Go Ahead – Ask Me!

It’s official….I live in a cold climate.  For the first time in 30 years I wore a toque!  I have come to notice that many people wear toques here and that looking pretty is gone out the window in the winter months.  I ventured over to MEC today and bought a new toque, just so I could be in fashion and of course warm.  I don’t like wearing them as my hair goes flat when I take them off, so I have decided that I will be a “toque person” and join the crowd of people that wear them indoors!

Much More Than a Mom has awarded me with the Christmas Spirit Award and I think I have a great Christmas Spirit (at least this year I do).

Christmas Spirit Award rules:
You must be a true Christmas lover to receive this award. The person to whom you give the award must also be in love with Christmas. You must link back to the person who gave you the award. You must list 5 things that you love about Christmas. If you can’t limit it to 5 things, then keep going till you run out of space! Pass the award along to as many people as you like.That can be 1 or 45; it’s up to you. But, you must pass it on to at least one person in order to keep the Christmas cheer going! Let your recipients know that you have tagged them by leaving them a comment.

Things I Love About Christmas:

* I love the Christmas lights either on people’s homes or the big light displays around the city.

*I love sending out Christmas cards.

* I love recieving Christmas cards, I get excited when I open the mail box and see a tons of cards waiting for me.

*I love how Christmas brings out the “goodness” in strangers and I get goose bumps everytime I hear about donations that are made for the those that are in need.

*I love helping out strangers who need it and appreciate it.

* I enjoy watching someone open a present and have their face light up with joy.

*I enjoy spoiling others.

* I LOVE Christmas music.  I start playing it on December 1st and I don’t stop until the day after Christmas (okay maybe a couple of days).  I recently found a radio station that plays continuous Christmas music – how awesome is that!

*Spending time with my family and friends.

* The Christmas food!

I will tag Stephanie

I can’t believe that Christmas is almost here.  I have finished my Christmas shopping and done the decorating.  Now I’m just enjoying the Christmas atmosphere in this city.  I have gone to the big out door festivities, called “Bright Lights”.  It is a big park that has decorated the trees and landscape in lights and so big that you have to drive around it.  This weekend we are going to Candy Cane lane, which is a street where all the houses are extremely decorated with lights.  I am very excited, as I love the Christmas light displays.  If it’s not too cold then we are going to go walk around the grounds at the  Legislature building as they have their trees all lit up.

I forgot how much moving sucks.  It’s one thing to move across town but it’s another thing to pick up your life and move cities.  Not only have do I have to learn a new city but a new job.  I started my orientation at the cancer institute and it was been very interesting but very overwhelming with all the information and new stuff I have to learn.

I’m also having to deal with Human Resources that don’t seem to know how to transfer RRSP…it’s done through my union so it can’t be THAT hard but no one seems to know what to do.  GRRRR. This just adds to my stress and frustration.  AND on top of that every time I have a question I have to contact a different HR person.  Now why can’t they make it easier and have 1 HR person to do everything???  Don’t most companies have 1 person?  It would make my life easier to talk to one person about everything instead of trying to track down 3 different people.

Moving to a new place isn’t so bad, it’s all the small crap that goes along with is that sucks.  Thank goodness through all this I have had the BF to help me, I don’t know if I could have done this without his help.

I haven’t been on here for awhile, as I’m moving in 3 weeks.  I have decided to move in with the BF, which means moving to another city.  It’s been many years since I have moved cities and I have accumulated a lot of crap.  I spent the last weekend sorting, purging and packing my house.  I am really looking forward to this move, but I wish could wave a magic wand and have it all done.

A couple of weeks ago I met the BF in Kananaskis country.  He was there for a conference so I went up to meet him.  We had decided to go for a walk after dinner.  We were walking along the paved pathway, not far from the hotel and we were coming around a bend and I saw something and thought to myself “oh look it’s a black lab” .  The animal turned it’s head and I realized it was a bear! (It was less than 50 feet away). Remember the bear story….well I froze when I saw this bear and panic started to set in.  I turned around and headed in the opposite direction at the same time saying to my BF we need to get out of here.  I was so freaked out!  The entire time we walked back to the hotel, I kept checking behind me to make sure the bear wasn’t following me.

On Saturday night my BF and I went out for drinks and dinner with an old colleague of his.  We went to The Fairmont Hotel Macdonald.  I was browsing this martini book, that did not have any price listing.  I thought to myself that they must be in the $16-$18 range.  I picked this martini (and for the life me I can’t remember the name of it).  The person we were with totally recommended this martini.  I was feeling really good, face was flushed, the cheeks were feeling somewhat numb, which only means one thing…I have drank alot.  Apartly that was an awesome martini.  During the course of our conversation it came up about the cost of my martini…IT WAS $39!!!!!  I nearly fell off my chair.  I couldn’t believe that I had ordered a $39 martini, but boy it was the best damn martini I have ever had….now if I could only remember the name of it!

The BF and I have been on holidays for the past 11 days.  It was great to spend so much time together as we usually only get to spent 2-3 days with each other due to distance.  The BF came down on the Friday of the September long weekend and showed up with the Magic Bullet blender for me.  I have been wanting one for the last year but never got around to buying one.  I love it!!!  I have been making smoothies every day with it.

We left on the Monday for Waterton and had a fabulous time. I’ve never stayed over night so that was a real treat.  On Tuesday we drove down to Glacier National park and stopped at Logan’s pass.  Then we were off to Jasper.  We spent several days exploring Jasper and what an amazing place.  We saw Mount Edith Cavell, Athabasca Falls and Maligne Canyon.  We went to the Miette Hotspring and took the Jasper Tramway to the top of Whistler mountain. We loved it so much that we would like to go back next year and explore some more areas that we didn’t to this trip.

We did almost 3000Km of driving and we were tired when we got back home, but it was worth it!

I went a little camera crazy and took tons of pictures.  This was taken on the top of Whistler mountain.  We took the Jasper Tramway to the top and then I walked along the top of the mountain.

I never knew there was a “process” involved with painting nails. I have painted my toe nails since I was a kid and I just applied the nail polish and never gave it a second thought..until last week. I had a pedicure done and I learned that I have being doing it wrong all these years (I hang my head in shame). First you need to apply a base coat, then the nail polish and last is the top coat….who knew! I was very happy with the final results.

Last weekend I met my BF’s parents. We drove down to see them, they live about 1.5 hours away from me. I was really nervous meeting them. It had been a long time, since a boy took me home to meet his parents. I don’t know why I was nervous because they were very nice and made me feel very welcomed. I also got to meet the BF’s brother, sister-in-law, their children and various other people. There were times I felt a little overwhelmed with so many people around. I’m not used to big families. I have one brother and growing up I never had any relatives around – they all live in England. So I don’t know what it is like to be around big families. I survived and everyone was really nice and friendly.

Yesterday I went hiking for the first time this summer. That is pretty sad, as I usually start in May. The weather this year was crappy in May and June and I was busy in July so I’m just getting out now! I had an awesome time hiking. I went with a friend and we did one of my favorite hikes in Waterton. I wish there was a job that I could do where I could hike everyday (in the summer of course). I finally got to try my new backpack that I received last Christmas and I love it. My shoulders did not hurt by the end of the hike, which they usually would as my other backpack doesn’t have the greatest shoulder straps.