Monday, December 31, 2007

Adieu 2007

Happy New Year! Another year overwith. Time flies after you hit 25 years old! LOL. In lieu of the ending of 2007, I'll do an entry like I did last year and recap my 2007 for you. Have a good evening tonight everyone and be safe!

January

-2007 started for Ryan and I by waking up at Kim and Jon's house after a New Year's Eve party at their place.
-my car wouldn't start and I discovered on the internet that my make of car has a poorly designed ignition switch, which should be recalled by the maker won't do a recall. I gave the dealership a piece of my mind and got the part replaced with a better one for free.
-I fainted out at Ryan's parent's place due to the jacuzzi and drove two of my teeth through my bottom lip. I missed a week of work and still have a scar on my lip.

February

-My Dad celebrated his birthday on the 3rd.
-I received training to take calls for Brand B with my company.
-Anna Nicole Smith died.
-I took a day trip to shop in Houlton with Shelly.
-Had a wonderful Valentine's Day despite a wicked snowstorm we got that evening.

March

-I started preparations for the stagette party that I was throwing for Carrie.
-Ryan started his current job as a car salesman.
-Carrie and Chris drove home for their wedding in April.
-I threw Carrie's stagette party.

April

-Carrie and I did all sorts of last minute things in preparation for her wedding.
-Got my hair "did" for a trial run and my nails done for Carrie's wedding.
-We got another horrendous snowstorm the day before Carrie's wedding.
-Carrie got married on April 7th - Easter weekend.
-Ryan celebrated his birthday on the 13th.
-My aunt Sandra passed away.

May

-Spring finally arrived
-My company switched me back to taking Brand A calls.
-Carrie discovered that she conceived a baby on her honeymoon and was due in January 2008.

June

-Hosted a BBQ at my house for some friends.
-Went on a girls camping trip with Angela, Kim and Alisha.
-Carrie came home for a visit.
-Angela got married.

July

-Ryan and I had a steak and scallop BBQ for Canada Day with Carrie and Chris.
-Walked down to the green from our house with Carrie and Chris for the Canada Day fireworks.
-My brother celebrated his birthday on the 4th.
-While cruising on their motorcycles together, Ryan's friend Chris F got into an accident when a man drove out of his driveway without even looking and slammed into Chris F. He was ok luckily, but his bike was a write off.
-Angela moved to San Diego, CA.
-Ryan and I travelled to P.E.I. with friends Matt and Melissa for an Aerosmith concert.

August

-We went camping NB Day weekend with Shane, Val and their two kids.
-I celebrated my birthday on the 17th and got spoiled rotten.
-Carrie came home for a visit.

September

-Carrie's grandfather passed away shortly after she returned home to Ontario from her August visit. It was nice to have Carrie back home again, but the circumstances weren't the best.
-Carrie, Andrea (one of Carrie's bridesmaids) and I had a girls night at my house.
-Ryan and I went to the big 250 race at the Speedway in Geary.
-Went to Harvest Jazz and Blues festival with Shane and Val.

October

-Enjoyed two Thanksgiving dinners - 1 at Ryan's parent's, 1 at my parent's.
-Got a passport in preparation for our trip to Arizona in April 08.
-Carrie and Chris drove home for a visit, the last time I'd see her before she became a Mommy. I was on vacation the week they were home, so it was great to spend that time with them and do some day trips with them.
-Spent Halloween passing out treats at my brother's house.

November

-Christmas music started playing in the malls the day after Halloween.
-I started and finished my Christmas shopping, complete with having it all wrapped.
-We received our first snowfall of the winter.
-Ryan and I booked our spring trip to Arizona.
-Had dinner out with Shelly.
-Val and the kids came over and we walked to the end of my street to watch the Santa Claus parade.

December

-Ryan went on a trip to Sugarloaf with the ski patrol crew he volunteers with. They travelled home in a bad snowstorm, taking them literally all day to drive back from Maine.
-I put my Christmas decorations and tree up the first weekend of the month.
-Angela arrived home at the beginning of the month from San Diego for the holidays.
-Had dinner out with Angela and Sherri.
-Christmas came and went so quickly.
-Carrie went into labour early on Boxing Day.
-Brayden Christopher Westbrook was born at 3:21 a.m. on December 27th.
-Ryan and I had my parents, my brother and my aunts Nancy and Barb over last Saturday for a raclette dinner, which was super fun. If you don't know what a raclette is, google it - it's pretty cool (I got one for Christmas)!
-My parent's are taking us out for our annual New Year's Eve dinner tonight. From there we're not 100% sure what we're doing, but do have a couple of party options. It's just a matter of which one we choose, lol.

