mexico. I felt a little jumpy at times due to not doing much (Shouldn't I be accomplishing something? Appreciate, appreciate, appreciate.). But after I caught up on sleep from late-night flight home, I found that I had all this energy to unpack, putter around, clean up, tidy the house. And I'm not even dismayed by the temperatures and snow here.

My PhD application is in, and my co-supervisors really helped me a lot with it. I feel it's strong! And more importantly, I feel I could do it! I'm nerdily enough excited that I took some books out on parts of my topic so I can do some 'pre-reading.' I think Anne will appreciate this nerdiness.

I am also excited because we are showing a video project at Latitude right now (Judith and Grace, have you seen it? Want to, still?) where male sex trade workers are talking about their grandmothers -- it's about humanizing prostitutes rather than making assumptions of who they are & what led them to that work. We are going to show it in the women's prison! And, the artist is interested in maybe doing a future project with the prison, if we could organize it. So cool!

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Sunday, January 11, 2009

Left alone again

The last kid has left the building. It's time to take the last leaf out of the table. Will still has another week until he goes back to school, but he is spending this week in Edmonton visiting Jesse, then will be in Victoria for a couple of days. Tim has tickets to the Oilers game tonight, so he's taking Will and a friend, then will leave Will behind.
It was nice having Will here for some extra time. I kept asking him if he was bored yet, and he would say, "Oh no, I'm going to watch TV and there are still some Archie comics I haven't read." He and Anne sorted out the boxes they have stashed downstairs so maybe we can get some sort of order down there.
A deer ran into the back of Geoff's truck while he was driving to work last week, so now he is not allowed to drive to work. He has to travel in someone else's truck. What an outfit.

Moving Along

So, back in Canada and I have to say that Mexico had much better weather. It is above 0 here-which should not be a reason to complain about-but it makes it so sloppy and ugly-grey/brown. Plus it goes below zero at night=very slippery.
Our house is filled with boxes and now the things I pack I have to think carefully about-will I use Corning ware? Probably not. Will I use cat toys? How much Tupperware can I safely put into a box?
Rest of trip went well-no computer access as Allison's power cord was not working. Went into town again-bought a nice silver and jade necklace after much thinking.
The last night there was a Mexican fiesta. Which sounds a bit painful, but food was excellente. Anyway, we got a fair amount of beer as we had 2 servers and we'd order and then the other one would come by and we'd think, oh they didn't get our order. But they did, so we got several glasses. Anyway as we were chugging along-there was a bingo (truly) and then and auction. During the auction, things were going for somewhat ridiculous prices- like $200 for Senor Frog's t-shirt and $1000 for a bottle of tequila. Allison and i figured, well they must be raising money for charity, otherwise who would spend that kind of money? Allison noted that if people were spending that kind of money on cheap t-shirts her Mexican textile purchase was an awesome deal-I agreed and said-well, I shouldn't have given you a hard time on buying it, after all.
It went on, and we were more and more impressed by the generosity of the hotel guests and feeling kind of bad that we weren't spending that kind of money-really-shouldn't we be supporting the local children's hospital too? Look at those frat guys-they're even giving money to a kid to help him bid! We were struck by the kind nature of all these hotel guests in supporting local charity and even the people we had previously thought were kind of drunk and obnoxious seemed to be getting into the act. Finally it was all done.
And the master of ceremonies asked for the play money that people had won in the Mexican bingo back for the auction next week.
We just about killed ourselves laughing at ourselves. Our server came by and said smiling-well you two are happy. Looking pointedly at our empty beer glasses.

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Tuesday, January 06, 2009

It is 30 dgrees here also

But it is -30 so I am not getting a tan. It was 0 yesterday and overnight fell to -26 -36 with the wind chill curses. 2009 is so far a cold year, I am sure it will get better. BAck at work and school and we are all doing fine. I am almost finished the x stitch I started back in May so I am happy. Take care all . Laura

an other day of 30 degrees

It is so lovely here. We walked into town yesterday-had tacos and at the restaurant the woman had lived in Vancouver and her brother was still there. She went there to learn English.
We poked around the town and walked back along the beach. We decided that our hotel was the best. Some of them don't have very good beach access and big forbidding walls. I guess to keep out people, like the locals?
At supper last night a guy was very drunk ( some people shouldn't have all inclusive drinks) and was loud and swearing and said that he was going to beat up some people from Kelowna! I don't think he meant anyone who was from there but I looked the other way regardless.
Richard have you rented the place out yet?
We are going to Italian restaurant tonight.
I think I am getting browner.
I bought this funny Day of the Dead (Mexican celebration in November with skeletons) shadow box (what is the other name for that?) with a hospital scene in it.

