I must be doing something right! :)

So today was the big day... and I warn you, only a fellow fan is going to appreciate the following words... but... I got to meet Debbie Travis today!! :D

It was so cool, she's just as witty in person as she is on the show and spent a good portion of the show joking around with the crowd at FCP. Jim and Peter were also in the crowd [Kev's convinced that they're gay, I prefer to think of them as a good combination - as I really don't want to imagine the two of them going at it] .

But back to Debbie, I got to collect my copy of her new book "Facelift" that I'd won... and she signed it and chatted with me like we were old friends or something - I know I'm gushing, but it was so cool to meet her after being a fan of her show for such a long time - we even got to talking about what colour I should paint our walls. :)

And in other news, I also got a pay raise today, nothing to scream at the top of the mountain about but it's not too shabby either, it worked out to be about 4.56%... and it came when I was least expecting it, turns out that they were planning to raise our dept's salaries by about 2% on average, some people got 2%, some people got more, some less and some people nothing at all. I figured at 4.56% I must be doing something right. And though my pay is not where I'd ideally like it to be it's a step in the right direction, if it says anything at least it says someone is starting to see the effort I've been making since joining the company.

So altogether, I'll say it wasn't too shabby a day at all. :)

Middle of the week... but there's good news! :)

I get to go see my orthodontist today for yet another tightening session. Yay! Not! :(

These are SO not fun, it usually involves quite a bit of sensitivity for a few days after each session, but I'll live. I've been wearing the braces for about seven months now, so with at least nineteen more months to go... I'd better get use to these regular visits. Ugh.

The good news is that just after my appointment I am likely meeting up with mom and Stefan to do a bit of shopping before heading home, rewarding and totally deserving type of shopping of course. ;)

AND in even GREATER news I got a message from Leah late last evening - her and Matt are engaged!! :)

I'm so stoked, so happy, so delighted... I could go on and on and on!! Those two make a great couple, now I'm already looking forward to their wedding and their kids. :)

And speaking of kids, I also sent Anita an email today, I'm hoping we can go visiting with little Kaileigh sometime soon - preferably sometime before she outgrows the gift I got her! :)

Happy long weekend!

Happy long weekend!

The weekend started on FRIDAY. I was so exhausted from work during the week that my good intentions of waking early on Friday and working on the basement before Good Friday church at 2pm went straight through the roof. I came to life shortly after 11am and opted to make breakfast while Kevin continued working on cleaning out his section of the basement, then once breakfast was ready we sat down and had a long lazy breakfast which included multiple cups of coffee – before we knew it, it was time to get up and get ready for church.
We got to church about the same time that my parents did and settled in for the Good Friday service, which as it turns out to be was mostly an abridged version of “The Passion of the Christ” – I’m still not sure how I feel about them using a Hollywood movie in a church setting, the two just don’t seem to go together – not in my mind at least, but I will admit that I may be slightly biased as I HADN’T planned on seeing “The Passion of the Christ” as a movie, because of it’s reported graphic scenes.
I saw about half of the version shown that day, not only was a lot of it was too graphic for me, but I found that for a good portion of it my eyes were downcast, welled with tears, but it did have the effect of making one reflect on the life and trials of Christ, which I presume was the intention of the church folks.

We got home around 4pm or somewhere thereabouts. Aaron and Andrea were supposed to hang out with us that evening but something ended up coming up and they couldn’t make it, so we invited Bunny and Stef over for pizza and a movie instead, as they had wanted to see Narnia and King Kong on our TV. I watched Narnia and a bit of King Kong in between working on our basement clutter and chatting with them. Stef helped me sort out the tulle and flowers from the wedding decorations so I can give the flowers to mom for her use or to send to Guyana. When it was all said and done we got to bed around midnight.

On SATURDAY we’d planned to pick up Granny around noon from Aunty Estelle’s place but again we woke up a bit late so we hurriedly got showered and dressed and after making a quick pit stop at Timmy’s we headed out to Etobicoke. We picked her up, stopped at Harvey’s for lunch and then headed to the Ontario Science Centre {OSC] to meet up with Bunny and Stefan. Bunny wasn’t working that day so we got a grand tour of the OSC including the architects and engineers area as well as all the other exhibits they currently have running. After about 3 hours I wanted to leave, part of it was fatigue, but a big part of it was hunger. I knew Kevin wanted to see more so maybe we’ll go again another time.
We then headed over to my parents place for dinner and a relaxing evening, we had late lunch/dinner outside in the sunshine and then played a game of Monopoly. After Kevin and Bunny exited the game, it came down to Stef and I… with Stef eventually bankrupting me.
A bit later in the evening it was time to head home, Granny was spending the night at us so she came back to our place. I saw her settled in for the night and then went to bed, it was around 10pm – which was probably the only evening all that week that I’d gone to bed before midnight.

