Ireland and beyond

It's already been 2 weeks since we came back from Ireland. Sigh.
We had an amazing trip. We had beautiful weather for almost the whole trip (apparently, it doesn't always rain in Ireland!), we met lots of fun people (I even hooked up with an old friend from Cegep in Dublin) and have memories that will last us a lifetime (and a ring to boot!)

My Claddagh ENGAGEMENT ring


On your knees boy!


This is hysterical...the History of the Marriage Proposal on Bended Knee and this...I wonder if Tim read this beforehand!!!
>Proposal Dos and Don'ts


Together Tim & I took over a thousand pictures which if you have a lifetime to kill(!) you can view on his website at Ireland vacation 2008
or if you haven't already, take a look at a few of them here
Ireland part 1
Celtic crosses
Ireland part 2
Ireland book 1
Ireland book 2
Ireland book 3

Monthly update

Well, spring has finally sprung.
I've had a couple more doctor's appointments, including an ultrasound.

Alien child

It was rather cool and definitely made it more real.
As has my bulging belly.
I have already had to resort to buying maternity jeans. I do have some pairs of pants that still fit but not my jeans. Not MY jeans. Tim's jeans fit. But I couldn't put up with baggy butt jeans along with my bulging belly.

We spent the weekend of the 19th in Tremblant to celebrate Eric's birthday. It was awesome. Catherine's uncle has a cottage that he rents out and we got the family rate. Murielle and Paul were also along so we pretty much spent the weekend discussing pregnancies! (Murielle is due in June.)
The guys spent the weekend drinking beer. :)







This past weekend was beautiful.
We went out to supper on Friday evening to celebrate Olaf's birthday. We had a very nice meal at Comme Chez Soi, a Belgian restaurant in Pointe-Claire village.
Tim spent the rest of the weekend at work as his office moved and I did some shopping in preparation for our trip to Ireland and cleaned up the garden a bit.

Work has been quite busy with both my co-workers having taken a week's vacation in April. But come Friday...IT'S MY TURN, HEE HEE HEE!!!

How it all came about (minus the look in Tim's eyes)

Tuesday, October 16th, 2007

So, I figure I should record this for the future as I have the need to write about it but I cannot yet make it public on my blog. What am I talking about, you ask??? Well, 2 ½ weeks ago, Tim and I came to a life-altering decision. But it seems, as I gathered from some comments he made afterwards, it was more my decision than his. So, still you ask, what am I talking about??? Well, we’ve decided to start a family! Surprised? Hey, I’ve always said never say never. Anyhow, for quite a while now (maybe since our niece Vanessa was born?), I have been thinking a lot about whether I really wanted to remain childless. Then I would see teenagers on the bus or read stay-at-home-mom’s blogs or hear my friends-with-kids’ stories and then I would again be of the opinion of definitely not wanting children!
Anyhow, a couple of Thursdays ago, as we were settling in for the night, Tim & I got on the topic of having kids and I said I almost wish I would accidently get pregnant so I wouldn’t have to commit to my choice of staying childless, the decision would be made for me (real mature, I know). Which led my man to actually share a few deeper emotional thoughts with me (for once!) and I realized that he was more on the side of wanting kids than us staying DINKS forever. So, as the conversation progressed, we decided that as much as we enjoy the life we have now, we were ready to give up our freedom and take a stab at having a baby!
Strange as it may seem, it was like an epiphany for me. It’s like all of a sudden I was ready to take on all the challenges that this will entail and could see all the pleasure that this will bring to our lives and the lives of others. Before, I really couldn’t accept all the life-altering effects having a child would bring but now I welcome them and am so looking forward to it all. It’s so bizarre, it’s like a switch was suddenly flipped, the blinders were lifted, what other cliché can I use?! I am super happy about it. It all feels so right.
Of course, me being me, I have my somewhat doomsday approach to it and the expect- the-worst-and-be-pleasantly-surprised-if-things-work-out-ok attitude so I have all these nagging thoughts in the back of my mind that all will not go so well but, time will tell! (like the next 20 years or so, at least!)
I now understand and can accept the fact that although there are many things we will no longer be able to do and other things that we will have to postpone doing for, oh, a couple of decades, having children really does enrich your life and bring about different opportunities.

