My trip approaches so fast. So excited!

Kiwi land bound

My trip is booked. Unless something comes up that causes me to use my cancellation insurance (which I decided in the end to purchase since it is a leisure trip after all - may as well take all the stress out of it if possible), I'm heading for the South Pacific in the New Year. Because of the way Christmas and New Year holidays fall, I will be away from the office for 7 weeks. It's going to be fantastic. And last minute, a friend decided to purchase a ticket as well so now I've got company. Most excellent.

I buy mine from Safeway

I just had the most sexist comment made toward me that I didn't even realise what the guy meant at first. I am still feeling a little incredulous. I was speaking with a client about some air monitoring at his site and asked if he wanted full time inspection or if he'd prefer we make several trips per day to collect the samples. His response was that I could just come out for the samples and spend the rest of my day doing something else - liking baking bread. More often than I'd like to admit, I do not get a joke. At first I thought he must be making a joke and my slow sense of humour was not picking up on it so I kind of did a half laugh, said goodbye and hung up. But no, he wasn't really making a joke - he was taking a dig at my gender. How does one respond when it is to an important client? I can't really tell him to make his own swear word bread (which was my boss's response when I told her). I mean, we are trying to get him to hire us.

Oh well, if we get the job and his attitude continues, I'll deal with it then. If we don't get the job, we won't be dealing with him. I just didn't think professional men said crap like that anymore.

And I guess the best revenge would be to actually bake him a loaf of bread. One bite and he'd realise that I am much more capable at providing him with the professional skills at his job site to make sure everything runs smoothly for the next several months than I am at baking bread.

So I have a new roomate! I've given up the spare bedroom for a new friend and her extremely well behaved border collie. So far it has totally been worth it. I came home from work at lunch today and played catch. Plus it has also caused me to clean out the garage (which I love so much now that I almost wanted to just go sit in it today because it's so clean. Isn't that weird?) and organize the kitchen. Next, I have to work on my bedroom. I'm going to do another purge of clothing and this time, having less room to store them, I will be brutal. It will feel so good to have less stuff. I really aspire to be a minimalist but have all the tendancies of a packrat. The war within myself is constant.

Ahhh, autumn. The time of the year when the leaves become really good boundaries for fantastic games in the park. What?

I saw the coolest thing yesterday. There was a bunch of kids at the park down the street from my house. They must have spent an hour raking all the leaves in one half of the park and then they spread them out in numerous lines and made a game of it. It must have taken them ages - it was quite intricate. I applauded them from my car and wished I'd had my camera.

I had a good day. I spent an hour in the office helping one of the techs finish a report and then myself and the other two project managers took a drive to North Battleford to check out the site where we may have our Christmas Party.

The first year I worked for this company we were a small office (just 3 of us) and we were invited to Calgary's party which happened to be at a beautiful resort out in the mountains. It was pretty much one of the best weekends ever and, as I told my boss today, "It covered a multitude of sins." A free flight and rental car and hotel room and fancy dinner in a beautiful mountain town really help a person get over those extra weekends she had to work all of October and November for instance. Anyway, since then we've been crap at putting together a Christmas party. Last year we went out for a nice dinner (in February because we couldn't get our act together in December) and then everyone went home after. Boring. So this year we decided to start our planning early and have found a fantastic hotel and caterer and afternoon winter adventure centre to keep us entertained. I'm really looking forward to helping plan it. The techs are going to be so surprised!

Anyway, so I got to skip out of the office pretty much as soon as we got back for my final physiotherapy session. I've been officially discharged. Hooray! And since I got back on a horse two weekends ago, I think I have conquered the injury.

Then I went downtown to buy a ticket to a seminar with Jane Goodall (and killed an hour at the mall while waiting and found a perfectly fitting pair of pants). Jane's wicked cool. I am glad I went. She arrived in Tanzania for the first time to spend a year alone in the jungle with the chimpanzees when she was 26. She is officially my hero. I'm sure she didn't know what her life would come to. She was just doing something she'd wanted to ever since she was 4 and snuck off to hide under the straw in the hen house to find out where the eggs come from (none of the adults would give her a satisfactory answer). I want to find something that I can be that passionate about. I need my own jungle.

