Scott killing his forearms at Rosemarie’s bouldering charity event. I had to help attach ice packs to Scott’s wrists with elastic bands, haha. Bouldering is fun, but hard! Ow my lats.

I LOVED having purple hair but I didn’t love how fast it faded, and the mess. Oh god, the mess. It stains everything!! Shower curtain, clothes, bed sheets, couch cover… everything. So I made an appointment at the Aveda school to get it all fixed up. I asked for permanent bright purple but to be honest we had no idea what shade it would come out since it would be a mix of types of pigments. It ended up coming out super dark purple, and I love it. I wish I had gotten my whole head dyed. Perhaps I will go back in a few weeks and get the colour all over.

A billion lacey cookies. So easy, so tasty!! I think this recipe could be customized lots of ways. Next time I will use some kind of nut, like macadamia or pecan, instead of oats.

My allergies weren’t too bad last week, but the past few days they have been worse than ever. My eyes feel like they have crumbled corn chips in them. Aghhh.

Work had been great lately. I’ve been working a lot. I am going to start doing therapsheres as well. It’s all working out well these days and I really hope it continues like this!

1. The Katrina Roll. From Rosemarie’s BYOI (bring your own ingredient) sushi birthday party a bajillion years ago. This roll had salmon, shrimp, avocado, cream cheese and yam. YUM YUM. Other ingredients included banana, mango, smoked salmon, tofu. This was a very fun party.

2. I won a scholarship for my performance in second year at BCIT. I don’t know what criteria they used but I’m v happy that they picked me!

3. I have been working a lot since I got back from Calgary. I had a few more weeks of training and am now covering holidays. Hooray for March break being two weeks long here! I don’t have anything in April or May yet but fingers crossed that changes. If it doesn’t perhaps I will go back to the data centre for a few weeks. Once summer arrives I will be ok, since I am already scheduled to work almost every week.

4. Superstore had very little produce today due to the truckers strike. Things are going to get very interesting if they don’t resolve that soon!

5. The pollen report website is working now and says HIGH every day. I feel relieved that I wasn’t just exaggerating things.

I’ll be honest… the last few weeks have been kinda bland. Just been working a lot, mostly at the hospital, but some at the data centre as well. I am tired!! But loving the paycheques. Anyway all this working is helping to lead up to the MOST AWESOME FEBRUARY EVER!!

It starts off a little early with Leslie visiting from Korea/Ottawa, our first Dine Out Vancouver meal, ladies night at Mt Seymour, and skeleton this weekend!!! If the ice is slow we may be moving up starting positions. If it’s fast then we’ll stick with lower ladies and then wait until the next weekend to move up. That weekend is also Rosemarie’s birthday. :)

Then Scott and I are flying to Toronto for a few days, then Ottawa for the rest of that week (where Rosemarie will be too). We’re cramming in seeing as much family and as many friends as possible. Plus Scott has never been to Toronto so we’ll do some touristy things as well. Is Niagara Falls fun in winter???

Then Scott and Rosemarie fly back to Vancouver and I fly to Calgary for a whole week of skeleton training! I don’t know a whole lot about what we’ll be doing there but so far it sounds like we’ll be learning to do real running starts in the icehouse, and also trying out the Calgary track. That track is slower, so we’ll be able to start from the top. So cool!

After that my calendar is blank. Haha.

PS Check out the shirt I made for Rosemarie for Christmas. WE LOVE BOB’S BURGERS. We especially love Tina. I don’t know how they keep coming up with such hilarious things for her to say… but they do… and it’s awesome.

CAPOEIRA! BRAZIL!

I LOVE DAYS OFF!

Not that I’ve done much with my time. Mostly all I’ve been doing is watching tons of Bob’s Burgers and Suits and making and eating food, haha.

We haven’t done Christmas yet. We’ve made up our own arbitrary holiday and it happens on January 1st. This means we could wait for boxing day sales and get MOAR PRESENTS for less $$. The day is also going to involve the polar bear swim, an egg hunt, a big meal (not sure what yet), stockings…. basically just all the fun parts of other holidays.

