The end of the celebrations

I certainly do think this was one of the most fabulous birthdays I have had!!
After the day trip out to Banff, the actual birth day was spent having a lazy morning, meeting one of my birthday twin friends for lunch at a yummy little restaurant in Kensington, meeting another delightful friend for a facial (with the complimentary make-up touch up which left me looking like I was celebrating Halloween rather than about to head out for a yummy dinner) and then quickly freshening up and changing before heading to a yummy restaurant Alloy for dinner with Jimmy. The only thing missing was seeing all of my friends and family scattered elsewhere around this beautiful world of ours.

Wednesday was a mini bday celebration with my beautiful dinner club girls at another yummy restaurant, Sugo, in Inglewood. It was the first time we had seen Kari since she had little Zander and she is looking absolutely amazing. And it was likely the last dinner club before Sarah gives birth (girl girl girl girl - really hoping if I wish and pray and hope and think it will come true) and she is also looking absolutely amazing. It as always, was a night full of laughter and many crazy stories!!

Thursday, I headed to the hockey game with C. Ann. She is one of the fantastic girls I used to work with and Entero annndddd she also just happens to be Jimmy's cousin thereby being the reason he was working at Entero to begin with and thus kind of a little bit the reason as to how I met him. She is a crazy cat who is incredibly entertaining and a delight to be around so it made the ugly loss a little easier to swallow. And as always, what is a night on the town without a moment of craziness. So . . .

C picked me up at my apartment and we headed downtown for a bite to eat before the game. This also put us in a perfect position to take the c-train down rather than try to navigate parking on site. After our meal we quickly dashed to the train platform and almost forgot to purchase our tickets. We quickly scanned for the ticket dispenser when we heard someone directing us around a shelter structure. As I was about to put my money into the machine, a guy offered us a ticket.

To help put some context to this story I do want to tell you that this isn't an unusual habit on the platforms. Many people tend to beg for money for train fare and often people (myself included) will give them train tickets instead. They then sell these tickets for the price you would pay for a single. I don't tend to take the tickets from these guys but I was in a hurry, he had his hand out for the change which impeded me from putting the cash into the slot and he was already shoving his ticket into the validation slot.

As C was handing her money to the guy, I took a closer look at my ticket to ensure everything looked kosher. It was then that I noticed that we had been scammed . . . this individual had found a packet of used tickets in the garbage can, he then used some of spare change to purchase whiteout to cover up the previous validation stamp. Curses!! By this time, a gentleman behind C also fell subject to the same fate.

Friday saw us tapping our toes to a local Nova Scotia band, the Trews. And I must admit that their concert was too much fun. They are touring with their new acoustic album and they certainly have some great songs on it. And for anyone curious - a yam and a sweet potato are two very different products!

Saturday I invaded Jimmy and Clairise' place with my Christmas decorations and managed to put up the majority of the Christmas tree (of course I was short lights for the top of the tree because two of my light strings burnt out! Argh!!!) . Sunday I watched the Riders run the ball to victory, snuggle little Zander, and hang out with the girls at Sarah's house stocking her freezer with all sorts of delicious meals!

And don't you worry, there will be pics of dinner club and the Christmas festivities to post sometime soon!

Birthday Weekend Festivities

It's hard to believe the birthday week is almost drawing to an end but don't you worry your pretty little head as I have secured a couple of festivities that I just had to push out to next week . . . hee hee!! And I must also say that this birthday has ranked right up there with one of the most fabulous!!

The real festivities kicked off on Friday night when a bunch of us went out to celebrate some of the other birthday week birthdays as well. It was quite a delight (especially after a bit of a stressful work week) to be able to laugh the hours away.


And in all honesty how could I not laugh when Brenda bust out her excercise ball dance move at the table. I think she is trying to turn it into the next craze by showing it whenever and wherever she can. It even has some fantastic sound effects . . . just in case the music is all in your head. I wish I had a demo to post but picture the start of a squat position where you swivel your butt and hips back and right and then back and left calling out boooooop boooooop with each swivel. I think you might have the picture now ... silly girl!!


Saturday was a delightfully lazy morning and then I headed out to become beautified . . . eyebrow wax, stop at starbucks for the delightful eggnog latte and then I got my hair done!!! A lovely mahogony chocolate brown on the bottom with a rich copper on the top. And of course I could never stop there so we did add a beautiful mahogony chocolate brown panel on the top left!! But the best of Saturday was yet to come!


Mel and I were finally able to connect for a full evening of food, chatter, giggles, more food and a lot more giggles! We set out with the intent to celebrate with one of our progressive dinners. You know the ones where you have appies, entree, dessert and coffee at various locations. However this night, as always, did not turn our as intended.


The first step is to pick either the area we want to dine in or the location of our entree for the night. Once you have that decided, everything else tends to fall into place.


For this special occasion, we decided on San Reno. Apparently there are 3 lovely city locations: marda loop, 90th ave and mckenzie town. Since Mel lives in Marda Loop that was struck from the list. I wasn't entirely sure of Mckenzie Town Options so we decided to try 90th Ave.


In order to not totally bore you I will follow up with one big long run on sentence to say 90th was closed up tighter than a drum and the chinese restaurant option was not so appealing so we headed to McKenzie town only to take a detour onto 130th to find our appetizer spot where we discovered a royal bank were complete gong shows in the drive through service missed our turn ended up in some industrial area which took us a little bit to fight our way out of where we finally made it to the keg to discover it's the hot spot on a saturday night so we skulked around the lounge until a free table finally came our way and by that time we had a spot to watch the football game, a cozy fire and a delightful waitress so we abandoned our progressive dinner in favor of a lovely 3 course dinner in one spot. We still shared one entree though!