Sick

I don't consider myself overly tough. But I also don't consider myself to be a girly girl or a fraidy cat. Even with my intense fear of spiders, I still don't usually react like I did today. Yet here I was putting away some packing materials and a large brown spider was all of the sudden on our kitchen table less than a centimetre away from my hand. Without thinking I screamed and ran about 15 feet away. I screamed. Everyone in the office could hear me scream. Not a yelp or a quick intake of breath. An actual scream. I've seen way bigger spiders than that before. I've seen gynormous wolf spiders in Florida washrooms. I've seen scary gross huge spiders in crawlspaces province wide. I've seen good size spiders in my own bathtub. And while all of them freaked me out, I usually tremble in silence and deal with it (unless someone else is around who will kill them for me). To scream and run while at my place of employment was so embarrassing.

Turns out, according to a knowledgeable staff mate, it was a brown recluse spider - which is poisonous. They aren't supposed to be in this province, but I was unloading shipping materials that could have come from anywhere.

I'm totally not doing the shipping next time.

Things I think are cool

The Galapagos Islands. I have decided that I want to visit them. They have 3 kinds of boobies there. Blue footed, red footed and masked. I want to go and see the Galapagos boobies.

Been awhile. I go through these cycles of debating whether I want to continue my blog or not. I can't say I'm a natural at writing these things. And what it might come down to, is that I'm just a little bit on the lazy side sometimes. I'd prefer to read someone else's than think of something clever for my own. But I think I shall continue for a bit yet - because I have a trip in the planning stages! And that was the whole point of this - to tell you of my journies. I've been doing a lot more managing at the office recently, though, so I haven't been travelling much for work. And most of my work stories that I do have, have to remain confidential anyway - so I've found it hard to talk about on here. But before I descend too far into rambling, I shall show you a picture of the place I just returned from. It is a family church camp in Washington that I've been to a couple times now. Beautiful, relaxing, surrounded by pleasant friendly people. I quite like it.


I wish I'd gotten a picture of the lake but you can imagine that if you turned around 180 degrees, you'd be looking at a pretty lake with a big hill (that some might call a mountain) in that background.

I live in a very awesome city. It is especially fantastic in the summer. A couple of weeks ago a good friend and I attended a Shakespeare play that was done in a tent next to the river. Here is us at the play.


We tried to get a shot of our faces but in ever single one either Ang's eyes were closed or I looked high. (And just so there are no rumour's started - I wasn't actually high - just looked it.)

At the intermission we went outside and looked at our beautiful city which is known for its bridges.


How I love it here during the summer. The temperature is dropping dramatically this month. We went from a July full of above 30 degree temperatures to barely hitting room temperature during the day and getting down to 6 and 7 at night. I preferred the hot and if any weather controllers are listening - please give us a wicked hot Indian Summer.

I've started using my arm a bit in the past two days. I've been typing with it, writing (I'm so not ambidexterous - I think my left hand writing has gotten worse in the last three weeks). I think I'm probably using it more than I should - it's pretty sore tonight. But I can't even put into words how satisfying it is to wash both hands instead of trying to one hand-ed-ly wash my left hand.

Jazz festival still going on in the city. Last night I went to a French-ish jazz band at a favourite local restaurant. A friend and I went there specifically for the performance. We were hoping a few other friends we'd invited would meet us so we got a booth - but no one else showed. We started off drinking some tea and coffee and went to some appetizers after that. I know we weren't spending a lot of money (which made me feel slightly bad for taking up a table for the whole evening) - but we did go there for the show and we did at least order some food. And there weren't really any smalled tables left when we realised our other friends weren't going to show. But by the end I didn't feel bad anymore. Our waitress pretty much ignored us the entire time and never did bring us the bill. So we stayed late and enjoyed the band and had a grand night. I love live music.

jazz it up

my city's annual jazz festival started tonight. i went and saw a local band who were playing on the free stage. i've seen them twice now and am almost ready to consider myself a fan.

the whole outdoor festival feeling is so great. and the local entertainment in the crowd is so enjoyable. there was this older man, distinguished looking from the neck up, who showed up around 7pm. He was wearing a very hippie style bright yellow shirt with blue and black embroidery around the plunging neckline. he had bright blue tapered pants - the kind that the bottoms can zip off to convert to shorts. what really made the ensemble was the black and blue water shoes. i wish i'd had my camera. my mom would have loved how he'd matched everything so well. anyway, as i was noticing his shoes a slightly overweight lady in a too tight black mini skirt and skank tank walked by. she had a tatoo that looked like vines growing from her ankle to her mid thigh. i was hoping hippie guy would ask her to dance. but he seemed content to dance on his own.

along with the hot band members, saskatoon berry pie, small vendor shops, good music, fantastic weather, no mosquitos, and good company, it was a fairly fantastic evening.

i get my cast off tomorrow. it will be very nice to finally have a shower. i've never been a big fan of baths and that's all i've been able to do. although i am thankful for my bathtub because i have no idea what i would have done with only a stand up shower. i'm impressed with how much better my one handed typing has become. also, i can now brush my teeth with my left hand like a maniac. my left handed writing skills, however, have not improved one bit.

actually, i have no idea how a maniac would brush their teeth or even if they would. somehow i don't see dental hygeine being very high on their priority list. what i meant is that i can brush really fast with my left hand.