I guess I did a lot of growing up that evening.

It was about time.

Not so new news

Well, now that most people know and I've been to the doctor, I guess I will start blogging about it...I'm preggers!
Who woulda thunk?!
I guess this blog will take on a whole new perspective now. My life certainly has (and will even more so, I'm sure).
I wrote up a post a few months ago to publish once I got pregnant but it's on the laptop which Tim has with him at the curling club so that post will have to wait.

So I'll have to be creative after all this evening...

It's strange, even after the doctor's appointment, I still have this weird dubious feeling that it's not real. I've felt a bit queasy and am tired (but not really any more than usual) but other than that, nothing other than some tightness in my stomach makes me feel like I'm pregnant. Anyhow, only 15 more days til the ultrasound so that will surely make me believe it!
I haven't told work yet and I will postpone doing so as long as I can so I'm trying to be creative in explaining all these appointments (I also went for blood tests at the hospital on Friday morning.)
Last Saturday, my company had a lunch at a cabane à sucre in St-Joseph-du-Lac and spouses were invited so I had to make sure that Tim remembered that no one is to know! He tends to spill the beans at times.
And I had to block a couple of co-workers on Facebook.

We've had fun coming up with creative ways on how to tell people.
There's been the "new job in the fall" approach, the "is your arthritis keeping you from knitting these days?" question, the direct announcement "I'M PREGNANT!", to name a few. We've been having fun with it.
I would have liked to have waited a bit longer before telling people, but we couldn't resist sharing the news any longer. That and our St-Patrick's day get-together was the perfect opportunity to tell everyone in person at the same time.

So, I will now be sharing my progress with you here (you are warned!) but will also try to focus on other things too.
That said, after the cabane on Saturday, Tim & I headed up to Gillian & François' in St-Sauveur. We got to try out our new snowshoes, yay! They're great. I really enjoyed it and found it much easier than hiking in the summertime. There is no way I would have been able to hike at the speed we were moving on our snowshoes. So watch out baby, you're going to be bundled up for some snowshoeing next winter!
After the snowsheoing, Gill made us a simple but wonderful meal. I love that our friends are such good cooks! Chick pea salad, pasta with pork and apple strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert.
We have to make a point of seeing them more often.

Work has been completely crazy yesterday and today. This morning I started at 6:30 (and Tim was kind enough to drive me to work since he needed the truck) and finished at 4:00 and I still didn't get everything done. But tomorrow is another day. And is sure to be another busy day!

Gas guzzling and (guiltily) loving it!

Tim has a course downtown all this week which means I get to drive the truck to work, woohoo!
I can't decide which is better, being able to sleep in til 6:15 or getting home at 4:30. I might not get home quite that early tomorrow though when traffic is sure to pick up.
And Thursday morning I have a doctor's appointment so I have no choice but to drive to work afterwards to cut down on my time off.
No, no, I'm not trying to justify myself for not using public transporation, honest!

Weekend part 2

I got up bright and early Saturday morning (well, technically getting up at 7 is sleeping in for me...) and went to see Tim curl. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) they lost their game so they were out of the bonspiel. That meant we had the rest of the weekend to do as we pleased!
In the afternoon, Tim & I took a walk over to the Westmount greenhouse and he took some photos of their spring flower show.
Maya came over for fondue that evening, she was due for a visit as she was one of the few of our close friends who couldn't make it to our St-Patrick's party.

Easter Sunday was for family. We went Melora's (my brother's fiancée) place for lunch, ham & scalloped potatoes, yum, yum. Then it was home for a nap and for supper we headed to Tim's mom's for roast beef and mashed. One can never have too much potatoes in one's diet. We are headed to Ireland after all!

