We're Booked!

Our plane tickets are now booked! Woohoo! Ryan confirmed our booking on Friday afternoon, so we'll be Arizona and California bound before we know it! Next year is shaping up to be a busy year so far!

Friday after work I went and picked up a turkey at my brother's house. His old roommate had left one in the deep freeze and my brother was getting tired of looking at it and asked me if I'd cook it for him. I told him I would if I could have some of the meat off of it, to which he said sure. I went back home and then Ryan got home from work. I made a quick batch of cookies before we headed over to Shane and Valerie's for the evening. Val and the kids were coming to my house the following day for the Santa Claus parade, since it goes right by my street when it's on the Northside every other year.

Saturday I got up fairly early, threw the turkey in the oven and started cleaning the house. My brother called and said that the SPCA were doing pet photos with Santa and wanted to know if I wanted to go with him while he took his bulldog Mack. I took a quick drive with him down to Green Village where the photos were being taken and then back to the house to remove the beast from my oven. I carved up the turkey and then made a hearty turkey soup. Val and the kids showed up shortly afterwards and we walked to the end of my street to watch the parade. The parade was nice, but it was so freakin cold out! We hurried back to the house as soon as it was over and tried to defrost with some hot chocolate. I was frozen the whole night and still couldn't seem to get warm even the next day!

Yesterday I went back down to Green Village with my brother to pick up the pictures of his dog and then up to mom and dad's to do laundry and have Sunday supper with them. After I got back home I had a shower and got things in order to start a new work week. Ryan and I watched the Amazing Race and after that was over, he wanted to watch the end of the Grey Cup that was on. I have absolutely no interest in football, so I went upstairs and crawled into bed to watch Desperate Housewives. I fell asleep half way through the episode, so I'm a little upset with myself as the previews looked like the episode was going to be really good, and of course all the good stuff happens in the last half of an episode.

Tonight I'm going Christmas shopping with my Dad. Each year I go with him and help him pick out things for my mother - who is the world's hardest person to shop for.

Preparing To Book!

This week was our "vacation bid" week at work, meaning the time when we book or "bid" our weeks of vacation for the following year. I am very pleased to report that I got everything I wanted. I have the holiday week off in August, a week in February to go up and see Carrie after she has the baby and two weeks off together in April to go to Arizona and California.

Ryan and I have started seriously shopping for flights the past two days and things started out good, but then started to take a bad turn. On Wednesday I found us flights on Travelocity from Maine to Arizona with only one stop over for $450 each, taxes in, round trip - which is damn good for travelling so far. We mulled it over and kept searching. Then the best deal we could find was Air Canada flying out of Fredericton for almost a thousand dollars, so double the first price we found. We were like "uh-oh"! We were also finding that a lot of the airlines were now selling out for the dates we wanted. Ryan went on a mission yesterday while at work and managed to find us the first deal I was talking about from Maine with the only one stop over for $488 each, taxes in, etc. Only forty bucks more but this is booking through the airline directly as well, which gives us the flexibility to modify the booking (which booking with the travel website doesnt - once you book it on the travel site, it's set in stone. Better hope you don't get sick or anything else happens) and by booking with the airline directly, we save the surcharge that Travelocity charges for making the bookings, so we're probably coming out ahead in the long run.

So Ryan has "held" the tickets and he's going to confirm them today. It's hard to believe that this trip is actually coming together! We've talked about it for years now and once Angela moved to San Diego we thought we should go for it. We have Ryan's parent's place to stay at for free in Arizona, we can stay with Angela and Darren in California, we're never going to be able to travel to these places any cheaper and we might as well do it now before we have a family.

Weekend Update

Another weekend in the books. Hard to believe that this coming weekend is the Santa Claus parade. It's be Christmas before you know it!

This weekend wasn't overly eventfull, but it was nice. Friday night I picked Valerie up after supper and we went to the craft fair at the market. There were all kinds of beautiful things there that I would have loved to get, but I didn't want to spend a small fortune there and my house is also very tiny, so I don't exactly have a lot of room to put a lot of stuff. I did buy a metal star.

Saturday Ryan got up early for work and I got up at the same time and went up to my parents house and did my laundry up early. After lunch I went and paid my bills and did a bit of Christmas shopping. I'm up to I'd say 90% done now! I even wrapped a bit of it on Saturday.

Saturday night Ryan and I rented Oceans 13. Ryan fell asleep about 10 minutes into the movie and I watched the whole thing and really enjoyed it. Normally the movies that Ryan picks out, I don't particulary enjoy, but I did this one.

Yesterday I slept in and then Carrie called me and we talked on the phone for over an hour. It had been a couple of weeks since we'd last talked on the phone, so it was good to chat with her. I went up to my parent's place for our traditional Sunday supper and then went home. Ryan and I watched the Amazing Race and then he watched Oceans 13 (it was a two day rental) and I went to bed.

