Happy New Year

We had an inspection of our new house today, and all looks well. The owner was there, and filled us in on some questions we had regarding the wiring and some other issues.

We get the keys on Tuesday, and then it is finally OURS.

I wanted to get the laptops hooked up with wireless before we move, so I did that today. D-Link has routers that work with wired and wireless computers, but better yet, works with both PC *AND* Mac. Both the iBooks are now wireless, and I'll get another adapter and make the G5 wireless too.

It will be SO nice to sit out in the yard of my new house with my laptop and my camera.

I see good things for 2006, I really do.

Happy New Year, all.

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.
Originally uploaded by Jenn W.

A local youth shelter was destroyed by fire Wednesday morning.
We drove by today to see what kind of mess was left.

It's sad, looking at that. House fires always make me sad, but this one a bit more so. Over 100 street kids stored some of their sole possessions there, and they lost everything. That home serviced approximately 2500 youth this year.


You can see in this one the attempts to gain entry still scar the door.

Camera play

My nephew, playing peek-a-boo with the camera.

Mama, no more pictures, please!

Mama, no more pictures, please!
Originally uploaded by Jenn W.

Heh. The cats are all totally ticked at me for shoving the camera in their faces all day. I think they are all hiding now.

I'm off work for FOUR days. Woo! Now all I want is something other than this crappy rain so I can go *out* and take pictures!!

Stuck at the office.

I'm at work, but it's not really a 'work' day. In a few minutes, we will be adding a new server to the mix, and we'll be pulling the plug on the computers. So I'm just going to clean my filing cabinet out, and putter a bit. Who knows if I'll even stay all day.

All I want to do is go take pictures. *sigh*

Hope y'all have a good day.

I'm weak in the knees. Mike went out for a bit this morning, and came back with this, this, and this for me.


*faint*

iRobot

Vacuuming just got fun. Our Christmas gift from my mom was the Discovery iRobot. I'm not going to unpack it until we move, but I'd *really* love to see how the cats are going to deal with this little motorized wonder!

My house looks like a tornado crashed through. Tomorrow, that is my first priority. I am going to clean until I drop, then get back up and pack. But right now? Bed. We were up at 4 to go to Best Buy (it ain't Boxing Day unless you get up at a stupid hour to shop the sales), then we spent the day with family and kids. I'm about ready to drop.

I hope your holidays were as wonderful and enjoyable as mine.

Food and fun

Round One of Christmas (with my Dad and that side of the family) was a raging success. Tomorrow is Round Two, with the inlaws, and Monday is Round Three, with my mom's side of the famdam.

With three toddlers running around, today was exhausting, but I took many, many pictures.

My full belly has convinced me it is well past my bedtime. I can't believe I'm going to go to bed with the shape my house is in, but I'm in the midst of a food coma, and really don't care.

Toodles, all.

Have Tripod, will travel.

I married the best Santa ever.

Mike got me a kickass tripod for Christmas. It extends to about 5 1/2 feet, and folds up small and portable. It has two levels, swivelly feet for levelling, great hand grips, and a carrying handle.

I'm in luuuurve. (With Mike, more than the tripod. In case you wondered.)

Go see the rest of the pictures. This is a close-up of the base, with the tilt tilted. This is just the base. Notice the two levellers? And the carrying grip? And this is the whole thing, fully extended. It's huuuuge. (And it would look SO nice with a DSLR on top of it, when I finally get one.)

I can't wait to do some time lapse pictures, and maybe even some pics of the family and I. MAYBE. (I'm much more comfortable behind the camera.)

Damn, my mamma is right - I AM spoiled!!

Olfactory overload.

My house smells like sour milk and garlic. It's quite a disturbing mix.

When I got home, there was only the faint smell of garlic. Mike knocked the jar of minced garlic out of the fridge and it broke, but cleaned it all up and put it in the kitchen garbage. I'm doing a huge round of housekeeping, and took the small kitchen garbage bag and put it in the large trash bag. I disturbed the demon. Now I can *really* smell the garlic (which is actually ok).

