Sunny Saturday and Sleep

Since I haven't blogged for the last couple of nights, I thought I should probably do so. Frankly, I've been too damn tired to Blog. After the no sleep Wednesday, Thursday night wasn't as good as I'd hoped it would be. Despite being crazy tired, it still took a long time to fall asleep. Thankfully, last night was a bit better. I'm still waking up a lot in the night but I got to sleep in this morning, so that was very nice. I also had a nice can of Pear Cider this evening so I'm hoping that helps with the sleep too.

It was a beautifully sunny day here today. Too bad it was breezy and that breeze was stupid cold. Stupid weather. We're in for flurries this evening and freezing rain early in the morning then it's going to warm up and the freezing rain will change to normal rain. Looking at the week's forecast, it appears that spring might just be here. Heck, it's supposed to be 20C with rain on Wednesday. Go figure. Weather people are predicting that we'll have a long, hot and humid summer. I'm ok with the long and hot part. The humid part I could do without.

My day was pretty good. I went downtown and cashed in my coupon for a free bottle of perfume that I got for Christmas. The lady said I could have the small bottle for free, or pay $11 and get the big bottle. So, 35ml for free or 60ml for $11. Big bottle it was. I ventured into the market and went to my favourite butcher shop. They had some lamb souvlaki skewers, so I decided to have a Greek night. I bought them and I made some Greek rice and made a Greek Vinaigrette for the Greek salad I made. It was all very good. I also picked up a bottle of my new favourite wine and a couple cans of the Pear Cider I discovered last month. I ran a couple more errands and hit up the grocery store before returning home to bask in the sun coming in my windows.

I started to watch Madagascar 3 this evening. It made me laugh so that's good. I'll watch the other half in the morning.

Since tomorrow is looking like it's going to be a dreary day, I'm going to use it to clean my kitchen. I'm going to make a pasta dish for dinner. It's on the cover of the April issue of Food Network magazine. Looks easy enough. They have a truly kick-ass cake in this issue. It looks just like a flower pot with flowers in it! So cool.

My friend Michelle and I head to Montreal in 13 short days. I'm excited and not excited all at the same time. I have a lot of house work to do before she gets here and work is crazy busy right now so I have to make sure everything's all organized before I leave. That being said, I'm only actually missing 3 days of work and the break will be really good for me and I really am looking forward to seeing Michelle again. It's been a very, very, very long time since I've spent this much time with her, so I'm slightly apprehensive about it too. I'm sure everything will be great. I just hope that Mother Nature co-operates too and gives us some nice weather while we're there. The long range forecast isn't looking very good. But it's still a good ways out.

WTF?? It's 11:30pm and it sounds like someone is walking around upstairs with a peg leg. I swear, I have some of the most disrespectful and inconsiderate neighbours ever. Earlier, I got to listen to the couple down the hall yelling at one and other, again. It's pretty much a weekly event. It's one of the things I miss about my apartment in Calgary. Other than the dude that used to watch porn with the volume up and the naked people who lived in the building beside me, the neighbours were pretty awesome and very quiet.

Anyhow, I can hear my bed calling, so I think it's time to hit the hay and see if I can not only fall asleep quickly, but stay asleep until morning.

Good Night!

Sarah

Sunny Saturday, Spring Cleaning and Strength

I haven't been in much of a blogging mood lately and frankly, I've been too damn tired. So I decided I'd better log in tonight and get some words on the screen. Thanks to Daylight Savings Time, I'm going to bed an hour later than planned. To off set this, I shall attempt to sleep in an extra hour tomorrow morning. Not sure if it will work but it's worth a try. My mother tried to tell me that clocks go back an hour tonight instead of going an hour forward. I think she was just trying to find a way to sleep in an extra hour tomorrow.

I had a pretty darn good day today. One of the best I've had in a while. The sun was out and that seemed to be the key. I stood on my balcony in the sun for a bit this morning and it felt glorious. I'm in spring cleaning mode too. I had originally planned to stay home and just clean all day but this afternoon I decided that it was too nice to stay home all day so I escaped for a bit.

Before I left, I managed to get the dishes done, a load of laundry done and some dusting done. I then went downtown, had a Beavertail, walked around the market, taking in the wonderful sunshine, stopped at the butcher and bought a beautiful New York Strip for dinner and then came back home. I did some more cleaning once I was home. I tackled the greasy vent cover that's in the hood over my stove. Thanks to Pinterest, I got it clean without any effort. Just some boiling water and baking soda. Amazing. I also got the burner inserts clean that way. My stove is spotless (for now). I got the toilet cleaned and my bookshelf dusted too. I was on quite the roll. I really do love Pinterest. I was standing in the kitchen, holding the filter and trying to figure out how to clean the damn thing when suddenly, magic words popped into my head. They were "go check on Pinterest". I'm so smart! The answer was there and it worked and now I have a clean filter. Yay!

