Journey & Adventure

It's been one heck of a year. As with any year, there have been good times, bad times, times of joy and times of sorrow. I haven't blogged much this year and truly have missed it. Next year is around the corner, so I hope to have a fresh start. See you soon!

Wow!   Where has the month of December gone?   The last I remember, it was late November and now, Christmas is upon us.   How did that happen? On the upside, I’ve been done my Christmas shopping and decorating since December 1 st , so it’s been a pleasant experience being able to AVOID the mall, crowds and crazies.   I did however, fail at Christmas baking this year.   I don’t enjoy baking, so it’s not something I do willingly, but every year, I begrudgingly make J and The Boy shortbread cookies.       This year I’m blaming the lack of cookies in our household on the makers of corn starch (a key ingredient in the cookies).   Yes, the corn starch company!   For the past 15 years, the recipe I use for the shortbread has resided on the side of the corn starch box.   Imagine my surprise when I look for the recipe on my new container of shortbread and all I see are the instructions “for recipe ideas visit our website”.   WT...

Now that the craziness of the holiday season is almost behind us, I’m hoping to get back into the blogging state of mind. With everything else going on these days, it’s been hard to keep up. My Christmas shopping is done and wrapped. Thank goodness for small miracles. I’ve been second guessing a couple of the purchases. Not that I’ve overspent on them, I’m just not 100% convinced they will be appreciated as much as I feel they should be. Oh well, I’m not dwelling on it because it’s the thought that counts – right? About 4 weeks ago, J and I ordered new living room furniture for Christmas. Only one piece was being customized with different fabric, but we refused to pay a delivery charge twice, so we’re now expecting it to be delivered in time for Valentine’s Day. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The Gigantic Craft Show has come and gone. After all my hard work, I’m happy to say I made money. Not enough to retire, but enough to call it a success. Will I do the same s...

May you, your family and friends have a very Merry Christmas or if you prefer, Joxieux, Feliz Navidad or Happy Holidays!

Well, I've been back from Hawaii for over a week now and last week was a whirlwind.  The other  two ladies in the legal department are out until the New Year with pneumonia, so that has left me doing the work of three people and that itself hasn't left me much time for anything - especially not blogging or Christmas stuff. I guess it was Wednesday when it dawned on me that Christmas was less than two weeks away.  Here it is now Saturday and I'm still just thinking about Christmas shopping. I know I'll pull it together before it actually gets here, but honestly, I'd rather be back at the beach...(which I'll report on in detail later)...

This was my favorite poem as a child.   My mother used to read it to me on Christmas Eve.   I used to have it memorized.   Then when The Boy was younger, I would read it to him.   He used to have it memorized too. Twas the Night Before Christmas Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there. The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads. And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap. When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash. The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below. When, what to m...

So, I’ve been at the new place of employment a month now.   I thought it would be fair to get to know my co-workers a little better before I started passing judgment on them and making fun of their behavior.   Well, like I said – it’s been a month….and I don’t really have much to report.   There is a huge age difference and for once in a long time, I’m one the youngest people in the group.   This normally isn’t weird for me, but in this case it is.   I don’t know what it is, but I’m attributing it to the fact that I have nothing in common with these people, no common interests in the same hobbies, sports, music, lifestyle or decade, etc. Yesterday was our Christmas lunch and it was a perfect time get to know these people outside of the office.   A little wine and great food should have led to stimulating conversation.   Ummm, not so much.    The awkward silences were deafening and I swear I could hear th...

The Ugly I realize that it’s the thought that counts and I appreciate everything I’ve been given - if not solely for their entertainment value, but let me say that there have been a whole lotta uglies under my Christmas tree.   There have been multiple culprits, but the major offender – my mother. I don’t know how to explain it, but my mother seemed to believe I was stuck in the 80’s – as a teenage girl.     When I was 13, I loved unicorns and then when I was 16, my interest turned to whales.   Until I was 39, I received at least one whale or unicorn item from my mother.   I don’t know where she found them, but every year, they were guaranteed to turn up. She then went through a stage, when everything had some type of fiber optics attached to it. Then, there was the clothing stage.   What 25 year old women wouldn’t want a sweatshirt with birdhouses or fuzzy cats on them? There was one year when something miraculous happened, expecting the...

