It's snowing. It's snowing. It's snowing.

Might just have to take Zinny for a spin in her new bling . . .

The wonder of it all

Our body is an amazing creation. It often causes me to stop in wonder. Looking at a new born baby. The reslience of children's bodies. The ability for the body to adapt and compensate for its weaknesses. And most of all it's ability to heal itself.

Iwent to the dentist yesterday. Ahh yessss, one of the reasons why I am still dreaming about buying a condo! And was told that rather than the original work they had booked me in for that day that they were switching it up a little and doing a root canal. Argh!

I wasn't exactly prepared for this. I was still recovering from my cold/flu that took me out of the game last week. This root canal wasn't supposed to happen until January when my dental coverage would be rereshed again with the new year's limit. But here I was 2 hours in the chair while my dentist performed his magic.

As the freezing came out, the throbbing started. By the time I was ready to leave for the day the pain was certainly more than a throb. All I could bear for dinner was ice cream. And this is where I want to highlight how amazing our bodies are.

I don't know if it's because God knew we would need nourishment to regain health or if He had another reason but it constantly amazes me how quickly wounds heal in the mouth. When I had my wisdom teeth taken out and now the root canal. Logic would reason that a warm damp environment for open wounds would result in them taking twice as long to heal. After all the best thing for blisters and cuts are to allow them to air out. And I don't have a habit of wandering around panting as I try to air out my root canal.

But here I am, barely 2.5 days after my mouth was so sore I couldn't even eat the saskatoon pie that went with the ice cream, now I could gnaw on ribs. Not that I want to gnaw on ribs. But the point is I could if I wanted to.

Waiting

Okay I must admit that I cannot believe I am actually wishing for snow but I kinda am. It all started when I watched an old Gilmore Girls on the weekend.

I love the Gilmore girls!!! I really do. For so many more reasons that I won't bore you with today but I will tell you a few of them. First of all, Lorlei has fantastic fashion sense. I would buy her wardrobe in a heartbeat. Lorlei and Rory have the most random conversations with each other. I kind of feel a little bit like I can sometimes initiate random conversations. Okay so maybe quite often I initiate random conversations and so it makes me feel less weird! And thirdly, the excitement they get over simple things. This is something else that I can totally relate to. A little too much at times but I love it!

So, I was watching an old episode of Gilmore girls. It is the one where Lorlei is soooo excited over the first snowfall. And she loves it. It is something that her and Rory wait for and when it finally arrives, they talk about how much snow is their friend, it protects them and brings them joy. Luke however, is kind of cranky pants in a cute way and he hates the snow - it's cold and he has to shovel it blah blah blah. Unfortunately Lorlei has a really bad experience with snow in this episode. It clogs her driveway at the inn so her customers can't get in or out. It causes the coffee delivery truck to not be able to deliver coffee. She has to walk down to Luke's to get coffee but on the way there steps in an icey puddle, they cannot find the inn guests who they sent out on a snow shoeing expedition and she goes to get into her jeep which is parked under the tree only to find that all the snow has slid off the branches and buried her jeep. But alas all is not lost for the romance of snow.

Luke realizes that it's okay if he hates snow but it isn't so much okay to see Lorlei hating snow. After all, this is one of the endearing qualities he loves about her - the fact that she finds such a delight in simple things. Sooooo....... he builds her a little rink on her front lawn and brings out her skates so that when she comes home after her horrible snow day there he is to greet her. She shakily skates around the rink and falls in love with snow all over again!

At the end of the show I found myself thinking about the things I do enjoy about winter. Buying new mittens, prepping for Christmas, going for a walk through the crunchy snow when the trees have been kissed by jack frost, heading out to Banff springs for a christmas brunch with all their decorations up, strapping on the skates and gliding along the frozen water with Jimmy, cider and Christmas songs! And now that Zinny is all prepped for her new snow filled adventures I cannot wait!

Now I find myself wistfully looking out the window every morning. Maybe today we will have some snow. Maybe. But not yet . . .

Instead Jimmy and I went for a walk and crunched some leaves. There aren't a lot of leaves to crunch. I did find a couple though!

And joy of all joys, Rory's old boyfriend Logan Huntzberger just showed his cute little face on the new TV show, 'A Good Wife!!' It's that show that has Juliana Marguelise and Mr. Big! First time watching. Jury is still out on it. But I saw Logan. It is worth a second watch on that merit alone.

