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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)

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The last fortnight was pretty unusual. Brett was visiting, and I started working at the hospital. Visitors and working so much meant eating a lot of meals away from home.

november 3rd, 2013 – mr. noodles with egg and sriracha

november 4th, 2013 – crunch wrap and taco from Taco Bell

Scott picked this up for me on his way home from Seattle. TRU LUV.

november 5th, 2013 – yam tempura, spicy tuna roll, salmon roll, salad and miso from Sake Cafe

november 6th, 2013 – salmon sushi, spicy tuna roll, spider roll, and unpictured salad and miso soup from Sake Cafe

november 7th, 2013 – leftover sushi

So much sushi. The leftovers didn’t taste great… I’m kind of sick of sushi at the moment. O_O

november 8th, 2013 – queso fundido (and tacos) from La Mezcaleria

Now THIS tasted great. I want to go back to this restaurant really bad!

november 9th, 2013 – caramelized salsa pumpkin with black beans

This tasted a lot better than it looks. It was only burnt on the outside. The insides tasted delicious!

november 10th, 2013 – vegetable lasagna

november 11th, 2013 – caramelized butternut, kale, and pomegranate salsa pizza

THIS IS THE MOST DELICIOUS PIZZA EVER!! Or at least one of the best things I have made in a while. I highly recommend this recipe! The sweet pomegranate tastes awesome with the salty garlic kale. I wasn’t sure it would (why it’s only on one quarter of the pizza in that picture), but it totally did. By the way I didn’t have pine nuts, parmesan or fontina as the recipe calls for, and it still tasted AMAZING. So you can save a little money by leaving out a few ingredients. We used naan bread as crust.

november 12th, 2013 – leftover vegetable lasagna

november 13th, 2013 – leftover scotanoff

November 14th, 2013 I ate leftover sriracha mac and cheese and sausage at work but forgot to take a picture.

november 15th, 2013 – green olive, sausage and mushroom pizza from Domino’s

Pouring rain and didn’t feel like cooking so we ordered delivery for the first time ever. What luxury.

november 16th, 2013 – crescent rolls stuffed with cheese and green onions, and unpictured popcorn

Lady dinner with Morgan up at Whistler. We watched The Way Way Back and stuffed our faces with popcorn and pinot grigio. Fun times!

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After a long (short!) week of work I am off to Whistler for a skeleton weekend. It’s my first session of the season and I am excited and also scared. I wonder what we’re going to do this weekend and I wonder how it’s going to feel! I’ve got better clothing this year, so hopefully I stay a little warmer. I’m also stronger this year, so hopefully things are a little easier. We shall see!

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I GOT A JOB!! I have been hired as a casual at the hospital I went to in my first summer, and I start tomorrow. I am so so happy and excited and also petrified. When you’re a student you can make mistakes all the time because there is someone watching you and helping out. Now if I make a mistake it’s all on me! But I am very happy because the team at the hospital is great. I feel so lucky that they picked me. :)

I will apparently get a bunch of shifts this month to get re-trained, and then it will die down a bit after that. I have no idea how much work I will get… it could be anywhere from 0 to 40 hours a week. So for now I am still going to work a few nights at the data centre. If(/when) I get hired at a another hospital I should be able to quit the data centre.

Hey we also have a new niece!! This is very very recent news, I don’t even know what the name is yet or anything!

Scott’s brother Brett arrived the other day. In the first few days of his visit we: set off fireworks, went to a CFL game, ate poutine, shopped, watched hockey on the projector Scott borrowed from work, played Munchkin and Settlers, and more. Right now him and Scott are in Seattle going to an NFL game. And on Tuesday they’re going to a Vancouver Giants game, where they have rinkside seats for about 1/10 of the price of a Vancouver Canucks nosebleed section seat. That should be fun. I would’ve gone too except I will be at my second job. :/

I had fun watching skeleton with Brian the other week. The race had less effect on who gets to compete in the World Cup as I thought it did though. Some people were already qualified from last year. Cassie Hawrysh did awesome, but Jon Montgomery and Melissa Hollingsworth didn’t do as well. A person crashed, unexpected people did great, and two ladies tied for first and had to share a medal. I am looking forward to the upcoming season even more now!!

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I haven’t blogged about anything non-food in almost a month!! OOPS!! So now I will attempt to catch up in one giant update post.

We bought a car!! It’s a 2005 Subaru Impreza wagon. It has a fair number of km on it but it’s in very good condition. We are very happy with it so far! PS insurance is so expensive here!!!!! It doesn’t help that I’ve only had my BC license for three years so I don’t get a big discount. :( The car will make getting to early morning hospital shifts (if/when I ever get a job) and Whistler a lot easier though.

Also Brett (Scott’s bro) is coming to visit in less than a week! It sounds like his visit is going to be spent watching as many different types of North American sports as possible. It will be great to see him here, and I know Scott is really looking forward to it.

Our TV is broken. It still has a red light on the front but instead of turning on it just makes clicking noises. Anyone know anything about this or what’s the best way to get it fixed? It’s a Samsung and had a two year warranty but it has been 25 months. GROAN.

I passed my exam (not sure if I already wrote about that already), and graduated. Still no job though.

The graduation was small and somewhat annoying (we had to go four hours early to rehearse standing up and sitting down while being sniped at by a lady we didn’t know) but it was very nice to see our class again. Only one more person has been hired since the end of the summer, bringing the grand total to 3 out of 14. Stuff is definitely happening right now though… lots of internal staff rearrangement… which hopefully opens up a couple more casual jobs for us. Cross your fingers for me please!

