We're gonna go camping next month! I'm sooo excited! We're going to drive up to Golden (to see Theovis' dad and stepmom), hit Banff (BAMF!) and meander our way back to Vancouver. Since Theovis doesn't drive and I can only do about a max of 4 hours a day, we'll camp whenever I get too tired to continue and hopefully see a bunch of cool stuff. I think it has been about 8 years since we last went camping so it's gonna be pretty cool. Yay!
Mum and I took down this poor, diseased, ant & aphid riddled tree in our front yard on Monday. I had just been planning to trim off a bunch of dead branches but we soon realized that there wasn't much on the tree that wasn't dead. So we sawed off the big branches until we had only the long trunk of the tree left and I Paul Bunyan'd that sucker down. Taking a tree down with an axe is more work than I thought. It went easier once I realized I'd been swinging left-handed for quite a while and switched to right - vastly improved my aim. We'd thought of renting a chain saw to take care of it but the axe thing just seemed quicker. We chopped up the larger wood into pieces which we will let dry then burn in the fireplace this winter. Once we know we've killed off the root structure we'll haul the stump etc. off and replace it with a new, (hopefully) healthy tree.
Acupuncture is not the answer to my menstrual woes. Alas and alack! I don't know what to try next...
May 21, 2004
May 14, 2004
I can't believe it has been nearly a month since my last update. It seems that every time I sat down at the computer, I needed to be doing something else and had no time for writing. Alas...
I've actually been doing some webdesign again for a friend who is holding a women's conference this summer. You can check out the site at www.everywomanintheworld.com. It's been so long since I started a site from scratch so it was a pretty fun thing to do again. And really frustrating at times.
I refinished our kitchen cabinets over a (long) weekend with a lot of help from Mum. We sanded, scrubbed and painted our little hearts out. Plus I got to rent a kick-ass mitre saw rented from Revy, uh, Rona (I hate it when stores change their names) which I didn't end up using as much as I'd expected to because I realized my initial plan for the project was insanely ambitious and would have taken us forever. Since what we did seemed to take forever anyway, I'm so glad I backed off with the plans. Those photos will be posted shortly - and here they are.
We had a great visit with Theo's brother Murray, his wife Laura and our 2 nieces Emily (3) and Julia (4 months). They stayed with us for about 5 days and we had a bunch of fun showing them (or directing them) around Vancouver. We went to the Maplewood farms with the kids one day where they got to pet goats and bunnies, see a cow get milked and all sorts of other farm fun. Several friends and all their kids joined us too so there was lots of excitement over the animals. I was pretty excited about the goats and bunnies myself.
We'd been having the dishwasher floods again despite all the various plumbing repairs we'd had done under the sink and we finally worked out that it was coming from where the sink sprayer joined up with the pipes from the fixture. It is only around a year old but I was pretty much ready to just go buy a new fixture to get the problem solved. Thankfully, Murray is exceptionally handy and gave us a whole bunch of good advice about various house renovations, including the sink, and he came up with a $0.68 solution involving a hose clamp that completely solved our problem. I've been running the dishwasher flood free since then. Woo hoo! He also reinforced our deck railings with approx $3.00 worth of lag screws rather than us replacing the whole wobbly railing this summer. Plus he gave us good advice for creating a cement water barrier to prevent any more rain water running down the path and under our foundation. PLUS, (hard to believe there's more) they arrived with a beautiful compound mitre saw as our housewarming gift! It is so awesome! I literally jumped up and down with joy. Now I can easily do the baseboards and will probably add chair rails and crown moldings all over the place. It is sooooo good!
I've been loving the summer-ish weather despite a couple mild sunburns because I didn't realize the sun was that stong already. I've heard it has been snowing in Calgary and a couple other places around the country as we're toasting ourselves on the West coast. Is it cruel to laugh? How 'bout a mild chuckle under my breath? Okay, I'll play nice. *snerk* Okay, that was the last one.
I've actually been doing some webdesign again for a friend who is holding a women's conference this summer. You can check out the site at www.everywomanintheworld.com. It's been so long since I started a site from scratch so it was a pretty fun thing to do again. And really frustrating at times.
