Highs and Lows...

We're back! It was a doozy of a trip, involving a cancelled flight, an overnight stay in the Montreal airport, hurricane force winds, 2 days without power, visiting with as many of our family and friends as we could manage, eating way too much food, and just generally having a wonderful time :)

What was the highlight of our trip? The incredible opportunities to watch and interact with nature. There's a spot not too far from TC's parents where a flock of chickadees live who are so tame that they will come and eat out of your hand. All you need to do is stand still with your hand extended (filled with bird feed, of course) and all of a sudden you feel a little grip on your finger and there's the cutest little bird watching you out of the corner of its eye as it gulps down a seed or two before flitting off to the bushes. The wildlife was a little larger but no less amazing at my parents' place, where they're visited by four or five deer every day - sometimes close enough that you could reach your arm through the window and touch them (though they'd never allow you close enough to do it). They're such beautiful creatures.

And the lowlight? Definitely the innumerable amount of comments from the MIL and FIL about their lack of grandchildren. Seriously, I'm hard-pressed to think of a two hour stretch in which some type of comment wasn't made - even if we were in the company of other people. Actually, now that I think about it, especially if we were in the company of other people! "And I told Mildred that if I had a granddaughter *meaningful glance in my direction* I'd have bought her that little dress...", "We'd like to have grandkids while we're still young enough to enjoy them...", "Well if you'd just forget about the pyjamas at night, it might help things along..." - this one was said while at a church pot-luck. I wish I was kidding, but I'm not. The MIL's last words to her son before he left for another year were "Keep making those babies." Nice.

But we're home now, and starting to get back into the swing of things. I've even come up with my goals for 2009, but I'm saving them for another post...

Joyeux Noel!

Merry Christmas everyone! We're currently at home, visiting family and friends, with very limited access to the internet, so I probably won't be on here again until January, but I wanted to wish you all the very merriest of Christmases and the happiest of new years!

All I Want For Christmas...

...is an office linebacker. Please, Santa, please?

This post is dedicated to anyone who has ever worked in an office environment.

Crafty Goodness...

I realized the other day that it's been a while since I've updated you on all the crafty doings round these here parts. I'd like to say it was an oversight, but I've simply been too lazy to take the pictures, download them to my computer and then upload them here. After a wonderfully relaxing and fun-filled weekend spent crafting and spending time with TC, I finally got around to it. Ready? Off we go...

This is part of an afghan that I'm currently working on. It's done with a lot of top-stitching, which means a lot of ends to darn in, which is why it seems to be taking a long time to get it done. I love how it looks, though, so I'll keep plugging away at it. I always like to have one or two big projects on the go that I can work on while I'm between smaller projects.

One such project was this tam that I was originally hoping would fit me, but alas! I used a lighter weight yarn than the pattern called for, and the result was a hat for a toddler. It's still pretty cute, though.

Isn't this yarn just gorgeous? I fell in love with it in the store, and brought it home to knit into a scarf for myself since my current scarf, which I've worn for almost 10 years, has started to discolour around the neck. All I need to do now is block it to keep the sides from curling in - I can't wait! It's so soft and warm and cozy. I'm also working on a hat to match made from a yarn the colour of the dark blue-green in the scarf. Here's hoping it fits this time!

And last but not least, I made these Christmas potholders for my mom as part of her present. I know she doesn't read my blog on her own (the internet is still pretty much a mystery to her), so I'm not too worried about posting them here, but just in case - Dad, if you're reading this, don't show it to Mum until after Christmas :)

I'm also still knitting away at the Jaywalker socks that I started back in the summer. I put them on hiatus for a while, since I was starting to see them in my sleep! I'll probably break them back out once I've finished my hat.

And that's basically it on the crafting front!

Resolution Recap - part 3

Resolution #3: Fun - I want to cross one of the things off of my 'to-do-before-I-die' list this year, whether it's going on a ride in a hot-air balloon, having a glass of wine at an outdoor cafe in Paris, or one of the many other things on the list.

Check. One of the things that I had on my list was to have a spa day, and back in March, thanks to my wonderful hubby, I did. It was a lot of fun, but I won't go into great detail because I already did that here.