Long weekend

Some of us were lucky enough to have a day off on Friday, others, not so lucky. Tim had to get up to go to work and had the alarm set for 6:30. As I'm used to getting up at 5:30, by the time he got out of the shower, I was pretty much wide awake so I got up and had breakfast with him. I spent a leisurely morning reading the paper and spent some time online and then I took the metro to go and meet Tim at his office in St-Laurent so we could go to lunch together. He and his co-worker Andrew often go to this Asian restaurant called Wing Phat on Jarry near Pie-IX and I always hear about it and last time they went I even got some leftovers but this was finally my opportunity to experience it myself. The place used to be a grocery store and they served meals to a few crowded tables at the back but now they've turned it into an actual restaurant, complete with tasteful decor. I can say it was well worth the trip. The have about 200 plates to chose from. I had beef with udon noodles. I love udon noodles, they are deliciously slimy!

Then I came home and had a two hour nap!

Since Tim went to the curling club for the evening, I watched "No Country For Old Men". It was pretty good. Not the best Coen brothers film I've seen, but entertaining in its own bizarre way. I don't think Tim would have enjoyed it.
And since I had that 2 hour power nap, I managed to stay awake throughout the entire film! If you didn't know, I am notorious for falling asleep during movies. It can be the most exciting, action-packed, loud movie possible, yet I am sure to nod off at some point while watching. Don't even think of making me watch a Jim Jarmusch movie. (They are extreeeeeemely slow-paced, although "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" with Forest Whitaker was pretty good.)

The next movie I'm keen on seeing is "The Wind That Shakes the Barley".
Only 40 days til we leave for Ireland, woohoo!
I guess that means I should be doing some more planning...

It's been a while...

I'm still here...I think it's time for one of those point form updates. I haven't taken the time to blog and the longer I go, the harder it gets to get back on track but I'll try...

Well, everybody knows how much snow we've had to contend with so I can skip that.
What have I been doing instead of blogging?
Watching waaaay too much American Idol! So I like Ryan Seacrest, sue me.
I'm actually glad there was a tv writer's strike. We record most shows we watch on the computer and I haven't even watched most of what's there. Now Tim has gone and deleted the season finale of Prison Break, one show that was on despite the strike. Oh well, luckily I'm not a tv addict, I can take it or leave it. I still have all of season 1 of Prison Break that we borrowed from Katja to watch too.

We got a new truck! But to most of you,that is old news. It has already been 6 weeks since we got it even if it does still have that new car smell! And we're loving it. The truck, that is, not the smell.

We spent a weekend in Mountain View to celebrate Stéphanie's birthday in mid-Feb. Did some cross-country skiing and snowshoeing. We had rented some snowshoes from MEC and we liked them so much we bought the company! Ha ha (anybody remember Victor Kiam? Anyone? Anyone?)
Actually, a couple of weeks ago, we bought snowshoes but even with all this snow, we have yet to try them out.

We booked our plane tickets for Ireland! Yay! We leave Friday May 2nd and are back on Sunday May 18th. Anybody who's been there is free to make suggestions as to what to see when we're there. So far the only plan we have is to spend a few days in Dublin then rent a car and drive around, staying in B&Bs.

Last weekend we celebrated St-Patrick's day with an evening of stew and Salty Dog at the curling club and I took in the parade on Sunday with Steph, Olaf & Heidi and then we had a large crowd over for stew and soda bread and live music. Daryl played his pipes for us.

On Saturday, we had celebrated our niece Vanessa's first birthday. One year old, how time flies! We've been enjoying seeing her grow, even if it's been way too fast! Luckily we get to see her often, we usually do something with Cathy & Eric at some point on most weekends.

That's about it for now. More to come.

2 nights out in the same week

We went to the movies last Tuesday and saw Charlie Wilson's war. It was good, mainly because of Tom Hanks & Philip Seymour Hoffman's acting. The story seemed a little simplified though. I'm sure there is much more to it than the movie could tell. I certainly hope so. I find it hard to believe that one congressman could almost single-handedly be responsible for such a huge covert operation which is said to have eventually led to the downfall of the Soviet Union.
On the other hand, nothing surprises me when it comes to the involvement of the American government.

And what will happen on this Super Tuesday?


