Winding down 2009

Since doing my Dare in October, life seems to have moved pretty fast.  November was a blur of midterms, final projects, and clinical days.  Not to mention kick-ass floor hockey games.  Before I knew it, it was December and I was wrapping up clinical at SickKids, doing SIM lab demos, and preparing to write my final exams.   Now, the school work is over, and I have time to breathe again.  In other words, I have a life again (but only until January 4th).

Since finishing up my exams last Wednesday, I’ve been cramming my days full of things I’ve been meaning to do for ages and I’ve been picking up work shifts.  First item on the agenda: CLEANING THE HOUSE!!  The dust bunnies have been staring me down and I promised myself to wait until after exams to clean.  I was itching to get going, and I knew once I started, there was no going back.  So last weekend, M and I cleaned every surface in the apartment and took the time to purge some stuff that really needed to be disposed of.  Once that was all taken care of, we celebrated our good work with decorating for Christmas!

Really, there is nothing I love more than having a house full of Christmas lights, and spreading a little cheer with cute angels, snowmen, and penguins with Christmas hats.  It makes me remember happy things, and it’s a way of celebrating the amazing event that is Christmas.  I know it may seem like I’m just giving in to the commercial side with my types of decorations, but my heart knows that what I’m really feeling is the joy of the season that comes from knowing that the peace of Christ came to earth for all of us.  Such an amazing gift! 

I guess now that I have time to think about the season, I really need to ensure that I enfuse the power of the gift of life Jesus brought to us in everything I do for Christmas.  The cookies I make should be made with love, because Christ showed us the meaning of loving others.  The Christmas lights should be reminders of the light of Jesus, brought to those who sat in darkness, a light that changes everything!  The decorations should be ways of praising the Prince of Peace!  Everything should exude peace, love, joy, and hope.

That is my Christmas wish as we wind down 2009.  Praise to the Lord, Christ has come, Hallelujah!

Happy Canada Day!

It’s Canada Day in the T-dot. There is an 80% chance of rain, limited sunshine and a stench of garbage.  Good times.  There are few parks that have been excluded from being temporary garbage dumping sites and the fireworks have been cancelled.  And we don’t even have a long weekend this year!  Somehow this just doesn’t seem as fun a day as it has been in the past.  And it kind of annoys me.

The strike sucks.  It’s no fun for anyone.  I’m sure the people who are picketing don’t think not being paid, or the stress of negotiations.  I’m POSITIVE the residents of the city aren’t happy.  And the major is looking more and more like he wants to rip his hair out.  It will be interesting to see how long this tension plays out.  I’ve got to admit that based on the details being published about the requests of the city workers, it seems a little unreasonable to me that they are striking at all.  Here we are in a time of economic uncertainty and unemployment, and we’ve got a group of people who have jobs choosing to strike over 18 vacation days they want to bank so they can get paid out a ton of cash that the city can’t afford.  Come on!  There are people who don’t have a job at all!  Really?

But last night, I got to hear some of the other side.  I had the opportunity to talk to a Toronto EMS paramedic who is also on strike.  Apparently the city returned to the table with the following deal: no more sick days period.  For anyone.  What?  That’s not cool either!  You’re expecting people who work in an environment where they are at high risk of getting sick (coughed on by an person with H1N1 or something?) and not allow them to have a paid sick day.  Come on! Really?  There were a few more details to the deal to that didn’t sound great, so I could see his frustration.  Makes sense.

I just hope that both sides stop being so damn stubborn and start talking about this issue in a more open way.  It’s a bigger issue now that just the workers.  They are affecting the entire population of a huge city.  I don’t think anyone wants their summer ruined by even more garbage!  UGH!