The alarm went off at around 7:30am on SUNDAY morning, signaling that it was time to get up and get dressed for Easter Sunday service at church. Kev had already mentioned that he didn’t want to go… so I got up quietly and went to wake Granny – turns out she was already up and dressed, so I put on some coffee and went back upstairs to get ready. Gran and I had a nice chat while we waited for my parents to pick us up, turns out she’s going to do a bit of visiting with her sisters and won’t return to Brampton until mid-August or so after which she is probably going to look for a place of her own and a new job closer to a proper transit system. After church we dropped Bunny off at work and then went back to my parents place for a bite to eat before heading out shopping, we didn’t know it at the time but most of the shopping places were closed for Easter Sunday so other than the flea market we couldn’t find anywhere else to bring Gran, so they dropped me off at home and I went back to cleaning and clearing the basement until it was time to get ready for bed.
After all that, it’s no surprise that I woke up on Monday morning saying “Weekend? What weekend?” :)

Happy Cross Buns Day! Oh, and I won a curtain! :)

It’s holy Thursday today, also known as “Cross Buns Day” in Guyana, and in keeping with tradition my mom made a batch of cross buns last night. Talking to her around 10:15pm she mentioned that they didn’t raise as well, but I’m probably going to sample them anyway ;)

On Tuesday, I organized a little Timmy’s break for our work group to distribute the presents for the birthday celebrants for the period Jan-Mar, it was our group’s first attempt at this and it worked out pretty well, I think. Fanyi, Rose and I tried our best to match the giftcards we picked up to the individual tastes and it showed as everyone seemed happy with their wittle presents.

By now you’re probably wondering what the hell I’m talking about in the above title regarding a curtain. Well I went to a FCP event today at work, they were running the sessions during my lunch hour so I signed up for it. I’m not sure how many people actually know this but I’m a home décor/decorating shows junkie. I can’t get enough HGTV it seems, so when I found out that Jim Connelly and Peter De Sousa from HGTV were making a stop at FCP I just knew I had to register to attend the session.
The theme was Asian, African, Moroccon and the Caribbean, perfect I thought, as I love earthy colours and also the rich colours inspired by Morocco. So after spending about 5 minutes trying to find the room where the session would be I finally get there and they’ve got a big audience, over 120 people I’d say.
The show gets underway and the demonstrations begin. They showed us how to turn a simple Ikea placemat into an African inspired work of art and how to paint a regular box to achieve an antique Moroccan finish, but the project I was most interested in was the transformation of a regular Ikea curtain into a work of art using tint, water, spray paint, a dollar store placemat and some embellishments, the colours they chose were blue and gold and it was stunning – everyone was oohing and awing over it - I made some notes intending to try this at some point. Imagine my surprise when a few minutes later they started giving away the door prizes, as it turns out I won the curtain, I was stoked. :)

As part of the package I will also have the opportunity to meet Debbie Travis next Thursday, ask her a question and receive a free, signed copy of her book. I was ecstatic, I was also feeling a bit lucky so I bought a lottery ticket [I usually don’t play] so here goes nothing. :)

Well that’s about it for now, this week has been moving along well but it can’t seem to end fast enough for me and I am SO looking forward to the long weekend that commences from tomorrow, especially because it means I’ll get to catch up on my sleep, the weekend however, does still promise to be very busy… with Gran planning on visiting us… should be fun!

In other news...

we got Nathan's room rented! Yay! Our new roommate's name is Kamran and while he's Pakistani and went to flight school he's promised us that he's not a terrorist ;)

We've also decided that we're going to start scouting for a place of our own now that summer is almost here... our intention will be to purchase in January 2007 but if something good comes along before then we may just snap it up. I really like the Military Trail area, especially the houses that back out on to the ravine... and while the area has the potential to be out of our price range I'm really hoping by some strange twist of fate that we can still pull it off. If not, I higly suspect that we are going to wind up in Pickering or Mississauga or something.

One thing is for sure this is going to be a really exciting time for us, driving around neighbourhoods, reviewing listings on www.mls.ca - I think as long as it has a two car garage and some kind of land where Kev can work on the car he'll be happy.

I've thought about what I want, and the list is usually pretty long, great big windows, high ceilings, at least four bedrooms, main floor laundy facilities, a huge basement area big enough that we can have a game room and entertainment area in it yet still be able to rent out a separate-entrance portion to a student at UofT... but really those are all *wants*, my one *need* is to have a huge kitchen.