In a simple, and somewhat ironic, follow-up to my last post I'm here to report that I have dislocated my elbow. Apparently I'm not an overly accomplished horsewoman. Thus, typing is quite slow. I have, of course, dislocated my right elbow. If you assume by my tone that I am right handed you assume correctly.

It's funny how some things I didn't think about are way harder than I expected. Brushing my teeth for instance. Washing my hair. Taking off a t-shirt (way harder than putting it on). Hanging up clothes. Washing my hand, and subsequent drying. Writing with my left hand is even slower and messier than I anticipated. Putting my hair in a clip or ponytail is downright impossible.

Then some things are way easier than I'd dreaded. Putting on deodorant, once I got the top off which now stays off, was way simpler than you'd think. Shaving my legs. Turning the pages of a book. Eating.

Anyway, I'm bound to my house at least until my first doctor's appointment where I find out how long I'll be in this cast thingy. So I'll be reading lotss of blogs. I hope all of you have exceptionally newsy and comedic weeks ahead!

she's got the style and grace of a wiener

I've been very lazy about posting. Partly because I've been having so much company. I am not sure why a bunch of my friends all of the sudden have been coming to visit but it's been incredibly nice and made me extra glad that I bought my house. Anyway, I've been planning to tell a story about how I am the most sophisticated maiden in the land.

It was while I was at my church's may long weekend retreat in Alberta. I was wearing a skirt and pretty sandals (pictured below). Anyway, a friend of mine who happens to be an ex boyfriend had arrived at the outing that morning and I had not yet had a chance to say hello. We'll call him friend X. He happened to be sitting at the same table as another friend (friend J) who I'd been planning to sit with for lunch, so I thought I'd say hello to X as I passed his chair on my way to sit by J. It would be nonchalant-ish enough but still friendly enough - perfect!

When most people, usually including myself, fall, it generally involves some sort of combination of trip, stumble, loss of balance, and sort of gentle but awkward hitting of the floor. Well as I rounded the corner where X was sitting at the front of the room in view of everybody, there was nothing in my path. Nothing to trip or stumble over. I didn't trip, I didn't stumble, I didn't even lose my balance. It was like one minute I was walking normally and the next I was pretending to slide into home plate. I went down hard and fast and in a fluid motion without any bending of my body. I quickly checked to make sure my skirt was covering everything as I sat up and looked into X's eyes and said, "Hello?" So much for being nonchalant. How about I fall right at his feet?

In elementary school we had these book lists come out every month or two. Mom would let me pick one book to order every time - it was such a treat. I remember getting "Megan the Klutz" by Alida Young. Then "The Klutz Strikes Back". Then "Klutz is back". I was never so bad as the main character in the book, but I could certainly identify with her. I think I liked the books because at least someone (that she was fictional was a moot point) was worse than me. My best moment was the time I was on my first date with a guy I really liked. He'd taken me to this fancy restaurant and I slammed my thumb in his car door as we were getting out. I was so embarassed that I didn't say anything until just before we went in the restaurant door. I finally had to ask him to get me some paper towel because I didn't want to bleed all over the restaurant. You could see the blood trail from his car. He had to butter my bread and cut my chicken that night because my hand was pretty much good for nothing except immobility. It was horrible. I guess I'm just tired of doing stuff like that. Which is why I felt the familiar mortification at falling down a couple weeks ago. How I crave elegance.

To close I shall post two pictures.
The promised shot of my pretty sandals.














A picture of my sidewalk below my maple and elm trees. As pointed out by a friend, it looks like the hair of a bunch of who's from whoville.

The fake crush

I noticed this past weekend that a lot of my friends (read: me and a lot of my friends) have developed what we like to call the "fake crush". My definition of a regular crush has always been for one person to develop affection for another person whom they totally could date but do not think they really and actually have a chance at dating. Generally, but not always, both parties are single.

