Sunday, January 31, 2010

Houseboat

Mirage 54 or 56?

Who is coming? August we get the value season too!

I know Laura, Sandi can't come. Not sure about Tim, Grace and Sam...

Responses?
Should I go ahead and book?

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Booked II


I'm pretty sure we booked our holiday last night. It kept timing out, but we got an email today confirming everything. It is cold and snowy out so that makes me more anxious to get this thing organized. Perhaps early May will be a different story but around here the weather may the same then as it is now.
We went to the awards luncheon for the business faculty at the Hotel MacDonald. We were surprised to find that Sam got two scholarships, the Winspear one and one from Shell, we were only expecting the Winspear one. (The photo is Sam and the lady from Shell.) The lunch was good, the awards moved quickly and we sat at a table with congenial people so all in all it was very nice.
We have reached a renovation roadblock. Geoff was trying to clean out the drain in the downstairs kitchen but it has plugged off further up (or down) so we can't use the kitchen sink or dishwasher. Hope to get it sorted out before we run out of dishes. Pic is the kitchen area downstairs.
We are looking forward to two weeks in Costa Rica. There will be time for lots of relaxing so we have energy for some activities. Geoff may find himself spending time alone on the beach, depending on what he wears.

Booked

I booked my trip yesterday to Costa Rica, for the first two weeks of May. I am just waiting to hear that T&G have booked theirs too, so I won't be going alone. I tried to talk Allison and the Wensinks into coming too, but no go. I am very excited, another trip to look forward to, I love vacations.
Theresa and Geoff were here for a brief visit, this weekend, they came on Friday night and left Saturday morning. Sam was receiving his Winspear Scholarship on Saturday, so they left around 11 am to go to that and then home. They are back in two weeks to see Anne and Del, pick up Grace to go home for reading week.
Work has been pretty steady, but not crazy busy, so things are going well.
I am sitting listening to the Pirates of Penzance to get ready to see the show next Saturday. It should be lots of fun.

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Thursday, January 28, 2010

zzzzzzz

I have become aware of some muttering around here about me snoring. To keep the complainer quiet I tried some of those breathe right strips. The feedback is that this alleged snoring has ceased. Perhaps these things work.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

A Pithy Quote

While we were in Toronto the web writer for the Anglican Church of Canada interviewed us. Check it out here. It's a pretty good article!

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Monday, January 25, 2010

sick and tired, but heard from Henry

I am home sick with a sinus headache and cold. It seems I cannot go more than 2 weeks without getting sick and I am very TIRED of it. I have spent most of the day in bed sleeping. This is a drag, I would much rather be working on my picture or knitting the afgan I have started. Anyways enough whinging.

Henry called on Friday and we actually got to talk to him, he is good and is still enjoying basic. He said they have been good and got desert and a movie this week. They were going to Ottawa to see the war musem on Saturday so all in all a good week. He said he is much fitter, he marched 3.6 kms that day, worked in the weight room and did the obstacle course so he was tired. He graduates on April 1 so Wilf and I booked tickets to go for two weeks to Montreal and I can hardly wait. Not sure how much we will see of Henry other that the grad and the supper but we will have time to see Wilf's buddy from the Navy and spend time in Montreal.

things are fine here otherwise. Everyone is healthy but me. Sob.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Sunday Evening

And I have not done a thing all weekend.
Mind you, I was tired from the week, having worked midnight-7am on Sunday night as they had *4* sick calls and no one to work. I came in and relieved my manager.
The night was good though.
And then on Tuesday and Thursday I went to inservices on transgender assessment and hormone readiness from 5-7 pm. Very interesting, and I was glad I went because the presenters were really great, but this meant I was even more tired.
Work is going well though. Even if there are times when I grit my teeth, on the whole I am enjoying it a lot. It is busy, but enjoyable. And I feel pleasantly removed from the garbage-gossipy stuff.
Went to Mom's for supper tonight. Roast beef and then she made me sandwiches for lunch tomorrow. Thanks Mom!!
I see there are super cheap deals to Cuba-$600 for all-inclusive. But Richard did not look interested when I said this. How is this possible to not want to be somewhere warm and sunny?
The Olympic torch is coming through town tomorrow. Though I am not really feeling any sort of emotion about it, I think we will go see it, as when would we ever get another chance to see it?

Thursday, January 21, 2010

This is for mom

Are you still addicted to Tetris? Check this out!

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Sunday, January 17, 2010

John Wort Hannam

What a great kickoff to the new year music wise, Geoff, Theresa, Grace and I all went to see him last night at Queen Alexandra Hall, and it was a fabulous concert. There is something about seeing a person perform in a small venue, that seems to make it seem as though he sings right to you. Theresa was sitting on the first seat in the row, and when John came in he passed right next to her, she could have reached out and touched him. The musicians playing JWH (as Will calls him) were amazing as well. You could tell that they had spent quite a bit of time playing together. I think all of them were with John in the summer at folk fest. The concert was a CD release, for his new one, so we did our part and picked one up. I listened to a bit of it last night after we got home and of course he played a lot of songs from it at the concert. Next up Fiddler on the Roof at the Jube on Thursday.