Did I ever write about how our TV broke and was deemed unfixable by the repair shop? Well that happened. We went to Costco on Boxing Day morning to replace it. I was expecting it to be a madhouse, but actually it was totally quiet. I have never seen Costco so empty, it was lovely. We ended up getting a cheap 32″ TV. It’s nice being able to watch TV during daylight hours again.

I don’t work again until 2014. I have two and a half weeks solid of training in January but then I’m not on the schedule after that. I’m sure I’ll pick up some shifts here and there but I think I’m not going to be very busy for a while. Perhaps I’ll go back to nights at the data centre? We’ll see we’ll see.

I quit my data entry job, kinda. Working 55+ hours a week at two jobs was really bumming me out, so after much deliberation I told my boss that I was too busy to work there any more. It was a hard decision because once my training at the hospital is done, my hours will drop off a lot. Thankfully he said if I want to come back later… I can! Great news!

Working at the hospital is going great. I am pretty much working full time until the new year. I am getting tons of training, and also covering some vacation. It’s been nice working on my own. Injections seem SO MUCH EASIER now that no one is watching me, haha! So far I have done a week on the MIBI cameras, and two weeks of hotlab training. Next week I will be doing cardio.

Skeleton last weekend was super fun. I was pretty nervous before the first session. I wasn’t sure what the coach was going to get us to do. Thankfully he suggested doing a few runs from Maple Leaf (curves 11-16) and then deciding if we want to move back up to Lower Ladies (curves 7-16). (Here is a little track map/infographic.)

I did three runs from Maple Leaf. The first one was crap because I was way too far forward on my sled. Then the second and third one were awesome, so I moved up to Lower Ladies. I did three more runs from there, beating all the boys, with a top speed of 117.51 km/hr. Then my neck was too tired so I skipped the last run.

The next day I started from Lower Ladies right away. I did four runs from there, beating all the boys again. The track was a little slower, so my top speed was only 116.09 km/hr. After four runs my neck was tired so I did the last three runs from leisurely Maple Leaf. Even though Maple Leaf seems so slow and boring I think it’s still worth doing because that is more track time for me. I can use those runs to think about things like making sure my heels are touching and what the corners look like.

I can’t wait until the next session because I am finally figuring out where I want to be in each corner (last year I was just along for the ride, haha!), and should be able to improve my times and speeds a bit. It’s been hard for us to get ice time though, because of those dang Olympics. Fingers crossed I get to go again by mid-December.

Morgan and I had a nice ladies night with wine and a fire and a movie and popcorn.

I finished a few more audiobooks since my last post.

  • Paper Towns by John Green, a YA novel that was entertaining, but nothing remarkable.
  • Allegiant by Veronica Roth, the third book in the Divergent series. I heard some people say they didn’t like it, but I thought it was fine.
  • 1984 by George Orwell, which I enjoyed, once I figured out that this was NOT the book with animals.
  • The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, a pretty boring book about small things that turned small things into BIG things.
  • Steve Jobs – The Biography by Walter Isaacson, an interesting book that convinced me that I really do not like Steve Jobs. He was such a jerk to so many people!! And all those characteristics of Apple products that I strongly dislike (closed systems, glass screens, high prices etc. etc.) were pretty much all due to Steve Jobs himself. I would not have got along with him in real life.

Kevin asked me at work the other day how Scott was, and I replied “I have no idea.” because 1) I was only home for about 3 minutes in the last two weeks, and 2) he is growing some kind of horrific mustache and I refuse to look at him.

We have to clean out the pantry this weekend because we leave for Hawaii on Wednesday after work and then Rosemarie will be coming home with us! As far as I know she will stay with us in December and then find her own place for January. I’m looking forward to lots of sister time next month!!

Also HAWAII!!!! I can’t wait, I can’t wait!!!! (said Arthur)