Friday, December 28, 2007

EI, EI, O....OOOPS!

Yah so my first day on the job as a new Auntie, I receive a failing grade! My new nephew's name is spelled with an E and not an O like I had been spelling it, D'oh! So it's Brayden not Braydon. Oops!

I went up to my parent's place after work yesterday for supper and we talked about Carrie and baby Brayden. I was eager to talk to Carrie herself, but figured it would be about a week or so until I got the opportunity, given that she was in the hospital and all the busy-ness that comes with bringing home a new baby and having lots of visitors over. I went home after spending some time with my family and there was a message on my answering machine. It was Carrie! I was so bummed that I missed her call and couldn't call her back since she was in the hospital.

I got a new tv for Christmas (as you know) and took the old one from the living room upstairs to replace the teeny tiny tv that was in the master bedroom. I never got around to switching them over before, just took the old living room tv upstairs. So last night was switch-a-roo night. I went to bed shortly afterwards as I was so tired from being up most of the night before, anticipating the call about Brayden's arrival.

At about 11 p.m. last night the phone rang and it was Carrie! It was so good to hear her voice and talk to her about her birthing experience. I'll spare you the details and just let you know that everything is going well with the new happy family. Carrie expects to be released from the hospital tomorrow afternoon.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

IT'S A BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm a new Auntie!!!!!!!!!

Braydon Christopher Westbrook arrived this morning at around 3 a.m.-ish Ontario time. He weighed 7lbs, 11oz's, has lots of dark hair and looks like his daddy.

I'm so happy that although I'm extremely sleep deprived, I actually drove to work this morning with a smile on my face.

I talked to Carrie on the phone for about an hour or so on Christmas Day evening. She told me that she could tell her body was preparing for baby's arrival, but nothing major was happening. Carrie's parents and her brother went up to Ontario for Christmas, so she was hoping that she would deliver soon, while everyone was still there. Her dad and her brother are coming home this weekend and her mother was going to stay up there until she had the baby, so it's nice that Braydon arrived while all three were up there to meet him.

Chris' (Carrie's husband) family was having a large potluck get together on Boxing Day and I was teasing Carrie telling her that her water was going to break at the dinner. Well, that's exactly what happened! As soon as they finished eating dinner, her water broke so off they went. Carrie called me from her cellphone on the way to the hospital to tell me it was time. We didn't talk long because they were getting close to the hospital and well, the woman was in labour.

I went to bed excited, knowing that I wouldn't sleep well, awaiting the news of baby's arrival. I got a call early in the morning from one estatic Grandmother telling me the good news! Although he decided to come a little early, he's a healthy baby boy and Carrie is doing well also.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Happy Boxing Day!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! I certainly did! The only thing that would have made it better was if I had this week off of work, but alas I don't. It's hard going to work knowing that everyone else is home sleeping in, lol! Especially since I'm pretty tired and wish I was still in bed myself, lol.

So Monday after work I went up to my parent's house for our Christmas Eve supper of baked ziti. It was extremely delicious! We then went to my parent's church for the Christmas Eve service. On the way home to my parent's house from church, we stopped and picked up some egg nog to have a couple of drinks of rum and egg nog back at my parent's place in preparation for Santa's visit. We were going to watch the movie National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, but after sitting in the living room chatting for a while, the movie watching window had passed and we all retired to bed fairly early.

Christmas morning we got up at around 8 a.m. and discovered that Santa had indeed found us. The living room was filling full of gifts and then shreds of wrapping papers, boxes, two crazy dogs and a crazy cat, lol. I received the following wonderful gifts from my parents: a new tv, pajamas and a robe, a raclette grill, new bedsheets, a remote control caddy and some spending money for my upcoming trip to Arizona. My brother got me Shrek 3 and the final season of the Sopranos on DVD, completing my collection of seasons of the Sopranos. My dad then cooked us a big breakfast and we vegged in the living room until about noon.

When we could finally move after eating so much in the past couple of days, my brother helped me load up my bounty and take it home to my house. He then helped me set up my new tv and then he went home to his place to take his bounty home. I learned how to program my tv, straightened up the house a bit and then waited for Ryan's arrival for our Christmas together. I had a great Christmas with Ryan as well and received a new purse, leather gloves, a scarf and hat set, new fluffy socks and slippers, a gift set from Fruits and Passion, a new gold chain and lots of stocking loot. Ryan's parent's gave me a set of Paderno mixing bowls, a pair of pajamas and some body butter. I guess I was a good girl this year!

Monday, December 24, 2007

Merry Christmas to all!