I had supper last week with a woman I worked with on the project at the Government last year. One of the things I have found about project work is that I usually find at least one person, that I keep in touch with after the project ends. Usually it is through email, but in this case Karen lives in Sherwood Park and works at the government, so we actually get to meet in person. She was living in Red Deer, but got a job working in Edmonton with the group that administers the HR/Payroll system, so she and her husband and dog, moved here. I admire anyone who can make a change like that in the middle of their career. I am not sure I could just pack up and leave all my friends and family to permanently live somewhere else.

I had an email last week about a potential project with Alberta Health services, starting sometime in the spring. The timing would work out nicely, about the time I am done with my current project. I knew they had put my resume in with the proposal, but was not sure what our chances were of getting the contract. It is still not for sure, but if it works out then it means more time at home, at least I think it would be at home, I guess it could be in Calgary. anyway will keep you posted on the outcome.

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Thursday, January 14, 2010

Orientation, new blog, you name it

Things are going well but very busily here in Toronto. They've kept us busy being pumped full of information since we started, and during our rare downtime I'm usually to tired to post. Today, however, after we finished a more or less useless session (about what blogging is, and how to do it) we finished a bit early, so I thought I'd drop in and let the rellies know what's what.

The orientation hasn't really been a lot of new information, but has been good to talk about. As I suspected, a lot of stuff about encountering new cultures (hint: let them speak for themselves!). We've done some great field trips: one day we went to a Jewish Temple in the morning and a mosque in the afternoon. The temple was a bit awkward - some people in the orientation are going to Palestine to work as what are called "ecumenical accompieners". This is a group from different churchs (the program is run by the World Council of Churches)who basically live with Palestinians and observe how the Israili soldiers treat them. They will tell you that they are there for both Israilis and Palestinians, but I question that - to hear them talk, they are not in favour of Israel at all. Anyway, we went to the Temple, and of course one of the loudmouth EAs told the fellow giving us the tour what they were doing - and the temple had a Israel flag up at the front! He got quite shirty about it- the Temple strongly supports Israel. It was interesting to see his reaction, but I felt bad about us coming into his space and telling him how much we disapproved of what he holds dear.

The next day we went to the Six Nations. This is a reserve near Scarbourough - it's the group that has been blocking roads in Caledonia. It was a great day - we went through a museum, heard their side of the land claims (the government gave them the land for helping the British during the American Revolution) and toured three churches. At one of the churches (Her Majesty's Royal Chapel to the Mohawk), we had a great presentation and history by a native woman who was every inch an Anglican. She was the very stereotype of a sweet old Anglican church lady. At the end of the day her and her friends (each more Anglican than the last)gave us a nice potluck supper. I got to sit next to Leona, the woman who gave us the talk at supper, and she is as interesting in person as she is in public! She told me all about the time her and her husband were invited on the British HMS Chieftan, and the parties they went to - apparently the noncommisioned officers party was better than the captain`s party!

On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and that was an adventure. Alice, who runs the orientation, had given us a list of Anglican churches to choose from - ones with multicultural congregations. Well, Robert, Kerri (the other two interns) and I chose one downtown, and headed there. It was supposed to start at 10, and we were a bit late, thanks to transit, and got there about 10:20. We snuck in to find that they were in the middle of a sermon, and the sermon was being given by this young guy in jeans and a sweater! This is very unusual for the Anglican church, but we were willing to go with it. Then after the sermon another guy stood up, said "ok, It's time for communion". Then he casually told the story of the last supper, and invited us to come up "as we felt led". This is NOT the way we do communion in the Anglican church, and the three of us had a collective heart attack. The service ended shortly thereafter, and we were talking to the preacher- who told us they were a nondenominational church ("The Free Church") who rent the building. The Anglican service didn't start till 11!

We stayed for that service, and it was much closer to what we were used to. There was an old woman from the West Indies sitting behind us who sang with lots of gusto very badly, which was nice for me- I felt that no matter how loud or bad I was, I could never compete with her!

I spent the afternoon wandering around Toronto, and that evening went to an ordination at one of the Anglican seminaries here. It was a woman being ordained to work in my diocese, but who is going to school here. It was a lovely service, and my bishop and his wife were there, and we met lots of other bishops (to the almost uncontainable exciemtent of us three interns). We met the former head of the Anglican Church of Canada, Michael Peers, as well as the National Indiginous Bishop, Mark MacDonald.

