Daily Life

Oh my goodness!!!!!!!!! One more week until we leave for Disneyland!! I mean… CHA!!! And Disneyland!!! WOOHOO!!! Already I have read 5 guidebooks on Disneyland and the Anaheim area. Everynight I take one to bed and I’m up until usually 2am reading away. I have been there before but its been about 14 years so a lot has changed and to be honest, reading about it, just gets me more excited. I know the couple nights before we leave, I will suddenly be transformed back to when I was a child, and I won’t be able to sleep out of excitement. However, then we have 2200 km to drive from here to Anaheim so I will be getting a couple sleepless nights and that won’t be from excitement, but rather from the endless trips to Starbucks along the way so we can stay awake to drive the I-5. Lol – ok I am laughing now, but will it be so funny then? I will be keeping track of it and typing away on the laptop so I can keep my blog updated. I have always wanted to do a road trip to California, but I wonder if it will be as glorious as I am anticipating. Probably not. If you have read some of my older blogs on our last trip, it wasn’t very glorious. Lol!! But its funny to look back on it!

Alright I have a confession. A few days ago I finally took our Christmas tree down and put all the decorations away. Yes I know, it was Jan 11 and our tree was still up. How pathetic. But it looked so pretty with all the lights on it. Ok, ok, we hadn’t turned the thing on since Christmas. So it was just plain laziness. But anyway, as I was taking off all the (hundreds it seemed) ornaments and then taking apart the tree and shoving it back into its box (why is it that they never fit back into the original box properly?), I was grumbling to myself. This is supposed to be fun! Why is it such a CHORE to put up and then take down all these decorations? Having to haul all the bins up from the garage then hauling them back down again. It’s actually quite a pain having to do it all. Then once I had all the decorations down and put away, the house looked even more like a disaster. Maybe it was just cause it looked bare. So I had to do a major clean. While I was vacuuming, I moved the couch and found about 10 missing christmas ornaments from the tree under there. Damn cat. She had taken all the ornaments off the lower portion of the tree and I caught her a couple times standing on the coffee table, leaning way over until she could touch the mid part of the tree. There was a smashed ornament behind the tree when I moved it, shattered to pieces, and I found another glass ornament (one of those really old beautiful vintage ones) under the couch! Amazingly it was not broken. I had even put all the breakable ones on the top half of the tree so she couldn’t get at them. It’s a good thing she didn’t break any of my most favorite ornaments or I tell you, one of those nine lives of hers would be gone in a flash!!

So now the house is back to normal, except now its back to arctic weather outside. Yes, it snowed again. Just as I was getting used to our regular mild winter – I was out in a long sleeved t shirt for most of last week and was not cold at all – it has to start to snow, and then freeze. It is SO cold out there. And the snow is powdery, which is unusual for snow here. Well its unusual for us to even get snow here in the first place. What is up with this weird weather we have had the last couple months? I don’t like it.

Well, its late…. Brent is in bed already, the dogs are waiting to go out, and I got another book on Disneyland at the library today. (I know, I am obsessed…no, just excited).

I copied this from Lisa’s site – thanks Lisa for the great idea!