Montreal bagels, etc

This week is my reading week, a very welcome break from school, and a good chance for M and I to have a little vacation together.  On Saturday, we drove to Montreal and started our trip.  It was good to be back there and to have a more time to see friends than the last time I was there (it was for work).  M and I also got to do some of the exploring together, which was really nice.  We got in in by early evening and navigated our way to my friend DC’s condo, which was to be our home for the next few days.  I mean, nicest offer ever – DC let us stay in his condo the entire time while he stayed with his girlfriend – how nice is that?  It turned out to be perfect because he lives downtown and we could do our own thing and meet up with friends without having to pay an arm and a leg for accommodation.  We even squeezed in a trip to Tremblant – it was freezing and super windy but we got in a few good hours of boarding in.  We got back on Wednesday – bagels in hand and we’ve been relaxing ever since.

Yay reading week!

Another Christmas season come and gone

It’s been a great break. I’ve really enjoyed having time off, and I’m really happy to say that it was also a really fun and generally pretty relaxed Christmas.

Once M was finally free for the holidays, we headed down to the Sarnia area. Instead of the stress of wedding planning and having to drive between Sarnia and Kitchener, we were able to celebrate with both sides of the family all in one area. (Thanks Wends for hosting). It was really good – everything seemed easier and less overwhelming. It totally helps that the nieces and nephews now know me and are comfortable around me. In fact, the nieces were even a little besotted with me, getting annoyed if I didn’t sit between them. M’s parents also finished the basement at their place so there was more room to juggle the 8 people and 2 dogs residing there. M and I even got to spend some time together, which was really nice seeing as it’s been crazy at times this year.

It was also really nice to not have to travel nearly as far to spend time with my family. It was really nice that everyone agreed to move the traditional call to Africa to a later time, seeing as this year the plans on their side of the ocean were a little different too. It was good to have a brief chat, because I have to say, I really miss that tradition when it comes to Christmas. Last year I was lucky, and I got to have my aunt and cousin here for a few weeks over the wedding, but still I missed it. Going forward, I really hope we can find a balance of getting to see my family and doing some of their regular traditions too. But we’ll work on it. Either way, dinner with Christmas pudding, mince pies and brandy butter really hit the spot.

Christmas spoils were good this year too. M splurged and got me a new camera seeing as my digital has been on the fritz for some time now. I was so surprised because I had convinced myself it was Degrassi High on DVD by the shape of the parcel. Oops! I got M an awesome Hurley shirt that he loves. Wends spoiled us with goodies from England. It was great. There were tons of other prezzies, but I won’t list them all so that people don’t get too bored!

Once we got back from Sarnia, Marty and I had some time to recover (ie spend his work bonus of gift certificatesto Yorkdale mall) before heading to Haliburton with friends to celebrate New Year’s. There ended up being 14 of us in the end, and it was pretty fun. We hooked up some prime ice skating on the lake and drank enough hot chocolate to last me for a while. We played card games and board games. It was fun and I enjoyed myself, though I do have to confess, I’m not really a New Year’s kind of gal. I don’t put that much stock in it so it doesn’t take much to for me to have at least a little bit of fun. I also have to confess I was really to get back home and spend time with M again after having so many people around all day long.

Now, I’m enjoying the last bits of my vacation. We had a nice dinner with Rachel and Nick last night. M and I hit the gym together today, which was good. It’s nice to have someone who knows what they are doing with the machines explain a few things to me. But reality also creeped in because I bought my school books today too while we were on campus. Sigh- I guess I really do have to go back to class on Monday.

At least I’ve got another book to finished before I get there.

Happy Halloween!

Hope everyone has a safe and fun time. Celebrate hard for me as I’ll be getting ready for Rachel’s wedding tomorrow! Woo! She’s gettting married!

Merry Christmas sans mices…

It has been a little while since I’ve written last on my blog. I’ve been keeping busy with work and play, mostly work, but that’s ok. Off work time has been mainly involving watching movies and wrapping prezzies so I would be ready for today (and she done good!)

However, there are a few highlights worth mentioning from the play side of things. The first was a evening of bands with my friend Shawn – we went to Supermarket to see a variety of bands, but mainly The Postage Stamps. The sound was great, though some of the bands weren’t really quite as prepared as they could be. All the same, it was fun to see some new bands. We were pleasantly surprised by a band called The Rest, so much so that we bought the CD. I really enjoy it. I’m really glad I went – I just felt really bad I couldn’t pay more attention to the Stamps though – by the time they came on it was almost 1 am, and we were tuckered out. Next time I promise to do better.

