Definitely a Monday.

My Monday morning started before my alarm rang; I was dreaming about being late for work. Not wanting to actually be late, I got up instead of hitting snooze. I did my morning thing, getting the coffee going, feeding the cats, throwing on something suitable to wear to work, turning on the morning news and getting breakfast started.

I found the frying pan, slapped in some butter, put in the bread (hole cut, ready for the egg), reached for the egg aaaaand...

SPLAT!

I cursed. Cracked another egg into the frying pan, then grabbed my camera -- because how often do you get to take a photo of egg spatter?

After breakfast was cooked, I threw some veggies into the frying pan with a little sesame oil to accompany the leftovers I was taking for lunch. Packed that up, poured my coffee and finished getting everything together to head out. Glancing at the clock, I knew I was cutting it close but should have had about 3 minutes to walk up the block to the bus instead of the usual 5.

It was pouring rain but I figured the bus would be there almost right away. Not so much. 15 minutes later, I decided it must have been early and that I had missed it. I pondered going back home and waiting for the next bus and being late (about half an hour) but instead sucked it up and hiked up through the park over the hill. It's usually a 15 minute walk but I made it in 12 because I didn't want to stand in the rain any longer than I needed to. 10 steps from the crosswalk to the next bus stop and WHOOOOOSH! there goes the 7:38. Sigh.

I stood in the rain another 12 minutes for the next bus and arrived at work 10 minutes late and soaked through to the point that my toes were wrinkled. So I guess, in some twisted way, my dream came true.

Yeah, definitely a Monday.

-=|=-

On the plus side, Kiddo was eager to get out of her bath quickly tonight so that she could work on the story she is writing. She fell asleep writing it then woke up when I tried to move it so she didn't choke on her pencil. I read what she'd written and I have to tell you, I am excited.

It's sci-fi.

Well, that week flew by.

I'm not going to bother trying to catch you up on everything but if you missed it, I did review Tim Burton's Alice and Wonderland, over on the Medianook. I've also been failing to find the time to finish the review I started of Up in the Air, which we saw in a double feature with The Hurt Locker last weekend.

Also in the mix was Kiddo's birthday party, for which I baked and decorated 20 cupcakes (not from scratch, but close enough) -- the birds and butterflies are paper on toothpicks and they match the liners (both by Wilton).

The remainder of my evenings have been spent fighting the stupid timechange and trying to find my way around Drupal 6 since Hubby was kind enough to upgrade my FrugalVictoria site (that was still stuck back in version 4.7)

Work has been crazy busy -- we are almost done scanning and uploading the backlog of theses (we have about 60 remaining out of about 400 when we started focusing on them in November), we snuck in a side-project that turned out to be really interesting (I'll post the link as soon as it's officially "live" -- hint: it's related to the Abbey Theatre in Ireland) and we are trying to finish our other outstanding projects while shoehorning in another rush and... well, you get the idea. Busy.

The Vancouver Embargo Begins

A while back, we earned a free night with our "usual" hotel chain and we had to use it before Dec 25th or lose it. We chose to use it in order to facilitate one last shopping spree in Vancouver before the International Sporting Event That Shall Not Be Named (ISETSNBN) descends, bringing with it all manner of neo-fascist f**kery¹.

We rolled out on a 9 am ferry, dining in style in the Pacific Buffet. After a brief stop to fuel up, we headed for Aberdeen Mall -- Hubby hung with Kiddo in the play zone while I did some damage in Daiso. As luck would have it, Friday turned out to be Midnight Madness at IKEA -- specials every hour and crowds to go with it, but we got two new cabinets and more media storage for the living room plus a few other bits and pieces.

After all that, we returned to the hotel exhausted. Sunday we picked up my Mother in Law from the ferries and ventured into DressSew Supplies downtown -- frustrating to get there but we left with two bags of fabric, trim, notions and costume pieces. Next stop was T, then lunch and a few stores in the Kits neighbourhood. Our last stop was to stock up on some Asian imports at Yaohan Centre in Richmond before it was back to the ferries and another trip to the buffet.