I am grateful for being able to go straight back into my old typing job. At least I am working full time, making (some) money and keeping busy. A lot of my classmates are also looking for side jobs and struggling with that a bit so I am relieved it was simple for me to find something. I asked my boss about continuing to work there in conjunction with working at a hospital (theoretically) and he said he needs me for a fixed schedule, which doesn’t really work as I need to basically be on call for the hospital and that is my priority. BUT, he also said I could work in the evenings, so I will most likely do that a few days a week.

We went to my friend Tanie’s house a couple weeks ago to play Ascension (with 80 million expansions). I didn’t do very well but it was still fun. Scott downloaded the game onto his iPad (surprisingly it is free), and since then has played approximately 90,000 games (±500). That probably means that next time I will do REALLY bad.


Lesley came over after graduation for a games marathon. She moved to Cranbrook for a nuc med job so we don’t see her often any more. It was good to hang out, I missed her. We played multiple games each of Settlers, Carcassonne and Wasabi and drank multiple drinks, hehe. Then we had extreme couponing Church’s Chicken (coupons on coupons on coupons) for dinner. Thanks Lesley for treating us!

A Dutch friend I met on Fraser Island in Australia came to visit Canada and stayed with us for one night. I already mentioned this in my daily dinners post but her and her bf rented a car and drove from Vancouver to Alaska to Whitehorse to Banff and back to Vancouver. Such a cool trip, I would love to do that some day!! They saw lots of cool animals and beautiful landscapes. We went out for sushi dinner. Femke’s first time eating sushi and we took her to the Eatery?! Banana sushi was the hit of the evening. If she ever has regular sushi she’s going to think it’s so boring.

We went to the UBC apple festival for the fourth year in a row. It’s a tradition! We went with Gillian and Bryan again (this could have also gone under the Friends category!!) and enjoyed the much less damp weather from last year. I was worried my face would get all itchy from eating so many apples but surprisingly it didn’t. Scott and I bought a bag of apples each but mine haven’t been very good. I do enjoy a soft apple but my Fiesta apples are all bruised and marked and a little gross inside. Disappointing considering how much they cost. We also bought a sampler pack of three types of balsamic reductions, and a piece of apple pie (for Scott).

Vancouver has had CRAZY fog for the past few weeks. Our lovely view of the mountains turns in to total greyness for 20 hours of the day. It looks kinda cool sometimes, but is also very very damp. This blog post has a whole bunch of really cool Vancouver fog photos.

The skeleton season is starting and I am SO IKSIDID!!! I’m going up to Whistler today to watch the Canadian selection races (where they decide which level of competition circuit each athlete will get to do this season–the first step for them to qualify for the Olympics). I’m excited because all levels of skeleton people will be there and I already follow A LOT of them on Twitter… and now I’ll get to see them all in real life! Some other countries have started doing their selection races too and it’s really interesting (to me) to see how they all progressed over very intense pre-Olympic summer training. I could ramble on much longer about this but I don’t think anyone else is as big of a skeleton nerd as me, haha.

As for myself, I will be going up in a couple weeks for my first skeleton school of the season. I am excited, and scared. Can’t wait to fly down that track though, and I’m super super curious to see how much my weight lifting and core work has paid off.

I have been doing a lot of different fitness stuff lately! Last week I did two weights sessions and two cardio sessions (I never want to do cardio, so this was an accomplishment), and this week I did one weights, one cardio, and two bikram yoga sessions.

My 10 class yoga groupon is about to expire so I finally went to redeem it. I suck at it so far, but that is to be expected as I have never done yoga at all before. Today was a bit easier than Thursday and I imagine my next class will be even better. PS holy moly, sweat was pouring off me like an actual rain shower. DRIP DRIP DRIP DRIP. I like how nice and loose and relaxed I feel after the class.

We’ve been really busy lately, and my awkward 10am-6pm work shift has made it pretty hard to squeeze in exercise, but I am getting better at finding time. It astounds me how much my attitude has changed in the last 6 months, and that I actually want to make exercising a priority. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME??!!

Since my last book post on October 3rd, I finished (via audiobook):

  • Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, her first book, a thriller like her others
  • How to Approach and Flirt With Women by Carlos Xuma, because why not, an insight into what dudes think about
  • Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, a historical novel about two cousins, and comics
  • Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, the world’s longest book, which I found pretty tedious
  • Looking for Alaska by John Green, a YA novel to revive me after Infinite Jest. Short and sweet.

And I started Paper Towns, also by John Green. He really loves the manic pixie dream girl type, doesn’t he. :/

That list looks extremely short to me for nearly a whole month, but Infinite Jest took TWO STRAIGHT WEEKS of 7.5 hour shifts to finish. Man that is a long book!! I didn’t even really like it that much, but by the time I realized it was boring I was already about 1/4 of the way through and then I just wanted to finish it for the sake of finishing it. There were some interesting parts, I liked the story lines of the half way house people, and the kids at tennis school, but a lot of the rest was zzzzz.

DID YOU KNOW, that if you don’t have a Costco membership you can just get someone to buy you a giftcard (with your money), and then you just show that at the front entrance and they let you in! And then if you buy more than your giftcard you can just pay the rest in cash. Loophole!! We did this and got veggie burgers and base layer and jalapeno poppers and soap and all sorts of other junk. But they didn’t have any samples at all and I was sad.

OK I’m out!