I almost forgot outing #2. On Thursday we went to see Blue Rodeo at Théâtre St-Denis with France & Ysabel. It was excellent from start to finish. Start was the opening act, Luke Doucet, a very good discovery on my part.
Then Blue Rodeo came on and started the show with a more mellow and unplugged mood. After a few songs, the curtain came down, the full drum kit was revealed and they rocked!
Believe it or not, I felt young compared to the rest of the crowd. Or do Blue Rodeo fans just not age well?!

Winter fun

The weekend before last, Tim & I went downhill skiing together for the first time. We took in the beautiful slopes at Mount Sutton in the Eastern Townships. The conditions were great. It was a beautiful crisp, sunny day with a bit of fresh snow and what was surely lots of artificial snow made in the cold nights we had that week. Our tired old legs didn't do too badly so I won't mention the couple of face plants Tim did. :)

We then went to Kay's parents' place in Knowlton for a very nice and elaborate meal with wine tasting. After tasting 7 (or was it 8?!) wines, we got to enjoy a port that her dad had left us from his private collection. Much fun was had by all (we were 16 people, 17 with Vanessa). And even more fun was had by others! Ten of us stayed the night and we crawled into bed sometime after 3 a.m. Hadn't done that in a while. (ok, maybe not so long ago...New Year's maybe.)

We were actually up before 10 the next morning, and because we hadn't nearly stuffed our faces enough the night before, we breakfasted (is that a word?!) on French toast. Mmmm, mushy white bread soaked in egg, doesn't get much better than that.

To our credit, we then went for an hour long walk around the property. And then got back to the house and finished off the bread & cheese from the night before. We couldn't let it go to waste, after all, cheese doesn't keep for very long I'll have you know.

I managed to stay awake for most of the ride home and Tim stayed awake the whole way home. (Thank goodness, he was driving!)

Okay, enough with the bad jokes, I'm going to torture myself by watching American Idol.

Where did January go?

Time just flies by and I can't even remember half of what I've done this month. It makes me wonder about things like how people are expected to testify in court months or even years after a crime has taken place and come up with accurate details from the past. "Where were you on the afternoon of Saturday, August 19th, 1972?" (okay I don't remember that one, but I'm sure my mom does!)

Work has been interesting as of late. We have learnt that our supposed co-worker who was hired in October is actually our supervisor. My boss has yet to directly inform me of this important little tid-bit.
It seems like our department is expected to be busy non-stop and any downtime is viewed as unproductive time that must be filled up by work-work-work. I don't know what it's like elsewhere but quality control gets all the flack and very rarely any praise at our company. Ah, such is life. I try not to think about it too much. Most of the time I leave work at night and can forget about it all until the next morning. It also helps when your boss gives you a brandy shot at 3:30 in the afternoon!

I made my vacation request this week and have been approved for the 2nd & 3rd weeks in May so Tim & I can now start planning our trip. We are going to Ireland. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what or what not to see there? Tim gave me the Lonely Planet book on Ireland for Christmas but first-hand experience from people we know is even better.
I can't wait to see how many pictures we end up taking during this trip. Tim will be bringing his "good" camera. Uh-oh!

I feel like the Pilsbury dough-girl lately...between Christmastime indulgences, not making it to the gym once last week because I was just too wiped out after work and last weekend's Pizza Party part 2 with leftover dough which turned into cinnamon buns, my pants are too tight! I hate all you people with fast metabolisms and self-restraint. :P

I got "shot" twice this week. Both times on Monday. First time was in the chest as I was being super careful while sampling some paprika oleoresin (basically reddish-orange sludge in a big bucket which is hard to pour.) So needless to say as I was being super careful, I indeed splashed some on myself and have a nice big orange stain on my lab coat now.
Second time was that evening. And that time it was actually real blood. In the arm. You see, I went to donate blood so I could get a free ticket for the car show. The donation went fine, smooth, no problem when giving for the 52nd time. It's after the donation. I was told it was okay to leave after a 5 minute waiting period. (it used to be 10.) So I went over to join Tim who was waiting for me at the food court in Complexe Desjardins. And as I was about to sit down, I had this warm, liquidy feeling in my forearm and looked down to see my shirt soaked in blood. Yay.
Thank goodness I was wearing a dark shirt I don't really care about.
So word to the wise: if you give blood, apply pressure for TEN minutes afterwards.
Oh, and I managed to get the blood out. Cold water did the trick.