As I mentioned, there are very few bad memories of Christmases past.    I’ve been fortunate; however there are still a few memories that have been less than stellar.   The Bad The first few years after my mom and dad divorced were tough.  One year I would be with my mom in Ontario and then the next year, I would be stuck on a plane as an unaccompanied minor and shuffled off to New Brunswick to spend with my dad.  It wasn’t awful - it just wasn’t what it used to be.  It was different, but with everything you learn to adapt. Then there are the things that when you’re a kid, seem like a huge miscarriage of justice and that you’ve be wronged by the world.   When I was 9, I got a set of walkie-talkies, which would have been a fantastic gift IF I wasn’t an only child who lived in the country, with no friends for miles.  When I was 12, I was dying for a 10 speed bike - a guy’s, blue, 10 speed bike.  What I got was a girl’s,...

As the spirit of the season is upon us - the season of giving, family, alcohol, friends and those warm and fuzzy feelings, I’ve started to reflect upon Christmases past – the good, the bad, and the ugly. The Good I’m very fortunate to say that all of my Christmases have been good ones.   I can’t recall a holiday celebration that I’ve felt I was short changed in any way. Don’t get me wrong – they certainly wouldn’t qualify as being up to the old-time standards of Norman Rockwell or “It’s a good thing” perfection of Martha Stewart, but each one has created a unique memory of its own. J and I were engaged on Christmas in 1987.   It wasn’t as romantic as it could have been, but that wasn’t his fault.   He tried to get me alone for hours, but my extended family of younger cousins weren’t getting the hint and tailed us all day until he finally gave up and got down on one knee in front of a crowd of 15 plus family member...

The weekend has been a blur and I know I'm not alone when I say, the holiday season is sucking the life out of me and of course my wallet.  Don't get me wrong, I love the holidays - I just don't like the panic and anxiety it causes in everyone around me, because sooner or later, a little is bound to rub off. It was J's birthday this weekend, so yesterday we set off to celebrate by going to a movie and then dinner and then because I had too much wine with dinner, I decided to get in some last minute Christmas shopping.  Yes, I went to the mall!  It's be years since I've been to the mall this close to Christmas and now I know why - the people. I don't know how to explain it, but last night I found the mall to be the most depressing place on earth - the looks of panic on people's faces, the picked over shelves, the screaming children (and parents), the rudeness of people trying to find parking spots, everything about it was horrible.  I went wi...

Get your minds out of the gutter - I mean Internet Nazis.  But, just in case your wondering, those are real too. Fact. Internet Nazis are real.  They aren’t mythical creatures or the stuff urban legends are based upon to keep employees engaged in real work and motivated by fear to stay the hell off of Facebook. My new place of employment has blocked all websites of interest to me – including Blogger, my blog, Gmail, Google Reader, Facebook, Amazon and Best Buy.  Do they not understand that I can’t possibly function under these circumstances? I do 80% of all my Christmas shopping online.  How the hell am I expected to do my Christmas shopping now?  Am I now expected to go to the dreaded mall? WTH?  I don’t even know where to start.  The mall means parking lots, crowded spaces, testy people and germs – lots and lots of germs.  Oh, the inhumanity of it all….Grrr… So please understand my absence from your blogs during...

Four months from today will be Christmas.  You can thank me now for ruining your day... Can you tell I'm bored?  Your welcome...