I am at work right now. I am in a crappy mood right now because I am at work and because the people I'm dealing with today at work are all morons. Anyway, enough of that.

Despite both myself and Ryan being stuck at work today, I am excited! It's Christmas Eve! Yeah! After I put in what I know is going to be a long day's work, I'm heading to my parent's place for Christmas Eve dinner and then church with them. For the past 10 years, I've been going to Carrie's parent's place on Christmas Eve, but won't be this year as Carrie is home in Ontario this year, waiting for "Baby B" (my nickname for her baby) to arrive shortly.

This past weekend saw me spend the majority of it in my kitchen. Friday evening Ryan and I were going to go to Shane and Val's for a bit, but Ryan ended up falling asleep on the couch. I took advantage of this time to get a head start on my Christmas baking. Half of my baking has been distributed to my parent's and the other half that remained at my house is about 1/2 devoured already, lol. It's to the point where I'm debating on doing more baking :S.

Saturday I finished up with the baking stuff, went and paid my cable bill, did laundry at my parent's place and helped my brother tie up his loose ends in preparation for Christmas. Saturday evening Ryan and I joined my brother, his girlfriend and a couple other friends at Cannon's Cross for nachos. They were delish! I don't particularly care for nachos because I hate salsa, but I loved the nachos at this place because they make them with brushetta mix...mmm!

Sunday I slept in later than normal and woke up to Ryan downstairs making breakfast, which was super sweet. In the afternoon I started the challenge of Christmas Eve dinner. For the past five years or so, I've always made something special for my family for dinner on Christmas Eve. My mom makes a huge turkey dinner for us on Christmas Day, so I make Christmas Eve's dinner. This year we're having Baked Ziti tonight for supper and I'm so looking forward to it! It's not a real popular dish around here, so you may have not even heard of it. It's a pasta dish, kind of like lasagna but with a different type of noodles. It's also got tomato sauce, beef, italian sausage, parmesan, mozzarella, ricotta and provolone cheeses in it. My mouth is watering thinking about it, lol. Anyway, I devoted yesterday afternoon to preparing and assembling the ziti. We just have to put it in the oven tonight.

I'll probably be back here on Wednesday with a Christmas report, as the only day I have off work is Christmas Day. Have a safe and Merry Christmas everyone!

Friday, December 21, 2007

Gonna Get My Bake On

Finally Friday and finally starting to feel better, although I'm still slightly sick and am hoping that this dang flu will be completely out of my system by Christmas. It feels like this is the last work day before Christmas, which sucks because it isn't. Maybe it feels that way to me because last year it was a Friday that was the last work day before Christmas or maybe it's because the majority of the workforce doesn't have to go into work on Monday and it really is the last workday before Christmas for them. I forsee us being very busy today and Monday.....sigh.

So this weekend I'm going to get totally baked. I'm going to stay in my kitchen for hours upon hours and get totally baked! What? Doesn't everyone get baked this time of year? LOL! I'm planning on making our annual cocoa-crispie roll, shortbread cookies, hello dolly squares, pumpkin bread and maybe a few other things if I have time. I'm looking forward to baking as it's been months since I've done any. I really enjoy baking, but when you're trying to lose weight, it's not exactly the best thing to partake it, lol.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Sick

I am sick...again. This time it's worse than a couple of weeks ago :(. Ryan was saying on the weekend that he thought he was getting sick and I was feeling like my cold was returning, but it wasn't enough to slow me down much on the weekend. Last evening I was starting to feel worse and this morning it's full blown. I have the flu and Ryan does too :(. I have a fever, my sinuses hurt and are runny, my ears ache, my throat is sore. It hurts me to talk, so I'm not sure if I can make it through the whole day at work today or not. I was "sick" for four hours yesterday because of the freaking snow storm we got (no more snow please!) and it took me forever to dig out my driveway. My body is sore from shovelling for hours upon hours too, so I'm not in good shape today. I am trying to conserve my sick time, but I have a feeling the majority of it will be getting used up by the end of the week. And by the looks of it Poet, I don't think I'll be able to make it out to your place any time soon :(.

Despite feeling like crap right now, I had a great weekend. Friday night Ryan and I went to Shane and Valerie's place. Saturday night my brother had a Christmas party. Ryan and I went over at around 8 or so. Ryan stayed for a couple of hours and then went home because he had to get up early the next morning to do ski patrol. I stayed at my brother's and we all then went out to the Twenty/20 club afterwards. It was a fun night! Sunday I got together with some of the Saturday night crew for a hang over breakfast and then I went up to my parent's place for supper. Sunday night is when the freakin' snow storm hit us. Ryan was out at Crabbe Mountain all day doing ski patrol and had to drive home in that mess. Luckily two hours later, he made it back safely!