I refinished our kitchen cabinets over a (long) weekend with a lot of help from Mum. We sanded, scrubbed and painted our little hearts out. Plus I got to rent a kick-ass mitre saw rented from Revy, uh, Rona (I hate it when stores change their names) which I didn't end up using as much as I'd expected to because I realized my initial plan for the project was insanely ambitious and would have taken us forever. Since what we did seemed to take forever anyway, I'm so glad I backed off with the plans. Those photos will be posted shortly - and here they are.
We had a great visit with Theo's brother Murray, his wife Laura and our 2 nieces Emily (3) and Julia (4 months). They stayed with us for about 5 days and we had a bunch of fun showing them (or directing them) around Vancouver. We went to the Maplewood farms with the kids one day where they got to pet goats and bunnies, see a cow get milked and all sorts of other farm fun. Several friends and all their kids joined us too so there was lots of excitement over the animals. I was pretty excited about the goats and bunnies myself.
We'd been having the dishwasher floods again despite all the various plumbing repairs we'd had done under the sink and we finally worked out that it was coming from where the sink sprayer joined up with the pipes from the fixture. It is only around a year old but I was pretty much ready to just go buy a new fixture to get the problem solved. Thankfully, Murray is exceptionally handy and gave us a whole bunch of good advice about various house renovations, including the sink, and he came up with a $0.68 solution involving a hose clamp that completely solved our problem. I've been running the dishwasher flood free since then. Woo hoo! He also reinforced our deck railings with approx $3.00 worth of lag screws rather than us replacing the whole wobbly railing this summer. Plus he gave us good advice for creating a cement water barrier to prevent any more rain water running down the path and under our foundation. PLUS, (hard to believe there's more) they arrived with a beautiful compound mitre saw as our housewarming gift! It is so awesome! I literally jumped up and down with joy. Now I can easily do the baseboards and will probably add chair rails and crown moldings all over the place. It is sooooo good!
I've been loving the summer-ish weather despite a couple mild sunburns because I didn't realize the sun was that stong already. I've heard it has been snowing in Calgary and a couple other places around the country as we're toasting ourselves on the West coast. Is it cruel to laugh? How 'bout a mild chuckle under my breath? Okay, I'll play nice. *snerk* Okay, that was the last one.
April 18, 2004
I spent Monday this week helping my good friend Annelise do a "While you were out" redecoration of her bedroom while her husband Chris was kept out all day by his buddies. It was 12 hours of intense home renovation labour - we painted the walls, installed dimmer switches, sanded and repainted bookshelves and a dresser, installed an upholstered head board then reassembled everything. It turned out really well, and he was completely surprised so I consider it a job well done. Plus, she owes me big time for the next time I need an extra pair of hands around here.
During one of our runs to Home Despot for handles (noneof which were the correct size) I ran into an old friend from massage therapy school. Of course that happened on a day when I was wearing my painting sweat pants, a ratty men's undershirt, a baboushka and more paint on me than I got on the walls. Alas, it was nice to chat for a moment, but during the rest of our shopping trip I kept on my lookout to run away if I spotted any ex-boyfriends while in all my sexy renovation glory.
Yesterday we drove to Surrey to an electronics recycling place to dump old, broken printers, CPUs, a fax machine, VCR, DVD etc. but of course they weren't open on the weekend. Curses! They have a website but no posted hours - I really hate websites that have no useful content - and no-one was answering their phone when I called but I just really wanted all that crap out of my house. Well, it's out of my house now but taking up all the room in the trunk of my car. There was a part of me that wanted to just go throw it all in a dumpster but I decided that that wasn't the socially responsible answer so I will try again tomorrow now that I know how to get there.
I went to see the Delicate Art of Parking today at Tinseltown (our favourite theatre). It's a Canadian film that has been garnering good reviews and stars several people from the hysterical TV show Corner Gas (Wednesdays on CTV). The story, script and writing were good but it was shot in that handheld mocumentary style with shaky camera work and much spinning and blurring of the image. I spent the last 30 minutes of the film trying not to puke up my burrito. Not fun! The whole thing was shot in Vancouver and there was a bit of a meta moment when the people onscreen were driving by the theatre we were in watching the film and I'm like, "There we are right now." Well, not outloud because I try not to be a theatre talker. We had intended to go downtown after watching the movie but my poor tummy wasn't up for that at all so we came home and I had a nap. That was a good way to finish the weekend.