Tonight I watched the movie "The Other Guys". It was horrible. So I watched the first half of Mall Rats to make up for it. I'll finish watching it sometime tomorrow. I'm hoping to continue my cleaning spree tomorrow.

Adding to my good mood today was that I booked 2 trips this morning. Nothing overly exciting but I'm happy about them. The first is in April. I'm going to Montreal with my old friend Michelle. We're taking the train from my house, which is awesome since I love taking the train and it's a great trip from Ottawa to Montreal (and faster than driving). The best part is that I used some networking skills to get us a LUXURY hotel room for a very budget friendly price. I'm very excited. I can't wait to see what kind of shenanigans we get up to when left to our own devices in Montreal. This is going to be great.
The other trip I booked was just a train ticket home for the May long weekend. My bday (a kind of big one) is one the Thursday before the long weekend and my Great Aunt's 80th bday is the Friday of the long weekend, so I'm heading home to go to her party. I'm really looking forward to seeing my family. I haven't seen them since Christmas so this will be great. I hope the weather is nice.

Since it's actually 12:34am instead of the 11:34pm that my clock says, I really should get to bed. I have a lot more cleaning ahead of me tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be warm but cloudy and maybe some rain in the late afternoon. Perfect cleaning or book reading weather. I have a couple of books that need to be read so we'll see what happens. I found a very yummy sounding scone recipe on Pinterest too that I might attempt. LOL. This truly was a good day. I'm starting to feel like myself again and I really don't have the words to explain how amazing that feels. It's more relief than anymore. The days are getting longer, the shadows are weaken. Step by step, I'm walking back out of the darkness and into the light again.The birds chirping this morning is the kind of sound that makes my soul smile. We're not totally out of winter's grasp yet but we're close and I'm experiencing a strong sense of relief and accomplishment. I've made it through another winter in one piece, coming out into spring, just a little bit stronger than I was when I went in late last fall.

Good Night!

Sarah

My favourite sign of spring: Lily of the Valley

DIE HARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today was an interesting day at work. I spent most of the morning running around, almost quite literally. I had to venture over to two of our other buildings for things, which was thrilling. I did get to the see the new office of our former office mates and it was pretty cool. They have an amazing view which I'm completely jealous of. The colour scheme leaves a little something to be desired though.

My afternoon was busy with travel stuff (not my own sadly) and other paperwork that needed to get done. All went well so I'm happy about that.

This evening was fan-freakin-tastic!!!!!!!!!! I went out for dinner and a movie with 3 guys. LOL. Mandy, JD and I headed out from work and stopped at the mall food court, where wet met up with my buddy Xtinktor. We all had dinner (Mandy was very excited about Kojaks, I don't get it) and then we headed out to Kanata to my favourite movie theatre in the city where we saw "A Good Day to Die Hard" - the newest Die Hard movie. Number 5 in the series if you're counting.

It. Was. Awesome.  Lots and lots of shit got blown up and the movie starts with a pretty cool car chase. I'm pretty sure they totalled more cars in the first 15 minutes of  the movie than they have in all 4 previous Die Hard films combined. And there was a great 1-liner which was a throw back to the very first Die Hard film so that was cool. The movie was awesome simply because it was lots of fun to watch. Lots of action and lots of stuff going boom. The plot was ok, the dialogue wasn't anything special but that is not why you got and see a Die Hard film. You go to see great explosions and to see whether or not Bruce Willis' character can still walk by the end of the movie. It's a fun escape. There's no thinking involved. No sappy love stories, no crying, no deep contemplation on the universe. Just out and out pyrotechnical awesomeness.

The one thing it did make me realize is that I need to get out more! I'm going to work on that.

I need to sleep now. I have French class tomorrow afternoon and I kind of need to be alert for that, especially since I'm taking notes for 2 people now (my co-worker is still off on a course).

Good Night!

Sarah

BOOM!!!

Dragons

I'm feeling a little old tonight. I remember looking forward to Friday nights. Looking forward to going out to catch a double feature at the movies and not caring that the second movie would end just a little before midnight. Or heading out to the bar after 9. Or just staying up late watching tv or talking or whatever other shenanigans that came our way. Now the biggest thing about Friday nights is the excitement I get knowing that I can sleep in tomorrow. Frig, I know senior citizens who have more exciting lives than I do.Sigh.

