I had surgery a few weeks ago to clean out the endometriosis and uterine polyps that have been squatting illegally in my body. They're gone now and I am very happy. The surgery itself wasn't too bad - a general anaesthetic which didn't make me puke thanks to the anti-nausea meds they gave me in advance (that knocked me out before they even got to giving me the anaesthetic - lightweight!). I was in and out of the hospital within 4 hours and I got to have the surgery in a private clinic because the local hospital doesn't have enough rooms or staff to accomodate all the necessary procedures. I got a warmed-up gown and robe. This ain't your regular hospital!

Theo stayed home from work to look after me for a couple days because I was pretty sore and tired. We had fun lying on the new sofa bed in the living room and watching movies. The cats thought it was pretty awesome too. As the sore decreased we progressed to sitting on the couch and watching movies, which the cats still thought was pretty awesome. It was amazing for them because I was home and I was sitting still. Those two things don't happen in combination all that frequently.

All in all, I was off work for nearly 2 weeks, which was nice for recovery. And I know that I was feeling under the weather because I didn't go insane being that inactive for all that time. I've been trying to make up for it now, being on high-alert bustle. I've painted living room cabinet doors and cut a bunch of baseboards with my beautiful mitre saw. I really want to paint the whole living room but Theo is having none of it. Stupid Theo! Instead I will put up new curtains which should help the rest of the room look less in need of a change of colour.

We've also started planning our trip to Australia in May. It will be 11 years since I've been there to see my family and this will give Theo a chance to check the place out too. After visiting family for a few days we're going to play full-on tourists and travel to all the exciting parts of the country like Uluru (Ayer's Rock) and the Great Barrier Reef. I've never seen any of these areas myself so I'm totally pumped. There's also a little island outside Adelaide that has penguins. I am sooooo going to see those penguins! Screw kangaroos and koalas! PENGUINS!

I can't believe it has been since before Christmas that I wrote anything in my journal. I was sure I'd written in the New Year. Damn, I'm a slacker! I guess I must summarize.

Christmas:
My brother came down to visit for the first time in years over Christmas and we had a great time because he actually spent time with us. We had Christmas morning on the 24th then went to see "The Compleat works of Wllm Shkspr (abridged)" at the Arts Club Theatre (a hoot!). After the show we made and ate the traditional Christmas eve lasagna, then James, Theo and I went to the Railway club to a sing-along with the Hard Rock Miners. A busy but awesome day.

Christmas morning we caught the 9am ferry to Victoria to see Theo's family. We had a good visit there with our nieces, who were both sick, unfortunately. The family had good laughs at me trying to keep child snot off me. Ahh, good times. The children were remarkably well behaved considering how late their Christmas morning was delayed (until after lunch, which was cruel and inhumane to all of us). We had fabulous meals and a really great time visiting with his family, who we really don't see often enough. I wish they lived closer.

It was awesome to be off work for 10 days. I expected to bustle around the house a ton but barely got to anything on my list. I was sick as usual and hung out with my brother the rest of the time. It was really great (the visiting, not the sick).

New Year's Eve:
I wanted a fairly quiet night so we went to Chris & Annelise's, played board games and drank too much. Waaaayyy too much. Blackouts too much. Soooo, I was having a good time and vaguely remember getting in an argument with Chris at midnight about the brilliance of Green Day and their status as punk rock. What I don't remember so well was attacking him when he didn't agree with me and phoning Mark and Allice at midnight to rant about it (and wish them a Happy New Year, I hope). Yikes!

New Year's Day:
Hooray for drive-thru Starbucks and Burger King croissanwiches.

I listened to the new Green Day album American Idiot 4 times today in the car as I drove to Bellingham and back - and sat in border lines. I have to say that it is an amazing - nay, I will unabashedly say brilliant - album (you should all buy it!) and that I'm a little bit in love with Billie Joe Armstrong.

Mum and I went tonight to the Chan centre at UBC to see a choir performance of a huge Berlioz mass. It was really cool. There were 3 different choirs added together with an orchestra. The horn sections of the orchestra were spread out through the theatre in the upper levels and during a bombastic section of the performance there were horns blasting in every direction. It was pretty awesome.

Speaking of awesome, the theatre itself was one of the most beautiful I've been in. Elegantly shaped with wood and chrome accents and a soaring ceiling. Colour me impressed.

The mountains had disappeared for a few days into The Grey (you might have to be a Vancouverite to truly understand) but have returned with a beautiful dusting of snow. Ooooh! They look so pretty and it makes me very happy to look out my window at work and see them like that. It makes me wish I skied. Well, not actually, but they're still pretty.

I put up my Christmas tree and it looks pretty too. I decided not to put up the ornaments that I hate and normally hide at the back of the tree, though. Instead, I am going to donate them to the Sally Ann or something so that maybe they can be appreciated on someone else's tree, even though they're kind of fugly. That's one of the cool things about this world, though. One woman's fugly is another's Christmas tree treasure.

I have been on a cleaning and purging kick at the moment. I cleaned the closet in our bedroom and got rid of 3 big bags of stuff and have since taken a huge bag of books to the second hand store for trade (yay! more books!). It would be so nice to have a significant decrease in clutter by the time we have people over for festive festivities PLUS I'm seriously sick of looking at it all myself. Down with clutter!