That's enough sharing for now. Later.

How we rang in 2008

I can't believe I'm already used to writing 2008!

On Sat the 29th, after some more cleaning up from the pizza party, we did some running around town and then packed our bags and tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour as we had to get up early on Sunday for our flight to DC.

In the morning, we picked up Ysabel, left our car off at my parents' place and then my dad drove us to pick up France and then dropped us off at the airport for our 9:20 flight.
We were helping Ysabel use up her last passes of the year. Luckily flying standby to Washington on the Sunday before New Year's was not a problem.

Jacquie and Matt were waiting for us when we landed at Reagan National and we got to their place in Greenbelt, MD at around 12:30, just in time for lunch!

We had a lazy afternoon followed by a trip to Corridor Wines, the most awesome liquor store ever! We couldn't resist stocking up on a few bottles to bring home which meant we would have to check our bags for the return trip. Going down we had only carry-on luggage to simplify the standby process.
That evening, France made one of her infamous (in a good way!) punch concoctions which I only tasted as I had already started drinking wine and didn't think it was a good idea to start mixing with hard liquor. Wise choice, I felt fine the next morning!

Monday was an absolute beautiful day. It probably got up to a good 10 degrees Celcius in the sun. We went for a drive to Annapolis and walked around the town, stopping in some shops and had lunch at the Rams Head Tavern.
I had their Classic Burger, yummy. Who can go wrong with bacon & cheese?! I was surprised though that my burger wasn't cooked to the super well-done level you would expect in an American (i.e. super paranoid about lawsuits) restaurant.

We brought in the New Year with a bunch of Matt & Jacquie's friends who dropped in for a house party. We had lots (too much!) of munchies, more punch (I stuck to wine again!) and some bubbly for midnight. The evening's entertainment consisted of ping-pong, pool, Monopoly, chatting, eating, drinking! And I made it til about 1:30 before hitting the hay!

Tuesday was again a beautiful day. It certainly was a nice break from the deep winter conditions back home.
We took advantage of the great weather and walked around Greenbelt Lake in Buddy Attic Park and also went for a long walk in the woods.

Canada Geese!



Ys, Tim & I had to say our goodbyes the following morning, sniff, sniff (France stayed on til Friday).
We tried to get on the earlier flight but there was only one seat available so instead of going thru the hassle of security all over again, we stayed in the terminal til the afternoon flight which we got on, no problem.
And it was back home to the deep-freeze winter wonderland!

Pizza party

We had a blast last night when we hosted a make-your-own-pizza party!
It was originally going to be a pot-luck with pizzas for the kids only (at first we were expecting 6 children & 2 babies but the final count was 1 baby & 2 kids) and then we figured the adults would be jealous of the kids' pizza so we changed our theme to pizza for all.
I believe it was a success!
Tim went crazy at the kitchen supply store and stocked up on pizza screens to cook them on. They're a really great discovery on our part. The crusts come out nice and crispy.
We had made a variety of crusts too: whole wheat, herb, cornmeal and plain with & without beer. We had the staples for all-dressed (does anyone not from Montreal know what that means?) and Hawaiian.

Unfortunately, our dessert leftovers from Christmas didn't disappear as much as we would have liked. In fact, we got some cookies and cake to add to our supply.

The frozen Chicagos were a hit too but not as abundant as I would have liked!!!

And the clean up wasn't too brutal. Thank goodness we have a dishwasher!

Catching up before the year ends

It's been a while since I last posted so I guess I'll quickly give you the highlights of the last month and a half before the year ends.
So here goes...