There has been lots more going on, but I'll stop for now. The last thing to mention is that I have a new blog - loneandlevel.blogspot.com. I'll try and change the link on the side. This is specifically for my trip (it was confirmed this week that I'm going to Sri Lanka).

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Tuesday, January 12, 2010

elementary my dear Watson

Went to see Sherlock Holmes tonight (cheap Tuesday). At least there was Robert Downey and Jude Law to look at during the boring fight scenes. It was pretty good altogether, the plot was a bit hokey. I do love English accents.

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American vs. British slang

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Sunday, January 10, 2010

Henry, B day, christmas

Dropped Henry at the airport this morning he was through security by 5:30am. He was very happy about going back and is looking forward to the next 12.5 weeks. It is hard for him to call so we might be waiting a while before we hear from him again. I am not sure if he wants his name in the draw this year. I will talk to him, but do not have a problem switching with anyone. Hope that does not cause too much trouble. we had a wonderful visit with Henry it was a different level of visiting more like equals. How time marches on. I just finished talking to Mom again and she is recovering from her feastive weekend. Sure sounds like it was good, and she enjoyed it. I am so glad that it has warmed up here, the -30 (+) is very depressing. This week will go fast, I hope my boss is here on Thursday so I get a FREE supper while he is here, business meeting at the best restruant in town. Looking forward to that and FRIDAY off. I am really enjoying that extra day.

Saturday, January 09, 2010

Name draw

We drew names for next Christmas-Richard has been anxious to do it since Boxing Day. Here's what we drew:
Mom has Richard
Geoff has Grace
Theresa has Allison
Judith has Henry
Laura has Sandi
Henry has Theresa
Sandi has Mom
Jim has Tim
Anne has Lisa
Will has Judith
Tim has Laura
Grace has Anne
Lisa has Will
Richard has Jim
Allison has Geoff
Sam is still not in the draw as we didn't think he'd changed his mind, but if you have Sam, it is very easy to redraw-as goes for anyone else who is in!

We had a lovely dinner and evening for Mom's birthday. She loved the TV. And is thrilled.
She doesn't seem 80.
Josh is in town too, got here Thursday. Jim has been keeping all of us amused.
My 1st week as educator went well I think. Except for feeling incompetent a few times. Mostly with the other educators at the hospital-don't ask me why-I keep asking dumb things and then thinking, 'now they think I'm an idiot, who wouldn't know that?' And then I feel like I'm somehow letting down psychiatry because if their educator is asking this stupid stuff, how does that reflect upon the rest of the department? But this will pass and I am actually way less uptight about things than I would have thought, judging by past experiences when I ahve started in new things. I am usually much more anxious. Thanks Effexor!! Actually even on Effexor, I have usually been much more anxious-probably being in the same area as I have been working makes a difference.
Will, I keep meaning to send you a thank you letter for the fantastic cookbook-I love it! And have used it already. So if this thank you letter takes a while to get there, then I feel part way covered.

Friday, January 08, 2010

Happy Birthday Mom



You are 80 years today, that seems pretty incredible, cause I never think of you as being any age, but just as Mom. Hope you have a great day.

The first week of the year is over and this is my first day off of the year, and I am feeling pretty happy about only working 4 days a week. I really think it is going to work out for me.

My friend Vicky has retired from IBM, and on Wednesday there was a get together with a whole bunch of people from work, both past and present. It was really a nice send off, very casual and everyone had a great time. It seems weird to me that someone I have worked with so long will no longer be around the office, when I was thinking about all the time we worked together I realized it was 19 years, and time really flew by. Vicky and Dick have a really exciting year planned out, they are doing a ton of traveling (of which I am really jealous) and will have a wonderful time I am sure.

It has been pretty cold here, with more snow but for some reason I am finding I don't mind it. I dress for the weather, and am toasty warm in all my new scarves and mitts.

I have heard through the grapevine that Wener Shoes has a big sale on, just wanted to let anyone who lives in Edmonton, or who maybe coming this way in the next little while, know. It is always a good day to buy more shoes.

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Payday song

Now a new year has come
Paperwork must be done
Although Parliament's not working
They're still wanting our funds.

Sing to Happy Birthday

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Hilarious movie...

...and not just because it's about business cards.





First day of clinical!!.. Sort of

I survived my first encounter with my clinical placement! Although it was just orientation, which only took about an hour and a half or so. We got a tour of the floor we'll be working on, and the tutor talked about the expectations and stuff. I'm beginning to think I may actually survive this, so that's good. The people in my group seem really nice, although some are really talkative. There is one girl who lives in Lister, so we can go there together, which is nice. And when I got off the bus this morning I found out most of my group and my tutor were all on the same bus as me, so that was kind of funny.

My tutor seems really nice. She is a little Chinese woman who is really cheerful and clearly loves what she does, so that's nice. Someone told me that she doesn't like white people and gives them a hard time, but I can't really see her doing that.