This whole fake crush phenomenom opens up a new world of crushing. Because the whole point is that it would almost for surely never happen. Now people can have fake crushes on attached people, much younger or older people, and much cooler or hotter people than they would normally be able to admit. Personally, I think that more often than not the person has a regular crush but would never reveal it. The fake crush allows them to tell the world (even the fake crush themself) without putting themselves out there too much. And it also allows several friends to all have fake crushes on the same person without getting too jealous. It's just a fake crush after all.

My question is this. If two friends have a hardcore fake crush on someone, do they have to run it by the other if one of them actually gets a chance to date said crush? Or because it's fake (or so they say) should the party of interest be up for grabs?

I wonder if this is a localized thing, or if others have heard of the fake crush. It's not on the urban dictionary yet.

I wonder if anyone has a fake crush on me? I think I'd be honoured to be fake crushed on.

Geez Timmy Ho!

I got butter with my soup AGAIN! Totally wierd.

This weekend I went to a wave pool for the first time in years. We played pig in the middle for about an hour in the deep part of the waves. Afterward my visiting friends and I came home to change and go for supper and some live jazz. Our eyes were quite similar to the bad guy's big red eye in Lord of the Rings. His name slips my mind.

We also went walking down by the river, grabbed some ice cream from the double decker bus downtown(best frozen yogurt ever), and took in a bit of culture at the art gallery. Quite the fantastic day.

So I got invited to a friend's sister's wedding today. I told them months ago that I would go - and I really want to. I've kept the weekend open and everything. It is a family that was brilliant to me in university. However, it's out at their favourite camp site. And it occurred to me, that while I adore the family and their campsite, I am really not going to know anyone else. And it's camping. Which means, couples in tents. And I shall be alone in mine because my friends will be busy with the wedding. This whole singleton status is really worst at times like this. There are things I appreciate about not being tied down. But realizing you will sign the RSVP letter as "Shannon without guest" is so not one of them. I'm so tired of doing it that I walked into my office today and told my co-workers that I needed them to think of all their single, somewhat decent looking, easy going and relaxed guy friends who might be up for being my date at a wedding. After they realised it included an overnight stay in a tent with no follow-up committment they figured they could come up with a few options. I guess I didn't realise how that sounded. But it's very difficult to find a friend that you sort of know to come to an overnight wedding. Even in separate tents it would still be awkward. They either have to be a fantastically good friend, of which I have few (males anyway), or almost a complete stranger. That middle kind of good friend stage is okay for a day date, but not what practically amounts to a mini-break.

Anyway, I think I must go to the wedding, alone or not. Because I want to and I refuse to let being single keep me from doing things like that. And besides, maybe there will be some decent looking, relaxed, fun-loving guy there in the same predicament as me.

To the zoo

When I was in grade 10 my lovely sister bought me a camera for my birthday. I still remember how excited she was to give it to me. It was awesome. It was this Fuji camera that had a slider to uncover the lens (totally one of a kind). It took decent pictures and came with, what I thought at the time, was an awesome case. I loved it. It broke in my last year of university though - right before I went to Hawaii for a month. And I have been camera-less ever since.

I've used the odd disposable camera here and there but for the most part I have kind of gotten out of the habit of taking pictures. For awhile now I've been planning to enter the world of digital but I'm nortoriously bad at following through with my decision to buy most things useful (i.e. just over one year to buy a laptop computer; 7 years to buy a knife that actually cuts bread decently; and I'm currently still without a coffee table). Well finally I chose a camera. And I have to say after a trip to the zoo this past Saturday, I am very happy with it.

Look how well it focuses on the item in question. It has this intelligent function so that it will guess (correctly) what I want the picture of and adjust the focus and shutter speed. Excellent for a non photographer like me.


The red winged blackbirds were out making their totally cool bird calls.


Look how fantastic the colouring is on the mallard.


A visiting exhibition. Two bengal tigers - so out of place at a prairie zoo. But kind of a treat I suppose.


This was taking from ridiculously far away. I couldn't believe how far the new camera zooms.


I'm sure now that I finally have one of these, there will be more pictures on here. Of course, that will depend on how long it takes me to get around to buying more batteries. Let's hope it's before the new coffee table.

Butter in my soup?