Monday, January 05, 2009

Buenos Dias

Here we are oppressing people in Mexico! Where it is 30 C and sunny and we are at an all inclusive. But we make sure to tip well. I don't know if it is helping with our guilt.
It is lovely here. Hotel is nice-we have English TV channels so we watched E television last night and saw celebrity rehab.
We have have some delicious pina coladas and margaritas. We sit on lounge chairs, reading and watching the ocean. The flight here was fine-though some crazy couple ahead of us on the plane were on their honeymoon and thought it would be a good idea to play Yahtzee at 1130 pm, and were weirdly loud and enthusiastic about it. 'c'mon, I need a 4, think 4, YAY, I GOT A 4'
We got into our beds at 5 am and had a couple naps the next day.
Today we're going into town. Anne, if you post an address I can send you a postcard.
There is water aerobics in the pool, with Mr. Jonathon and techno music.
We are hoping that Canadians are not as obnoxious as Americans-but sadly I think we are about the same when looking at lowest common denominator. 

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Sunday, January 04, 2009

Are the sun-seeking third-world oppressors going to be able to post while they're away?
As noted in other posts, we went to the city and dropped Sam and Grace off at the university, then picked Anne up and got her to the airport. Stayed at Jude's last night and home today. It was dang cold out but is warming out now.
We looked at a few building stores re our basement renovations. We went to Costco and didn't buy a thing. That makes me feel good. I won't talk about what we spend at Home Sense.
Tim came over for supper and we played FFF. Geoff won. After the game, we each wrote out a couple more fun facts cards.
The tree is now down. With most of the kids gone and the tree down, we are quickly moving into the January blahs.

Back in Edmonton

I was pretty sad to be leaving Rocky yesterday, but I decided once I got back to Edmonton that it isn't so bad. At least, I thought that until I remembered I have to go back to class tomorrow. sigh.

Today was the Oilers Superskills competition. My friend Sam came up to the city when I came back so we could go to it, and a game tomorrow too. It was really fun. It's a general admission event, so we got there about an hour before the doors opened to get a good seat. It was nice because we managed to squeeze inside the outer doors and we didn't have to wait in the cold. We got great seats, about five rows from the front. The only thing was that we were at an end sort of in the corner, so it was hard to see the far end. Everything was on the jumbotron too, though, so it didn't really matter much. This is Shawn Horcoff shooting in the shooting accuracy contest.


Last night I went to Auntie Jude's for supper and I stayed to watch the Oilers game. They domintated, so I hope they do the same against New York tomorrow when I'll be there. I have only seen them win live once, and that was in the shootout. I kind of feel like I am bad luck.

Last Day before Return to Work

Can't believe the two weeks went by so quickly, and tomorrow it is back to work. Theresa and Geoff just left, to go back to Rocky, I have to finish the undecoration of my place, which I think will take all day, at the rate I move. Grace came over for supper last night, I thought it was my turn to cook for T&G, since they fed me so well while I was in Rocky. Tried to invite Sam, but he was not answering his texts.

I went out to the furniture store in the west end, to look at the different fabrics for my sofa, and found a nice mix. I called up Bauers in Rocky, and Leann is going to get back to me with some pricing, and let me know when I can get it delivered. I want two couches and the ottoman. Makes me feel excited about doing changes around my place. I may wait until spring to do any renos, think it would be good to be able to open windows when that is going on.

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Saturday, January 03, 2009

Guelph

Just wanted to say that I made it safe to Guelph! Mom and dad drove me to the airport, which was excellent, and also I got a chance to say goodbye. I got randomly selected for the ol' patdown while going through security and thought I might be late for the flight, but ended up being just on time. There was a squalling baby and the entertainment system didn't work for the first half-hour, but after that I entertained myself watching tv shows I didn't know existed. Shows how much attention I pay.

There didn't seem to be any luggage trolleys in the Toronto airport, so I ended up dragging my stuff across the floor all the way along the airport. However, once that ordeal was over the Red Car company picked me up and drove me all the way to the B&B! It isn't even a B&B, really - it's an older lady who tried to sell her house and couldn't, so she just started taking in students. Some live here permanently and some, like me, are just here while looking for something else. She is really nice and gave me homemade peppermint tea. I am totally exhausted, but did manage to find a wireless connection...

So here we go again, in another city where I don't know anyone! So far, so good, though...

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Thursday, January 01, 2009

So this is what 2009 looks like.
To me, New Year's Day is like one of those bonus holidays. It's not a big deal to me, but I get the day off work anyway, and there's no big celebration or anything to prepare for. I thought I was going to be in bed by 10:30 last night but Will's friend Tanya came over and we played games until 12:30. When you have a guest you are able somehow to rouse yourself out of your torpor. At midnight Geoff phoned Grace and Tim and we sang Auld Lang Syne to them. Actually Geoff was on the phone quite a bit last night, we talked to Barb and Dick.
Today was quiet once Anne left. She was packing to leave today for Edmonton and was getting stressed but it all got done. Will and Grace drove her to Red Deer to catch the Red Arrow and she will stay at Steph and Rem's until Saturday. We are taking the kids back to the city on Saturday so will pick her up and take her to the airport. She has appointments to see apartments in Guelph and a reservation and a bed and breakfast till she finds something. So things are rolling right along for her.
So happy new year, everyone.

Here is this week's Irn Bru advert

For Grace, 'cause she likes this one.

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