Look what I found

Mom must be taking the picture.. but in this shot I think I am about 6 or 7... I am at the top in the red snow suit with white frills, Amy is in the red with the hood, my dad is to the right and Sarah is holding our puppy - Micky - with the yellow jacket... brings back memories.

It's in you to give

So yesterday was my blood donation day... normally a routine occurrence in my life... which I do actively encourage you all to also make as well - 'cuz it's important and, say it with me - It's in you to give...

Anyhoo, back to the story - I was having a great time, chatting with the nurses about traveling, signing up for the aphoresis program, eating cookies and drinking juice, when all of the sudden, my vision goes blurry - I am finding it hard to talk, and I am super dizzy.... not too good... but thank goodness Francisco was watching me - he realized that I wasn't doing so well, ran to get some nurses and they practically carried me to the couch, plied me with more juice (something like 18 juice boxes) and more cookies - plus the fans, the cold cloths and the nurses all watching me.. wow, I was embarrassed. In the end I had to sit there a further 1/2 an hour because - according to the nurse I was much to pale and shaky to leave.. to which I replied -

"No, seriously, I am normally this colour, I'm really really white...."

In the end I was grateful to the nurses and helpers for their assistance, they are a special breed of people and they deserve my most sincerest thanks!!! so Thank you and Thank you again.

In other news, I had a "Nothing Weekend" with Eleni.. although we did watch quite a few movies - namely "Bourne Identity" and "Bourne Supremcy" then "Crank" - which ps is really quite fun... but then on sunday I was asked to accompany my big sister to Banff in order to act as a translator for visiting engineer from Venezuela... What I learned is that my spoken spanish is pretty crap and that I need to really bone up on my spanish... spoken spanish that is....

Otherwise it was pretty tame and I was quite happy to do nothing, although I did decide that a noting weekend is hard to do as I can't sit still long enough to really do nothing...

Anyoo, I'm tired and I need to stop typing - plus I should feed Buddy the cat - that's right I'm housesitting again... honestly, when am I ever going to stay at my own house, I do enjoy it quite a bit and I like that I have all my stuff there instead of in a suitcase - but really I gotta go - CIAO!

Happy Birthday

To Miss Colleen (also of blog fame) on her Birthday....

Have a wonderful birthday, and yes we definately need to have coffee one of these days...

You know you've been out of school for way too long when you need to consult your calendar to check what you did yesterday - seriously!

So, according to my calendar....

Monday - I met up with Kate (of the Kate & Mike Abroad blog fame) for some gelato and some europe talk. Always my favourite subject as we all know.... but really... we had a lovely talk and some delicious gelato and in the midst of all of this I remembered my lvoe for living in europe. Now don't get me wrong - I love Canada, and I will be uber patriotic until the day I die - but I do love to live in europe, and I do have a hankering to go again... what ever will I do with myself.....


OOH - aaaand on Monday night I got to see Heather... it's been quite a while since we sat and talked - I did miss her lots, and I am very glad to have her back... plus she helped me fix a few things on the old laptop.... what a great room -mate!

Tuesday - Amazingly my calendar was open for last night... I was shocked but fully took advantage of it and sat for a while and watched some tv... nothing much on really - but it was fun nevertheless.... I did however get up the energy to go for some well needed grocery shopping... Superstore was out of stock of everything though so it was quite the waste of time... note to self - do not go shopping at superstore during the first part of the week... you won't get far....


Tonight is the first night back dancing... that should be a riot... I haven't danced since last december - yikes!!!

K, back to work I go....

Jack

Today is the beginning of the trial for the death of Jack Beauchamp- my thoughts are with you, Matthew, and your family...

Update

Yikes, it looks like I never did give the full run down of my life - so here goes

Sun Sept 9-
My birthday celebration this year was a bit more subdued than last year's.... instead of a house party I decided that High Tea at the Banff Springs was more in order and thus my dear friend Ronnalie planned it out for me. Eleni and I arrived earlier than others to go for a bit of a walk down by the river / golf course and as we were driving up together we took our sweet time getting to Banff. We stopped at Timmy's on the way out - at Wendy's in Canmore on our way up.. good times for sure.

