My Day at a Glance

I'm really tired tonight so it's going to be point form...

- Got up at 4:24 this morning, went outside to warm up my car, found 6 inches of snow and a frozen door. Had to climb in passenger side to actually drive to work.

- Drive took about an hour, it took about as long to get from Abby to Mission as it took to get from Mission to Maple Ridge. There was practically no snow after Mission.

- Had shift, drove back to Abbotsford to clean house because our landlord was showing it this evening... on the way though, there was a spider on my dashboard and it freaked me out. I had to get rid of it so I reached onto the passenger seat and the first thing I grabbed was the banana peel from my morning snack. I smashed it onto my dashboard. Made a bit of a mess, but I killed the spider.

- Cleaned my house... It was a disaster, but I managed to clean every single room in the house, AND keep things organized for the move, all within 2.5 hours. I was impressed. And sweaty, housecleaning is a workout!!

- Drove back to Maple Ridge for the rest of my shift. No snow on the road anywhere this time, and it was sunny.

- Saw a tree with 7 or 8 bald eagles. In the one tree! I've never seen that before.

- Worked. It felt long.

- Had a good talk with people close to us. I think things make sense now.

- Went to Bible Study and learned how not to be complicated. It was good.

All in all, a long but decent day. I'm happy I don't work at 6 tomorrow though. I get to wake up at 8!!! That's 4 extra hours!! Praise God!!!

Thank You!!

I just wanted to say a big thank you to whoever left the save-on gift certificates on my car the other day. The last two months have been really hard, but what a reminder to have faith! And even when my faith lacks, God still takes care of us. Why do I worry? As J says, it's a waste of time to worry when you could be spending that time having faith that things will work out. So to you, whoever you are, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts (and our stomachs, since we won't have to eat kraft dinner this week) It truly meant a lot to us.

Praise God! :)

Weekend

My weekend showed much promise - a trip away to Pender Island in a nice, quiet cabin with some close friends and family. Last time J wasn't able to go but he was able to this time and I was quite excited to spend some quality time with him, since it's always go go go during the week and we really haven't spent much time together. Unfortunately the weekend didn't exactly go as planned.

Friday we got to start our weekend off with some bad news. J isn't getting E.I. like we had hoped. He had gone to the office in the beginning of January to ask the obvious questions, basically asking "Am I eligible?". They assured him he was, even with his situation and so he applied. A month and a half later they tell him he's actually NOT eligible due to some new rule or something. Anyways, point is, he asked them a long time ago and if they had told him no then he could've found himself a part time job. Anyways, I've really been trying to have faith that everything will work out, and I know it will, it's just that things keep getting more and more messed up.

The weekend was pretty fun, had it's down points with J being sick the whole time and anytime he felt up to doing something he was usually reading for a test he was supposed to have on Monday (but didn't end up having)... The drive home was spent with someone who doesn't think it makes sense that we're moving to Kamloops and thinks we're both super happy and excited about it. For the record, we're excited to see what God has in store for us, but we're not excited to say goodbye to the people who mean the most to us. I don't want people thinking that we can't wait to leave. If I had my way we'd buy a house in Maple Ridge and raise our family here, but as Pastor Derrick said in a sermon a few weeks back, we have to factor in the "Divine IF". IF it's God's will, maybe we'll be back in Maple Ridge someday. But right now it seems that God wants us to go to Kamloops.

Anyways, so the big news is that because of our new financial situation we'll be moving in with J's parents as of March 15th. We're very blessed that they are able to have us, but of course I have mixed feelings about it. I know lots of people do this at some point in their lives, and it's not for a very long time - just 6 weeks - but I still feel kinda crappy that it came down to that. We were really hoping we could've made it through these 4 months, but I guess, again, God had other plans. Plans to prosper, right?

So enough about that, today marks the first day of Lent! I was thinking about giving up coffee, that would be stinkin' hard though... but maybe that's the point. Is anyone else giving up anything?