I just went to Tim Horton's and ordered some soup. They gave me butter. Weird.

green with blue stripes

I went to a home buying seminar tonight. I signed up for a couple months ago when I was doing some RSP stuff at the bank. The bank lady wasn't all that helpful for me since I've already been through all that, but the lawyer who spoke was so interesting. I think I'm pretty lucky that worse stuff didn't go wrong when I bought my house. My biggest surprise was that I had to pay an extra $1300 in property taxes up front that I so wasn't expecting. But with the market like it is, real estate agents are telling their clients to put offers on houses with no conditions and apparently that can be illegal in some instances (i.e. when you buy a condo without a schedule c - not sure what that is but apparently it's illegal). Anyway, at the end I was talking with the most adorable couple. They were probably my age. He was tall and skinny with a big full beard and wearing a green sweater with wide blue horizontal stripes. She was cute, tall and chubby with capri jeans and slightly messy hair. She clapped when they announced the winners of the door prizes just to make them feel good. It was totally sweet. I had this twinge of jealousy for her life and I only met her for 2 minutes and have no idea what she does. Anyway, I must go and clean my bathroom. Company coming this weekend and one thing I've learned about a white bathroom with dark brown hair is that they don't mix well. Or, that you just have to clean more often.

Finally.
The snow is gone from my yard. Bring on the rain - at least that's what my trusty weatherman tells me. And he's actually been right so far this year. Oh weather channel, how I love thee.

Oh yeah, and Happy Birthday to my beautiful sister Gina. She's the coolest cat in town.

Shannon's big adventure begins

I finally did it. I've been talking about it seriously for a couple months now but it's something I've wanted to do for years. A big trip somewhere far away. And today I actually put in a request for a month of holidays in January 2008. Pretty sure I want to go to New Zealand. Of course nothing is set in stone and I'm open to changing my mind. But I'm going to plan it like I'm going. I have even picked out one place that I must see while I'm there.

I am nervous and excited and it's so far away it doesn't even feel like it's going to happen, but I really think I'm going to do this. Lord willing anyway.

rating rant

i watched "stranger than fiction" for the first time today. i really liked it even though i'd heard lots about it.

but one thing i didn't like is that when it came on it was rated "g". now i don't know if that was the canadian or american or movie rental place rating, but i have no idea how that movie should be rated "g". first of all, the f-word was used once which automatically should move it up a rating. and second, in case i totally heard wrong and he didn't say the f-word like i thought, the 6 or 7 naked bums in a gym shower scene should have probably bumped it up from a "g" to a "pg". third, there was a let's-start-making-out-and-wake-up-in-bed-after-obviously-just-having-sex scene that, while it doesn't specifically show anything, is a suggestive scene. to me a "g" rated movie shouldn't have scenes that might require parental explanation for little ones.

i've been less than impressed with the current rating systems for a long time though. this just reminds me of my frustration.

seriously, 6 naked bums?

So I was tagged by the lovely Miss Ariann. I guess I'm supposed to write 6 weird things about me. Sadly, it shouldn't be too hard. I'm not going to tag anyone though because I'm too tired.

1. I like ketchup on my Kraft Dinner and on my tacos.

2. When I am sad, I sleep in the living room or the spare room. Anywhere but my own bed.

3. I used to keep my text books in the kitchen cupboards.

4. My favourite word (that I know) in the spanish language is "siete" - the word for "seven".

5. I like watching kids tv shows on the Family channel

6. I've slept on a coffee table by choice.

shoulda planned ahead

so i learned that trying to rent the movie "happy feet" in this city on a friday night is impossible. i tried three places and none of them had it. and they weren't even those "guaranteed or its free movies" where you get the credit. probably because the movie people were smart enough to know that they would all be sold out on a friday and they'd lose a ton of money. as i was not as smart as the movie people and didn't think in advance that it might be gone, i found myself an hour into looking and still no happy feet. the thing was i had important plans with a friend to watch it and i could not return empty handed. so i bought. i can't believe i paid $30 for a movie that i'd never seen.

but it was hilarious. and let me tell something to you, did i ever love the latin penguins.

after watching all the special features (including the "how to dance like a penguin" instruction video) we put in "what about bob?" classic. i laughed so hard.

completely awesome fun night.

hotness to the extreme

some of my friends have a chant about how mormons are hot. i don't actually know the entire chant, but it basically involves cheering about their hotness and "woo"ing at the end. very straightforward. as all cheers should be.

today i saw some (mormons that is) walking in my neighbourhood and one of them looked exactly like the brother of a couple friends of mine. these two friends can be identified in the following manner. one is a lovely but skimbly girl from the west coast and another a raven haired beauty from cow-town. if you know who i'm talking about, then you know their brother and can fully appreciate how hot that mormon was.

where art thou, o survey?