Today was planned to be a quiet day but turned out to be a lot of work as we built and installed new IKEA purchases, sorted and reorganized our crap (why? to make room for MORE crap, of course! Sigh.) and swept up two or three rabbits worth of dust bunnies from the corners. That was followed by an attempted computer rescue for my Mom (her machine froze and she had no way to get past the blue error screen without a rescue disk). Unfortunately, there was to be no rescue -- it's still in limbo. Once home, there was still filing and laundry waiting. Ugh.

This week will be busy: five days of work and Hubby has meeting-palooza this week plus Kiddo has two evening performances of her Holiday Concert. At least Friday is my last workday and Kiddo's last school day until January.


¹Yeah, I'm more than a little bitter after actually trying to navigate through the "transportation improvements" -- slowly crawling past the many signs stating No Stopping Feb-Mar.

Calm between storms

Last week was a big bag of stress right up until Thursday when by noon I decided I'd had enough of the stress at work and took a half day vacation. Friday was my flex day anyway and I managed to get an appointment with my hairdresser for a cut and colour (I'm back to basic black and a shorter, bouncier cut for the summer).

This weekend, we made time to go to the Oak Bay Tea Party and at least it was overcast but it was still crowded and kind of sad (I so much prefer West Coast Amusements to the company they now have -- Shooting Star Amusements). At least I got some Grid photos in since Willows Beach is in this month's Grid.

Otherwise, the last few days have involved gardening, napping, hang-time with the family and other non- and anti-stressful activities.

This coming week will be B-U-S-Y: I will be attending the Digital Humanities Summer Institute again, this time taking "Multimedia: Design for Visual, Auditory, and Interactive Electronic Environments" which includes a project component (eep!). Meanwhile, Minnie goes in to be edited on Wednesday and Hubby will be at Open Web Vancouver on Thursday and Friday. I still haven't quite figured out all of the juggling to get Kiddo to school, etc.

Oh, and since I mentioned the cats, you'll be happy to know they are used to each other now; Max only complains when Minnie attacks his tail more often than not, they just coexist:

Stress relief.

It's been that kind of week, even though it is truncated.

On Tuesday, I made the last-minute decision to apply for another job in the library -- not because I don't like the job I have, but the other position (at much higher payband) has a variety of duties and responsibilities that are a good fit with my skill-set. It was the first time I had to use the new online resume-builder that is built in to uHire (the University's job posting interface) and that proved to be a little bit of a challenge. Now I keep wondering if I proofread everything enough times. No word yet on when interviews will be scheduled.

Tuesday evening, I tried to take my mind off the resume by sorting more stuff for the yard sale this weekend. (If you are in Victoria, drop by! Head for Finlayson and Quadra and follow the signs.) We have a small mountain of boxes but I still feel like it isn't everything that should be going...

Yesterday work was a constant stream of interruptions -- largely Union-related issues -- so I left feeling like I hadn't accomplished much. Still, last night was a treat for us: one of our favourite restaurants, Eugene's recently relocated from downtown to Gordon Head and they quietly opened for business yesterday in the new location.

Then last night I crossed one BIG item off my to-do list. It's been on my list for well over a year and I started working on it earnestly last fall but the Drupal-ized version of my Unofficial Guide to Victoria is now live. It's far from ready for the big leagues; there's lots and lots of work left to do but the basic frame is there and I can stop being embarassed by how out-of-date the old site was. So go ahead, check it out, and let me know what you think. I can tell you that I plan to add more photos, longer reviews, and possibly a blog or similar section where I can add opinion pieces and local history articles but I also want to be more responsive to readers and those who use the site!

Today started out OK but quickly went to hell -- around noon, Kiddo's school phoned; she'd been sent to the office with an "angry looking eye infection" eww. A trip to the clinic and pharmacy preceded an hour long ordeal between the two of us trying to get eyedrops into our child's right eye. Not fun.

This evening we all needed to get out of the house so we checked out the new Lee Valley Tools in Colwood. Just the recipe; I feel much better now.

Celebration and organization.

Interesting (long) weekend. 