It was a long day at work today and a very busy one. Upside was that the day flew by. Downside is that my poor desk once again looks like a tornado hit it. Next week I'm covering for one of our finance admins so I have a bunch of finance stuff I HAVE TO take care of on Monday morning. Here's hoping I don't screw it up too badly.

I watched "How To Train Your Dragon" tonight (See? Told you I have a thrilling life). I've never actually seen it before. I quite enjoyed it. It's a cute little movie and I loved Toothless the Dragon. Adorable. I'm usually not a big fan of animated movies but there are some really good ones out there.

In case anyone is counting, this is blog #199. Hot damn eh? The next blog I do will be my 200th one. I know I'm pretty damn impressed by that. I've been blogging for just over 6 months now and have more than 6000 page views. I honestly can't believe that anyone would want to read my mostly pointless ramblings. Apparently I entertain some people. Who knew? Certainly not me. I guess I'm going to have to sit and think up something really awesome for my next blog. Something really special.

But for now, I'm going to sleep on it. Yes, I'm a single 30 something and I'm going to bed at 10:23pm on a Friday night. And yes, I'm going to bed alone :p

Good Night!

Sarah

It's not a dragon, but it's close!

Karma and Happy Endings

So I get on the bus this morning. It's on the full side, as per usual and I end up standing next to the rear door. There is a lady sitting on the outside of the last 2-seater before the door. The seat next to her is empty. It pisses me off to no extent when people do this. It's a crowded bus, move your ass over lady! I don't mind standing in the mornings as I know I'll be sitting a lot when I get to work. Anyhow, said lady shoots me a kind of dirty look over her shoulder. I'm like WTF? I may have accidentally brushed her arm when I first got on the bus and we were all re-arranging ourselves for positions, but I don't think I did.

At the next stop, a man gets on and asks her for the window seat. She gets up and lets him in and then sits back down and shoots me another dirty look. Seriously? I'm just standing there, out of the way. As we're chugging along going down the Parkway, I'm looking out the door of the bus, watching the scenery go by when I get a funny feeling and I look over just in time to see her giving me a 3rd dirty look. Now I'm really getting annoyed. I haven't bumped her. I don't have my iPod on so it can't be that my music is too loud (besides she had earphones in) and I wasn't coughing my head off. I ignore her.

A few stops later the man next to her gets off. She doesn't move over, just sits back down in the aisle seat even though the bus is much more crowded now than when I got on. At the next stop after than, a young girl get her to move and sits down. Again the woman gave me a dirty look. Hey lady, it's not my fault people keep getting you to stand up so they can get in and sit down.

We finally get downtown and this is where Karma pays a visit. We're at the stop before mine. We've been there for about a minute. Everyone who was queued up to get off the bus has done so. The driver has closed the door and the exit light has just gone off when bitchy lady looks up, gasps and then bolts from her seat and runs to the door....just as the bus is pulling away from the stop. HA! Serves you right. However, she then proceeds to put her backpack on while standing at the door, and hits both women on either side of her in the process. What a douche bag.

On a happier note, Steph and I went to see Breaking Dawn, part 2 tonight. It's the final film in the Twilight series. It was actually a really good movie. And despite the fact that the ending isn't quite the same as it is in the book, I really, really like it. It's one of the best in the series for sure. I still like I liked the 3rd one better but this one came really close to being #1 for me. And other than 2 girls who kept running up and down the aisles until some guy told them off and the loud mouth dude behind us, the audience was really good too. We also only paid $3 each to see the movie :)

I should wrap this up and head to bed. The wind has picked up here so my apartment is nice and cool and I'm looking forward to burrowing into my soft sheets. The simple pleasures in life.

Good Night!

Sarah

Twilight - get it? LOL!

Gracious People

I was a much warmer day today so I was able to wear one of my new dresses to work. I'm not crazy enough to freeze my ass off, waiting for the bus in tights when it's -25 with the windchill. Doing it at -1 is much more reasonable.

More people managed to hunt me down today but that's ok. It was all easy to deal with stuff. Our office is very, very full. While walking the floor today, there was people everywhere. And we're missing a bunch of people too. Everyone's sick. It's crazy. I think we're going to have to start building bunk-bed style desks soon :)

I made another awesome dinner tonight. I made pork chops in mushroom sauce with sauteed brussel sprouts and cumin basmati rice. It was really good. I made the mushroom sauce from scratch with fresh mushrooms. I think it was the best part of the meal. There was some onions and garlic in there too. I've been doing a very good job of cooking from scratch lately. I'm quite enjoying it. I don't know what I'm making tomorrow night yet but I don't think I'm going to be home for dinner. I'm supposed to go to the movies after work. I'm finally going to see Breaking Dawn Part 2. It's at the cheap theatre so paying $3 to see it is a pretty good deal.

