2011...

Like most people, the past few days  - or rather weeks... this post is slightly late.....I looked back at how 2011 shaped up.  It was certainly one of my busiest and most dramatic years to date...

Jan

• Began the New Year on the right foot with a Resolution Run, actually it was on New Year's Eve, but that's almost 2011... 
• Started a job at the President's office of a Government agency.  It turned out to be somewhat like "The Devil Wears Prada" but was a very interesting kick off to the year.  I learned how particular the President was with his coffee, how to print documents and hand deliver them to someone sitting 10 feet from my desk (please note the sarcasm), but hey, it paid the rent, so yay!
• We started building our house!  Well, we put money down to buy the house and signed the contract, the construction didn't begin until June....

Feb

• Ended said "Devil's Wears Prada" job and started my dream job at the logistical support command of the Military.  It was nice to be back in uniform on a daily basis and get paid a lot more, but the learning curve was STEEP.  Suffice it to say, I was in a wee bit over my head.
• I also found out I was pregnant shortly after starting my job... yikes!  Cue morning sickness, joy.

March

• I made it back home to Calgary to see my friends... passed on the fun baby news :)
• Missed out on a military ORCA trip to Victoria, boo :(

April

• Pete and I had a lovely weekend out in Mont Tremblant.  Very romantic and the best Spaghetti Carbonara I've ever had... yum!
• Made it back to Sharon for Pete's family Easter celebration, and had a special afternoon tea at the Old Mill

May

• Cruise time... first time on a cruise, first time to the Caribbean - very, very fun.  Maybe next year we can hit up the Baltic?

June

• Still on the cruise, trying desperately to stretch out the week.
• House construction begins!
• All the way at the end of the month a few friends and I headed out for a shopping trip to the outlet's outside of New York - amazing deals!

July

• Last trip to Calgary with Pete before the baby arrives!  Spent the week showing Pete the wonders of the Stampede and Spruce Meadows... he's a good sport :)
• A trip to Kingston to attend the Baptism of our darling God Daughter... so cute!
• Pete turned the big 3-0!

August

•  Baby Shower!  My fantastic sister in law threw me a lovely baby shower.  All of Pete's female relatives were there and we had such a great time.

September

• I turned the big 3-0!  Yikes!  
• My last day of work.... a week early as it turns out.  My blood pressure was up and down, and up and down, and up and down.... so my Dr decided it was best to rest at home.
• Continued to be in and out of the hospital with the threat of induction.... at the end of the month we still didn't have a baby yet... boo

October

• More hospital time... and finally on the 17th of October after 44 hours of (mostly back) labour, and an emergency c section, we had our darling baby boy.  I can't say it was a wonderful, easy, magical experience - it was awful, excruciatingly painful and one of the worst things I have ever had to endure.  Thank goodness he is the cutest thing I have ever, ever seen.... 
• Cue the flood of relatives to our TINY apartment... I was very thankful for the help, how do single parents do it???

November

• Busiest month by far.... never again will I have a newborn, move into a new house with furniture coming from across the country and more furniture from the apartment, with your husband working.  However, once we were in the house, we were good to go.

December

• Hosted the Sands' family Christmas with my Mom at the new place.... busy, busy, busy, but awesome and the extra hands to help with our colicky baby was more than welcome.

So there we go, 2011 in review... typed as fast as I could while Will sleeps... Happy New Year!

Resolution time

Everyone seems to have the same sort of resolutions each year, none of them seem to pan out, so although I secretly have the norm on my list here are some more that I will actually endeavour to keep. Here goes nothin'

1. Smile more, and mean it, aka be happier - and this I will make an active effort to do so!
2. Have better posture - I used to have wicked awesome ballet dancer posture, somehow over the years it as suffered a wee bit, it's not really that bad, I'm not a sloucher by any means, but it could use some improvement.
3. Get more sleep
4. Cook more at home - I have amazing cookbooks and I should freakin' use them
5. Stop procrastinating

There we go, that's all for now.

Cooking Chronicles cont.

The madness continues this weekend... I blame it on the Food Network  (particularly the wednesday evening line-up) and all those darn food blogs I read... how am I suppose to sit by and watch such delicious and amazing things and not try to make them for myself?  What I really need to do is have my very own kitchen and make these things everyday instead of blitzing the kitchen on the weekend and salivating my way through the week.   So, what's on the menu for this weekend??