I also had a great deal of fun visiting with our friends JP & KP this weekend. They came to Toronto for a conference at which JP was presenting and stayed with us. We managed somehow to get a lot accomplished and yet still have a blast :) On Saturday, while JP was at his conference and TC was at school, KP and I got groceries, made brownies, baked bread, roasted a chicken, and made a batch of grapefruit-scented soap with calendula petals (so pretty) all before the boys came home. Very domestic, non? Then we played some games and watched a couple of episodes from the BBC's Planet Earth series, an early Christmas present for TC. Oh. My. Goodness. What an amazing series. If you ever have the opportunity, it's definitely worth checking out.

Also worth checking out - the sermon that our teaching pastor gave this Sunday. I don't normally make unsolicited recommendations in this area, but if you're anything like me, every Christmas season you experience a lot of guilt and/or confusion about the best way to celebrate the season. Our church is dedicating the next few weeks to a series called Don't Drink the Kool-Aid: Exposing the Lies Our Culture Tells Us, and yesterday's lesson was entitled "Lie #1: Christmas is for Giving." I found it really helpful, since the point wasn't to condemn people for how they celebrate Christmas, but to make us aware of the different aspects at work in the process and the choices that we have. You can listen to it online here or download the podcast here.

Commuting Awareness

Every weekday I spend about an hour and a half travelling to and from work. Most of the time it's a rather uneventful affair - walk to bus stop, take bus to subway station, transfer to streetcar, take streetcar to another subway station, take subway to final subway station, walk to work (or the reverse if I'm on my way home). I usually knit or crochet, some people read, and everyone carries on in the common purpose of getting wherever it is they're going. That's the norm.

There are some days, though, when things happen that for whatever reason break me out of my commuter coma. Sometimes those things make me laugh, and other times they make me want to hit people. Sometimes it's neither good, nor bad - it's just interesting. It seems that yesterday was meant to be a day for noticing things. Let me take you with me on my commute...

It began in the morning as I was standing in the little holding pen that's serving as a bus stop while my road is under construction. It was quite chilly out, so I thought it was rather odd that the car sitting at the red light right in front of me had two of its windows down. I then noticed that the driver was smoking, which explained it. No big deal - if she wanted to smoke in her car (she was alone), that was fine by me. I couldn't help but think, though, that it seemed a little silly to be driving around in winter with your windows down just so you can slowly poison yourself. But I digress...

The rest of the trip to work was uneventful - I got 2 or 3 rounds of my Jaywalker sock knit, which is a good showing for one trip. On my way home, I needed to pick up some mozzarella at the grocery store, which is located in the complex above the middle subway station. As I came outside to wait for the streetcar, there was a guy with a guitar standing at the street corner, playing Christmas carols. It took me a while to figure out what exactly he was playing, though, since his tempo was way off - sort of like this:

Sil - - ver - - beeeeeeeells - - - -

Siiiiiiil - - ver - - bellsIt'sChristmastimeinthecity - -

Ring - - aaaaaaaaa - - ling - - -

Hearthemringsoonitwillbe -

Chriiiiiiiiist - - masday

I had to laugh - this was either a guy who had had a bit too much to drink or who had read the music but never heard the songs before. Or maybe it was his artistic interpretation? Whatever the cause the effect was highly amusing.

Eventually the streetcar came, and I got on and sat in the front of the back section (if that makes sense). It was pretty quiet, except for this lady and her son sitting somewhere behind me having a conversation. It. Was. Hilarious. Their conversation consisted of Junior telling Mom about his day, and Mom spouting reams of advice. Comme ca:

Mom - So how did things go at your dad's yesterday?

Junior - Well, I broke his box of chocolates.

Mom - How did that happen?

Junior - I knocked it over and it broke open and everything fell out on the floor. So I hid it.

Mom - Don't you think you should tell your dad about it?

Junior - Why?

Mom - Well, a box of chocolates can be replaced, but when you decide to lie or hide things from people, that affects who you are and that's a lot harder to fix. And you know that your dad would respect you for telling him the truth about it and be a lot less disappointed than he would be if he found out you hid it from him. So how did things go at school today?