Sometimes people surprise me. I got one of those surprises this afternoon. One of my favourite musicians is going through a hard time in his professional career, yet he continues to be so incredibly position and gracious. And he's a younger guy too. So many rock and roll musicians are all about partying, sex and drugs. But not this one. He's definitely not your stereotypical rocker. Might be part of why I like him so much. I'm also a fan of his killer guitar skills. But yeah, he's being so professional and so patient, it's incredible to watch.He seems mature beyond his years. I'd like to think that he's like that in real like too and not just putting on a public show, but it's great to know that people like him still exist.

I hear my book calling me so it's off to bed I go. And yes mom, I did do you my dishes. LOL!

Good Night!

Sarah

More Adventure Shopping and Why My Parents Aren't Allowed To Pick Movies Anymore

I've had a very harrowing day.

This morning, my mother, who hates to shop and hates crowds says to me "I guess we'd better go to Costco". What? Are you serious? It's the Sunday before New Year's and it's almost noon. And you voluntarily want to go to Costco? Turns out my dad needed his pills, which happen to be at the Costco pharmacy. I get it.

Since I'm almost always up for an adventure, off we go. The parking lot was a zoo. Several people took it upon themselves to "invent" parking spots, despite the fact that there were lots of available parking spaces at the far end of the lot. I guess lazy wins out over legal and safe. Inside the store wasn't much better. People were going every which way and there were little mobs of people all over the store wherever there was a free sample stand. But we were on a mission. I was looking for a very specific desk calendar and we needed dad's pills. And we pulled it off. Not only did we manage to get out alive and without any issues of cart rage, I also passed up a poutine and hot dog and we were home in an hour. We also got my calendar, dad's pills, some sinus medication for me, a case of Bush's beans for my parents and a bag of Cashew Clusters. After our adventure, I made lunch for my parents and myself. My dad took two bites of his egg, ran upstairs and threw up again. He then thanked me for the egg, because he felt monumentally better. Wish I could say the same thing for the bath mats. They got washed this afternoon :) You know the saying "It's not over until the fat lady sings"? In this house it's "The flu's not over until the bath mats get puked on". Good going dad.

Mom and I baked a ham for dinner and I made cheesy crescent rolls to go along with it. My dad managed to eat something that resembled dinner and kept it down, so that's a good sign.

My parents then decided to torture me as only they can. It started out innocently enough. Mom said "Let's watch a movie". Dad said "sure". So mom starts reading off the movie titles that they own (which is about 15 movies in total). I keep saying "no". I passed on one called "Superhero Movie". You guesses it. It's a spoof on Super Hero movies. Next thing I know, my dad's asking to read the back of it. Crap. Mom decided it would be good because it has Leslie Neilson and Pamela Anderson in it. I tried to explain to her that that wasn't a good sign but she didn't listen. So they decide to watch it. Those are 75 minutes that I'm never getting back. It spoofed Spiderman, Batman, X-Men, Fantastic Four....etc. It was brutal. Which means that my parents loved it. During one scene, which involved the two main characters, trying to have a romantic love scene, during which a lot of farting is coming from the main character's aunt, I thought my mom was literally going to fall out of her chair, she was laughing that hard. I think I had more fun watching my parents than I did watching the movie. I think I'm going to have to walk my ass to the store tomorrow and pick out some movies for the evening. If I leave it up to the other two, more brains cells might be killed needlessly. I'm also pretty sure that the end of the movie stole a scene from the movie Airplane too. Anything that references Airplane isn't good. And it had horrible, horrible sexual references through out the entire thing as well. And seeing as I was watching it with my parents, it was just that much worse. I think I'm scarred for life.

On that note, it's time to pop some sinus medication and head to bed. The damn snow plow woke me up at 2 something this morning after it decided to go down our street 5 times. Seriously! It's a small street. WTF??

Good Night!

Sarah

My mom took this very pretty photo today - it's her Christmas cactus and icicles in our front window.