Since my sister said I would fill this out, I guess I must.

It’s a Two-by-Two survey. Answer with things that are relevant to you RIGHT NOW on this day. And you know the drill, don’t you? Put your answers in my comments section; let me know if you are posting it on your own blog; answer just a few if you don’t have time; or ignore it altogether!

Two Names You Go By
1. Shannon
2. No one really calls me anything else on a regular basis. Sad. Friends of mine, you better start giving me a nickname that sticks.

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now
1. Green t-shirt
2. Jeans that I reserve for field surveys

Two Things You Have to Have in a Relationship:
1. They must think I am witty
2. I must think that they are witty

Two of Your Favorite Things to Do
1. Watch Three's Company
2. Get a massage

Two Things You Want Very Badly At The Moment
1. A massage
2. A boyfriend with house fixing skills

Two Pets You Had
1. A cat named Murphy
2. A parrot named Paco

Two Things You Did Last Night
1. Got my taxes done professionally for the first time
2. Brushed my teeth

Two Things You Ate Today
1. A piece of toast with peanut butter and peach jam
2. Ceasar salad

Two People You Last Talked To
1. Coworker D
2. Coworker A

Two Favorite Places
1. Killarney provincial park in Ontario
2. The top of the chairlift on the backside at Lake Louise

Two Things You're Doing Tomorrow
1. Getting a physical
2. Writing a hazmat report

Two Longest Car Rides
1. Saskatoon to Florida
2. Leader to Phoenix

Two Favorite Holidays
1. Sask's newest one - Family Day (who wouldn't want a holiday during ski season?)
2. Christmas

Two Guilty Pleasures
1. Kettle cooked popcorn
2. The car wash (wand version)

Two Things I Last Got in the Mail
1. My energy bill
2. The-lady-who-lived-at-my-house-before-me's bills

Two Things that Make Me Laugh
1. The squeaky meow of my sister's cat
2. A good elephant joke

call now and you'll also get...

Last night my mom told me that I needed to buy diet pills. "The perfect way to lose weight without dieting or excercise." I told her it sounded a bit sketchy so she changed her tactics and tried to tell me what "a great deal the Bowflex home fitness system is." For only 5 easy payments of $200, toned legs and abs could be mine. "Plus shipping and handling of course," she threw in as an afterthought.

Thankfully, I then woke up and realised I'd fallen asleep in front of the TV and those late night infomercials were running. My mom is in the city for the weekend for an annual garden show that she goes to with her friends. I was hanging out with them last night - which must be why I inserted her into the dream. Either that, or I subconciously feel like my mother thinks I need to lose weight.

So just to be on the safe side, I think I'll go to the gym today.

Like the 6th best hot tub ever

I figure between work and play that I've probably slept in at least a couple hundred hotels. Some have fantastic hot tubs. Some have hot tubs that I won't go near. Many, of course, have no hot tubs. In fact, I've stayed at places where I did not even have a bath tub - I had to walk down the hall to the washrooms. Scary.

Anyway, the hotel I am in now has two hot tubs. And the one in the spa area is the 6th nicest hotel hot tub I've been in that I can remember. Here they are in order of niceness (and unfortunately this list is probably biased by how much fun was had in said hot tubs). The following list includes tub experiences ranging from grade 11 to tonight:

1. Best hot tub ever was an outdoor tub a bit of a walk away from our cottage/cabin thing at Emerald Lake. Snow all around. Fantastic.

2. The outdoor tub at the on-mountain resort at Sunshine Ski Village.

3. The outdoor/indoor hot tub at the lodge at the Fortress ski resort. There is a little swim-thru door to go from one to the other.

4. The outdoor/indoor mineral pool at Moose Jaw's Temple Garden Mineral spa. Not exactly a hot tub, but meh. It's my list.

5. The semi outdoor hot tub at the Goldenwood Lodge near Golden B.C.

6. The one here at a hotel in Swift Current. For an indoor hot tub, I'd have to say I'm impressed.

Have you ever noticed that hot tubs are always better at night?

investment

well, it sounds like buying a house was a good idea with this real estate boom in saskatchewan. i was so close to staying put and leaving it for a year - glad i didn't. of course next week i will be writing about how annoyed i am that so many new things are breaking. but not this week. this week i'm thinking about how i could sell my house and my car and live in a hut on the beach in thailand for a couple years off the proceeds.

conversation after a road trip during a saskatchewan snow melt

me: the first thing i'm going to do when i get home is wash my car.
her: you do realize it will just get dirty again tomorrow.
me: that's true. but i myself will get dirty again tomorrow and i am still going to have a shower.
her: good point.

oh i've had the time of my life ... and i swear it's the truth ... and i owe it all to you...