Valentine's Day

Alright, where do I start? I haven't posted since Valentine's Day, so how about I start with that. I wanted that night to be special, since it's our first Valentine's as a married couple. I worked until 5 so I didn't have a really long time to get ready and I wanted fancy hair. But of course I took too long and missed the appy's... Oh well, my hair was hot! Our table was really fun, 3 out of the 4 couples were newly married so we ended up winning for the table that had been married for the least amount of time. 31 years, but only from rounding up!! At first we weren't allowed to count half years (ex. if you'd been married 20.5 years just say 20) but when Pastor Steve came back and we asked him if that meant we can't count ourselves into this he went back up and told us all to round up. If we didn't round up we would've had 4.5 years between 3 couples!

Then... well not then, as in immediately following, there was quite a wait actually.... we finally received our food. Mine looked like this:















Looks fancy, but picture pulling that out of the fridge and eating it without putting it in the microwave. Yep, it was cold. Although the asparagus was luke-warm... I would describe my rice-can but I think Scott's face says it all...
















All in all I had a great time at the event, I laughed a ton!

Unfortunately my DH was sick that night with a bad fever so we left right away, and he has been sick ever since. So Valentine's Day itself wasn't exactly what I expected or planned, but it won't be one I forget anytime soon!

Warning: Rant ahead.

Ok seriously people.

- Is it really necessary to sit in the left lane going the exact same speed as the person beside you in the right lane? Quit the slow race, move ahead or behind person on the right and let the person behind you pass.

- If the person in the left lane IS in fact attempting to pass the person on the right, please do not come up to within a metre of my car and flash your high beams at me. I'm going faster than the slow lane, give me a chance to pass.

- When merging, is getting in front of me but behind a whole row of slow cars worth risking your life and mine? The answer is no.

- Tailgating is annoying, it won't make me go any faster, in fact it will make me slow down just to annoy you back. So Back Off.

- They invented a signal for a reason. USE IT!

I think that's it... I just love driving 45 minutes to work every day.

For R...

87.9


Have a great Monday!

Ok, because you asked.

Alright alright, Amelia thinks 10 days is too long to go without a blog, so here I am. Not really even sure what to blog about...

I'm coming down with something. I blame Mike - ok only because of his last post... truth is I think I was getting sick before I even saw him this week.

Being sick and going swimming is a gross mix. Especially when you constantly have to be within arms reach of a child who thinks it's funny to try to get away from you.

I'm at a lack of things to watch on tv... I'm all out of 24, and I've watched a whole season of Dead like Me because my sister owns it. I guess I should take this time and get things organized... but I'm sick.

Still trying to deal with all the changes in my life... Last Sunday's service I just cried and cried through the whole thing because it was totally directed at me. It was talking about changes within the church, but there were a lot of things that rang true in our life. We know God wants us to move to Kamloops, but it doesn't make it not painful. Our family is here, our church home is here, and the "unknown" in Kamloops is the scary part. Oh, I'm sure we'll make friends, find a new church home, but I think it's because I've always been afraid of being alone and being forgotten that I'm nervous about this change. I've moved so many times, I should be a pro at it.

Anyways, enough of that... other news... hmm... went out for birthday dinner last night (I think this is the never ending birthday this year) but this time it was because my Dad was in Ontario for my birthday. We went for Thai food in Pitt Meadows with his new girlfriend. She's really nice, more down to earth than ... well, another. She remembered a conversation we'd had at Cafe o Lei about how I wanted to make an Ikea trip before I leave for Kamloops, and that there are these cute little mirrors I liked... She got me 6 of them! It was very thoughtful.

Well that's that I guess... I'll think of things to blog about this week ...

24

and no this post isn't about Jack Bauer... not totally anyways. 24 years ago today in Toronto my mom was listening to Supertramp as she waited for her first daughter to arrive. Hooray, here I am. And I'm beginning to learn that the older you get, the more birthdays become "just another day".

I worked a split shift at the daycare, which meant getting up at 4am... no special treatment for the birthday girl, she still needs to bring home the bacon, as lean as it is. (ha ha)

Anyways, fairly normal day I suppose. Came home, ordered sushi, watched 2 episodes of 24, not sure when I'll be able to watch the next two, hopefully soon.

So onward I go into another year of my life. Hip hip hooray.

Mission: Accomplished!