Shopping Queen

Not much to report in my universe tonight. It was an ok day. All 3 of us had a rough night's sleep, with various things waking us up through out the night/early morning. As a result, it was a slow start to the day. I got out first and started to shovel since the white stuff just keep coming (not as bad as what Ottawa/Montreal got though). Afterwards, I pouted enough to get the 'rents to take me shopping. My poor dad still isn't feeling well. I figure mom should be good to go tomorrow and dad will be another 2 days. This is the first day that I've felt normal all day so I'm thrilled about that.

I did get to hit up one store and I got my shop on. I did very well too. 5 new pieces of clothing: 2 dresses, 2 tops, 1 skirt and a 2 pack of slipper socks for $100. I think that was pretty well done. I'm a fan of the words "50% off the lowest marked price". Seriously. I got a dress (work style) for $14.99. How awesome is that?

I'm currently contemplating going to church in the morning with my grandparents and my great aunt and uncle. While it would be great to see them and spend time with them, it still involves going to church and sitting through a sermon. It's not that I have issues with God, it's more like I have issues with religion in general and I really don't like being preached at. We'll see how I feel in the morning. I'm having some sinus problems at the moment and I don't want to be blowing my noise all through a church service.

It's kind of ironic about the church thing. When my brother and I were little, my parents dragged us to church every Sunday. I even have Sunday School Perfect Attendance Awards to prove it. Yet my grandparents never went. Fast forward to now and it's my grandparents that go and not us. And trust me, they try the guilt thing to get us to go too. I think that's a little hypocritical.

It's too late at night to really get into that one though, so I'll end it here. I should get to bed soon. I'm hoping my sinus thing isn't going to turn into a sinus cold. Knowing me, it probably will and that will royally suck.

Good Night!

Sarah

Thankfully, it's not quite this snowy here.

Solid Foods and Turkey Farts

Well this is a new one. Usually your parents tell you get to bed. My mother told me that I'm not allowed to go to bed until I've blogged, so that she has something to read in the morning. Easy for her to say. She's the one that had the 2+ hour nap this afternoon.

Yes, that means that we're both feeling better and by some bizarre miracle, my dad didn't catch the flu. I guess that's a good thing seeing as he's a big baby when he's sick. I guess most men are really.

Today was a better day. I've eaten solids today and even some gummy candies so I'm doing much better. I also disinfected the bathroom and scrubbed the toilet while mom and dad shovelled. We got 13cms of snow overnight so it actually looks like winter now. I was too sore to shovel so I opted to scrub the toilet instead, seeing as I helped in it's violation. It was the least I could do. I'm still on the sore side. It really hurts to sneeze, blow my nose or laugh though. Seeing as I'm allergic to half this house, it's been a painful day. My parents keep laughing at me when I sneeze.

Oh dear. My dad has turkey farts. My mom is in for a smelly night. LOL. Better her than me! And thank god dad's in another room right now.

Mom and I watched the movie "Brave" tonight. It's a very cute movie. I quite liked it, except when I laughed, which just plain hurt, and that made my mom laugh so she deserves to be stuck in a bed with a man who has turkey farts. I suppose that's the one upside to having had the flu - no turkey farts.

I think I'm actually going to attempt getting up and going outside tomorrow. It's grocery shopping day for my parents and I know my mom hates doing it. I don't mind it so I'll gladly tag along and help her out. I'm sure the fresh air will do me good as well.

Oh! And my brother is even more shit. Not only did he give us the flu, but he stole my mom's lighter on the way out of the house on boxing day. He's pretty high on mom's shit list right now. LOL.

Alright, I think it's time to log off. I didn't have a nap today so I'm on the tired side. Here's hoping tomorrow is less painful than today.

Good Night,

Sarah

Dad making things go "Boom"

The Busiest and Loneliest Time Of The Year

Boy did I ever had a productive day today!

I was awake at 8am and up and moving by 8:15. I did 4 loads of laundry, most of which were dedicates and couldn't go in the dryer so there are currently damp clothes strewn all over my apartment. The up side is that my apartment smell great thanks to my fabric softener.  After all that, I grabbed my mail and headed to the post office where I patiently waited in line. The man before me was sending a money order. Just as his transaction was finishing, the store's computer system froze/crashed. The manager guy said that it would take a half hour to reboot. Nuts to that. So I headed onto stop #2: Walmart.

Before I could arrive at Walmart, I saw a bus coming that would take me to Carlingwood, and there's a postal outlet there. So off I went, on an unscheduled detour. I was able to mail my packages and did a little shopping. I was able to pick up 3 more small gifts there, ran into Xtina's parents, whom I haven't seen in quite some time, had a little chat with them and then I grabbed lunch to go and came home to eat. After watching A Flintstones Christmas and eating my lunch, it was back out the door for my next stop: Bayshore.