My dad got me a DVD player as one of my Christmas presents. It didn't work and had to be returned and so when he gave me the second one he said, "It can also work as a karaoke machine." I laughed and thought, "How silly of him. When will I ever use a karaoke machine?" Well tonight, that's when. A friend was in town from New York this week and a bunch of us decided that since I had one, why not have a karaoke party. So we rented some songs and invited some folks. I feel bad because the actual scheduling was quite impromptu and I feel like we possibly missed important people who should have been invited. But anyway. It was tres fun.

Awhile back my old roomate made sure my neighbours were scared of me by yelling out the open windows and doors, "GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE!" at the crows that constantly caw near my house. But I don't think they realised that she was yelling at the crows. If they would have still considered associating with me, they will no longer harbour any such thoughts. Because tonight, anyone walking past my house tonight would have heard twelve voices raised in unision wrapping Gangsta's Paradise and I'm Just a Gigalo. My poor neighbourhood.

Thanks for the Christmas present though Dad. A night of fun had by all was made possible by you.

Land of the living skies

I was listening to a speaker from another province this weekend at the quiz meet. He was talking about how Saskatchewan does not change time for daylight savings which of course led to some jokes about Saskatchewan. We seem to be an easy target for people. Anyway, he said our slogan "Land of the Living Skies" was one of his favourites and most especially true. "Your skies are living," he said. "So many bugs all throughout the sky."

Hah, hah.

But I had never actually heard that joke before so he gets points for originality. I do not think originality is, however, a word. Meh.

today is the 2nd of march. that is 2 and 3 meaning 23

they FORCED me to switch to the beta blog thing and start a google account. i've been resisting even though it's a way big hassle to bypass all the "please switch" and "you should really switch" messages. did i mention i hate being forced to do things? well, i guess i don't actually hate being forced to do some things. because sometimes you know how you just aren't in the mood to go to the gym or to go to a movie or out to play some hockey but if someone forces you then you really like it and have the best time ever? but i sure hate being forced to do something like switch to a new blogger by some stupid blogger powers that be. and i am very annoyed at the moment.

on a completely unrelated note, i have decided that i really like jim carey in any role other than a comedy. i saw The Number 23 this week and i was a fairly big fan of it. you must understand that i hated ace ventura and liar liar and all those types of movies. but truman show caught my attention, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind intrigued me, and now the number 23 has won me over. jim carey is a good actor.

The tree was in the middle

I'm back from the annual ski trip! Fun as always. This year we went to Sunshine and stayed in the inn right on the mountain. So cool. Valet parking at the bottom and then you take a gondola up to the hotel and ski right out of your room practically. I highly recommend it.

So anyway, this year I decided that I would conquer the black diamond. I am a pretty confident blue run skiier but I wanted to expand my skills and tackle those blacks head-on. Actually literally head-on; my poor "head" hit "on" the ground several times. The thing that still foils me is the narrow runs - I can't seem to turn quick enough. So while I was inside warming up with some hot chocolate, the guys found this run (I think it was called "Star Trek", although I'm not sure why) that they thought would be perfect for teaching me. It was two moguls wide except for this one part where there was a big tree right in the middle. I said, "Which way do I go?" and was told to just pick the right or left and go. Right. No, left. No, right. Then my skiis crossed and I ran straight into the tree. "That was the worst way," was the laughing response of one of my friends. And he was correct. I should have stuck with right.

The rest of the trip was just as excellent. I hung out for a few days with my friend who got married in Mexico this December. I also visited with some pals in Calgary. And went to IKEA. I can't believe they won't ship things. I probably would have spent $1000 on furniture there plus whatever shipping was, but since they don't ship, I didn't spend anything. I guess it doesn't matter to them though. If I don't buy it, someone else will.

But today is the last day of my holiday. Tomorrow is the return of work. So I guess that's it. Later.

Ontario wimps

I've been busy. Christmas was relaxing. Work's been good. Life has been fine. But I just haven't been in a computer mood. Which is too bad, because I actually had some funny stories in the past month. But meh, too late now.