The Best Way to Spend a Friday Night

Had a delightful evening with some fabulous friends trying out a new restaurant that I had read about on a local restaurant review blog i follow:

http://ugonnaeatthat.com/

Being that there was a hockey game on that night and the restaurant promised the flames game would be on it seemed like a great time to try it out.

Although the girl was somewhat concerned that they would not have an empty table right at 6:30 when I called for reservations, her demeanar was pleasant and the pretzel bun was sure to please. Apparently the hostesses are all somewhat scattered as the same 'concern' was present when we arrived. However without too much delay we were all seated and reviewing the menu.

Everyone but me got into the spirit of building their own burgers - we had kobe beef, elk, pretzel buns, crazy mustards, guacamole and various cheeses before long. They even have butter lettuc on the menu. I decided I wanted to sample a little bit of everything so I went with the slider trio that consisted of beef, bison and elk mini pretzel bun burgers. Apparently the kobe beef was second to none and the three of us with elk burgers all thoroughly enjoyed them. The variety of fries and dips were delightful as was the crab dip. It certainly isn't a low cost burger option but the quality was worth the price!

All in all for $5 heated underground parking on game day (it's right across the street from stampede station) and a delicious meal, this just might require a repeat performance.

And the company, as always, was a huge delight!!! They most certainly require a repeat performance. Sooner than later as we have a Garth Brooks/Race Vegas Trip to Plan for!! How exciting that will be.

http://www.loungeburger.com/

Little Zinny

For those of you who know me you know that over the last year my priorities for spending have gone something like this:

• New condo
• Debt elimination - yeah to no more student loans and car loans
• Travel
• Dining out
• Keeping Zinny healthy
• Life

Okay okay, in all reality a fabulous opportunity for a wonderful trip presented itself and thus Travel quickly shot to the top of the list. As a result the condo purchase has still not happened nor is planned for in the immediate future. But Barcelona sure was lovely!!!

And somewhere along the months, starting with last winter's icky roads, a cute little guardian angel started to whisper in the right ear that I needed to invest in winter tires. Once spring came and the snow was thawing it was an easy committment to make. Keep the all seasons i bought with the car through the summer and then get winter tires come winter. The 'keeping zinny healthy' category grew to a bit of a larger investment then I had originally intended this summer but I guess all of that factors into the 'life' category.

Then somehow the dentist needed to be factored into life - icky - and I am still not done with that - argh I say!!! But Mallorca sure was beautiful!!

After a bit of a treacherous couple of hours during our 9.5 hour drive home (it should only be a 7 hour trip) for Thanksgiving (the highways are not supposed to be icy at that time of the year nor is there supposed to be snow on the roads!! Pops, it is just not meant to be!!!) the guardian angel was no longer whispering but was now loudly speaking that I should really invest in winter tires. Good thing he was still cute. My case to justify waiting just a little longer weakened even more when the city was covered in snow Tuesday morning turning everyone's 10 minute drive into more than an hour and resulting in many people not even trying to come into the office.

So, we placed a call to Canadian tire and agreed to drop my car off on Tuesday night. Jimmy wanted to make sure I got the tires I needed before they ran out of stock again and after white knuckling it on some of the side streets on my way I reluctantly agreed this was going to be a wise decision. I have to admit though - I still wasn't sure that I was ready to invest another significant lump sum in Zinny. Have Imentioned how beautfiul Barcelona was - a winter hot holiday would be a delight!!! And that would be a whole week I wouldn't even need to drive Zinny. Factor in Calgary's chinooks and really . . . . I should be able to only have to drive her 3 times on crummy roads. Right??

But now that I have Zinny back and she doesn't look too awful with ner new winter rims, I think I am actually excited about her winter tires. We haven't had any snowy days to test her out yet but I have a feeling that winter driving won't be quite as scary for me this year as it has been for the last few years. And I did try her out on some snowy back alley's just to see!!

So to all those of you who aren't sure if you should listen to your guardian angel, I would agree that winter tires are worth the investment. Even though it has meant my years spending priorities have truly turned into:

• Travel
• Zinny
• Dentist
• Debt Reduction
• Dining Out
• New Condo
• Life

And Barcelona really was lovely! And my guardian angel is quite cute!!

A 'touristy' night

Well last night was another dinner club evening. It was full of laughter, giggles and full blown guffaws!!!