My co-worker Annick was on vacation the 2nd & 3rd week of November so I took turns covering the 6:30 shift so it was quite a tiring month at work.
Not bad enough to keep us from going out on a weeknight though. We celebrated Catherine's birthday on the 14th by going to see Me, Mom & Morgantaler at Club Soda. For the uninitiated, they were a Montreal ska band during the early 90's. I've probably seen them in concert close to 30 times and they certainly did not disappoint on that night. Although I don't have the energy to dance like I did back then!
We got our upstairs pretty much back to normal after the repair work except for putting back up some of the picture frames.
We bought some new dining room chairs to replace the rickety uncomfortable ones that we can get rid of now that Christmas is over and we don't need the extra seating. The new ones were 25% off the day we bought them, extra bonus!
Tim went to Charlevoix for 4 days for a curling bonspiel but I couldn't join him this year because my co-worker was away.
Heidi & I went to see The Swell Season at Le National. If you remember me raving about the movie Once, well, they're the two who were in the movie. The concert was amazing.
We celebrated Ysabel's birthday on the 28th by going to see Enchanted. Cheesy is all I have to say!
We went to my office Christmas party, no worthwhile comments to be made! Too bad it was on the same night that France hosted a dinner for our friends Bonnie & Michael who were visiting from Edmonton. We did manage to drop in to see them before and after the X-mas party but we missed out on the great food and wine. Michael is a chef and they had duck among other tasty delectibles.
Survived the first snowstorm of the season.
Spent a weekend in the States to do some Christmas shopping. We left for the cottage on Friday night and headed down to Albany on Saturday & spent the night there and came back to the cottage on Sunday after spending a couple of hours in Lake Placid.
We came home on Monday morning and I got to work by 11. It would have been earlier if we hadn't gotten stcuk on the Mercier bridge for a half hour.
We don't usually go out for supper too often unless it's for some kind of occasion but the last 2 Saturdays we've been out for some very good Asian food.
Remember the old McDonald's at the corner of Atwater & Ste-Catherine? It's now a place called Miso and everything about it was good in our experience. The décor, the service, the presentation and the taste! It's not a cheap meal, but definitely worth the price.
We also tried a Thai place on Mount Royal called Resto Lychee which was excellent and you can bring your own wine.
Survived snowstorm #2.
Went to see National Treasure 2. It was okay (somewhat cheesy) but the first one was better.
Did lots of Christmas cooking and baking in preparation for our dinner on the 25th.
We made cretons, tourtières, butter cookies, date squares, lemon bars, mince meat tarts, fudge, not to mention the fruitcake I had made in November and had been regularly dousing with rum.
We went over to Catherine & Eric's on Christmas eve and opened lots of gifts then it was our turn to host on the 25th. I think we managed to make all 15 of us content with the 23 lb turkey with all the fixings.
I got spoiled as usual with lots of gifts. Most noteworthy is the media player (I'm not supposed to call it a MP3 player as it plays videos & stores pictures too!) It will make the bus rides to and from work a little more entertaining if I can keep my eyes open, that is!
The last three days have been spent mainly relaxing with a few chores in between. Tim had to work yesterday & today but I took vacation days.
We're hosting a make-your-own-pizza night this evening so I will have to report on that later!

Some things are just wrong.

Yes, some things just make you question your reality as you know it, such as:

Macy's having a Veteran's day mattress sale and

seeing the "What a friend I Have in Jesus" dude in Archambault, in the classical music section.
He must have been lost.

(Friday, December 08, 2006
Totally Un-PC

Are all metro buskers mentally ill or what?! I made the mistake of walking through the tunnel from Atwater metro to Westmount Square again this evening. And he was there, the "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" dude. He plays this same damn tune over and over and over and over and, well you get my point. And he strums this little blue guitar. I can't even tell what language he's singing in, but I'll give him credit that the song is actually recognizable. I came this close (I'll let you decide how close it actually was) to asking him if that is the only song he ever plays. It's certainly the only song I've ever heard him play! And then it just gets stuck in my head. And why don't even ask me why I know this song! And he looks like Henry from the comics would like if he were a real person and in his 60's! Next time I think I will just grab his guitar and smash it to bits. Dare me?!
Rant over.)

The roof, the roof, the roof is on...