Today after work I'm going out for supper with my friend Shelly. I haven't seen her in a couple of weeks, since Carrie was last home, and it has been a while since she and I have done anything together just the two of us.

Heat Wave!

Holy crow it's warm out there! It's mid November and we've been experiencing temperatures in the minus now for a little while. I've been keeping an eye on the weather forecast this week, so I knew we were expected to get some warm weather our way. When I walked outside of my door to come to work this morning, it was actually warmer outside my house than it was inside my house. Granted, I don't keep my heat up very high in the house. It's so freaking expensive and my house is old and the heat escapes quite easily from it, so winter time I shovel out the money to NB Power. If I didn't "scrooge" on the heat, I shutter to think what my power bill really would be. However, I do keep it at a warm 15 degrees. It is currently 17 degrees outside right now. There are mornings in the summer when it's not that warm at 7 a.m.! Let's keep this weather up, lol!

Yesterday at work I had a meeting for an hour and half. I was nervous thinking to myself that a meeting that long can't be a good thing. It turned out that it was only a code of conduct meeting. Meaning we watched two (lame) videos that taught us what sexual harrassment was and one that told us not to steal from work and not to fight with people at work, lol. Common sense stuff really, but they also stressed confidentiality. I know I've never disclosed the actual name of the company I work for on here, so I know I haven't done anything wrong, however I've decided to not b*tch about work on here anymore. This is a work computer I use to maintain this blog and well, it just seems wrong to complain on here about the place that is allowing me to publish this. I still hate my job and always will, I just won't b*tch about it here anymore, lol. Plus, b*tching about your job always brings a person down doesn't it? So no more SC stories on here, sorry Poet, we'll have to save those for a coffee get together.

Nothing huge going on this weekend. I'm heading to the craft show at the market tonight after work with Valerie. This show is my favorite of the few craft shows that are in town this time of year. This one has the most "country" type crafts, which are the types that I enjoy the most. I also find the items at this show are way more affordable, so I'm really looking forward to going over.

I plan to do some more Christmas shopping this weekend and perhaps may even finish my gift buying. I'm about 75% done now. I like to get this part overwith early. Because of the huge expense of buying gifts, I like to spread it out and also I like to have the last couple of pay cheques before Christmas to use on things like a few new decorations each year, wrapping paper, bows, and the always huge Christmas grocery order. You all know what I'm talking about. Each year the amount of "special" things you buy at the grocery store for Christmas seems to get more and more and you seem to dish out more and more money.

Would It Kill Ya To Throw Down Some Sand?

When I came downstairs this morning and looked out my picture window, I got the feeling of Christmas. I love Christmastime and I honestly got that special Christmas-y feeling looking out the window. There was snow everywhere. Granted this wasn't the first snowfall we've seen here in the past month, it was the first snowfall I had seen at my own house (remember, I was out at Ryan's parent's place when it snowed the first time and was then all melted when I got off work). Yes it's true, I do hate snow, but for a very small fraction of time it made me feel good today. Now I can't wait to break out the Christmas decorations!

I brushed off my car and left for work. My tires were spinning underneath me as I changed my transmission from reverse to first gear. No biggie, my street is covered in snow. They rarely plow side streets unless it's a huge amount of snow. I'm thinking "By the time I get to the main road, it will be fine". Wrong. Oh how very wrong! There was not a grain of sand to be found on any of the city streets. I couldn't believe it. We had gotten more snow this falling than the previous and after the first snowfall, my car was covered in sand that salt brine stuff that they put down on the roads. There was nothing down today. There were cars slipping and slidding everywhere, missing the turn off to the bridge, missing streets all together, it was nuts. I was shocked that the city wasn't out there doing something, considering that in about 30 minutes time it would be the big "quarter to eight" rush for everyone to get to work. I took my time and drove very slowly and made it to work no problem, but the radio was saying there were a lot of accidents in the area.

The long weekend passed by too quickly. Friday Ryan rented the Fantastic Four (another movie that I did not enjoy one bit, lol). Saturday Ryan had to work. I went shopping with my brother to help him pick out some dress clothes and we went out for lunch. Saturday night Ryan and I went over to Shane and Valerie's for the evening. Another friend Mike was over there as well. Sunday I went to my parent's place for dinner and rented Knocked Up for Ryan and I to watch that evening. I've been wanting to see it for a while now and Ryan hadn't wanted to. While we were at Shane's place on Saturday night, Mike was saying how good the movie was, so of course Ryan was willing to watch it now. Figures eh, lol. Yesterday we didn't do anything, it was a super lazy day. We were debating going shopping in the US for just a day since we couldn't get any hotel rooms in Bangor for the weekend, but we didn't even do the day trip. I was fine with that though, as I'm a little short on cash at the moment.