Secondly, I got to see Handel’s Messiah with FT again. This year it was especially cool because it was actually a different Messiah – yep, it was Mozart’s arrangement of Handel’s Messiah. Very cool. Apparently, it was very common for people to comission other artists to revamp another composer’s work to suit a different audience and what we heard was the product. It’s very similar, but more upbeat and it has a lot more choral parts which I, of course, am a big fan off. There were quite a few recognizable “Mozart moments” that I noticed, as it tended to follow a similar style to Mozart’s Missa Brevis that I used to sing with my choir in Kingston at Easter. Also, it was kinda neat because a girl I know from Queen’s was in the choir, and I could spot her. Maybe next year I should join! After the show we all went to Marche and ate food – it was great to sit with Robby J, Sue and Lisa again and to drink Manhattan. It was a NYC moment. Loved it all.

That Sunday, the 17th, was also a special FT celebration. We had a Love Feast. This is something that was done for years, but hasn’t happened in a while. Essentially, it’s a big feast where all the LRs create a plate of food and we all serve each other. We were even lucky enough this year to share the experience with Grace Church Toronto, as we used their new space. It was very cool. Lots of good food, and all three pastors prepared a little mini-sermon and it was just in the right vein for Christmas. I’m really glad this happened and it worked so well.

That night, however, I did have a small adventure in my own house. I was woken up at 3:30am by scrabbling noises. Now, I live alone, so noises of this sort are all the more frustrating and bothersome. So I get up. Turn out the mice I though that I had gotten rid of have found the food outside my cupboard and were chowing down near my kitchen door. YUCK! In fact, they were so enjoying themselves that were looking straight at me. They finally scampered away, and I set to the task of cleaning up mice poo and half-eaten pasta. Then I set out poison. About 30 min later I hopped back into bed with a chance of two more hours of sleep. But it goes without saying that I couldn’t fall asleep again. Sigh…but at least the mice were gone….right? Nope. Turn out they hit up my counter next because I’d left a couple of dirty pots there. Crap. Literally. But at least I didn’t discover this until the next day…I guess. Moral of the story: never again will there be a dirty dish left on my counter!

Last week was pretty good. I got to spend two days hanging out with MB at work which was nice, as I very rarely get to see him. We chatted about a few different things, and we had lunch together. Very cool guy. On Thursday, I got to Ryan and Kevin together – we went to see The Primordials, Shawn’s band, play at the Boat in Kensington. Very fun. Even rappa-loving-brotha Ry got to dancing. Friday night was spent in Oshawa with my girls, and Saturday I came to KW on the train. Serendipitously, I ended up having my friend Michelle who I have been trying to catch up with for months sit next to me, so we had a nice hour long chat. Very cool girl.

The rest of the week is Christmas. It’s been good. It’s nice to see family and to have some traditions, seeing as there has been a lot of change in my life as of late. The only downer is that Mum and Wends have been really sick, and now Dad’s getting a scratchy throat. That is one thing I do not want this Christmas…so, here’s hoping to staying well.

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

Now, I must depart, White Christmas is on TV, and well, it’s just not Christmas until I’ve watched a few of my fav numbers.

God bless everyone!

Giving into to some temptation

I can’t wait to decorate my house for Christmas – I’m just itching to decorate…and well, I’m slowly winning the fight. Well, sorta. You see, I set myself a goal to not decorate until December starts – yep, so I wait until Friday. Tonight I gave in and put up some lights.

That’s not so bad, right?

Happy Halloween

I just got back in from a night of scary movies and dinner with friends. It was a great way to spend the evening and it was a nice relazed Halloween. Next year, if I’m in the country, I promise I will dress up. I miss that.

Happy Halloween all!

He is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluiah!

On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!” (Luke 24: 1-6)

For tonight a glorious thing is happening