During one of our runs to Home Despot for handles (noneof which were the correct size) I ran into an old friend from massage therapy school. Of course that happened on a day when I was wearing my painting sweat pants, a ratty men's undershirt, a baboushka and more paint on me than I got on the walls. Alas, it was nice to chat for a moment, but during the rest of our shopping trip I kept on my lookout to run away if I spotted any ex-boyfriends while in all my sexy renovation glory.
Yesterday we drove to Surrey to an electronics recycling place to dump old, broken printers, CPUs, a fax machine, VCR, DVD etc. but of course they weren't open on the weekend. Curses! They have a website but no posted hours - I really hate websites that have no useful content - and no-one was answering their phone when I called but I just really wanted all that crap out of my house. Well, it's out of my house now but taking up all the room in the trunk of my car. There was a part of me that wanted to just go throw it all in a dumpster but I decided that that wasn't the socially responsible answer so I will try again tomorrow now that I know how to get there.
I went to see the Delicate Art of Parking today at Tinseltown (our favourite theatre). It's a Canadian film that has been garnering good reviews and stars several people from the hysterical TV show Corner Gas (Wednesdays on CTV). The story, script and writing were good but it was shot in that handheld mocumentary style with shaky camera work and much spinning and blurring of the image. I spent the last 30 minutes of the film trying not to puke up my burrito. Not fun! The whole thing was shot in Vancouver and there was a bit of a meta moment when the people onscreen were driving by the theatre we were in watching the film and I'm like, "There we are right now." Well, not outloud because I try not to be a theatre talker. We had intended to go downtown after watching the movie but my poor tummy wasn't up for that at all so we came home and I had a nap. That was a good way to finish the weekend.
April 10, 2004
Another busy week finished. Plus a long weekend. Plus sunny, warm days. Plus a holiday that involves copious amounts of chocolate. Yipee!
I picked up Mum at the airport on Wednesday morning before heading off to work. It was good to see her and I felt a large load lift off my shoulders when I got to hand the care of Izzy back over to her. I worked a long day on Thursday then managed to have dinner with my friend Christoph whom I haven't seen for several years. It is totally shocking that he's one of my favourite people, a close friend since University, he lives in the same city as me but we haven't hooked up in years. I just don't quite understand what happens in friendships except that you have different interests and lifestyles and just gradually drift away.
I came to the realization the other day that Theovis and I have been together for 10 years now. That seems like a really long time, but it doesn't feel like it could be nearly that long. It also means that I have known all the people I met around the same time, who I think of as newer friends, for 10 years as well. It's weird. WEIRD!
On Thursday night, after my reunion dinner with Christoph - at a great Greek place on West Broadway called Kalamata - I hooked up with Jessica and some of her work friends for sangria and dancing. Much drinking - eventually involving vodka shots - and dancing ensued. We started off at an all-girl dance at the Wise Hall (near Commercial). A very lovely - and very confident - gal wearing nothing but pasties and a thong bikini was offering body shots of goldschlager in the centre of the room. Paradoxically, I have not seen that many mullets since my high school yearbook (I grew up in small town BC in the 80's - what ya gonna do?). We eventually left so that the straightest girl among us could have some guys to ogle but since the line up at the Odyssey was so long we decided to head back to our host's place where we could dance to her vast mp3 collection. Everything started winding down fairly quickly so I hopped into yet another cab and went home to my sweetie, who was still up playing video games despite it being a work night for him. I drank some water but not nearly enough and woke the next morning feeling pretty foggy and slow.
Yesterday I poked around with not much energy before heading off to acupuncture. It still isn't doing too much to help me so we're taking a more aggressive approach with more frequent and intense treatments to effect some change before my next bout of evil cramps. She also put in a couple points for my hangover and gave me some homeopathic remedy to help flush the alcohol out of my system. I don't know if it was the treatment or the time I spent sitting in the sun reading beforehand but I headed home feeling more crappy than ever and eventually ended up with a raging migraine headache that I was thankfully able to sleep off. I definitely understand why I don't do the partying very often anymore.