The night of giggles started at the Marriott. We all came directly from work and met at the Marriott first since our reso's weren't until after 6. As such we were still dressed in our dress clothes from the office and bundled up in our winter gear including scarfs as it was not promising to be a balmy day and Brenda and I walk to and from work every day. We enjoyed some lessons on the animal kingdom from Sarah (apparently Lee is a wealth of knowledge in that area!) and soon found ourselves crossing the street to meet Nicole and Kari for dinner.

A large bus pulled up in front of the calgary tower and started to unload at the base of the tower as Sarah, Brenda and I arrived. Lucky for us we found ourselves in the middle of a group of people that were heading up to the observation deck for a private party. We weren't too sure what was going on but noticed a variety of accents around us and were assuming somebody was hosting a conference for members from around the world.

As we reached the entrance to the elevator lobby we were greeted by a lady who commented 'you are not with the delegation, are you'. Since it was a party, we responded with 'unfortunately no, but we could be.' The next words that came out of her mouth shocked us all: 'I knew you weren't, you all look touristy'.

What exactly does touristy look like. Of course, all three of us had the following mental image.

And not one of us had a camera around our neck, white socks and running shoes nor a fanny pack. So of course, for those who know me, you will know that there was no way I was going to be told we were 'touristy'!!!

'Touristy?' I queried indignantly. Between the three of us, we certainly let the girl know that we did not feel we looked touristy. In an attempt to recover she replied 'Well you are wearing scarfs'. Really? Scarfs? Since when are scarfs touristy???

First of all I would like to point out it is Canada in October and this is our weather for this week:





Yes - we see negative temperatures and might I add snow.


Secondly - since when are scarfs touristy. You will notice by the top photos from 2009 fall fashion week that scarfs are certainly in style:

So how does she conclude that scarfs are touristy?

She obviously noticed our stunned faces and embarassed laughs as we turned to each other commenting that we didn't realize that scarfs were touristy. So again she dug herself deeper as she tried to recover by saying that we didn't look 'businessy'.

What???

What is businessy? And how does dress shoes, dress pants, wool dress coats and eyes weary from staring at computer screens all day not look businessy.

By now I am totally offended. Not too sure why it bothered me other than the fact that she obviously had no clue what she was talking about and didn't know when to stop.

However what she did provide us with was some awesome material for the rest of the night. All the way up the elevator we discussed our 'businessy' outfits. And then the elevators opened up to an absolutely beautiful view of the city.

If you haven't been to the Calgary tower in the last couple of years, you really must plan a dinner there. It was absolutely fantastic!

And as mentioned earlier, it certainly wasn't like the laughs stopped there. Before long Kari and Nicole joined us at the table and quickly joined in. We learned important Calgary tidbits, like the fact that Calgary downtown buildings cannot cast a shadow on the river, that you can see my deck from the table, that it takes an hour to do a full rotation and of course that no fantastic dinner is complete without some dessert.

On a cold Sunday

Argh - I would really like to complain about the fact that our fall seemed to be cut short on us. Instead of being able to enjoy a nice walk in the leaves, all I could think about was hot chocolate and a cozy blanket. And apparently, some people add Sunday football to that list as well. But I had such an enjoyable afternoon with fantastic friends that I can't even think about complaining about the weather.

So in light of this, I am trying to get into this NFL thing. It has been difficult for me as it doesn't seem quite as exciting as CFL or hockey. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I don't currently have a team. Riders all the way cause I just have that Rider pride and of course there is no other team on the ice other than the Flames. I know I could just adopt Jimmy's team - the Redskins - but personally I don't overly like the team colors. Burgundy and gold are not my thing and it seems kind of cheesy to just pick a team because a cute boy cheers for them. So, over the last half of last year's season and now again this year I have been taking a poll on how people come to have a 'team' to cheer for.

The stories are certainly varied - some peeps adopt teams cause their cousins cheer for them, some pick the cutest quarterbacks and follow them from team to team, others feel connections with that area or city. None of these really help me. I don't know the quarterbacks well enough to know who are the hot ones. The cities that I love have other boys in Jimmy's circle of friends cheering for them so that could be awkward. And I don't know who my cousin's cheer for.

Maybe burgundy and gold will grow on me. . . I might try cheering for them on the inside and see how it feels.

Or maybe I should keep researching this topic . . .

Or just maybe I should take up a Sunday afternoon hobby like knitting or cross stitch. On second thought, I think I will pick a team. Not too sure how much I would enjoy knitting and my thumb still hurts from my roller blading adventures. And football snacks are sure tasty!