Wednesday 28 January 2009

Spring vacation

I am thisclose to booking a trip with my sisters and brother-in-law. We had big plans to go to Disneyland for L's birthday but the prices just weren't good enough to entice us. We found great deals to Vegas and so started to plan that trip. The day that we were going to book the vacation, something happened with my work and I lost a lot of my expected income for this semester. I put the booking on hold while figuring out if Vegas could still fit the budget (it can't) and in the next few days someone else experienced a drastic change to their financial situation and also decided they couldn't go.

Things really do happen the way they are suppose to - if we had booked a day earlier both myself and this other person would have been in a very tight spot. As it stands we have some breathing room and were able to find another trip that will fit my new budget. I should be booking it in the next day or two and then I will tell you all about it.

Tuesday 27 January 2009

Happy Birthday Stef!

Steffie it's your birthday.
God Bless you this day.
You gave me the gift
of a big sister
and I'm proud of you today
Steffie it's your birthday!
Happy birthday Steffie!
Steffie it's your birthday!
Happy birthday Steffie!
I wish you love and goodwill.
I wish you peace and joy.
I wish you better
than your heart desires.
and your best kiss from a boy.
Steffie it's your birthday!
Happy birthday Steffie!
Steffie it's your birthday!
Happy birthday Steffie!

Happy Birthday Stefanie! I love you!

Monday 12 January 2009

I wish I had more to offer you

I want to post something new and I am at a loss for what to write about. I will try out a stream of consciousness to see if anything comes out of the woodwork. I am longing for the days when I have a clear idea of what to write about and the inspiration to do it justice. I know I could leave it and try again later but the odds are that if I leave it now, I won't write later. I have time and I feel like writing...it's just the topic that eludes me.

Alright, here is something I learned this morning.
I learned that early typewriters had no way to put things in bold lettering or italics and so to stress things, people would write it in Latin.

Ahhh the brain of an interpreter, always full of odds and ends of information.

Tuesday 6 January 2009

A battle of wills at 5:30am

Getting up this morning was particularly hard. About half an hour before my alarm was supposed to go off I had a cat racing around my head and leaping over me while howling to the moon. Did you even know that cats could howl? Well they can, and it's a loud and disturbing noise.

The pattern (game) seems to be that when I ignore him for the leaping and howling he stands at the blinds (venetian and old which equals heavy and loud) and paws them until I react. It is the most grating sound since Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber making the most annoying sound on Earth. The blinds and the cat are mere feet from my head and also just out of reach. He has it down to a science.

My best counter ploy is to catch him in mid-leap over my head and force him into a cuddle. I roll on to my side with him tucked under my arm and I hold him there against me. He knows he's trapped and he isn't happy but makes no attempt to get away. Until I start to drift off to sleep again and then he slowly (very slowly) starts to manoeuvre his way out. Just when he thinks he is home free, I tighten my grip and reel him back. It is torture for him I am sure. But it is also my best revenge. Those blinds, oh my dog! So loud and obnoxious!

My plan for stopping this behaviour of his is to sleep with the blinds open high enough that he can't paw at them. The howling and leaping there is no cure for aside from locking him out of my bedroom door which I am not willing to do. It is his apartment. I just pay the rent.

Monday 5 January 2009

A mish-mash of topics that start with the letter W.

Getting up this morning seemed almost impossible. I have had a few weeks of sleeping til 9ish and today my alarm was set for 5:45. Plus this snow! Oy vey! (ok, I just looked up oy vey on dictionary.com to make sure I spelled it right and it directed me to look up Oy and the example sentence they gave was ... "It is snowing again! Oy!"- how fitting).

Seriously though, this weather can kiss my ass. Every single time it snows I am surprised. I phone someone and say "I thought we were done!" Aren't we done yet? I also have fully embraced looking up to the sky, shaking my fist and saying 'bullsh*t!" every time it starts up again. My complaining is, in part, just for the fun of it. But really I would be so happy if the roads were cleared (side streets too), sidewalks shovelled, and the giant drifts on the sides of roads had pathways shovelled through them every once in awhile. Oh, and I had an easy place to park my car. With those 4 things, it could snow til March and I'd be fine with it. I'd probably still be surprised every time it started up again and I'd probably still shake my fist in the air and say 'bullsh*t!" because it is fun to do.

In other news, I bought myself a Wii. So at least now I have something to keep me active and entertained at home while the weather outside keeps me indoors. I spent about 40 minutes last night trying out the bowling, baseball and tennis. I am excited to do the boxing and try out the Wii-Fit...hula hooping, tightrope walking and ski jumping here I come!

Saturday 3 January 2009

Movies in 2008

This past year I kept a list of every new movie I saw. I had two categories; One was movies I went to see in the theater and the other was movies I rented or watched on tv. In 2008 I saw 43 movies in the theater and rented 39 movies. Of all the movies I saw in the theater only a few stand out as GREAT movies to me. The lists themselves would be rather boring to anyone but me so I am only going to write about some of them. Using nifty little categories of course.

In the GREAT category: 8.5 -10 out of 10
Sex and The City
The Dark Knight
Rachel Getting Married
Slumdog Millionaire
Vicky Cristina Barcelona

In the liked-a-lot category: 7 - 8 out of 10
P.S. I Love you
27 Dresses
Cloverfield
Walk Hard
The Darjeeling Limited
Penelope
The Bank Job
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Iron Man
Hancock
Hellboy II
Mamma Mia!
Tropic Thunder
Quantum of Solace

Movies that didn't make either of those two lists but still deserve some kind of mention are:
WALL-E - because it was really good but I pretty much forgot all about it once it was over.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno - because it was truly terrible and I almost never say that about a movie.

Those are just movies that I saw in the theater. As for the renters and saw-it-on-tv movies, the ones worth mentioning are:
X Men - not a new movie but new to me and so enjoyable
Gone Baby Gone - wow - dark and serious but amazing
Eagle vs. Shark - ridiculously quirky and right up my alley
Breakfast with Scot - sweet and charming
Charlie Bartlett - charming and quirky with a bit of a dark side
Meet Me in St. Louis - Classic musical

Friday 2 January 2009

Happy New Year!!

I am very thankful for 2008 and all of the lessons, experiences, opportunities and challenges I had. I am grateful to be entering 2009 with an open heart and an open mind.

Happy New Year to all of you! May this year be your very best so far!
xo