I just got back from a work trip. I was gone for the week, doing my surveys, staying in little towns. The usual. But it was a particularly cold week. And it got colder as the week went; -26 degrees Celsius, -28 degrees Celsius, and then this morning, -32 degrees Celsius. That is cold my friends, and it does not include the wind chill (which thankfully was not that bad. Only -40 or so). So this morning I went to start my car, my beautiful Mazda that I still love and find only one fault with (and that is that it is kind of wimpy and doesn't like the cold weather). While I was loading all my equipment and files into it, I turned on the Weather Channel, my guilty pleasure. As per usual, the world in Canada revolves around Ontario and they were doing a "National Forecast" which involves a quick mention of all the rain in Vancouver, a passing remark about Alberta (a.k.a. the Prairies), and then on to Ontario. To be fair, they usual don't mention the maritimes or Quebec all that much. Eastern friends, Saskatchewan feels your pain.

Anyway, this is what I heard the weather lady say. Paraphrased of course, because I am horrible at remembering exact quotes.

Extreme cold weather warnings in Ontario today. Weather dipping as far as MINUS TEN. And with the wind chill, it feels even colder.

My mouth dropped. Did she really just say EXTREME? Her very own network is telling me in a scroll across the bottom that it is -32.

Ridiculous. Well, I sure hope those Ontarions are staying inside today with that extreme cold. Wouldn't want their cheeks to get rosy or anything.

Yes, I am bitter. But it is more that the weather network ignores my province than anything. And I also realise there are snow squalls going on out there, and those are a really big deal. But geez. -10. That's approaching spring weather. Sure I choose to live in Saskatchewan and I know that means it gets cold. But really, do you need an "extreme weather warning" for -10. Buck up.

And northern Ontario, you are excluded from my rant, because they ignore you too. And because you are cool. Especially Kenora. I want to live there someday. But I digress.

Busy Miss Gina

Okay, so I'm taking a break from bloggy land and I'm not quite ready to come back yet but I had to quickly post about my sister's new blog!

Miss Gina

She's not sure yet if she's going to be a full blown blogger or not, but you should check her out in case she does. She's very clever.

Okay, I'll be back soon. My break is almost over. I can feel it.

his name was baxter

crazy night. i get a phone call around 5 from a lady in the church i attended in regina. her nephew, whom i knew back in the day, has a girlfriend who was in a car accident this afternoon near my city. the nephew was rushing here from edmonton but it was going to take a few hours and they were worried about the dog. whose name is baxter. so i got to track down baxter from the spca and bring him home. i'm feeling quite lazy and the whole story would take too long to type but in the end it took me 3 hours to get the poor little guy. i brought him to my house, took him for a quick walk and then thought we'd settle down for a couple hours and chill. yeah right. that little dude humped everything in site. my friend Ang came over and we laughed and laughed and laughed because he just wouldn't stop. so now all my blankets need to be washed. but i was glad that i could help out an old acquaintence. and the dog was cute, just gross.

so anyway, that didn't turn out to be a very good story. but too bad. i'm tired and going to bed.

resolute-ing

Okay. New year. New Shannon. No more sitting around and gaining back the ten pounds you worked so hard to lose over the past two months before your perfect holiday. No more being unmotivated and not cleaning up the house and sleeping in everyday and being late (like 5 minutes) for work. No more.

So I got back from Mexico and my beloved main floor roomate had left. Sadness to the extreme. But I am starting to get used to it - although I will never like it. I spent the next week doing literally nothing. Then I went home and had a lovely Christmas, caught a friend's wedding on the 29th and then went to my church's new year's retreat. Now I am home and it's a new time. I am going to clean up and organise my house, lose those ten pounds again, ski as much as possible this winter, and keep learning how to climb up big walls. Yep, that's the plan. I suppose that it could be considered an unofficial resolution.

So I started tonight by cleaning out the fridge - it's so nice and sparkly clean right now. Tomorrow I am going climbing and then out for supper with a friend. Then I will clean the bathroom. And I need to go shopping. I was talking with my friend Ang the other day about how much both of us hate going to the store. I realised that I will eat the grossest food for several days in a row, or wear absolutely every pair of underwear and socks when I run out of laundry detergent, just so I won't have to drive to the store. It's different in the summer but in the winter, once I get home, I really don't like to leave again. And the other funny thing is that once I'm actually at the grocery store, I love it. Maybe not so for other shopping, but definately for groceries. I love just being in the grocery store - especially the old Garden Market IGA's.

Well, I must go to sleep now. Happy new year.