Later on after our walk around we freshened up and made our way to the hotel lobby - on the way we spotted a piper and stopped to listen to him for a while - lovely music that those pipes play! Anyhoo, we met up with Ronnalie in the lobby, then Jane and Katherine and then thought to go up to the Rundle lounge before we lost our reservation. My mom, my sister, Mrs. B, Nikki and Patrick and Rachel and Rob all arrived later but even so - we all had such a yummy lunch. The snacks were awesome, although there were raisins in the scones which I am not a fan of, but our server more than made up for the raisins. Shelann, as her nametag read, was fantastic - she took our pictures, brought me a lovely glass of champagne, made jokes with us and basically took very good care of us. Her service accompanied with the beautiful view of Mt. Rundle made it one of the best birthdays I've ever had. Not to mention of course, the company that was with me that day - they were all lovely as well.

Monday September 10 - Dinner with the broker team and KQ at Oriental Phoenix. Good times again - I really didn't think I would have fun, but I did, I learned a lot about my co-workers but my favourite was that I actually got to spend time with the aforementioned KQ!

Wednesday Sept 11- First meeting of the St. Andrew's Caledonian Society. Glad to be back, as it gives me something to occupy my time. Plus I get to hang out with old scottish folk - who are so fun, love that accent!!

Friday 14 September - Our articling student Char had her bar call - it was so nice to see her finish her articles with such style. Her brother flew in from Denmark, her mom and some friends from Vancouver, and her dad and stepmom from Kelowna to mark the occasion. I gave away our apartment to her family as neither Heather nor I would be there, and the fact that it is so close to Char's apartment - but funny thing happened... instead of the 22nd as scheduled, Heather was due to arrive last night.... oops!!! So, red-faced, I had to ask Heather to delay her arrival until today so Char's houseguests still had a place to stay.... not good, but hopefully with the pipecleaner decorated poster message I lefty her she doesn't hate me too much......

Oh - and of course it was my friend Tijana's Birthday today - I think she is in Madrid currently... or perhaps near madrid - in any case she is in Spain and I am so very envious.....

Saturday 15 September - The Lanster and I had breakfast at Cora's... it was her first time and I think I've swayed her over to the Cora's side - tasty tasty breakfast.....

Sunday 16 September - Mrs B's Birthday today.... I hope she had a nice day as I didn't actually get to see her, but I think she did anyways...

Tonight - I have Gelato with Kate - we get to talk about France!! As you all know - this is one of my favourite topics... so needless to say I am quite excited.....

K, I'm done for now - see ya later!

Birthday Pics

So I finally got my pictures from my birthday - I'll write a synopsis later, but I thought I'd give you something to peek at in the meantime.

Mr. William Cornelius Van Horne - President of CPR
Me and my little sister Amy

Mrs. B and Amy

Me and Amy - such loving sisters

Eleni, Me, My Mom, Mrs. B and Rachel walking through one of the wings

Rachel, Rob, Eleni and I outside and the terrace

My Mom and Amy - crazy girls!

Ladies and Gentleman- I give you my little sister, the Gargoyle

My Mom's Bday in Banff - believe it or not we are in the ladies room...

Me and my Mom also in the Ladies room - Happy Birthday Mom!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

So here it is - one day after mine birthday thus it is Sept 10th and I need to wish Miss Rupinder in London a very happy birthday!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!!

Thoughts

Nothing humbles you more that your little sister's birthday celebration.

I say this because tonight we celebrated Amy's 24th birthday. It was really quite fun, I got to see all of her friends that she grew up with, and amazingly still keeps in touch with - something that I will admit I am sad to say I do not do. We did however get to talking about what everyone does and how everyone is and it really made me think. Now I know I've done stuff in my lifetime, I really have, but I do feel somewhat sad that more hasn't happened as of yet.

What I am getting at is the fact that she has friends (and so do I come to think of it) that are married, have proper careers, have children, own a home etc... and although I have graduated from university I have neither a child nor a husband, nor do I have a proper career, nor do I own anything in the way of real estate.

I guess the fact that my next birthday is a scant 12 minutes away makes me re-evaluate my life, which is good in a way but it can really get a girl down.

