Random blather

Friday, December 19th - lovely dusting of snow, viewed through the window of AB headquarters.  Finished off and had a great evening with friends, then spent Saturday and Sunday running around prepping to leave for LA, where I was heading to spend Christmas with my cousins.

Then came the onset of the snow-mageddon.  I have never seen such a thing in downtown Vancouver, nevermind what hit the entire country!  By Sunday night I was growing very concerned about the state of things, and by the time I was supposed to be leaving for the airport, I realized that the likeliness of being able to get to the airport, nevermind actually fly out was quickly dropping.  I admitted defeat, and Boris cheered me up with some stick to yer bones, hot tasty lunch, and a big tupperware full of leftovers.  Good thing too, as the snow continued to fall so much so that I couldn't even get to the North Shore for Christmas to hang with my mom's side of the family, and happily ate the leftovers for the next three days.

Needless to say, it was a quiet Christmas. Steven suprised me and saved Christmas Eve by making the trek across downtown to hang out for the evening, which was very nice as we were long overdue for some quality time.

And on the upside, I got a full refund for my flight, so I'll be able to reschedule and go later on.

Aside from that and the occasional venture out on foot to stock up on food, it was a quiet and relaxing week...maybe a bit too quiet, but I did my best not to let it get to me.  One perk of being downtown when it blizzards, is that I (being a person who normally avoids boxing day like the plague) took the bus up Robson on boxing day and did a little shopping--it was totally dead out there, and I scored a few great things including a nice wool jacket (I've been searching a loooong time for one).

Then, since I didn't go away, I got to hang with Tall Scott on Sunday before he headed out to go visit with Scott in Argentina for the next few weeks.  Looking forward to having both of my Scotts in back town again a month from now!

Today I finally managed to get my car out after it being stuck in the snow for the last 9 days, and went and bought a new mattress, which will be arriving Wednesday.  Exciting!  The rest of the crew continues to trickle back into town, and this week is looking like it's going to be a lot more fun, which is great after all that resting!

Hope everyone has an excellent New Years Eve--stay warm, be safe, and appreciate having your loved ones nearby!

It's supposed to go down to -19C with the wind chill tonight.  Totally unheard of.  Everyone is complaining about the cold like crazy, and yet I'm pretty sure a lot of people are really enjoying it (myself included).  Maybe it's the lack of rain, but people seem pretty cheery.

Of course for a lot of people who aren't as lucky as us, it's very, very tough dealing with this kind of weather.  I feel even luckier that usual just to have my warm, dry apartment and a nice bed to sleep in.

By the middle of the week I finished my antibiotics and started feeling quite a bit better, which was a huge relief.  At least I got through the worst of it before going to visit my cousins.

Yesterday and today have been great days, especially in contrast to the rest of the last week and a half.  Spent the evening doing some power Christmas shopping on Denman with Tall Scott, which was perfect as all the stores were open, but totally not busy, and Denman's actually great for shopping for presents!  Then did a little impromptu gift exchange with a few friends, and spent the rest of the night reading each other excerpts of some funny books, and laughing hysterically to the point of tears and cramped stomach muscles.

What a lovely way to finish off the week.  Feeling very optimistic right now.  Like finally I'm starting to get things right.  For all the things that have gone wrong this year, each one has been a great learning experience and has brought me closer to where I want to be.  A better version of myself, unappologetic for those things about me that I can't change, and constantly improving those that I can.

1. Beautiful snow-covered Vancouver.
2. Friends who are family.
3. Awesome job, working with awesome people, doing awesome stuff.
4. Good books.
5. Sleeping in.
6. People making me cookies made of love.
7. Family who are friends.
8. Mom and dad.
9. Legwarmers under jeans.
10. Getting to pet a dog in the bookstore.
11. Someone mysteriously brushing off the tank so I could drive it today.
12. Laughing till you cry and your stomach muscles and face hurt.
13. And what would a happy list be without cute boys?

Lots of love, safe travels, and happy and relaxing holidays to everyone!

Maybe I was too cocky thinking that I'd already paid my sickness dues for the year.  I was surely wrong, and after feeling like I was fighting something off for a few days, the telltale signs of the insipid sinus infection, just like what took me down for over a month in the summer.  I went to the doctor right away and started on antibiotics, but damned if it hasn't taken me down anyway.

A week in now, I am still totally wiped out, basically wanting to sleep all day.  I made it into work for a few hours Friday, the first day all week, but it totally wore me out and I've had to skip out on all the fun I was supposed to join in on this weekend trying to rest up for tomorrow.

Tomorrow's the Drupal Christmas social and code sprint for FearlessCity.ca, and I'm just not even entertaining the thought I might have to miss it, so hopefully whoever else is going will see me there tomorrow.  If you're a Drupaller, you should come out! If I manage to make it through just part of the sprint, I'll consider it a success, and either way the awesome developers who are planning to come out are all set up to work on the site and help out a great organization.

Then I just have to worry about making it through the week, and after that I can sleep my way back to health. I refuse to let this drag on like it did in the summer, I just won't have it!

I think I'm usually pretty tough about not letting feeling crappy get me down, and pushing through the ups and downs of day to day stomach ickiness is something I've grown accustomed to, but having to deal with being sick on top of that for a week plus really starts to grate on me.  I'm trying not to let myself go to that place, but it can be really, really tough when there's so much I'd rather be doing than laying around feeling exhausted.

Meh.

From my twitter this morning: "intentions for the year to come: treat myself with the same kindness as i do those dearest to me. keep an open heart. laugh love breathe."