Tomorrow I start working for real. We start off by buddying up with a NA who shows us the ropes I guess. I'll be doing that tomorrow and Friday, and then next week we each get assigned to a resident that we will be taking care of for the next 6 weeks. I'm still really nervous, but I feel a lot better about it after today.

Besides that nursing class, I have only had my interdisciplinary class, which I really don't like, and neither does anyone I talked to about it. It is a team building class, which means there is a lot of group work. It doesn't help that it's a night class too. My group seems nice, and there are three nursing students in it. That seems weird, since we are supposed to mainly be working on building teams with different disciplines, but whatever. There is also one pharmacist, one occupational therapist, one dental hygienist, and one med student.

So that's all that's new with me. I kind of wish it was still Christmas vacation, but being back isn't all that bad. And Ivanhoe, which is the Mackenzie Hall tower competition, starts next week, so I'm excited for that.

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Toronto!

I'm in the center of the world for the next two weeks doing a course that is orientation for the trip I'm taking this summer to (probably) Sri Lanka with the Anglican Church. I say 'possibly' because the Canadian Anglican Church hasn't confirmed with the Sri Lankan Anglican Church yet- but it's looking positive! Anyway, here I am, and I arrived without too much fuss. The flight left Edmonton at 8:30, which made for an early morning, and then when I got my seat assignment, it turned out I was in the middle of a row. However, it was exit row, so not as bad as it could have been. And there were seat back TVs, which help pass the time.

I landed around 2:30, and when I was walking out of the gate I heard my name called. I turned around, and there was my Bishop, who was connecting with a flight to Montreal for some church business. Kind of random, but nice to see him.

After I collected my luggage I had to wait for one other person on this course, so we could share a cab. His flight landed an hour after mine, but then he waited an extra hour and a half for his luggage, before realzing that it probably wasn't coming. Aside from that little snafu, things went well, and we got to the center where the course is.

It's being held at a retreat center on the Scarborough Bluffs, which are apparently right beside lake Ontario (I haven't spent much time outside). The course will be pretty good - standard stuff about culture, but very useful for me, I think.

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Monday, January 04, 2010

and then there were two

I kind of undecorated tonight. Everything is down, just not totally put away yet.
We took Sam and Grace back to the city yesterday. Jude graciously let us use her place for one last visit with Anne and Will before they have to leave for Ontario. Allison came over too, we ordered Chinese and had a very good visit. Anne spent quite a bit of time trying how to figure out how to distribute all her things among her luggage so she doesn't have to pay an overweight fee. Pretty hard to do when you are taking a sewing machine back.
I had to be back at work today so we slept at Jude's and got up early to drive back. Geoff goes back tomorrow. So it is back to old routines for some of us and new ones for others; Sam started his co-op job today, Grace starts her clinical tomorrow. Christmas seemed like a whirlwind.

Sunday, January 03, 2010

January 2010



Well, I've undecorated the house. Which actually doesn't make me feel sad, as I am always happy to have things looking tidy. Does anyone else rotate dishtowels?
Richard bought me a new (old) dresser! For becoming educator at work!
Here is a picture of New Year's Eve dinner-Mom made Beef Wellington, Annie made cake, I made potatoes and veggies, Allison made conversation. Also, is picture of new dresser, which matches our other one quite beautifully.
I start new position tomorrow. Feeling nervous, but feeling able to do new job.
We had a good visit with Annie too. Allison got up early to drive her to airport, Richard and I got up, said good bye and went back to bed. Did not do much New Year's Day, watched Lord of the Rings. Last night watched Harry Potter and Half Blood Prince. I may need to buy box set when all of them have come out.
Had a really good Christmas-we went to nakusp for a night to pick up Annie and sat outside with snow falling on us in the hotsprings.
It is warm today, woman at church said it feels like daffodil time.
Got some excellent deals at vv, shopping with Annie and Allison.
We are waiting for our new TV. Tired of green screen.
Watched Paranormal Behaviour-super scary and suspenseful for those who enjoy scary movies. Watch it.

Friday, January 01, 2010

Happy New Year one and all

I used to think of New Year's Eve like Allison sometimes thinks of Facebook: why does everyone but me seem to be having such a great time? They get all the good stuff and I get all the trash. But now, as with most things, I don't care what everyone else is doing. We had a quiet evening as usual, the kids were both out. Went to the church service but didn't stay for coffee after.I fell asleep at 10:30 but woke at midnight when Tim phoned to say Happy New Year. Got up and watched a couple of episodes of my new Dexter DVD while drinking my gin and tonic. Then back to bed and didn't get up till 1:30 today. Now that's a New Year's Eve to remember.
Will and Sam introduced me to g&ts.They are great. And they are how the British built their empire.
Sam has been using his Excel gifts to organize our budget spreadsheet. He has made us a work of art. What a talented son.