Being the 2nd last weekend before Christmas, the mall was predictably insane. I ran into one of my co-workers and his wife there and chatted with them for a few minutes. Then it was off to the eyeglass store to get one of my new pairs adjusting. One of the arms had been digging into my ear. Not so pleasant. But it's all good now! I then went on and did a little more shopping and got the gift for the Secret Santa gift exchange at work. After fighting my way through the crowds at Bayshore, it was off to attempt Walmart again since I got distracted the first time.

I made it to Walmart. Thankfully, it wasn't too zoo-like seeing as it was heading into the dinner hour. I was able to find most of what I was looking for and get out of there without having to spend too long standing in line.

After that, I finally headed home. I ordered in Swiss Chalet for dinner and watched Corner Gas and then got caught up on the last 2 episodes of Elementary that I had missed. Add in killing some time on Facebook and putting some clothes away in my closet and you have my evening so far. It's not thrilling, but it's relaxing and peaceful, which is just what I need.

Christmas is awesome. It's full of pretty lights and shiny things, peace, love and good cheer. Happy memories, laughter and good food. But for me, Christmas is also the loneliest time of the year.

80% of the time, I'm perfectly happy and content with being single and being on my own. But not at Christmas. Heck, Valentine's Day is a cake walk compared to this. Out shopping today, everywhere you looked it was families shopping together or couples walking hand in hand down the hall. Except for that one poor guy that I passed who was standing there all alone, surrounded by about 20 bags. You knew damn well that he was only there to "guard" them and that there was likely a gaggle of females near by purchasing more to the add to the poor guy's collection.

Yes, some of my feelings of lowliness can be attributed to the fact that my seasonal depression is at its worst now, being that the shortest day of the year is only 4 days before Christmas, but this feel isn't the same. It's not depression. It's different. It's like my soul is reaching out and saying "hey, something's missing". More like someone's missing.

My great aunt and uncle had their Christmas open house today. I miss going to that, a lot. I do miss my family and I am very excited that I get to see them in 6 more sleeps. Sometimes I wish I could call up my mom and just go out with her for lunch and shopping, like I see so many people doing. Or pop in for Sunday dinner. I guess not being able to see them very often makes the times I do see them so much more valuable and meaningful.

But getting back to the being single at Christmas thing. Everyone says to me "but you don't have the pressure of trying to find them the perfect gift." Are you kidding me? I would gladly take that pressure in exchange for having someone special in my lift right now. Someone to curl up on the couch and watch movies with on cold winter nights. Someone to share hot chocolate with. Someone to kiss under the mistletoe and to kiss at midnight when the New Year comes rushing in.  You know, someone to share the stupid, sappy, cheesey things with that most people take for granted because they just don't know what it's like not to have those things. Hell, pretty much every Christmas carol or Christmas movie illustrates to point of having a special someone at Christmas. Even Clark W Griswold had his wife at his side as be bungled his way through Christmas. And even the Grinch finds love (in the Jim Carey version that is).

Ironically, as I sit here and write about being lonely, a group of co-workers are out watching a fellow co-woker's band play - to which I was invited. I said no thanks because I wanted to be alone to night. There is a major different between being alone and being lonely. I would have liked to gone out with them but pretending to be happy right now is so exhausting that I didn't think I'd be able to last the night. Maybe if the venue had been closer to my place and I was able to leave whenever I wanted instead of waiting on someone for a ride, I might have gone but I figured it was safer this way. You can be surrounded by 50 friends and still be the loneliest person in the room or you can be in a room all alone and not feel lonely at all.

I didn't decorate my apartment this year (or last year either), mostly because I thought to myself "Why bother? No one sees it but me." Which is very true. I did put up a few small things but I didn't bother with the tree or the lights. I did do something different this year. Every Christmas card I receive, I tape to the back of my front door. This way I see the cards almost all the time and am reminded of the people out there who love me :)

I know that I am loved. And I love lots of people too. It's just that one love, that one special love that I'm missing. And this just happens to be the time of the year that it hurts the most. In a couple of weeks, I'll be fine again. I'll be caught up in the hope and renewal that the New Year brings with it. I'll be back into the swing of things at work, the days will slowly start getting longer again and my loneliness will fade. It always does.

So now, my lonely self and I are going to change into our jammies,  get a bowl of frozen yogurt, pop "National Lampoons Christmas Vacation" into the DVD player and laugh out butt off for a bit. Then it's off to bed to spend the night dreaming of the mysterious Mr. Right....he might not be here at the moment but I have unwavering faith that he's out there and when it's meant to be, he'll be here.