I work with scrooges. Three of the women (yes women) in my immediate vicinity have done nothing but flaunt the fact that they are NOT putting up a Christmas Tree this year and essentially are NOT celebrating the holiday season and it has nothing to do with religious beliefs. I can totally understand not being festive, but is it really necessary to be so verbal about it. I say “shut the hell up and let me be merry damnit!” The dipstick HR Assistant on the other side of my cube wall has something contagious. She has been coughing (without covering her mouth) for the past 5 days. It would be nice if it was laryngitis and she couldn’t talk at all. Not to be mean, but when she tries to talk she starts to cough even more which results in more germs being spewed about my vicinity. She doesn’t blow her nose either – Ugghhh! I’m totally done my shopping and the presents are wrapped; however I have a sense that I’ll be returning a number of them. I just wasn’t “feeling” the gifts this ye...

With the exception of this year, I have faithfully mailed out Christmas cards to friends, family and acquaintances (both old and new). I typically take the time to hand-write a personal greeting to each and every recipient. For some odd reason, I have found this task to be therapeutic – perhaps a simple way of showing my appreciation of how much this person’s friendship has meant to me. I never expected the card giving gesture to be reciprocated by all, but I admit that it was nice to arrive home to find a Christmas card or two in the pile of mail sitting on the kitchen counter. A card is a relatively cheap gift to give, but the warm thoughts that come with them are priceless. I don’t know what happened to me this year and I don’t have an excuse – other than I was lazy in failing to write a single note or managing to mail even one card. I’m saddened by my lack of Christmas cheer. In not sending these cards, I have also notice that I did not rece...

For this occasion only, please disregard my post from yesterday about being a bad Canadian. I'm still a bad Canadian 362 other days of the year, but with these Canadian icons, I couldn't be more proud to be a Canadian than I am at Christmas Time... Introducing Bob & Doug McKenzie and their version of The Twelve Days of Christmas - Enjoy!

First, please excuse the quality of the photos. Since J wasn't around, I had to resort to taking my own photos and well, they are self-explanatory. In case you were wondering, they were taken in my cube at work. Anyhow, I thought I would share another side to my ever evolving self - my darker creative side. This time of year, I enjoy creating holiday decorations (mostly wreaths and Christmas trees) from pine cones and other nature-like stuff. I do make them to sell and this year I am donating a $10 from each one sold to the Salvation Army's Tree of Angels campaign in the name of the buyer. People are buying them, so they either like them or it's their own little way of giving to a worthwhile cause - either way the Salvation Army wins.

I work for a hardware/software company whose product is supposed to make the internet experience better. Really? Because right now my internet experience sucks! Dial up internet would be a better experience than what I’m getting right now. We have discovered that our cat has once again chewed through the electrical cord to our battery backup unit on our home computer. This is the third time it has happened, so either the cat does have nine lives or that scene in the Christmas Vacation movie is false and cats don’t parish so easily. The Jim Carey version of The Grinch was on television last night. Am I the only person on the planet that finds that movie creepy and disturbing? If I was a child, I would have had nightmares for sure. On the note of things that freak me out – so do clowns, Tele-Tubbies, as do pretty much any member of Sesame Street and The Muppets. What is wrong with me? We put up and decorated our Christmas Tree on the weeke...

The cold reality of it being a mere 6 months until Christmas has slapped me silly this morning. With Summer just officially arriving on Sunday, this news is a bitter pill to swallow. What have I done to deserve this? It’s not that I have anything against Christmas, it’s just that I have a bone or two to pick with the nasty, uninvited cold weather that hitches a ride with it. Anyone that lives in a warmer climate cannot possibly relate to this feeling of desperation. The saddest part of this revelation being – cold weather actually arrives at least two months prior to Christmas (aka 4 months from now). Gahhh! What does that mean you ask? It means I have a lot of warmth and sunshine to absorb and pack into these remaining 4 months. Using my vacation days are not a feasible option, as these must be reserved for my winter escapes to warmer climates. Hmmm...perhaps a few more sick days are in order. I hear the West Nile virus might be going around. *coug...