I picked up Mum at the airport on Wednesday morning before heading off to work. It was good to see her and I felt a large load lift off my shoulders when I got to hand the care of Izzy back over to her. I worked a long day on Thursday then managed to have dinner with my friend Christoph whom I haven't seen for several years. It is totally shocking that he's one of my favourite people, a close friend since University, he lives in the same city as me but we haven't hooked up in years. I just don't quite understand what happens in friendships except that you have different interests and lifestyles and just gradually drift away.
I came to the realization the other day that Theovis and I have been together for 10 years now. That seems like a really long time, but it doesn't feel like it could be nearly that long. It also means that I have known all the people I met around the same time, who I think of as newer friends, for 10 years as well. It's weird. WEIRD!
On Thursday night, after my reunion dinner with Christoph - at a great Greek place on West Broadway called Kalamata - I hooked up with Jessica and some of her work friends for sangria and dancing. Much drinking - eventually involving vodka shots - and dancing ensued. We started off at an all-girl dance at the Wise Hall (near Commercial). A very lovely - and very confident - gal wearing nothing but pasties and a thong bikini was offering body shots of goldschlager in the centre of the room. Paradoxically, I have not seen that many mullets since my high school yearbook (I grew up in small town BC in the 80's - what ya gonna do?). We eventually left so that the straightest girl among us could have some guys to ogle but since the line up at the Odyssey was so long we decided to head back to our host's place where we could dance to her vast mp3 collection. Everything started winding down fairly quickly so I hopped into yet another cab and went home to my sweetie, who was still up playing video games despite it being a work night for him. I drank some water but not nearly enough and woke the next morning feeling pretty foggy and slow.
Yesterday I poked around with not much energy before heading off to acupuncture. It still isn't doing too much to help me so we're taking a more aggressive approach with more frequent and intense treatments to effect some change before my next bout of evil cramps. She also put in a couple points for my hangover and gave me some homeopathic remedy to help flush the alcohol out of my system. I don't know if it was the treatment or the time I spent sitting in the sun reading beforehand but I headed home feeling more crappy than ever and eventually ended up with a raging migraine headache that I was thankfully able to sleep off. I definitely understand why I don't do the partying very often anymore.
April 05, 2004
I threw a birthday party for my Theovis on Saturday night, which was a big hit. I had been super busy in the preceeding weeks so I didn't have much time for planning. Luckily I managed to pull it all together fairly last minute with much fun and lots of friends to help celebrate. After the success of the HeroClix birthday cake from last year, I didn't know what I was going to be able to do to even come close to that level of creativity. I ended up making cupcakes with various comic book interjections - Bam! Pow! Snikt! Kretch! - written on them in chocolate mousse. To make the cupcakes even more exciting I hollowed them out a bit and filled them with chocolate mousse before re-assembling them, icing them and decorating them. They were a big hit. I also took the same comic book expressions and wrote them on cut out pieces of posterboard and stuck them all over the walls as decorations. I'll post the photos once I don't have a happy kitty on my lap who would object to my finding the camera to download the photos.
Mum is coming back from her trip to Australia on Wednesday morning. As nice as it has been to have the privacy of the house all to ourselves, I am so looking forward to her coming home to take over looking after her cat Izzy. He is a whole lot of work. And as much as I love the little guy, I am looking forward to having more free time that doesn't involve insulin needles and multiple cat-box cleanings a day. And I really look forward to not having to listen to the unholy cry that he makes because he's lonely - anyone who has been over in the past 6 weeks knows what I'm talking about - which he will do even if I'm in the same room and he turns his back to me.
Speaking of free time, I'd better stop enjoying mine and get outside to mow the lawn.
Mum is coming back from her trip to Australia on Wednesday morning. As nice as it has been to have the privacy of the house all to ourselves, I am so looking forward to her coming home to take over looking after her cat Izzy. He is a whole lot of work. And as much as I love the little guy, I am looking forward to having more free time that doesn't involve insulin needles and multiple cat-box cleanings a day. And I really look forward to not having to listen to the unholy cry that he makes because he's lonely - anyone who has been over in the past 6 weeks knows what I'm talking about - which he will do even if I'm in the same room and he turns his back to me.
Speaking of free time, I'd better stop enjoying mine and get outside to mow the lawn.
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