Merry Christmas!

We had a good Christmas. We were able to webcam with both sets of parents while we opened presents yesterday afternoon, watched Micky's Christmas Carol, and had some yummy food.

We had:

Salad with the yummy caramalized bacon, blue cheese, pear, and a raspberry dressing.
Goat cheese and roasted garlic
Castello blue (like a blue brie) cheese, and brie
A beet/blue cheese/apple dip that wasn't all that spectacular.
Olives, pears, olive bread, crackers, and pita chips to go with it all.
Wine, of course.

So, that was our Christmas dinner. I didn't have much energy after a rough day of work, but I did find enough to have a bath with my new excellent bath stuff that I recieved for Christmas, and crawl into my new comfy flannel PJ's.

Today is a 13 hour work day for me, and all the kids will be returning from home visits, and coming down from the Christmas high, so wish me luck! We're supposed to be picking Danika up at the airport after work too!! Very late night.

Home Comforts

I just received this book in the mail from a dear friend for Christmas. When I was visiting her this summer, I was flipping through her copy of it and became entranced, and vowed I would have to buy it as soon as I got settled again! Of course, I had forgotten about it and not bought it yet, so I was thrilled to receive it in the mail!

It is an excellent book! The first chapter is titled "My secret life" and starts as follows:

"I am a working woman with a secret life: I keep house. An off-and-on lawyer and professor in public, in private I launder and clean, cook from the hip and devote serious time and energy to a domestic routine not so different from the one that defined my grandmothers as "housewives." When I want a good read, I reach for my collection of old housekeeping manuals. the part of me that enjoys housekeeping and the comforts it provides is central to my character."

It has been called the "joy of cooking" for housekeeping. It has information and "how to" instructions for just about every household task. It's kind of like having all your mothers, mothers in law, grandmothers, and grandmothers in law's collective knowledge about everything from deciphering washing instructions to making a good fire, to cleaning china and making a bed with hospital corners (there are pictures!).

I love it!

I have the ticket

Well...in a matter of speaking. I have the email that confirms my reservation on a flight from Montreal to Vancouver. My mom and dad are coming to visit right before I leave, and they'll be flying into Montreal, renting a car and driving here. We (along with Bastet) will drive back to Montreal to fly out to Vancouver. All of this due to a seat sale at Westjet, and their extra-friendly pet policies.

We just bought Bastet her airline carrier. It's a soft carrier that looks much like a duffle bag. She'll be able to fly in the cabin with me, under the seat in front of me, which is excellent.

Now, two months to get through! Can we have a do-over on Christmas and New Year's when I get home?? Lol.

Funny comic posted!

Check out the latest post on Vic's blog:

little shavings from my ration of light: why do I find this so funny? (Scroll up after you click on this).

Anyone who went to highschool with me (ehem, Bean, Rach, Sarah, Embo?) will appreciate this especially. I think the author may have lifted it off of a comic we drew in highschool. Hilarious.

New York New York!

A little belated, but now that our pictures are posted, I'll fill you in on our New York Trip. Some important points and highlights:

1) We drove into Manhattan. DROVE into Manhattan. INTO it. As in, we passed the empire state building on our way to our hotel. Seriously. As we drove over the bridge into Manhattan, and the city appeared over the horizon I felt fear like no other. We just kept yelling at each other "what are we doing?!?" "we are crazy people driving in Manhattan!" I have to say that, aside from looking for parking it was actually not that bad. There were ALOT of pedestrians who leapt out infront of vehicles at random moments. There were some who were just chilling in the middle of an intersection, only becoming visible when the car next to you veered into you to avoid running them over. There were lots of cabs, and yes, they drove like maniacs...but what we found was we kind of got into it. I would step on the gas and pull infront of a cab and slam the brakes on once in, and much to my surprise the cab would not hit me, and in fact seemed completely non-plussed by it. Then I would look at Daryl and say "Did you SEE what I just did!!?" It was intense, but almost in a good way. But very exhausting. Anyhoo....

2) This is the place we stayed in. It was central to everything right in the centre of Manhattan. It was beautiful, and really reasonable - if you're ever in New York stay there! It is a row of beautiful brownstones, gorgeous, vaulted ceilings and beautifully decorated. Ours even had a garden area out back!

3) Our favorite annecdote. As we proceeded through Connecticut on our way to New York, I realized I had to pee SO badly. So, I got off the highway, and we ended up on some parkway where there was no where to pee. We were looking around and I said to Daryl "Wow, I wonder what city this is...It's really big!" Then we passed the following sign: "Welcome to the Bronx." Guess what the big city was. Stellar. No, my sense of direction has never, and never will get better.

4) We had the true NY experience at the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village. We went to a neat cafe across the street for amazing hot cocoa, then to the 11pm show in the Cellar. The scheduled comics ran till about 1:30am, but then Dave Chappelle showed up after the show and did about an hour long set. That was excellent. The other comics were okay, but there was a lot of vulgar, less intelligent humor, with a lot of audience ridicule (we escaped it thankfully). You could definitely see a difference between the experienced comics like Dave Attell, and Dave Chappelle and the others. After the show, we wandered through the village, and even at 2:30am you could still hear jazz music wafting up the stairwells of many clubs, and there were many people out and about. It was SO freezing cold though that after a few blocks of walking we decided to opt out and have our first NY Cab experience.