Junior - Whatshisname was picking on me again.

Mom - Isn't it only Whatshisname's second day at your school?

Junior - Yeah.

Mom - Well, I know if I were Whatshisname, I'd be feeling pretty nervous about being in a new school with a lot of people I didn't know, and maybe I'd want to be friends with people but I'd be too afraid that they didn't want to be friends with me, so I'd be mean to them first so they wouldn't have the chance to be mean to me. You should be friendly to Whatshisname, and I bet he'd stop picking on you and start being your friend.

This went on for the duration of the trip on the streetcar! Every time the kid mentioned anything, the mom had all this incredibly well-articulated, reasonable advice to deliver in this lovingly patronizing June Cleaver-esque voice. I felt like I was an extra in an after-school special. Freaking hilarious. This kid is going to grow up to be either the most well-adjusted person on the face of the planet, or a psycho with a vendetta against TV moms.

Then, as I was waiting in line for the bus that would take me on the last leg of my commute, I noticed an older man who didn't seem to be quite right. He was rather loud, and continually attempted to carry on conversations with anyone he made eye contact with. Now, my initial response in this kind of situation is always twofold. First, my heart hurts for this person who obviously is broken in some way. Second, I studiously avoid making contact, not because I'm uncaring, but because if I'm alone I don't want behave irresponsibly or in a way that puts my safety at risk. Yet I always feel guilty about it, and this time was no exception. I sat there and hoped that this guy had someone who cared about him.

Finally, on the walk home from the bus stop I go past a wall of windows that look into a brand new Italian restaurant. Being subject to the same whims of human nature as everyone else, I am always compelled to look in and see what's going on. And every night it's the same thing - one or two people sitting at a table, and that's it. But yesterday the cook saw me (the kitchen in this place is visible from the seating area - and the windows), caught my eye and grinned at my unashamed voyeurism. I grinned back and then I was past the restaurant, smiling the rest of the way home.

Yay!!

In 3-5 business days, I will be getting an early Christmas present - and I am SO EXCITED!!! My wonderful, generous and thoughtful husband is getting me one of these this year:

Isn't it beautiful? We ordered it from Costco last night, with the help of some friends with a membership, and it will be arriving sometime next week. Another great thing about it? We got $350 off the regular price, a free bench and free shipping! Woo hoo!

For those who are wondering why I'm so excited, I've played the piano since I was 5, but for the past 9 years I've had to live without regular access to one - the last 5 of which without any access at all. I do have a real piano, but it is currently sitting in the living room of my parents' house in NB, where it will remain until we're settled enough to make the cost and hassle of moving it worthwhile. In the meantime, thouhg, this one will do quite nicely!

Merry Christmas everybody :)

Guessing Game

Guess what I did yesterday ... no, really - guess ... okay, I'll give you a hint: it involves wings ... still nothing? ... alright, one more clue: Bing Crosby ... give up?

I booked the tickets to fly us home for Christmas! No lamenting being away from our families this year, folks - we're headed east to spend the holidays with them.

And for those who are wondering about the connection with Bing Crosby...

Christmas clean-up

Our apartment is now de-Christmased. It's always a little depressing to see all the decorations come down - everything looks so empty until we readjust. I think we waited a little long to take down the tree, as you can see by the sheer amount of needleage carpeting the floor:

I was thinking that I was going to have to vacuum all the way down the stairs to the door, but then TC had this great idea:

He sawed our tree into several pieces, and viola! Tree in a bag (or bags)!

Merry Christmas!

Well, Christmas has come and gone and it turned out to be a wonderful time after all. On Christmas Eve we made our way down to Kensington Market, a community of little shops and restaurants that is essentially an open-air market (hence its name), and just walked about, stopping to peruse the occasional shop and then having some lunch at a little Portugese bakery. As we were doing so, it started to snow - the wispy kind of flakes that don't amount to anything but look really pretty. How perfect is that? Then we indulged in the guilty pleasure of going to the Eaton Centre and watching everybody scurry around to do their last-minute shopping while we sat and drank tea, secure in the knowledge that all of our shopping was done. Later that night we attended a candlelit service at an Anglican church just down the street, which ended shortly after midnight. It was quite lovely!