Friday, December 14, 2007

Enough Already!

Ok I've had enough! I want no more of it! It's too much for this time of year! Dear God, please stop the snow!!!

This week has been hell at work and it's only going to get worse in the next couple of weeks. It's our peak season because of the Christmas holidays and every man and his dog wants to rent a car. Well as you can imagine, we're sold out in every major city. People cannot grasp this concept and continue to verbally abuse you when you tell them you are sold out. I feel like screaming at these people and saying "Look you moron....you know it's Christmas....you know lots of people travel on Christmas....you shouldn't have left it until a week and a half before Christmas to call us"! Yesterday was especially a hard day. I've worked here for 8 years so I've handled pretty much every type of call in the book. Sometimes though, even people like me have days where they just break down and can't take the stress of continuously being called horrific names for something you can't control. I was taking little breaks to compose myself after every 5-10 horrible calls. Luckily in the afternoon my supervisor had a bunch of extra work she needed help and asked me if I'd like to give her a hand. I was all "Ah....YES"! So luckily I got a nice hour and a half break yesterday, lol.

Our team is having a Swiss Chalet party this afternoon at work, so I'll get to have an hour away from my job this afternoon too! At the end of October my supervisor asked me if I would be the canvasser for our team for the United Way campaign in November. I canvassed last year and had no success in signing anyone up for payroll deductions last year. At this year's canvasser's meeting with our center's director I brought up the fact that we need an incentive for people to sign up. Our director said "What do you want"? I said "I dunno, something for our team to look forward too, but not a pizza party, since we have those quite a bit. We should think of something different". The director goes "Ok, what about this. If any team can obtain 100% participation of their members to sign up for donation, then that team will win a chicken and ribs dinner party from Swiss Chalet". We canvassers were floored and thought it sounded good to us! Well, I am happy to report that I am the only canvasser in the whole center who managed to get 100% participation from their team, so our dinner is today! Woohoo! I'm excited. It's a good way to end a stressful week here!

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Carrie's Christmas Wish May Come True

Well, not much to report from the weekend. It was pretty quiet. Friday night Ryan and I had supper and relaxed for the evening. He had to get up early on Saturday for ski patrol, hence the quiet night.

Saturday I got up early when Ryan did and went up to my parent's place to do my laundry up early. While I was there I helped my folks put their Christmas lights up. My brother showed up at their place and wanted me to go shopping with him to pick out a birthday present for someone, so I did. Saturday night Ryan came home around supper time. Carrie called while we were eating and said she'd call back in a half an hour, which she did. I talked to her for about an hour and when I was finished and came back out to the living room, Ryan was fast asleep on the couch and stayed that way for the majority of the evening, lol. I watched The Grinch (the one with Jim Carrey in it) on tv while he slept, lol. It's nice to have relaxed weekends like that.

Last night I went out for supper with Sherri and Angela and had a fantastic meal at Swiss Chalet. Angela and I went back to my place afterwards to hang out and Ryan came home around 8:30 or so. Shortly after Ryan got there, the phone rang and it was Carrie. Since I'd just talked to her on Saturday and she and I had been emailing back and forth all day yesterday, I knew something was up. I asked her what was going on and she said "Oh, I'm real nervous" and I said "Why, are you in labour"? She said "No, but I went to the doctor today and she took me off work (this was her last week of work before starting her maternity leave) because apparantly there are four stages of labour and I'm through stage one". I couldn't believe it when she told me that she is progressing already! She is 37 weeks along now, so really she could go anytime now. She told me that the doctor told her not to wait when she does start getting big contractions, to just go to the hospital, because her doctor thinks that when she does go, she'll go fast. I'm so excited and happy for Carrie and Chris. She has wanted to give birth before Christmas, so maybe just maybe she'll get her Christmas wish!

Friday, December 7, 2007

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

It is so cold out there this morning! There's a light up sign by the mall that I work in that I drive by every morning, which gives the time and the temperature. This morning it said -22 degrees. That's sooooooo cold! BRRR! It's always cold where I sit at work too, I swear that there is cold air blowing out of the ducts! So I'm sitting here literally shivering while I type this.

This week has gone by really fast. I guess only working 4 out of the 5 days this week helped speed things up! Monday night we got dumped with over 30 cm's of snow. It was a crazy storm, one of the worst I can remember. Ryan was on his way home from Sugarloaf, so I was worried sick about them travelling back in the storm. They finally arrived home at 11 p.m. - after leaving Maine at 8 in the morning. It's a six hour drive, so that tells you how slow they had to travel home.