This fact is a bit troubling to me.

YEAH!!!!!!

IT'S HERE, IT'S HERE....

Here is my first picture taken with photo booth - this cool new feature... and yeah I know I look quite sad... but I'm not - I swear - Anyhoo... I'm trying to nap a bit because I have a stupid Casino to go to... aaand how stupid am I - I have a meeting with HMCS Tecumseh tomorrow morning at 8 am and my shift at the casino ends at 2:30am - very very smart of me... meh!

Sad News

My mom called me early this morning to tell me of the passing of a legend.

Luciano Pavarotti died last night of pancreatic cancer. This is sad to me because when I was very young, probably 3 years old, my mom bought a Pavarotti record for me and I would run round and round the coffee table singing at the top of my lungs. Now that must have been funny to see. In any case this is very sad and I will miss him.

Ciao!!

So I'm relaxing in my PJs eating a tortilla pizza and a salad made up of chickpeas, carrots, celery, radishes and balsamic vinegar - yep, time for grocery shopping... anyhoo, I'm sitting here admiring my new windows in my bedroom... very pretty ps... and I've decided that I don't like living alone. I'll explain ....

Last night I was in bed getting quite scared as I could hear random sounds. Now, normally I think of myself as quite the tough -girl.. I mean I've survived a lot, gone through military training, and I've lived on my own in various countries but I am worried about people trying to get me, or perhaps even monsters getting me - weird I know... but I think of things like that. Not to mention that when I housesit I am always alone..... hmmm, I think I miss Heather. Good thing she comes home in a few weeks.

What else to tell you...oh, I'm having a tea party at the Banff Springs on my birthday, sunday the 9th. We are meeting in the lobby at 1:30 so come one come all for High Tea in the Rockies, don't forget your white gloves. I would love to see you all there!

Night!

Overdue

So I missed both of my sister's birthdays... not in real life, but rather in blog life as I neglected to post them a Happy Birthday message... Amy on the 1st and Sarah on the 3rd - so here it is... Happy Birthday to you both!

Otherwise I had quite the busy weekend. Friday night brought a "Little Britain" Marathon... a show that I truly recommend to everyone as it is hilarious. I have Maya to thank for introducing me... Anyways - so marathon with Rachel and Rob friday night - laughed quite a bit....

Saturday brought my real "last" day at job #2 - I know, I know - I caved and went back for a few shifts, but I swear, I am really done this time. After I left my last day I zipped over to the Bowling Alley at Frank Sissons for some high quality work socializing. It was really fun - I didn't make it in time to participate in the bowl-off, but I chatted with everyone and watched the strikes come. Everyone played quite well, and they all seemed to have a good time. After that we went to the casino side and had a wrap up dinner. As we walked into the restuarant (which by the way had about 2 tables occupied) our waitress looked absolutely mortified as we asked to be seated... she even exclaimed "Did you call ahead?!?!?!?"

Sunday of course was my annual trip to Canmore for the Highland Games... really the highlight of my year... Sunday morning was a bit dissapointing as Eleni called me at 5:30 feeling like death, Lani called me saying she hadn't slept hardly at all as her kitty was sick all night anf Rachel was hung over from the pub crawl the night before, plus she also hadn't had very much sleep... so as it turned out I made my trip to the games with some hung over, exhausted girls. As it turned out we did have a fun time - I didn't really get to watch any of the pipe competition, my favourite part, as we were perusing the booths.. but we did get to the Ceilidh this year - also a fun time.... something I haven't been able to attend. Anyhoo, we had a fun time and I think next year will be even better.

Monday was pretty laid back. On the way back into town we stopped a few times at various places between here and there and listened to some random tunes in the car. When I got back home I pretty much chilled all night - watching "The Tudors" and getting my place ready for the windows guys - who ps neglected to show up again... damn them.

Today was back to work - a dentist appointment - no cavities, as per usual, yeah for my teeth!! and then more work - not so much fun - except for lunch of course - I had a nice visit with Miss Jenn and her darling little Isabelle, now that was good times! Friday however, I do get to talk to the Navy - that should be fun...

K, well that's it for me - adios and stay tuned for highland games pics to follow!