I just finished cleaning out the fridge, and one of the things I dumped was an almost empty container of milk that's been hiding way in the back. The stink of old milk is still in the air. That is not ok.

In other news...

I called the Mac store earlier to see what it would cost to get us up and running with wireless at the new house. To have both laptops and my G5 wireless would cost about 7 or 800 dollars. All three machines need the cards (which are apparently hard to find for my old iBooks) and then we'd need the base station.

Ouch. Not gonna happen.

I guess I must resign myself to living with yards and yards of ethernet cable. Oh, the horror.

Elevator Lady.

Ok, I really do have the best mom around. She came over a while ago, and dropped off some goodies she had made for us. After she left, I went back to my wrapping and my cleaning and my usual night-time stuff.

Then I remembered...

She made Spice Cookies. Elevator Lady Spice Cookies.

With a raisin in the middle.

So I am sitting here now, checking my mail before bed, with an ice cold glass of milk, and three Elevator Lady Spice Cookies, knowing I have the best mom around.

Party Pretzels

Lay square pretzels out on baking pans.

Put a Hershey's Kiss in the middle of each pretzel.

Pop them in the oven for 5 minutes at 350 degrees.

Put an M&M on the top of each one.

Let them cool.

Put them in a bowl,

and take them to the party.

Hrmph.

Due to an incredibly sleepless night last night, and spending two full hours today with 17 kids at a fun park place, I am unable to form complete thoughts or coherent sentences. Hah. I almost couldn't even just *spell* sentences.

So, so tired. I've got NEW books to read (because I couldn't resist the little walk over to the bargain book area when I was in Chapters buying a frappucino) and I can barely figure out which side of the book is up, never mind try to understand anything right now.

And, apparently, when I am this tired? I become a 'hunt and peck' typist.

Sixteen days people. Sixteen. It's a good thing holidailies is happening now, because I won't be hanging out here too much next month.

Merry Christmas from the dog.

Trifle
Originally uploaded by Jenn W.

Here is Trifle, fresh from the groomers. They put a little red bow on her collar, and she looked so pleased with herself when I picked her up. I had to get a picture of it on her before it ended up in the bottom of the water dish or something.

Firefoxyness

So if you know me at all, you know I'm a fan of Firefox. I just spent the past little while downloading the new version, and installing a bunch of extensions. Like the flickrfox tab, the del.icio.us buttons, the 'blog this' button, and the gmail manager. I loooove the gmail manager. I have more than one gmail account, and with this extension, I can keep track of all of them without constantly opening up each account. I had gmail widgets, but they kept malfunctioning, so I ditched them. This is much better.

Anybody have any good Firefox extensions to recommend?

********

Tomorrow is another killer errand day. And I think there has got to be about six loads of laundry to do. *sigh*

I want a maid for Christmas.

Crap.

I know it's 'Buyer Beware' and all that crap, but I REALLY wish that specialty stores would offer a refund for their items sometimes.

Especially when they've charged us OVER twice as much for something we could've gotten at Canadian Tire.

And the guy was an ass, to boot.

Grrrrr.

Break a leg.

Next time I need medical attention, I really and truly hope it is for something NORMAL. You know, a broken arm. The flu. A burst appendix, even.

I think my doctor braces herself when I come in, wondering just what on earth is wrong with me now. I've been inadvertently inoculated in the EYE with smallpox vaccinea virus, I've had some ungodly reactions to things I'm allergic to (like peas, and when they almost killed me), I have a back rib that just *flips* out of place whenever it feels like it, I've had sinus surgery (which required WAAY too much drilling for one person to ever have to go through), and I had some funky lockjaw episode (which was just lockjaw, not the tetanus lockjaw, but still painful, yo).

(Anything else, Ma?)

Yet, I've never been in for any normal ailment. No broken bones, nothing.