The goal as of back in October: to start 24 Season 1, and continue until fully up to date before Season 6 started. (January 14) I'm proud to say that as of tonight, we are finally up to date! It's been a long, suspense-filled journey, but we made it. We've laughed, we've cried... Several of my favourite characters are now dead and I'm not impressed. But Jack's still alive. As the guy at the end of Season 5 said, he's "too valuable to kill". I agree.

So anyways, I'm excited for Season 6 now, like every other 24 fan, although those fans will watch the season premier before me. We decided since we have no cable (we can get the show, it's just a bit fuzzy) and we've watched 5 seasons on commercial-free dvd, we're going to wait until Jan. 16th and buy the first 4 episodes on dvd. Then I will spend my 24th birthday watching 24! How appropriate! It's funny too, since we don't have a lot of money, that's my gift to myself because I have a wal-mart gift card that I'm giving to J to buy for me. I'm excited!

So for now, I have a week hiatus from 24, and might fill my nights with other things... what shall I do? any suggestions?

Welcome to 2007!

Alright, so we've been in 2007 for about a week now and I haven't blogged. Oh, I've had the best intentions to blog, came up with various topics, wanted to do a 2006 recap, but hey, apparently I had better things to do. Like play Guitar Hero. Or lose track of time on YouTube. Look, I don't judge you. But I'm here now.

Today was an interesting day... we wanted to clean up around our place, which meant getting rid of the Christmas tree. In front of the tree was an upside down plant pot. Inside this pot was the biggest, nastiest wolf spider ever. We'd (Jason) trapped him in there a couple days ago but we (Jason) hadn't gotten rid of it yet. With a slipper in one hand raised above his head and his other cautiously holding the pot, he slowly lifted the pot, prepared to pounce. No spider. He looked inside the pot - there he was, crawling not too quickly towards the top, but quick enough to get Jason's feet moving. He opened the door to our place and instead of maybe shaking the pot to get the spider out, he throws the whole thing up the stairs! It bounced and made a racket and somehow the spider ended up on the wall. I handed him his sandal and that was the end of the spider.

Not 10 minutes later we decided to bring the tree up to the car so J could bring it to the compost place. I carefully steadied the tree as J undid the screws in the tree stand. He then instructed me to go open the door. He lifted the tree (I wasn't looking) and when I did look I didn't know what to say for a few moments. The tree stand was still stuck to the bottom of the tree. J didn't see it. I watched as all the water left in the bucket splashed all over our floor. I finally yelled "Stop!!" and he put the tree down but by then the pot was empty. We had a trail of pine needles all the way out to the car, and a huge puddle in our living room. Needless to say, I laughed a good laugh right about then. And then I cleaned up. A lot.

Later we decided to unwind by taking a little stroll over in a little park area we always drive past. It's a pond type thing with trails all around it. The thing is, the trails are basically the same level as the pond in a lot of areas. Did anyone happen to notice how much it rained the other day? There were huge puddles all along our route. But we were determined. Jason rolled up his pants at the first puddle, I hopped on his back and off we went. It was cold but only a few feet long so we figured it would be ok, it was an adventure after all.... Well I don't think J was singing the same tune around the end of our walk. We went through maybe 6 or 7 very large puddles, the biggest being maybe 20 feet long and up to J's knees... I stayed dry, so that was ok. I may have felt a little bad though, as we're (again, Jason) wading through a puddle and he's in pain from the coldness of the water, and I was just laughing hysterically in his ear. It only took him ten minutes or so of standing in warm water in the bathtub for him to feel his feet again... Anyhow, it was an adventure!

I got to finish off the day with J's sister and her husband, they came over tonight which was awesome since we aren't coming out to Maple Ridge much with our budget cutbacks... We watched Garden State - they'd never seen it and it's one of my favourite movies! Good times were had.

This is a long post already but I need to share this one picture with you...





This is my Sarahmaynard plant. I call it that because she recommended I get one of these because I wouldn't kill it. (that and I have no idea what it's actually called) And she was right!! Check out at the bottom, that light green thing. It's the opposite of dead!!!! It's growing!!! That wasn't there when I bought it! I was so excited when I discovered it that I decided it needed a celebratory drink. (of water, before you ask) It's the first plant I've made grow! Hooray!