First up:

Stuffed Zucchini from a random Sobey's inspiration magazine.  I changed a few things around, added some nutritional yeast instead of cheese and added a shake of cayenne pepper- they were a wee bit bland but I am sure that can be fixed.  After dinner I whipped up a batch of Jenna's Cinnamon Walnut Bread (with a splash of vanilla and a bit of nutmeg for fun).  It was ridiculously easy to make - she promised 45 minutes tops (including the 40 minute baking time) and she didn't steer me wrong.  The bread is delicious, and even makes for a mighty tasty slice of toast the next morning too!   I think I'll bake another loaf tomorrow for the office crew back at base.

Tonight:

Fish tacos with guacamole ala Alton Brown at Good Eats.  Both were fantastic, I've never done the fish version of taco, and this did not disappoint. My mother in law pronounced it be to amazing and I left the dinner table rather pleased with my progress.

Tomorrow:

I'm thinking something yummy I can bring back to base with me (can you tell I'm avoiding the galley?).  Since perusing Jenna's blog daily, I see her eating her homemade Channa Masala quite often and I think it will make an excellent après yoga meal!  Now I just have to get something green to complete the meal - Jamie's special green monster smoothy maybe (amazing grass powder, spinach, frozen mango pieces, orange juice and pasteurized egg whites), yes I do think so!

In other news, Pete and I have decided to sign up for the Resolution Run put on by the Running Room.  It sounds like great fun on New Years, and we even get a snazzy jacket out of it!  Score!  That being said, I really should start a real training plan though, my runs these days have been up to 6 km and either hill sprints or proper sprints.  I have also - ahem -  "agreed" to do a triathlon sometime next year - I blame Frayed Laces and her amazing finish at last weekend's Ironman. For those who know me, know I CANNOT swim.  I somehow faked my way through many many levels of swimming, mysteriously got my SCUBA license and passed the swim test in the military without actually physically being able to swim.  What I do in water cannot be called swimming, nor can I keep it up for enough time to make it a proper distance consistent with a triathlon.   Pete seems to think that we can work on this and improve if we do it together.  That, however, remains to be seen.  Maybe once we move to Ottawa I will magically find my groove and not drown in the pool - fingers crossed!

Alright, it's saturday night, almost 10pm and I am beat - night!

Resolutions

Well, it's Jan 1 - and what do we do this time of year but make resolutions to be better individuals. So here's my take on it, even though new year's resolutions are generally crap. Oh, and these are in no particular order...

1. Keep in better contact with my friends
2. Get up early and enjoy each day
3. Be more productive on a daily basis
   
4. Be more positive about everything
5. Purge my belongings... I have far too much stuff

In regards to my last years resolution lets, recap shall we...

• Smile more, and mean it, aka be happier - and this I will make an active effort to do so! Not bad this year... I think I definitely laughed more - courtesy of course of Lanster and Eleni...
• Have better posture - I used to have wicked awesome ballet dancer posture, somehow over the years it as suffered a wee bit, it's not really that bad, I'm not a sloucher by any means, but it could use some improvement. Also, improved a bit - no doubt by going to the gym.
• Get more sleep Funny stuff... sadly no improvement here
• Cook more at home - I have amazing cookbooks and I should freakin' use them I did well here, I found some more recipes and hopefully I will do even better this year
  
• Stop procrastinating Yikes, I think I made this a resolution this year...
  

So after all that I think I should review what I actually did this year...

• Changed departments twice
• Did eye exams in Tunisia for people who needed eye care
• Saw the Sahara desert
• Acquired 2 husbands... one in Tunisia and one in Montreal...
  
• Zipped out to Montreal twice to visit friends
• Visited with Rupinder when she came home from the UK
  
• Almost Visited with Maya, mental note to visit with her this year - in person of course
  
• Finished 3 classes in the Land Admin Course, too bad it is not for me
• Became an Auntie (not a real one)
• Participated in 3 charity walks
• Cleaned up a flooded apartment twice
• Bought a fancy new Mac laptop
• Started Scottish Dancing
  
• Left the eye clinic and started a different Job #2
• Saw Diana Gabaldon in person
  
• Joined the Naval Reserve
• Went to Vegas to see the Spice Girls
• Made some very important new friends, including my twin, and of course re-kindled some old friendships

**** Actually As E-Money Pointed out, I acquired 3 husbands... Sorry Scott.. how could I ever forget you?

I think that just about covers it... I am just hoping that 2008 is even better, and more exciting.