5) NY Subways are not scary. At all. Okay, well, Manhattan Subways between the financial district, Chelsea, and times square are not scary. I felt safer on them than I do on the sky train normally! Same thing with Manhattan. I saw no sign of drugs, violence, come to think of it I don't even think I saw one panhandler even anyone who looked homeless. I'm sure they were there, but I have seen a lot more of that stuff in Van or Victoria than I did while there. Again though, we were only there for a really short time, and in all the touristy area, so...

So it was great! Check out the pictures here. Click on New York Trip.

Another one...

You are Frankenstein!

You are a sensitive and misunderstood creature. You are incredibly kind and more human than people who were created through natural means. But unfortunatly, you have a nasty revenge streak and therefore everyone is afraid of you.

Take this quiz at QuizHeaven.com

I stole this from Victoria - too funny!

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Homecoming

We're coming home.

It's been in the works for a while, but we didn't want to announce it until everything was settled.

How do we feel about this?
Very happy and excited, but also sad that we didnt' get to finish the year out here.

Why?

Main reason: Daryl has been unable to to find work that he can do for a Canadian company, over the internet, from here. So, he cannot work (he's not allowed to work in the US).

I can complete my Master of Science in Applied Behavior Analysis by distance Ed. I just registered for January classes, and they are going to let me catch up to the September cohort - so I will graduate as if I started classes in September.

So, I will still be completing my MSc, and recieving great training, but in BC.

Where?

We've decided to return to Victoria. Daryl has an offer (which he has accepted) for a full time permanent position at a company that he worked for when we were there beofre. He loves working there, so we're really excited about this! Also, I will have the opportunity to train under a fabulous consultant that I was working with before I left Victoria. I'll be able to get the training and supervision I need while there.

When?

Well, Daryl will be returning at the beginning of January, to start work. I will be returning at the very end of February. My contract required that I give 3 months notice, which I have done. My last day of work will be February 24th.

This is the VERY condensed version of our decision-making process ;-)

And yes, this was Magnificent M's mysterious good news a week or two ago. So, no, I am not pregnant ;-).

What I love

I love Church and, and naps, baking, and cooking, and Christmas, and music. Today I had all of those, so it was a good day.

We went to Church this morning - the third time I've been to Church on a Sunday since we moved here! That was good. The choir was wonderful today, and we had a great talk with someone we hadn't talked to before.

Then we came home and crashed for a Sunday afternoon nap. We used to often have these after Church, and oh do I miss them!! Coming home after Church, having coffee and bagels and then getting all sleepy, and having the luxury of being able to just go take a nap.

After that refreshment, I tidy'd up, put on the Christmas lights, the aromatherapy burner (Cranberry scent today), and my "Holly cole Station" on Pandora (Lots of good jazz). I broke in a new silicone loaf pan today. I bought it because I had about 12 bananas in imy freezer, and no loaf pan! I didn't want to buy something I'd have to get rid of again, or that would take up a lot of space, so I got the squishy, foldable silicone pan. It worked out really well. So, I baked the bananna bread, then a batch of bananna muffins.

There were these muffins at the UVic cafe on campus that I LOVED. I could never make my muffins taste as good, no matter what I did. Today I discovered the secret. It may sound weird, but wheat germ is the key. I Substituted a portion of the whole wheat flour in the recipe with the wheat germ on a whim, and the texture and taste of the muffins improved 10-fold. Excellent!

Then I decided to make corn chowder and baking powder biscuits for dinner. Mmmmm...very good.

That is my favorite way to spend an afternoon. Baking and cooking and listening to music. Especially in a Christmasy atmosphere.

Christmas preparations and Sandwich, MA

So, we mailed off presents to our families, and bought our "Christmas tree" yesterday. You'll be pleased to know it is an "Alberta Spruce." We bought it, where else, at Trader Joe's. It is very tiny, and live, and came with lights, which all works well for us.

Today, after sleeping in a bit, we decided to head to Providence RI...but then changed our minds and decided to continue on to Cape Cod. We got side-tracked in a little town right at the start of the Cape called...wait for it. Sandwich. We have found endless amusement in the various township departments we passed, such as the Sandwich Police, and Sandwich town hall (see picture). It was a really neat little town.

Among the gems we found there was the absolute best cup of coffee I have had since moving here. The place was Paul's Bean and Bagel, the coffee was a Organic Sumatra from The Beanstock Coffee Roasters in Wellfleet, Cape Cod. I think the man behind the counter was actually a little frightened by my enthusiasm. Needless to say, our one purchase for today was a pound of this stellar coffee.

I think my personal favorite discovery in Sandwich, MA, was the this contraption - and most importantly this hilarious picture. It was outside of this Inn and restaurant (that I would love to stay at). We couldn't resist the picture. We also found a neat Inn and Restaurant called the Belfry, that was and old Church converted into a Restaurant and Inn. Apparently, very romantic, very beautiful, and there is a mural of Alice in Wonderland ...or something. It would be a wonderful place for a husband to surprise a wife with an evening out. You know...if he happened to want to do that ;-).

All in all, it was a good visit. We didn't make it to the more famous areas of the Cape. We'll have to leave that for another day.