Friday was my first flex day of the year and I used the morning to pack up Christmas, at last. In the afternoon, I spent some time with my Mother-in-law. Later in the evening, we had friends over, doing some last-minute editing for what we would premiere Saturday.

Saturday morning we went out for a nice brunch at Floyd's Diner 2 after dropping bottles off for Kiddo's bottle drive then, on a whim, decided to renew our Costco membership. Then spend a chunk of cash on bulk buys (actually a third of the bill was for a variety of fresh, frozen and canned seafood). Saturday night, we celebrated a birthday -- this is the year when most of my friends hit 40 (and I will, too). To honour our friend, four of us conspired and conscripted many others to make a video (it's now on YouTube). It was well received (and I have to hand it to Hubby who managed to get the local morning show hosts to participate, albeit unknowingly).

Today started quiet and then I got a proverbial bee in my bonnet. By the time I was done whirling through the basement, I had cleared out or stowed about a dozen boxes, organized, and rearranged enough to be able to vacuum most of the carpet.

Now I'm settled in, watchching the largely surprise-free Golden Globe awards. Though I am now convinced I will have to see Slumdog Millionaire; I already watch the show that seems to be taking home all the awards, 30 Rock.

Garage Sold.

Well, not exatly. We weren't selling a garage -- we don't have one to sell. But, we did have a "garage sale" in the strata's common room and while we didn't make an outrageous amount of cash, we did manage to clear out a LOT of stuff. In the end, we took a van full of stuff to Value Village, another load to ReStore, Freecycled some bulky things, and decided to tuck a few things back into the storage locker. Not much though. And I really feel good about clearing things out; our storage locker is in much better shape.

One thing I kept was a ridiculous fish tank -- it was too small to really hold a goldfish, and there is no easy way to fit it with a filter. Having seen Betta fish (a.k.a. Siamese Fighting Fish) in pet stores over the years, I thought it might be suitable for one ... but apparently not. Anyone know of something that will live in a tiny tank? Maybe I will get more sea monkeys....

Our next two weekends are "away" weekends. Coming up first is a quick trip to Vancouver. We're making this one a kiddo-friendly trip, staying in a Holiday Inn "kids' room" (they come with bunk beds and a separate TV), and visiting Science World and the Jurassic Alive display at Aberdeen. (The weekend was supposed to be Daddy-daughter time, but they decided to let me come along.)

Labour day weekend will be spent up-island doing camping and outdoorsy things like canoing and hiking. I'll need the following week to recover... but I will also be ferrying kiddo to and from school for her first week of grade one. Wow, where did summer go?

Clean house, sore body.

Slept in... which was nice, considering kiddo got up at "seven oh two"... she just turned on cartoons and hung out until we got up. Yay for independence.

After a full breakfast, we gathered kiddo and the cat and dropped them both off at my Mother in Law's. Then hubby and I stripped off all the linens, vacuumed, shoved furniture around, vacuumed some more, then sprayed the place with anti-flea spray. Ugh.

While it aired out, we filled the van with laundry and headed out to Admiral's Walk where there was a laundromat (for about 8 loads of laundry, plus four more we did here), a dollar store (to get the rest of the stuff for Sunday's Easter Egg Hunt), a restaurant (for lunch), a drug store and a grocery store (for a few necessities), and a coffee house (for coffee of course!). Phew! And we managed to get everything and do what we needed inside of about 2 hours. I was actually impressed with our efficiency.

When we got back, we made the beds then shipped ourselves down to my Mother in Law's to visit and stay for dinner. For the first half hour, all I did was sit and let my body settle out all the achey bits....

When we got home, we put away all the laundry while kiddo bathed.... and I am glad we made the beds earlier, because I am really looking forward to sleeping in it... after we finish watching The Wedding Singer. Yay.

***

Tomorrow, we are heading over to the other side of VicWest so kiddo can get in some playtime at the park and we can get some Victoria Grid Project photos.

Sunday will be the Easter Egg Hunt followed by Easter dinner with hubby's family.... and we have no plans yet for Monday (I'm hoping for a day of very little).