(If I look a little squinty it's cause of the crazy strong winds trying to knock me over...)

To be honest, I've had a crappy day.  I tried (probably unsuccessfully) to put on my game face when my parents skyped me to say happy birthday (sorry mom!), but I'm feeling le crap today, mainly thanks to about a week and a half's worth of crappy sleeps that are catching up with me bigtime.  (That reminds me, if anyone hears about any great apartments for rent in the West End or Mt. Pleasant/Cambie area, I'd be very interested in hearing about it!)  But hey, I've made it this far, and I know that not every day is rough so I just have to wait these ones out.  Luckily, I'm not really celebrating my birthday for a couple days so I'll have time to recover a bit!

My parents sent me some really lovely and cheery flowers, and a box of goodies, which was very nice (thanks!) and I've had a steady stream of messages and even a couple surprise phone calls today that have reminded me how many wonderful lovely people are in my life.

And since I'm a bit of a crankster today, here's my attempt to focus on the good:

1. Sunshine.
2. The new Constantines album.
3. Having a job that is interesting and allows me to take care of myself.
4. Chatting with Scott on the phone for the first time since he left.
5. Lotsa birthday wishes.
6. Smoked salmon and roasted potatoes with shallots and garlic.
7. Looking forward to massage appointment tomorrow.
8. Skittles.
9. My mom being silly and holding the dog up to the webcam to say hello.
10. Talking to my dad more lately.
11. Magicbags. (Don't know what they are? Click here.)
12. Every day is a new chance for awesomeness.
13. (And a late addition:) Alex turning up with pressies and moral support.

A new chance not to suck.

Spent this afternoon helping Scott move the last of his stuff into storage.  As much as moving sucks, having the right people around always seems to make it more fun than suck.

Speaking of sucking, last night sucked. I was in a sucky mood and tried to pull myself out of it by going out to Parade of Lost Souls, but by the time midnight rolled around, for no specific reason, I kind of lost my shit.  I'd been holding it together through everything that's been going on to my own surprise for quite a while. I was disappointed in myself for not being able to tough it out, but maybe somehow hitting that point will help get me on the road to things feeling better again.  Sometimes you just have to let yourself go there even if it ain't pretty.

At least the weekend is done.  Even though Mondays are what they are (and tomorrow I have to get up stupidly early for a first thing meeting in the burbs), I always kind of feel peaceful going to bed on Sunday, knowing that a new week starts in the morning, and gives me a new chance to have one that was better than the last...

Trying to remember the good stuff about last week...it couldn't have been all bad...

1. Got a great sweater.
2. Signed up for a cool photo project.
3. Walked around Gastown on a sunny fall afternoon with Stephanie, Q, and Rachael.
4. Spent more time with Scott, Scott, and the Blisses than I had in a while.
5. Got to see lotsa people who I don't see enough of at Scott's going away party.
6. Capers had the really good meat lovers soup again yesterday, which I ate on the patio in the sun.
7. Got a great burito analogy from Travis that totally cheered me up.
8. Signed up for DrupalCon in DC in March.

That's all I got, it's bedtime.

I was just bitching about all the blog posts I need to write, sitting in my backlog, mocking me... and low and behold, someone else adds another to the list!  But this should make for a nice light break from all my emo posts lately, so without further ado... (ack my css needs fixing, but I have no time right now, sorry for the ugly bullets!)

5 Things I was doing 10 years ago:

• Bursting with excitement and settling into my new home with my three new roommates atop Burnaby Mountain, trying to figure out the AQ.
• Playing piano in the SFU jazz band.
• Taking my first course in contemporary art theory from the amazing Ken Anderlini and feeling my brain expand.
• Making friends with an unlikely computer nerd from England (long before I got into anything very computery) who became one of my best friends for the year he was in Canada.
• Grocery shopping via the bus with a very large backpack.

5 Things on my to-do list today:

• Finish writing and post this blog entry.
• Help Scott move the rest of his stuff into storage.
• Wash dishes.
• Prep for meeting tomorrow.
• Stop moping.

5 snacks I like:

• Rice crackers with jam and margarine.
• Rice crackers with hummus and guacamole.
• Soy ice cream.
• Dark chocolate.
• Plain potato chips.

5 Things I would do it I was a millionaire:

• Buy a home/condo.
• Open a music store/book store/cafe (all in one, not one or the other).
• Pay off my cousins' and best friends' student loans.
• Hire a personal chef.
• Make sure I save enough money so I can live off the interest.

5 Places I’ve Lived in (for various lengths of time):

• Saskatoon - house I grew up in.  17 years.  Some of my belongings still live there.
• SFU townhouses -better part of 2 years.
• House on Aubrey St. in Burnaby - about a year (?), with Scott (who I was dating at the time) and Tall Scott; various friends lived here for many years all together.  (This photo is from summer 2003 the day we got back from our 2 month road trip across the country.)



• Condo at UniverCity (at SFU) - 2 years, with Scott during grad school, by far the newest and nicest condo I lived in: gas fireplace, insuite laundry, 2 bathrooms, gas stove!
• Current apartment - 1 year, 7 months and counting.

5 Jobs I have had:

• Biotechnology textbook editor.
• Office assistant.
• Lighting/stage technician for theater.
• Teaching assistant.
• Web development project manager/jack of all trades.

5 People I tag (I'm so sorry for doing this to you!):

• Tylor
• Rachael
• Tall Scott
• Travis
• My mom