If you're reading this and you're lucky enough to have that special someone in your life, grab them, find some mistletoe and remind them how special they are and how lucky you both are.

Good Night!

Sarah

Christmas light mistletoe

It's A Wonderful Life

So I'm thinking that the Christmas spirit might have found me.

After a very productive morning, I braved the cold to do some more Christmas shopping. And it was fucking cold out. Still is. It was the stupid wind. Cut right through you. It was so bad that when I topped at Mark's to look for a gift, I ended up buying myself new, warm mittens because my gloves weren't keeping my hands warm enough.

Anyhow, I was in Canadian Tire and I took a tour though the Christmas decoration section. It was so beautiful. Shiney and sparklie and it made me smile. I also caught myself humming "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" as I wandered the isles. They have some pretty cool lights now. I have to admit that I'm still not a fan of the LED lights. The old school ones are prettier and the colours are better but some of the new ones are interesting and fun.

After Canadian Tire, I bought a wonderful fruitcake from the Lions Club. It's a dark one. My favourite. My mother is quite the fan of fruitcake too, so maybe I'll see if I can hold off eating it and just take it home with me at Christmas and share it with her.

Now I'm at home, resting and relaxing and watching "It's a Wonderful Life". The original one, in black and white. I'd forgotten how long this movie is though. But it means that I must be getting in the Christmas spirit. I'm even thinking about decorating. I didn't put up my tree last year. Didn't really decorate either. I got to visit my family at Christmas so I figure that I don't need a tree here. But I think I might put mine up for me this year. We'll see.

Back to the movie for a minute. Watching this old movie reminded me of a family friend, Mr. B. Today was a very special day for him. He turned 100 years old today. Amazing. Simply amazing. I can only imagine all the things he's seen and experienced over the last century. He lived through 2 world wars (and fought in the 2nd one), lived through the great depression and the cold war. He saw the development of cars, television and computers, not to mention cell phones and the internet. I can't fathom it. All the people he's met, all the memories he's made. It just blows my mind. I wish him nothing but the best and I hope he has many more happy and healthy years ahead of him.

I'm going to sign off and go and see if George Bailey can sort things out and see if Clarence can get his wings.

Good Night!

Sarah

Christmas at home 2 years ago.

Scary Shenanigans

I haven't seen my friend Stephanee in nearly 2 months. This is very rare for us. So tonight we made plans to go out and see a movie since it's cheap Tuesday. But first, I ask her to take me the "Spirit of Halloween" store so I can look for some make up for my costume. Sounds innocent enough, right? Nope.

Steph is a big 'ol scary cat (but I still love her!) and she really, REALLY hates spiders. I dislike them too but I'm ok with fake ones. Not Steph. So my job was to warn/protect her about/from the spiders in the store. I totally failed that job in less than 30 seconds. Here's how:

I walk in the door. To the left is a life size Frankenstein which moves and moans. To the right is a big furry spider about the side of a Jack Russell dog. I turn around, look at Steph and say "watch out, there's a big ass spider on the right" and I walk through the door way. Steph is right behind me, takes one step and the god damned spider jumps out at her. I swear to god. She screams a little, jumps a mile in the air and books it into the store with her hand clutched to her heart. I'm holding onto a shelf for support because I'm laughing so hard. Yes, I'm that supportive of a friend. Turns out, it's a "jumping spider" and somehow I managed to miss stepping on the sensor when I walked in but Steph didn't. Poor Steph.

Then something strange happened. A kid, maybe 9 years old (thank god Steph didn't swear when the spider pounced) comes right up to me and asks me if I'd like my fortune told. I politely said no thank you and he said ok and wandered off. Odd. Moving on.

Everywhere you look they had fake spiders on display. On the top of a rounder, they had a big, fluffy brown and grey spider (it was like a stuffed animal, only it was a spider) so I walked up to it and pet it saying "nice spider". Steph shuddered. I laughed.

Next we moved into the back room where more terror (and spiders) waited for us. This room had lots of masks in it along with life size moving characters like the villain from Scream and some other random monster and of course, a Mike Myers mask. Apparent Steph really doesn't like him either. So much so that when I had to go back into that room to get some make up, she waited in the main part of the store.

We were then looking at some decorations. I found these cool labels that you can put on bottles. One said "Zombie Juice" and I was joking about putting it on a co-worker's water bottle when the same kid from earlier comes walking up to me again. He looks at me and says "Zombie juice! So that's where that is. I've been looking for that" and then he takes the package out of my hands and runs off across the store yelling "dad! dad!". WTF??? Are you starting to see why kids terrify me?