Weekend Update

With the time change yesterday and us gaining an extra hour, you'd think that this would be a Monday morning where I would feel very well rested, but I feel just as tired as every other Monday, lol.

Friday night I went up to my parent's house after supper to do two quick loads of laundry. My mom informed me that my second cousin had died tragically earlier that afternoon. The amount of cousins that I have on my mother's side is huge, so I didn't really know this cousin, but it's still very sad to think of how he passed away. It's all I've been thinking about all weekend.

After I finished up my laundry I went home and put it all away. Ryan picked me up and we went to Shane and Valerie's for the evening. We had shared some good laughs and a few beers and took a cab home at about 2:30 a.m.

Saturday I took Ryan to Shane's to pick up his car as he had CPR training all afternoon and I then took my mom for groceries. She doesn't drive and my father was in Bangor with my brother for the day. Valerie and the kids then picked me up later in the afternoon and we went to the craft fair on the Exhibition grounds. It was the first time that I'd seen the kids since we were camping with them in August, as they're always in bed when Ryan and I go over on the weekends. It was good to see them and they were very well behaved while Val and I browsed the crafts.

Ryan came home from CPR training and we had supper. We then decided to go out to his parent's house for the night. They were supposed to be coming home from Victoria on Saturday night but their flight was cancelled until today. We drove up the hill and in the short amount of time it took us to get up the hill the effects of hurrican Noel were in full force. The rain was pelting down and the wind was whipping! We stopped at Zellers in the Fredericton Mall for a few things and got drenched!

Sunday the wind had died down substantially from the night before, but it was still strong. We decided to go for a drive in the afternoon. We went out to Mactaquac, up to Bear Island, across the Scotch Lake Road, through Springfield, Staple Settlement, Zealand, Hanesville, Burtts Corner, Keswick and then home to Nasis. When we got home to my house, my Dad and my brother were there. My Dad was up on a ladder and I was wondering what the heck was going on. It seems that during the storm last night, a big bunch of metal flashing that was along the roof blew loose and my Dad was up on the ladder pulling the rest of what was left loose of it, off the house. He had said that there were 4 or 5 pieces of it that had blown into my backyard and one huge piece of it. It's a miracle that none of it hit my car as it blew past it. Here I was worried that my milk can that is on the porch would blow off and into my car. I should have been more worried about stuff blowing off the house, lol!

I then went up to Mom and Dad's for traditional Sunday supper. After supper I headed out to Ryan's parent's place again and we watched the premiere of the Amazing Race. I love that show and am so glad that it's back. I had heard that they weren't bringing it back, but apparantly that rumour wasn't true.

Belly Full Of Candy...Merry Christmas?!?

Another Halloween in the books. Is it just me or are the trick or treater numbers declining each year? We had 27 kids this year at my brother's place. Last year he had 60-ish. My parent's got 44 this year and there were days not too long ago when they'd get 200 kids. Is everyone taking their kids to the mall and then Douglas Avenue? It's crazy how much of a decline there's been. Going house to house trick or treating in your neighbourhood is what Halloween is all about. It wouldn't surprise me that if in the future you HAD to take your kids to the mall to trick or treat.

Other than the lack of trick or treaters, Halloween night was good. I went to my brother's place right after work and got to work getting things in order. You know, putting out the pumpkins, ordering the pizza, getting out the treats, dressing my brother's bulldog in his costume....lol.

My brother's front door also has a second metal screen door in front, but the screen is ripped out of it. My brother never bothered to get it replaced because when someone comes to the door, he doesn't have to open it to get things like pizza, or mail from the mailbox, etc. He can leave it closed and reach out, to keep the dog in. When the kids would knock on the door for their treats, Mack, my brother's bulldog would trot over to the door (because of course, everyone was coming to see him in his opinion). Being that he's a bulldog, he's not an overly tall dog, so when I'd first open the door, the kids wouldn't see him. They'd say "trick or treat" and then Mack would jump up and poke his head out the top half of the door where the screen is missing. Remember this is a metal door too, so when he'd jump up, it would make a loud noise. This noise combined with the sudden appearance of a dog would scare the crap out of the kids. They would then laugh hysterically and pet the dog. It was really quite funny. I dunno, maybe you had to be there.

You may remember that where I work is attached to a shopping mall. The mall continuously plays music and we get their music in our bathrooms (our bathrooms used to orginally be part of the mall). I walked in there yesterday and the song "Joy To The World" was playing. I kid you not! Now I love Christmas just as much or maybe even a little more than the average person, lol. I can't wait to put my tree up and start decorating, but even I think it's too early for the malls to be playing Christmas music. I mean, just the day before was Halloween!