Sunday was the day we planned to head out to Banff. And it is finally the day I got my butt in gear and actually take some pics. So I will let the pics tell the story (not to mention the fact I am sure you are quite tired of reading).

a little stroll up Johnston's Canyon to start the day

We went out with our friends Brad, Laurel and Sam

Sam with his best scary cave pose

And a yummy dinner at Grizzly House to end the wonderful day

It's officially my birthday!!!

And that means it is the one day every year that gets to be all about me and I don't have to feel guilty for a second (which is why I am typing this as I lounge in bed at 8 in the morning on a Monday)!!! I love every minute of it.

Now, what shall I do next? Starbucks? Breakfast? Open my present from my mom and dad? Or maybe hunker down for another few minutes of coziness in my bed?

It's My Birthday . . .

Not today. Annnddddd not tomorrow. Nor the day after tomorrow. But soon. In 4 sleeps soon. In a way my birthday has already arrived. I mean technically, this is my birthday week. As is the week after my birthday in case anyone is wondering. And yes that does mean that I get two weeks out of the deal!! But the day I get to be a complete diva is still on its way!

And so I just wanted to share that it's my birthday. Not today. Nor tomorrow. But soon. 4 sleeps soon.

Monday's

Monday's can be my nemesis but this morning started off so delightfully. Delightfully that was until I got outside in the big bad world.

As I was on my way to work I spotted a parking ticket man who was getting great delight in ensuring that others hatred of Monday's would grow. He was busy ticketing all the cars who were parked just a little too close to the entrances to alleys and driveways as well as stop signs! Thankfully, I had the coherence to remember that Zinny was parked outside from the day before. I also realized that I had parked her quite close to a driveway in my haste to get out of the car after yesterday's disaster.

(Yesterday's disaster happened in the parking lot of the Co-op downtown. After having two parking spots stolen from me, I rounded the corner to watch two others battling it out for a parking spot. Unfortunately the little yaris might have won the parking spot but lost the battle for his rear bumper. Oh yes, that is right, they played a game of chicken over a parking spot and neither car came out of it shining!)

So I decided that I better quickly check to see if I could pull Zinny up a touch. And I was in luck. Not only did I not have a parking ticket yet but the car in front had moved so I had a good 2 feet of room to pull forward into. When I jumped into the car there wasn't another vehicle in sight on the road. I was so excited that I had beat the Monday morning ticket blues and went to jump out of the car when I hear a bang, feel the car door close and spot a white van zooming by.

Seriously, how can a person be so competent with one side of their life and yet so incompetent in so many other areas.

Luckily enough, the man looked at the side of the van, determined that the paint would buff right up, told me it was no big deal and sent me on my way. Zinny was no worse for the wear and sealed up nice and tight. I was flustered for most of the morning but after a large timmy's and a meeting with a client who found their own $14 million dollar outage before I had to start tick and bopping the day was certainly looking up. A yummy date at Fiore's for their $8.99 pasta special ensured that this day turned out to be a fantastic day after all.

My prayer . . .

Do you ever feel helpless? You are watching something unfold before your eyes and there is nothing you can do about it. Or someone you care very dearly for is enduring more trauma in a short period of time than anyone should over a lifetime.

My life seems to be filled with these moments lately. Moments where my heart just aches for others around me. Fathers who are gravely ill far too soon in life. Couples who would be the most loving parents ever and yet they have been continuously denied. Surgeries and cancer. Matters of the heart.

There is nothing I can physically do to help. I wish I had a medical background. I daydream about how much I could do if I was a philanthropist. I research on the Internet and try to think of every possible solution. I lie awake at night praying that all the pain would disappear. And yet I remain so helpless. I catch myself being short with others and exasperated that I can't do more. It is times like this where you need to cling to your faith and the promise that prayer truly is the one thing that can make a difference!

And as such, I pray.

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.

The History of Love
Nicole Krauss

Catching Up . . .

So I know I have been a little distant lately but it certainly hasn't been by choice. But rather my computer decided to have a melt down and wouldn't boot up.

And the crazy thing is I have been trying to back up my photos and music for the last few months. However the Cd's I had didn't have enough memory available and I hadn't gotten around to buying an external hard drive and and and. . .

As a result, here I am trying to catch up on a couple weeks of news, reloading all my music into itunes, setting up my photo albums again and all the other exciting things that come with a computer crash. But alas I will not complain because I would much rather be doing all of this than losing the last 3 years of my life.

As for some of the excitement in my life that you might have missed out on:

• U2 is coming to Edmonton next summer and my fabulous Jimmy and his equally fab sis Clairise worked out the logistics to ensure that we have 4 tickets to the big event!!!
• I have eaten more pizza this week than a normal person would over the course of a month . . . mmmmm . . . I do love pizza . . . but this was a bit of a crazy week.
• My birthday weekend is next weekend and there shall be some fabulous events taking place!
• The Riders just won first in the western conference . . . love it!!!
• I have spent some quality time with some quality people and have so many fabulous memories!
• I bought two new pair of boots and they are beautiful!!!
• Halloween came and went - I made the mistake of running to the mall to pick up a few things and then helped a friend hand out some candy. I absolutely adore all the little spidermen and pink tutu's flitting about even though they make shopping a touch difficult. It's another one of those days where I wish terribly I was a little closer to the nephews so I could pack up a special treat bag for them and have them come bouncing into my house in their little outfits telling me the excitement of the day.
• Brenda and I went shopping to one of my favorite stores - Army and Navy!! I bought some serving dishes for Jimmy's place. They are quite fun! And so crazily cheap!
• And did I mention that I got U2 tickets for my birthday??!!