And what do you think this year might bring for you?

Book of the Week

Seeing that it is the end of the first week of January and most people have made some kind of resolution to be better this year I thought it fitting to have this week's book as "Getting Things Done - The Art of Stress-Free Productivity" by David Allen.





It outlines how to get things done, which could be extremely helpful this day and age where most of us can admit to experiencing some degree of procrastination.





From the Editors:


With first-chapter allusions to martial arts, "flow", "mind like water", and other concepts borrowed from the East (and usually mangled), you'd almost think this self-helper from David Allen should have been called Zen and the Art of Schedule Maintenance.
Not quite. Yes, Getting Things Done offers a complete system for downloading all those free-floating gotta-dos clogging your brain into a sophisticated framework of files and action lists--all purportedly to free your mind to focus on whatever you're working on. However, it still operates from the decidedly Western notion that if we could just get really, really organised, we could turn ourselves into 24/7 productivity machines. (To wit, Allen, whom the New Economy bible Fast Company has dubbed "the personal productivity guru", suggests that instead of meditating on crouching tigers and hidden dragons while you wait for a plane, you should unsheathe that high-tech sabre known as the mobile phone and attack that list of calls you need to return.)
As whole-life-organising systems go, Allen's is pretty good, even fun and therapeutic. It starts with the exhortation to take every unaccounted-for scrap of paper in your workstation that you can't junk. The next step is to write down every unaccounted-for gotta-do cramming your head onto its own scrap of paper. Finally, throw the whole stew into a giant "in-basket".
That's where the processing and prioritising begin; in Allen's system, it get a little convoluted at times, rife as it is with fancy terms, subterms, and sub-subterms for even the simplest concepts. Thank goodness the spine of his system is captured on a straightforward, one-page flowchart that you can pin over your desk and repeatedly consult without having to refer back to the book. That alone is worth the purchase price. Also of value is Allen's ingenious Two-Minute Rule: if there's anything you absolutely must do that you can do right now in two minutes or less, then do it now, thus freeing up your time and mind tenfold over the long term. It's common sense advice so obvious that most of us completely overlook it, much to our detriment. Allen excels at dispensing such wisdom in this useful, if somewhat belaboured, self-improver aimed at everyone from CEOs to football mums (who, we all know, are more organised than most CEOs to start with).


On a side note, my dinner experience last night with KQ was fantastic.... Thanks again for the company KQ! Oh, and the game today for the World Juniors goes at noon... Canada vs USA... should be a good one -

GO CANADA GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Once again...

I don't know why I do this to myself.....I book my weekend so full of stuff that I can hardly rest, but honestly who am I kidding?????? I LOVE it, and I would never change it. I have had such a lovely weekend.

Not only did I have a some drinks and a wicked games night with Trav and Andrea (fresh from Kiwi land) where I did my best to kick the boys' butts on Scene it (we ended freakin' tying with the buggers.....) but after work yesterday (where I sipped my wonderfully delicious Cinnamon Dolce Latte courtesy of Mr. McFebruary) I had a great visit with my wonderful friends Rachel and Colleen (fresh from Montreal) last night over some yummy starbucks, but today I have a movie with Mrs. Ronnalie, and tomorrow I have further dinner plans with my buddy Megs.....of the blog fame. Right now however I am in the midst of a complete apartment cleanup as it is a bloddy mess and I am sick of having such a disorganzied life....I should have made that another resolution.....PS - Miss KQ I loved your comment, you never fail to make me smile! Anyhoo, back to it, I've got How NOT to decorate (gotta love those scots, they do such lovely work) on the tele (brit talk for television) but I am still in my PJs and sleep socks, frantically putting together shelves, re setting up my computer, unpacking my suitcase, taking down the Christmas decorations and the like. Phew, I am tired just thinking of it all.......

Well, I suppose that is it for the time being, to those of you who have to go back to school tomorrow, I feel for you, I really do......Good Luck!