Yes, our roof is all fixed up, just in time for the downpours we had 2 Saturdays ago. The Sunday was a much nicer day and Tim was curling in a bonspiel at Mount Bruno so I went walking on Mont Saint Bruno with Cathy and Vanessa as Eric was working. It was a little windy but the sun was out and we saw two deer. One on the way in and one on the way out of the park. I did have my camera with me but the first deer was moving too fast for me to get a good shot and the second one was just too far away.
I opted out of going out to supper with Tim and his teammates, who went to the Creperie in Saint Bruno. I got myself invited over to Cathy & Eric's instead.

Halloween was a busy night on our street. I got home from work with just enough time to put out our pumpkins and our few sad little decorations before the first trick o'treaters showed up.
Next year, Tim vows he will put on a big production to make the kids earn their candy! We'll see...
We must have had close to 150 monsters and princesses come begging at our door, most of them not from our neighbourhood. It certainly was a nice night to be out.

Last weekend, the Mount Bruno bonspiel continued and this time Cathy & I went walking with Vanessa on Saturday. Eric stayed at the club to watch his bro play and to take pictures (with Tim's "good" camera.) The boys stayed at the club for supper and the girls got invited by Cathy's parents to stay and have some stew and dumplings. Yummy!
After supper, I learnt how to play the card game "May I?" (it's close to Contract rummy.) We didn't play all 7 rounds but I was ahead when we quit playing. Not bad for a first time!

As of yesterday, our upstairs was still pretty much in complete disarray except for the cleaning we did and setting our bed back up so we could start getting a good night's sleep again.
Yesterday while Tim curled in Valleyfield, I did my Superwoman act and put all the other furniture back into place.

Yep, at this time of year, our world pretty much revolves around work and curling! Good thing I don't curl or nothing would ever get done around here!
(But I draw the line at cleaning up the basement...I'm still waiting on Tim for that one...and waiting...and waiting...and waiting.....)
:)))))

Rain, rain, go away!

Well, last Friday, Saturday & yesterday's rain has confirmed that our roof still leaks. Which is not good since the contractor was due yesterday morning to start repairing the water damage to our two front bedrooms.
So we spent most of the weekend emptying the rooms and re-organizing our upstairs so we still have somewhere to sleep and still have access to the clothes in our dressers while the work is being done.
Last night was our first night sleeping in the double bed. Cozy!

The contractor opened up part of the ceiling and took out the section of the wall which needs to be replaced. He couldn't do much beyond that as water was dripping down in various spots.
So last night we made the decision that it would be best to replace the roof entirely as it is 17 years old.
Luckily our roofer can start the job tomorrow morning so hopefully it will all be fixed before the expected rain on the weekend. And then the contractor can start up again on Monday.
And then I will be one step closer to having my upstairs back in order.

On a rainy fall afternoon

What to do on a cold and rainy afternoon?
Time to do some cooking (I had a frozen cabbage to get rid of so I now have lots & lots of soup for my lunches) and catch up on some blogging.

What's up? Well Tim's curling season is in full swing. His first bonspiel was in Boucherville already a month ago. The girls (Catherine, Vanessa & I) got to hang out while the boys (Tim & Eric) curled.
Vanessa is 7 months old now and on solid foods (if you can call mushed veggies and baby cereal "solid") so feeding her is a bit more involved. But she just gets more and more adorable and certainly more expressive.

We got our roof fixed and hopefully that will take care of the leak that caused water damage to our 2 front bedrooms. Now, hopefully, someday, maybe, we'll have the damage repaired. The contractor we were hoping to hire to do the job has been very unresponsive to even giving us a quote so we're kind of torn at this point whether to hire him but our insurance company cut us a cheque this week so, what to do, what to do...

We had my family over to celebrate my mom's birthday 3 weeks ago.
We had a simple meal with salad, potatoes and tournedos on the bbq. I found a recipe for apple cake with all whole wheat flour (if I recall correctly) and it turned out very tasty. The apples were from the organic farm basket we've been getting weekly & splitting with France. (She was supposed to get the cabbage I mentioned earlier but I kept it since it froze in the basement fridge.)

That Sunday we picked up France and went walking on Mont Rigaud and enjoyed the first day of autumn. We didn't get home in time to say our goodbyes to Anja, our German border, who moved out that afternoon. So we can now prance around the house to our heart's content without fear of freaking anyone out!