My point, lest you think I lost it, is that now I may have to have surgery on my stupid foot. Because I dropped a cannister on it. Gawd, if that's not a stupid injury. The doctor said I had a ganglion, and while they don't always push for surgery, it might be a good idea in my case because the size of the lump is big enough that I have a hard time putting shoes on, and it's still painful. Tomorrow I go for an ultrasound (on my FOOT!) and xrays. Gah.

You know the worst part?? I hate...no, no, I LOATHE people touching my feet. Even my husband can't touch my feet. (He's rubbed them only once in five years).

So, oh, yes, tomorrow should be fun!!

Worth it.

Sunrise
Originally uploaded by Jenn W.

I wasn't going to come into work early today, but then I decided I might as well.

As I got closer to work, and crested a hill, the sky was an amazing colour, so I zipped to my usual picture-taking spot, and got this.

This made coming in early totally worth it.

21 days.

We get our house keys in three weeks. I feel like I'm absolutely about to BUST. I drive by the house every second day or so, and it's just so odd to not be able to GO IN. I don't think I've ever had to wait this long for something I've wanted so badly.

(Except for my husband.)

I actually managed to get work done around here tonight. Lots of packing done, a good amount of cleaning, and some phone calls.

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow morning. A few weeks ago I dropped a steel cannister on my foot, and I still have a lump. It doesn't hurt unless I poke it. Or, when I try to get my shoe on. I have two pairs of shoes that I can't even *get* on because of the lump. And tonight I gave it a sister lump when I whacked my foot on the table leg.

Graceful, I am not.

Looks like the teams from Amazing Race are in Canada tonight. I think I'll head off to watch that, since it's the final episode. And I'm going to hex the Weavers while I'm watching.

Monday, monday.

How is it already 8:00 pm?

Time bandits!

No? Oh.


I got all my change of address cards printed today, and all the labels done for my Christmas cards. Now, if I could only find the roll of stamps I know I have, I might get the darn things in the mail.

And that's it. No more packing, no housecleaning, nothing else got done.

*sigh*

I am lacking motivation in the worst way. I know I work well under pressure, but if I don't get more packing done, I'm going to be under some *serious* pressure in a couple weeks.

I also found out I have to make something for our office potluck on December 20. I think I'm just going to do an easy snack-y type thing, like chocolate covered pretzels.

Time to bundle up and take the pup outside for a little walk. Hope y'all are having a good night!

Good friends, good day.

Scrabble
Originally uploaded by Jenn W.

Today was excellent.

Fantastic food, awesome friends, fun game of scrabble.

And yes, the girls won.

Another full day

Grocery shopping for the week is done, and we're just chilling out in front of our respective toys (the iMac for me, Xbox for Mike) for a short while until we leave for lunch at a friend's house. They're cooking the meal, we're bringing some desert, and then we're going to have a boys vs. girls game of Scrabble. I say the girls will win. :0)

I got a really good chunk of Christmas shopping done yesterday. Only a few more things to pick up, like movie passes for my niece, a pile of Tim Horton's gift certificates for stocking stuffers, and the last thing I need for my Dad. Tonight I HAVE to do my Christmas cards. HAVE TO. In fact, I'm going to stop this here, and go finish up the labels so I have one less thing to do tonight.

*yawn*

Ugh. It's early. But I want to be at the mall right for 8, so I need to get an early start. I'm going to get as much Christmas shopping done today as possible. Which, really, should be almost all of it.

I'm updating my Shuffle in preparation for the day. About the only way I can stand to be in a mall for any length of time alone is if I have tunes cranked in my ear to drown out the noise. Otherwise, I find I get *really* cranky.

I have a client at 11, but with any luck, it shouldn't take too long. She just needs her machine updated to SP2, and I've already got the disk for it, which means not having to wait 10 HOURS for it to download on her dial-up.

Yes, I said 10 HOURS. Gah. Dial-up. Makes me crazy.