So this is going to be an interesting journey as we pick out our very first home together. Kev's pretty excited, I on the other hand... welll I'm just bracing myself so that I'm not disappointed... most homes are now $375,000 plus in and around the GTA! We were hoping to have at least 25% down on a $300,000 home so if we wind up paying more than $300,000 for it we're going to fall short of our 25% down and may wind up having to give CMHC some of our money. Ugh.

Birthday celebrations are officially over

Kev & I went to the mall yesterday afternoon with the hopes of finding me a nice spring jacket.

I wanted something lighter than my winter coat but still capable of withstanding April's cool drafts, stylish enough that I can wear to work, yet casual enough that I can throw it on over a nice shirt for a less dressy look - preferably in taupe or chocolate brown. I know, I'm a bit particular about these things :) -- anyway after quickly skimming the stores at STC I found what I was looking for at both Mexx and H&M... and then just couldn't decide between them! I ended up buying the one at H&M and Kev surprised me by picking up the one at Mexx for me, so now I've got two jackets and both are pretty cool :)

Mom, Dad, Kevin, Stefan, Bunny & I went to Millie's for pool and then to Bowlerama for bowling last night. It was a pretty relaxing evening out, I got to see Mom and Dad play pool for the first time so that was kinda neat :)

Bunny won the first game of bowling by just one point over Stefan and I came in third - poor Kev wasn't having much of a good game as his shoes were too tight and neither of us could find balls with holes that were just the right size for our fingers, they were either too small or too big.

Into the second game at Bowlerama Kev got to change his shoes, and he went on to bowl over a 100 , I think Stefan came in second and Dad third, I on the other hand wasn't having such a good scoring night. :)

Bunny & Stefan both bowled well. With Bunny there seemed to be no middle ground it was either all or nothing, so either a gutterball or a strike\spare. With Stefan his aim was dead on almost 95% of the time and I think as he gets older and can manage a heavier ball he'll find that he will get a strike almost every time.

I didn't do so well with bowling or pool but I did kick some serious butt at Air Hockey!! :)

Sooo tired

For a while it seemed like the weekend was taking forever to arrive. I feel very sleep deprived, yet I'm not sleepy. It's like my body is tired but my brain won't go to sleep, probably because there was so much going on this past week.

Only eight more months... at least that's what I keep telling myself about the length of time we have left before we can start shopping for our own place. We've been doing this for way too long, and I'm reminded moreso of this every time a roommate leaves and we find ourselves looking for someone new. Currently, we're searching for someone to take Nathan's room as he's done school and will be moving at the end of April, I've thrown an ad up on www.easyroommates.com and lined up a few appointments for tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

I got a voucher thingy in the mail to drop by Yves Rocher and pick up a free pedicure set today, it turned out to be a cute looking set in a bag, I thought that was kinda neat... of course it probably had something to do with my birthday being this month or something as I also got free stuff from The Body Shop.

I got another new client for tax preparation today, heh, one thing's for sure I do get more and more new clients every year. At some point I am going to compile a list and then determine whether it will be feasible to continue doing returns in the future though as the software isn't exactly cheap. I think it will work out to be feasible, but after I crunch the numbers I'll feel better.

Gran is home!

She flew in from the Turks and Caicos yesterday afternoon, I spoke with her this morning and she is already talking about flying out to Saskatchewan later this month to visit Aunt Lillian - sounds just like Gran alright! However short her stay in Ontario is, it's nice to have her home. I plan on getting her taxes done by next week, providing she can get everything to me this week, that way she'll have some extra spending money for her trip :)

On a totally different note, I think I'm still in 10,227th celebration mode, [though I should probably tack on the additional days since then] as I still haven't put away any of my presents as yet. Of course it could also be that I am just not at home long enough to get it done, and speaking of birthdays and not at home, I should probably check my voicemail, Kev mentioned that Aunt Nadine left a birthday message for me. I'm going to make an effort to call her back tomorrow, lord knows it's way too late to do it now.

Approximately 10,227...

... that's how many days I've enjoyed roaming the earth as of April 4th, 2006.

Happy Birthday, yesterday... and my first blog entry, today.

Alot of what I may come to post, certainly will have the potential to wind up being just an untidy heap of random thoughts, that may or may not make sense to the reader, for that, I offer no apology. This is meant as a way for me jot down the events and issues that I deal with from time to time and at this point I am still unsure of how often I will be updating it.

It's been a good 10,227 days, now let's see what the future brings, here goes nothing...