On Tuesday morning I set the alarm for 6 a.m., to get up early and shovel out the yard. I have to be to work at 7:30 in the mornings, so I figured an hour would be plenty of time to shovel especially with two of us working at it. Wrong! I could not believe how much snow we had gotten overnight. When I went outside, the snow was way up over my knees! It took an hour just to shovel the stuff at the end of the driveway where the plow had gone by. We finally got enough shovelled to get Ryan out of the driveway and I stayed behind and cleaned out the rest of the driveway. Three hours later and a phone call to work that I wouldn't be in on that day, I was finished and exhausted. The snow was so heavy and saturated that it was a tough job and my arms are still tired. My cold returned from being out in that crappy weather so long, but I'm starting to feel much better now.

On Wednesday night I went up to visit my parents for a bit after supper. When I got back home, there was a message on my answering machine from Angela, who had come back home from San Diego for Christmas. She came over to my place for a visit and we chatted just like old times until almost midnight.

Not too much planned for this weekend. The only thing on my agenda is sleeping in, lol. We may head over to Shane and Val's on Saturday night. Tonight will be a tame evening because Ryan has ski patrol training all day tomorrow.

Monday, December 3, 2007

Ah-choo!

A weekend I was looking forward to turned into a miserable weekend for me. The weekend started out wonderfully, but I am currently battling a cold/flu and not liking it one bit.

Friday I went up to my parent's place after work and did my laundry. I left their place while a load of laundry was in the dryer and headed out to finish my Christmas shopping. I only had a few things left to get and I am happy to report that I am completely done all of my Christmas shopping. I'm finished picking out gifts for everyone (I'm finished wrapping those gifts too), I'm finished shopping for stocking stuffers and I'm finished shopping for Christmas goodies - i.e. chocolates and other treats for the coffee table for Christmastime.

I went back to my parent's place, loaded up my laundry and then headed home. I went down to the basement and brought up all of the boxes labelled "Christmas" and decided I'd tackle them the next day.

Saturday morning my dad and I went to a couple of Christmas bazaars and I helped him finish his shopping for my mother. I went home and began unpacking the Christmas boxes and started decorating. After I put up all of my decorations, I began to tackle my Christmas tree. I took it out of the box and after some aggrevation and a few choice words, I had it up. Now when I brought up all of the Christmas boxes from the basement, I felt like I was missing one. Well, I was and it was the most important one. The box with the majority of my tree ornaments was missing. I scoured and tore apart my basement (which isn't that big) from one end to the other and the box with my Christmas ornaments is gone. I have no idea where it could have gone to. It's a mystery and I'm still upset at the loss of the ornaments I've collected over the past 5 Christmases I've had at my own house. So yes, I had to go out and purchase all new ornaments for my tree...an unexpected expense that has put me over budget, so here's to scraping by for another couple of weeks until next pay day! Luckily my tree topper (which I love) and about a dozen other tree items (like ribbon, icicles, etc.) were packed in the box that held the tree skirt and our stockings, so I still have those items. My tree looks great, but I'm a little sad when I look at it and I remember this ornament or that ornament, how I received it and that it's gone now.

Sunday I woke up not feeling so great. I didn't think anything of it because sometimes the electric heat does make me feel this way when I get up in the morning. It usually passes after about a half an hour or so after I get up. Not yesterday, I was miserable all day. I layed like a lump on the couch all frigging day. Luckily one of my favorite shows "Jon and Kate plus 8" was on a marathon on TLC, so I watched numerous hours of that yesterday, lol. I was thankfull that I got sick yesterday while I was off work, but not happy to be sick. When I went to bed last night, I looked at myself in the mirror and freaked out a bit because my face looked swollen and droopy. I thought I was having an allergic reaction to something, so I took a benadryl before going to bed.

I do feel a bit better today, although my face is still looking droopy. I'm still a bit snotty and achy, but I came to work anyway. I'm trying to conserve my sick time incase I need to be "sick" over the holidays if I get drafted to work. I may opt to go home on my lunch break as I probably shouldn't be here feeling the way I do and my achy-ness is increasing.

Ryan is coming home today from Sugarloaf. I've missed him being away for 4 days, but I'm glad he wasn't home yesterday, lol. When I'm sick I just want to be by myself. I don't want anyone around me at all, so I was glad to have the house to myself to mope in yesterday. We're supposed to get dumped with upwards of 30 cm's of snow between now and this time tomorrow. I hope they get home safely!