Tonight is a birthday celebration for my brother-in-law. Tomorrow, lunch with one of my bestest friends and her husband.

And I am begging and pleading (putting it out there for the universe to hear, if you will) that I get just a smidge of time to take some photographs tomorrow. I'm not going to learn to get any better if I don't get out there and DO.

Have a wonderful day, y'all.

Another one gone.

For the first time in...oh, fifteen years or so, my home is completely ratless.

Our remaining rescue rat Sebastian, died yesterday.



I think we'll wait until we've moved, and then I'll find a breeder. I'd love to have another little blue dumbo. But until then, I've still got the mice and the degus, and will put the rat cages in storage. I will miss having them, though. They really do make incredible pets.

Oh, the irony. She is thick.

When I wrote that post last night, about watching the time I spend on the internet, I was actually at the Saturn dealership.

When I got home from the dealership, I plugged my laptop in so I could publish that entry. Lo and behold,

I had no internet.

Oh, the gods, they are funny!!

When I got to work this morning at 7:30 (early enough to post and not be using work time) there was...

No internet!!

I have always said, if you put it out there, the universe will comply.

(and obviously, I have internet now. I called my ISP (my work and home are the same provider), and apparently everyone in the region was having some trouble. Good to know, since I thought I had some kind of special power.)

How do morning people do it?

(Right now, I'm at the Saturn dealership, getting an oil change done on my car. Thank the gods for laptops!)

I have realized I will need to change my schedule a bit. I will have to start waking up much earlier than I do now if I want to get the snow shovelled before work once we move. Plus, I will be able to do things like laundry in the morning, and start making a proper breakfast for once.

.....oooh, mind just wandered. There's a *sweet* SAAB in the showroom right beside me, and I can't seem to stop looking at it.

Ok, anyway. As I was saying. Right now I get up at about 6:30, and I leave for work by 7:15.

I can leave at the same time at the new house, because it's only a couple more minutes away, and I only have to go out of the house and down the driveway. Now, in this stupid apartment, I lose a few minutes just going down the elevator and into the underground garage. Mind you, I will have to brush off the car if it's snowy, but I can do that while the dog is doing her morning business.

All this getting up early means I will have to go to bed earlier. That is going to be the hard part. I don't sleep well. I need a bit of time to wind down. I try to be done all my 'chores' by nine so I can just surf or flake out before bed, and let myself wind down slowly. If I have to start winding down at 9 now, how friggin' early am I going to have to start winding down if I want to get up at 5?? Gah.

You know, part of the answer is dealing with how much time I spend on this bloody machine. I zone out here for way too long sometimes. I think I will need to actually set a specific time for internetting, and stick to it.

(yes, internetting. What??)

I think I might start now, and try to get in the habit before we move. I'll just start getting up earlier and earlier, until I'm at my goal.

And I think I might also cry a lot during this transition.

I'm gonna go for it!

Holidailies!!


Wish me luck!

A day of remembrance

Today, December 6, is

NATIONAL DAY OF REMEMBRANCE AND ACTION ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

In memory of the 14 Women Murdered in Montreal, 1989

Geneviève Bergeron, 21
Hélène Colgan, 23
Nathalie Croteau, 23
Barbara Daigneault, 22
Anne-Marie Edward, 21
Maud Haviernick, 29
Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31
Maryse Laganière, 25
Maryse Leclair, 23
Anne-Marie Lemay, 27
Sonia Pelletier, 23
Michèle Richard, 21
Annie St-Arneault, 23
Annie Turcotte, 21

Men: If you want to do something about violence against women, go here.

I'm not quite ready

for the weekend to be done with. I mean, wow, it went fast. Yesterday we got up early and headed out to the Christkindl Market downtown, where we looked at crafts, and bought some of my favourite german cookies and some smoked pork chops. Then we stopped at a dollar store, where I filled a huge gift bag with sticker and activity books, cars, a yo-yo, silly putty, plastic reptiles, and a bunch of other stuff for my nephew. He's (finally) potty-trained, so we wanted to bring him a gift for being such a big boy. He was pretty excited.