Tim had a spiel in Longue Pointe that week but I did not go to see him play and enjoyed some time alone at home & doing some errands around town.

I tried my hand at making pickled beets and tasted them earlier this week and they are quite good. So some of you might get a jar if you're lucky!

Last weekend was Thanksgiving and the highlight of the fall season for me. We went on Olaf's annual canoe camping trip in Saranac Lake in upstate New York.



Despite the rain on Saturday and Monday, we had a great time.

You can see the rest of my photos on Facebook at
Canoe Camping Saranac Lake 2007

And now the weather is actually more fall-like so I guess it's time to put away the sandals and capris til next year, sigh.

Why the only reason Fridays are better than Mondays is that it's almost the weekend.

One would expect Friday to be a mellow day, with the week winding down and tying up loose ends at work. One would expect this. Reality paints a different portrait.

Take yesterday. First, I got to the bus stop and the bus was actually early and already full so I didn't get a seat. Wouldn't you expect there to be less people taking the bus at 6:43 a.m. on a Friday? Not the case, obviously.

Then work.
I was at the "Japan" station this week in the lab. We make a curry sauce mixture that is destined for a customer in Japan hence we refer to this task as "Le Japon". On Fridays, they don't make any batches for Japan so I didn't have any sampling to do, only the tests on the production from the day before. You'd think I'd be less busy than the other days? Nuh uh. And I can't really explain why I was so busy in the a.m.
I did the test for salt content.
I did the melting point test.
I cooked up the curry sauce and had the others in the lab do a taste test.
I entered my results.
In between all this I did some taste-testing on the finished products side because my colleague on that job had a cold and couldn't taste anything.
And the next thing you know, it was amost 12 and it was time for us to go out for lunch.
This was a treat. We usually only have 30 minutes for lunch (although on Fridays, the 3 of us in QC eat together and stretch it out to 45) but yesterday was the last day for our colleague François in the R&D department so the 8 of us who work in the lab went out to Vinnie Gambini's for a goodbye lunch.
It was a good, but they were short-staffed (4 waiters instead of 7 and no bartender) so we were gone for a good 2 hours.
By the time we got back and changed, it was time for me to go down to the production department and do my weekly inspection after they had washed their equipment.
Then I had to go try on safety shoes.
Then I had to prepare all the sample containers and labels for next week for "Le Japon".
Then it was 3:30 and time to go back downstairs and do a final inspection.
Then I had to print up my report, tie up any loose ends around the lab and make sure everything was ready for Monday morning.
Okay, I'm really not doing the hecticness that I felt any justice here but before I knew it it was 4 o'clock and time to go!
Weekend, woohoo!

France had left me a message inviting Tim & me over for cabbage rolls so I walked to her place from work. Or more like moseyed my way over. But she wasn't home yet when I got there. So I went over to Katja & Jouni's who live a block away (very convenient!) and she joined us shortly after then Tim also arrived.

France told us all about her trip to Brazil and showed us her pictures after stuffing us with very yummy cabbage rolls and stuffed peppers.

Anja is away whale-watching in Tadoussac for the weekend so we got to sleep with the bedroom door open.
It's the little things in life...

Back to reality

So we're back to the old routine except for having a border in our home for 2 weeks. Anja arrived on Monday the 3rd from Germany. As in previous years, I've helped out Alain Forget, a German teacher at Ahuntsic Cegep, by providing a place for his visiting assistant to stay.

Last Saturday, we took it easy. We went and bugged Eric who was doing some sewing at his in-laws' shop.



And then I got taken out to see the Québécois film Bluff. Good storyline and an ending neither I nor Tim predicted. We then went out for a very nice supper at Cumulus, a resto in the 10-30 in Brossard.

Tim had his first bonspiel of the season in Boucherville on Sunday but his first game was at 8 am so I opted out going with him to spectate.
The weather was iffy so I debated whether to bike to the Shore and visit Catherine and Vanessa but they ended up coming into town and we went for a long walk up to Mount Royal.
It made me feel less guilty about the Ben & Jerry's I had the previous evening!