The late night probably explains why I was able to sleep in on Christmas morning. Normally I wake up quite early, but this year I made it til 8am - something I haven't been able to do since I was too young to know what Christmas was. Anyway, after we opened our presents we headed out to feed TC's brother's cat, which we're looking after for a couple of days. Then we went to a friend's house and spent the afternoon with them, playing games and having a delicious turkey dinner.

Christmas spirit...

It's official - Christmas is here! I've always associated the beginning of Christmas with a certain feeling that I get as the day approaches, a quiet kind of joy and excitement that sneaks up on me without my noticing it, until I'm walking around humming Christmas carols and smiling for no apparent reason. It took a little longer to reach that point this year, but it's finally here! It might have helped that all the Christmas cards have been arriving this week, and my co-workers were handing out their 'thanks for all your help' gifts to the office services staff today so everyone was feeling festive. Or it might be the 2 feet of snow that we got over the weekend, making everything look Christmasy. I'm sure all of those things have contributed to the Christmas feeling, but I think the biggest thing has been the fact that I'm now really looking forward to spending a quiet Christmas morning at home with TC, and then having Christmas dinner with some friends and their family.

Another contributor to the official start of Christmas? Seeing this clip on TV.

Aren't I a little old to be homesick?

I thought that I was doing pretty well with the whole 'not-going-home-for-Christmas' thing, but it seems that I may have been a little premature in coming to that conclusion. I was just looking at some pictures that a friend posted on facebook of their birthday/early Christmas celebration(s) and was swept by a wave of homesickness, which completely took me by surprise. It hit me the moment I realized that we are not only unable to visit our families this year, which is bad enough, but we're also not going to be able to visit all of the friends we would normally see - and all of a sudden I started missing everybody. Sigh. My solution? Everybody needs to come visit us ;)

So in order to keep myself from getting weepy (I am at work, after all, and nobody likes a weepy receptionist), I'm going to make a list of some of the things that I'm enjoying or looking forward to this Christmas:

• not having to worry about booking flights or spending time in the airport
• getting parcels full of presents in the mail
• having 3 extra days off work to relax and enjoy the season
• seeing Toronto all decked out for Christmas (it really is beautiful at this time of year)
• learning about other people's Christmas traditions and experiences
• celebrating with our friends that are here

That's not so bad, is it?

Amaryllis update

We have life! My amaryllis has started to grow, which excites me very much. Probably too much :) I was kind of hoping it would bloom by Christmas, but I don't think it will since that's only 14 days away. We put our Christmas parcels in the mail today, which I hope was soon enough for them to get down home in time.

I had the preliminary interview today for the junior supervisory position that I mentioned earlier. It was a bit of a waste of time, since I already work for the company and have therefore already gone through the preliminary screening process, but for the sake of fairness every applicant has to do it. I therefore travelled 45 minutes from the office I work in to one of our other GTA offices, sat in the reception area for 10-15 minutes, was interviewed for another 10-15 minutes and then travelled 45 minutes back to my office just in time for my lunch break. On the bright side, I was told that I am definitely going to be one of the candidates for the major interview sometime next week. Woo hoo!

So what am I going to do with the rest of my evening? Sorting through this:

Two months' worth of receipts. Ugh. Everything gets entered into our budget spreadsheet, a relatively new endeavour prompted by the realization that I really don't know how much we spend on things. I do have a general idea, but it helps to have a definite figure to look at. It's been a very enlightening process.

Continuing on the Christmas theme...

I'm so tired I can hardly think - you'll have to forgive any incongruities that might show up in this post :) I've been doing two jobs at work since the beginning of last week and it's starting to catch up with me, though on the plus side I've had lots to do every day. Let's see if I can remember what I was going to write about...

