Merry Christmas!

Michael and I were out at the Jr. Youth Group / Conversation Club Christmas party tonight. Michael runs the youth group every monday night, but tonight was my first time there. All the kids have been asking him when they were going to get to meet his wife, so tonight was their chance! They were all super excited, but that was probably more about the visit from Santa than about me.

When we returned home, we were very surprised to find a large box outside our door. Inside, we found a very nice Christmas card holder made by my grandfather. It's ironic, because just this weekend we were commenting on how we had no where in our house to display our cards, and now we have somewhere! My grandfather spent a lot of time on this, and we certainly love having his handiwork to display in our home. As I'm writing this, Michael is busy putting all our cards into the holder.


Thank you Poppy!
I also finally got the chance yesterday to start my Christmas baking. One of my favorite things that my mom makes is pecan tarts, so I decided to try making them. The tarts turned out very well, but I spilled some of the filling, and that made a whole TON of smoke in the house! Luckily, that didn't affect the taste of the tarts, so all is well.

I like dogs ... but ...

Don’t get me wrong, I love dogs. They’re energetic and happy all the time, and they do provide excellent companionship. It’s also wonderful when you come home that they’re soooooo excited to see you! That being said, when some stranger’s dog is keeping you up at night, you start to wonder what’s so great about them anyhow? I’m sure the people that own this particular dog love him/her to bits, but when I went to bed at 11:00 last night, and all I could hear for the next hour and a half until I finally managed to get to sleep, I really wanted that dog to just shut up! Weren’t his owners home? You’d think they’d be home at 12:00 on a Wednesday night, and you’d have to be almost dead to be in the same house as that dog and not hear it. (Side note: I think it’s a sign that I’ve watched too much CSI when my thoughts are that if a dog is barking that much, its owners are likely dead inside the house)

Also, if you ever find yourself in this situation, don’t bother reporting the bylaw infraction to the police. They can’t do anything anyway. To get them to do anything, I would have had to have the address of the dog, and all the police would do is knock on the door to see if anyone’s home. Like I’m going to go wander around the neighbourhood at midnight trying to figure out which house the barking is coming from!

I just hope that it will be quiet tonight. I need the sleep.

Please Give Generously

Hi all!

 

The Salvation Army is running a contest as part of their Christmas Campaign.  The top three fundraisers will each be awarded an iPod nano.  If you’d like to help out Michael in this contest, as well as supporting the excellent work of the army, please click on the link to the right.  If Michael wins one of the iPods, he will donate it to the silent auction that we’re going to hold in the new year to raise money for Glenmore’s mission trip to Jamaica.  Thanks so much!

 

Good luck selling me something now ...

So Michael and I were hanging out at the house on Sunday in the few hours between church and small groups when the doorbell rings. I went down the steps to answer it, and there was this guy there, wanting to get us to switch to his company for our natural gas. All well and good, but he basically lost any chance of getting us when his first question to me was "Are your parents home?" Maybe I look young, but is it really that uncommon for someone who's 23 to be living out of their parents' house?

Glorious!

Last night Michael and I went to Theatre Calgary and saw Glorious!, a play about a woman who was possibly the worst singer in the world. The funny thing being, that she had absolutely no idea. She loved to sing, and she thought that she was fantastic. Mme Jenkins would put on huge recitals for all of her society woman, which would include elaborate costumes and many songs that she was completely unable to sing. It was an awesome play. We laughed at her complete and utter lack of talent, the antics that she would put on during her performances, and also her inability to understand and communicate with her Mexican maid. Even though she could not sing, she had enormous passion for what she was doing, and because of this, was able to perform to a sell-out crowd at Carnegie Hall just a month before she died. You can respect this woman who, even through complete lack of talent, was confident enough to do what she loved regardless of what others thought of her for it.

Friday, October 13

I'm not sure why, but it seems that important things seem to happen to me whenever it's Friday, October 13th.

When I was in grade 7, I had my braces put on on Friday, October 13th. That was not so much a fun day. If you've never had braces, it hurts A LOT. Of course, my mother had never had braces, and wasn't aware of the pain that they caused. I had my ortho appointment at 9:00 in the morning, and then went to school for the day. At noon, I opened my lunch bag to find a sandwich that I couldn't chew, and cookies that I couldn't bite into. I had to do some creative trading with my friends and a quick trip through the cafeteria line just to get something down to last me through the rest of the day.

When I was in grade 12, I got my driver's license on Friday, October 13th. Some people probably thought this was a scary thing, especially since it was the third time I'd taken the test, but I choose to view it as a positive moment in my life. We had youth group that night, and I remember driving around Southland Drive for at least 15 minutes before I was able to find Laser Quest. It's not the easiest place in the world to find, if you're not 100% sure where it is.

So what will be the big event this Friday, October 13th? My guess is nothing, seeing as it's already late afternoon, and there's been nothing out of the ordinary so far, but who knows?

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love long weekends. Especially ones when it's a Monday off, instead of a Friday. Monday's off are like a double bonus. When you have a Friday off, it's great to be able to sleep in and do your own thing that day, but then the next day you're back into a regular schedule, off on Saturday and Sunday, back to work on Monday. When you've got a Monday off, everything's as per normal until Monday, when you get to sleep in and do your own thing. The next day, when you go back to work, it's the start of the work week, but it's already Tuesday. Hence the double bonus!

This weekend was an incredibly productive one for Michael and I. On Saturday, we sold Michael's car, and we also bought my parent's Acura. So now we both air conditioning and a cd player, which makes me happy :) Then we ran a bunch of errands in our fancy new car. One of those errands was buying some track lighting for our kitchen, which we (ie: my dad with help from Michael and I) installed yesterday. It's great, 'cause now we can actually see what we're doing, instead of working in the shadows.

What was also fun this weekend was having Howie and Mary come to my parent's for Thanksgiving with their two kids. Samuel is 2, and it was so much fun to hear him go around the house and identify objects: "turtle", "boat", "puppy toy". At one point he tipped over a plant and got himself covered in dirt. He didn't much like it when my mom took the vacuum to him to clean him up. Courtney, their other daughter, is just two weeks old, and this weekend was the first time I got to see her. She's just beautiful, and so tiny. I got to hold her yesterday, and she was awake for much of the time.