Staycation is Over

It's Sunday so back to work tomorrow, I have had a nice relaxing time, and I am kind of feeling like I should not have canceled my second week, but only 3 days next week so I am sure I can make it. Besides, this means I can join T&G on the road trip, so something more to look forward to.

For most of the days the weather was great, it has rained the last couple, but what can you do? While I was off, I did a few things. I went downtown on Monday to the Art gallery, but it is closed Mondays. Instead I went over to Churchill Square, bought a cider, and listened to some live music courtesy of the Edmonton Jazz Festival. Then I took in some of the Works. On Tuesday I went back to the gallery and enjoyed the exhibits. They have an Andy Warhol show on right now. Really interesting, not just pictures, but some video, and television shows as well. I was walking along looking at the pics, and found one that looked just like Baba, weird. It was actually a picture of his Mother. I wonder if we are related? I also met some friends for lunch and supper. Good to catch up.

Friday I decided to try and find the record store in Old Strathcona, bought a couple of CD's. Right next door is a knitting store called Urban Knitters, all you knitters out there will have to visit it. Lots of cool patterns and fibers. I also stopped by Gravity Pope, they are having their 21 anniversary sale, and walked out without a purchase.

This weekend I have not done much of anything, which still feels pretty good. I think today I will clean up the place, do laundry etc.

fiddy fiddy?

Latitude is having a 50-50 raffle. Tickets are $5 each, and you could win $5000! We are hoping to raise 10 -- so 2000 tickets will be sold in total.

Would anyone like to buy tickets for your chance to win and support us? thanks!

Me too!

The Tradition Continues - Chocolates and Schmoozy

It was a very good weekend. Theresa and Geoff came for the weekend, arrived on Friday night. We went out for supper, Thai Food at the Boun Thai, it was so yummy. Then on Saturday, after sleeping in a bit, the Ferrey's went out to do a little shopping, and I made my centers for chocolates. I got started dipping before Theresa got back, but it is pretty slow going when you alone. I was only dipping for about half an hour and then Theresa returned and we really made some progress. It took about 2.5 hours to get all done, bagging and dishes included. I made supper, and Allison and Kirsten came over for that. We had a really good time visiting. After supper, we all got ready and headed off to Schmoozy, to support Latitude 53. It was crowded with people, lots of good art (I got a painting of Buffalo Lake). Geoff was quite a hit, with his cowboy hat and beard, he had his picture taken by Avenue Magazine, so we hope that it will be published.

Today I had a brunch, Allison, Sam and Henry came over and we had a very nice time visiting and getting caught up with Henry and Sam. It is always such a pleasure to have them come over and visit and of course lovely to have Theresa and Geoff to stay, such easy guests. Grace could not come over this weekend because she was working at the Grey Nuns, in the Maternity ward. Weekend flew by and I can't believe it is back to work tomorrow.

Nice to have Company

The Rocky people arrived about noon. It was great to see Grace again, seems as though she has been gone from Edmonton longer than 2.5 months. She brought our new nephew Scott and Theresa is always a good guest, and visiting with her is fun. We did not do too much in the afternoon, I went over to get my hair cut, and we both had naps, and sat on the balcony and visited. Saturday night we went to Doans for Vietnamese food, Grace and Scott had never had it before, and they seemed to enjoy it.

Sunday morning Theresa and I were up early and had coffee on the balcony, before going to visit the other Sivak’s. Haley is moving out of home, to live closer to University. She was asked to move right into he PHD, and not finish her masters so that was quite a compliment to her work. Marylynne and Ali are touring around Australia, and will be home next weekend. Nathan is taking some night classes, but Kay was not sure what exactly he was taking. He is still operating the backhoe during the day. Cooper is apprenticing to be a welder. Deanna and Rod are looking for a new house, all on one level, because of Deanna’s bad knees.

After the company left, I did not do too much, had to go down town and return some library books. Bought some new frames so I can hang some art

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!