Another care package arrived from Mum today. This time it contained the tablecloth and snowman cookie jar you see above, as well as some Christmas socks and napkins. The best part, though, is that the cookie jar came full of Mum's Christmas cooking: peanut butter balls, mocho cakes, and shortbread cookies...mmm...I'm so glad she sent them. I'm still struggling with the reality of not spending Christmas with our families, and it means so much to have that little bit of home. Speaking of which...

Tada! Our Nova Scotia Christmas tree! I love the way the smell of the tree hits me as soon as I walk in the door. And then turning off the lights and drinking a cup of tea at the end of the day while just enjoying the sight and smell of it all...ah...bliss! Have I mentioned yet how much I love Christmas?

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree...

Yay! Our tree is now up and decorated and making our apartment smell like Christmas! Have I mentioned yet how much I enjoy the Christmas season? It's always been a special time of year for me. I'm a little less excited this year, though, since it's the first year that we won't be able to go home at all. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. On the one hand, it will be nice not to have to spend a chunk of Christmas travelling - Pearson airport is definitely not somewhere you want to be this time of year. But on the other hand, we won't be near any family and most of our friends will be home visiting their families, which kind of sucks. I think we'll make out alright, though. If nothing else, this year will be a good reminder that Christmas isn't really about celebrating family, which is what it has become for a large part of our society.

On a related note, we discovered something amazing about our tree after we brought it home from the lot (an adventure in and of itself, involving carrying the 7' tree down six city blocks on a very cold and windy evening). We knew when we bought it that the tree was from Nova Scotia, but then we were removing the tag from the bottom of it and saw that it had been grown by Delong Farms of New Germany, NS - which is where I lived for the first 8 years of my life! How neat is that? Although we can't go home for Christmas, a little bit of home has come to us :)

I'll try to get a picture of the tree on here as soon as we figure out why our camera isn't working. Do any of you photography-inclined people know why a camera would say that it 'cannot use this memory card' when it was using it just fine several seconds earlier? It will work without the card, but then we can only take a couple of pictures before the memory is full. The card isn't full, and it won't even let us download the images that were on it. Grr...

Celebrating...winter?

Whew! It seems like we've been going pretty much non-stop lately. Last night was my office's Christmas party. No, sorry, it was our Winterfest celebration - a more neutral term that encompasses the celebration of Christmakwanzakkah. It was a lot of fun, mainly because the entertainment for the evening was the Barenaked Ladies, who put on a great show. Dinner was a typical 3-course affair, except that they included an extra course of Kraft Dinner with a fancy imported ketchup in honour of the band. :) We stayed for the concert, but left before the dance afterward, which turned out to be a good thing, since there was a bit of a storm last night. It was just pretty and snowy when we left - a fitting ending to a fun evening.

An evening with Bach

We went to another concert last night, in the same church where the last one was held. This time it was Bach's Christmas Oratorio and Magnificat, performed by the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir. Some impressions:

1) Men should not be altos. The alto soloist was a man named Daniel Taylor, and while he sang well, on the lower notes where a woman's voice would have given the song a rich, full sound, his voice faded out because he was singing in his falsetto.

2) There are people out there who are as into Bach as some people are into different rock bands. I had to laugh when I looked down into the ground floor audience (we were in the balcony) and saw one man singing along and completely grooving to the music - a feat made more remarkable by the fact that the entire performance was in German.

3) Something is lost when you can't understand a word of the songs being sung. Translations were provided with the program, but you can't really appreciate the music if you're focusing on the words written on the page.

On the whole, we enjoyed the evening, but I would only give it a 7 out of 10. It was good, but it wasn't remarkable. The whole performance lacked heart, which is unfortunate because the music deserved better.

This and that...

There's something very satisfying about having a productive day. I'm already loving my new job - yesterday I reorganized a storage room, and organized the maintenance requirements for all of the meeting rooms. It made the day go by so quickly! I also applied for a junior supervisory position that just opened up, so here's hoping that something comes of that.


I wasn't so busy yesterday, though, that I couldn't finish up our Christmas letters! The guys in the print room printed them off for me (and did a great job, I think), and I folded and stuffed them in the cards, all ready to go as soon as I remember to pick up some stamps. I love Christmas!