Anyhow, I ended up getting the labels and some "Zombie Caution Tape" and a make up kit. It was now time to get back out of the store. I know what you're thinking. This should be good, right? No worries, it was.

I go out first and this time I step on the senor and the spider jumps out. So I'm standing there, holding the door open and Steph is still a good 5 feet inside the store. So I ask her what she's doing. She said that she's waiting for the spider to go back down. So I stand there, holding the door open and wait. I have a nice conversation with Frankenstein while I wait. He wasn't to talkative. Finally Steph makes a run for it. Yes, she ran out of the store, leaving the guy who'd been standing behind her killing himself laughing. I just shook me head.

We got to the movie safe and sound. It was wonderful. It was funny and very entertaining and best of all, involved no spiders. I highly recommend it and might even go and see it again when it gets to the cheap theatre.

So a big thank-you to Steph for a fun night out and for entertaining the hell out of me. Thank you for facing your fears long enough to let me shop. I really appreciate it. And I'm still going to make you go to Saunder's Farm and go on the haunted hayride with me :)

Good Night!

Sarah

Pretty spider web - but no spider!

The Journey

Believe it or not, but I actually enjoyed working today. I know, that seems odd being it's Saturday and all. But it was nice. It was a huge change from my regular routine and I quite enjoyed that. I was actually able to focus on one task and was able to keep at it, without interruptions, for hours on end. That never happens!!! It was great. I enjoyed learning a new process too. I think learning things keeps our minds sharp.

Afterwards, I did a little shopping, visited with a friend for a little bit, did a little more shopping and got to ride the train home. Granted, it only has 5 stops beginning to end, but it was a nice change of scenery and I was enjoying being out and about. Tonight I watched "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" and half of The Avengers. The first one was a total rip off of "A Christmas Carol", just turned into a rom-com.  The second one has been good, but I'm too tired to pay attention anymore.

Not sure what tomorrow holds for me yet, but organizing my life seems like a good plan. I know where I am now. I know where I'd like to be. Now I just have to figure out how to get from A to B. Perhaps if I organize things better and re-arrange some things, I might be able to catch a glimpse of the path between the two and I'll have an idea of where to head.
It's hard not knowing how to get somewhere. I suppose it would be easier if I just broke it down into smaller bit, like stepping stones. As I make my way from the first stone to the second one, the third one will appear. They say that life is all about the journey, not the destination. But it's the journey that is the hard part, the scary part. But nothing in life worth doing is easy. And no one ever said that it would be easy - just that it would be worth it.

Good Night,

Sarah

Just An Ordinary Day

I had a very lovely day today. I ventured down to the Byward Market for their sidewalk sale. I got some special "healing" bath salts for 30% off so that was nice. My buddy Xtinktor came with me as he needed something from the Apple store. It was great having someone to chat with and to carry my heavy veggies for me. LOL. I hit up the Italian market and got some very nice Capicola ham and Spicy Pancetta to put on the pizza I made tonight. I also picked up fresh cauliflower, peaches, blueberries, potatoes and corn. I love having access to a farmer's market. It really is a wonderful thing.

For dinner I made pizza, including the dough from scratch. Sort of ran into a problem there. I use 1 cup of whole wheat and 1/2 cup of white flour in my recipe. I don't have any white flour right now, so I substituted some gluten free all purpose flour....big mistake. LOL. The dough rose but the texture was off and it wouldn't stretch properly, thanks to the missing gluten. Oops. I was able to press it out flat on a cookie sheet and continued on. It tasted just fine.  Live and learn, right?

I watched "Back to the Future 3" this evening. I love those movies. Xtinktor and I were talking about older movies today, specifically Ghost Busters (another classic) and the Indiana Jones series. Why can't they make movies like those anymore? Ok, the 4th Indiana Jones was more recent and there's supposed to be a Ghost Busters in the works but there nothing quite like those anymore. Sigh. Maybe I'm just feeling old. Actually, I said something today that made me feel old. I said "I can remember watching that on VHS". Damn.

Can't say I really have much on my mind tonight. The double chocolate cupcake and glass of wine that I had earlier seem to have cleared out my brain for the time being :) I was thinking about how nice it would be to have someone to cuddle with while I was watching the movie tonight, but then I was hot and decided that I would have just been hotter with someone next to me so why bother? Yeah. I'm blaming that thought process on the wine. Might account for why I was being warm too.

Ok, enough rambling. I need to get me some shut eye.

Good Night!

Sarah