He horsed around with Mike for a while, and my brother and I talked about more plans for the house. He's going to be doing the majority of the reno work on our house, so we went over some details. On a whim, we decided to take our oldest nephew to the fire station, which we think he thoroughly enjoyed.


We got the kid dropped off and headed back home to shower and change. We had plans with friends. First, a stop at one couple's new apartment, where we had drinks and munchies, then we headed out to a *fantastic* restaurant for dinner. I love this restaurant. It's expensive, but not ostentatious. It's busy and loud, but not disruptive. We were seated at 8:00, (after our coats were taken and hung!) and we didn't leave until 10:30. There was no waitress standing over us pushing to get us out of our seats. Everyone enjoyed their food, we had desserts and coffee, and fantastic conversation. They have a really nice New Year's Eve dinner, and I'm almost thinking about booking it.

Today was grocery shopping, and then we headed to the appliance store to put more money down on the appliances we're buying for the house. We actually found a fridge on clearance that we like so much better than the one we orignally picked, so we switched that out, too.

We drove by our new house again. It's hard to believe that we still have to wait a month before it's really and truly ours.



Now I'm home, cooking and cleaning, and gearing up for the work week. Mike is heading out to play hockey shortly and I'm going to make sure I'll my has-to-get-done stuff is done by nine, so I can flake out and watch Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy.

Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend!

**Disclaimer**

I've had a few new readers lately, and I feel the need to put something right out there. Some of you who read know me purely from the internet, and mostly from my old Xanga site.

Some of you know me from 'real life', but just barely.

Some of you know me VERY well (HI MOM!!).

As you read through here, you might take offense to something I say. You might wonder why I never told you something directly. You might wonder why I never mention you, or if I'm mad at you. You might wonder if I'm really talking about *you*.

What you really need to do is read the next line, slowly and carefully:

IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU.

This blog is where *I* can ramble, spew, storytell, show pictures, bitch, whine, complain, rejoice, and share. I do hope you like what you find, but I'm not going to censor myself too much. I can't. That's the whole point of the place, for me.

So, if you think I've said something hurtful to or about you, please feel free to take it up with me.

But unless you're really, REALLY sure it IS about you?

Remember, it's probably not.

Things I will *not* miss

when we move out of this apartment building:

-garbage chutes
-garbage chutes that STINK
-people who plainly see you coming, but don't hold the door
-or the elevator
-the mothball smell on the third floor
-the broken eave by the front door that flaps dangerously around in the wind
-stupid dog owners who don't pick up their dogs shit
-one specific dog owner who things his dog is so damn special, it doesn't ever need to be on a leash. (Which is not only annoying, it's against the law here.)
-candy wrappers, kleenex, and godknowswhatelse left in the elevator
-the washers that nobody bothers cleaning, so you have to wash the washer before you wash your clothes
-the third dryer in, because it burns everything
-Golda, the lady who talks to *everyone*, but whom no one at all can understand
-the flooding in the parking lot
-the construction. After almost two years, I've really had enough of it.
-the guy down the hall who sticks his head out and *stares* at me, when I'm waiting for the elevator
-hauling all the groceries in from the parking lot and through far too many doors and down long hallways every week
-neighbours who SLAM their doors
-the time it takes for the elevators sometimes. I could've just walked down the seven flights.
-Our brand new windows. New, yes. Working? Not always.
-and last, but certainly not least, paying all that money every month to a company who doesn't give a furry rat's ass if the tenants are happy. Eff you, Rental Agency.

So last night,

Mike delivered our LAST rent cheque, EVER. He had with it our notice of intent to vacate.

I feel so FREE!!

Cyrus.

While most of my pictures of Malachi are of him sleeping, it seems most of the pictures I take of Cyrus are of him in a box. We can throw a box on the floor, and he'll run from wherever he was and within seconds he is in it.