1. What did you do in 2006 that you’d never done before? Moved off the island!
2. Did you keep your new years resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Um, well I don’t usually stick to them, so I gave up on making them
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No I don’t think so… I know several people who have had babies this year, but no one who is super close to me
4. Did anyone close to you die? No, thank goodness
5. What countries did you visit? Just the USA. We went to Hawaii which was so much fun in May, then we drove across the border a couple times to go to Washington. Once was to go to a couple scrapbook stores, and once was to go to the CK Convention. Hehe, isn’t Brent great for driving me to the States just for scrapbooking stuff? (oh and we did make a special trip to the Sephora store in Bellevue that time. The traffic was so terrible it ended up taking us about an hour to go 4 blocks. I was not too popular that day). And next week we are driving to California to attend CHA!!!
6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006? I would like to have my parents visit more often (hint hint, are you reading this Mum?)
7. What dates from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? Jan 17, we moved to Vancouver and started a new life here. Feb 1 – our first anniversary! First week of July – I spent in Toronto with my sister and her family. August – I spent a couple weeks back home in Victoria with my whole family (my parents and my sister and her family). August 19 – my bunny “Buddy” died. October – Scrap Galaxy was born
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Scrap Galaxy!!
9. What was your biggest failure? Not getting to the gym as much as I planned to, or should
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Of course, who doesn’t have something wrong? I think we all have our share of problems especially as we get older. I have Ankylosing Spondylitis. I was diagnosed with it last July. It didn’t come as a huge shock to me though as I have been living with it for 10 years now and I had a sneaking suspicion that I had AS for the past couple years. It is just hard to get a diagnosis for it, especially for women. Yeah I shed a few tears when I left my specialists office that day, but then I thought, well I have it, at least I know what is wrong with me now, and there is absolutely nothing I can do that will ever take it away, so I just have to deal with it and live my life. It could have been worse right? There is always someone out there that has it way worse.
11. What was the best thing you bought? Oh probably our new tv – its a 48 inch plasma – GORGEOUS!
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? hmmm…. I’ll have to think on this one
13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? Appalled and depressed? Well perhaps someone from my past, but lets not get into that …
14. Where did most of your money go? Probably to scrapbook supplies….lol
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Our trip to Hawaii!!!
16. What song will always remind you of 2006? Promiscuous Girl, by Nelly Furtado
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer? Happier, about 5-10 pounds thinner, poorer
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? I wish I went on more long walks with the dogs, went to the gym more, spent more time visiting with my family, written daily in a blog or journal
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Wasting time…
20. How will you be spending Christmas? Next year? I have no idea right now…
21. Did you fall in love in 2006? Yes, with Vancouver. LOL
22. How many one-night stands? I better not say. JUST KIDDING
23. What was your favourite TV program? There are a few that my PVR is programmed for: Desperate Housewives (all time fave), Big Love (awesome awesome show – new season supposed to be starting soon), King of Queens (so funny), 2 and a half men (even funnier – the one with the big lips still makes me howl)
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? I can’t say that I actually HATE anyone
25. What was the best book you read? Oh my goodness, I haven’t read any books since the summer I think. Just been so busy lately. Actually not true. This last week I have read 4 books: The Ultimate Guide to Disneyland, Frommers Disneyland, Unofficial Guide to Disneyland and Anaheim, and Hidden Disneyland. See a trend here?
26. What was your greatest musical discovery? My niece! At only 4 years old, the kid has a perfect pitch! I actually took some videos of her with my digital camera of her singing – she has an amazing voice – future professional singer for sure!
27. What did you want and get? my website, hehe
28. What did you want and not get? A wishblade
29. What was your favourite film of this year? Well, that I went and saw in the theater, probably Devil Wears Prada
30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 29 in November. I went back to Victoria and one night I went out with my friends – we did the bar scene which I haven’t done in YEARS – oh wow, was it fun!! I didn’t get home until 4am. Fun times. The next night my parents took me out for dinner – very yummy and I discovered a new local restaurant there that is now a favorite!
31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? It was quite satisfying as it was
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006? Casual most of the time. The other time, I am in my gym clothes. Love that Lululemon attire.
33. What kept you sane? Sugar. Yep I know. How lame is that. But I need it, I crave it. Ever since Halloween I have been on one sugar high after another
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? not sure about this one
35. What political issue stirred you the most? I’ll come back to this one too
36. Who did you miss? I miss not being close enough to my parents that I can just drive over to their house on a whim. Now I have to take a ferry and with my dogs, it turns into quite an ordeal.
37. Who was the best new person you met? I have met more people this year than I have every other year in my life I think!! I met a bunch of new people when I transferred here with my job last year – all my new coworkers and they were great! The 2 people that stand out the very most though are Jodi and Lisa. Jodi lives across the street from me and she rescued me my first day of taking the bus into the city – I was at the wrong bus stop. We can do quite the power shopping trips the two of us, well actually, the 3 of us! Me, Jodi and her 7 year old daughter Dasha! Lisa, I met online through ScrapGalaxy – although she is on the other side of the world, we are so similar it is funny! We have a blast chatting it up on MSN and we have talked on the phone too. I have met so many other great people too – the girls who are part of the scrapbooking meetup group I belong to here locally, and all the fabulous people I have met through Scrapgalaxy! You all know who you are!!
38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006? Sometimes you just need to take a chance. If you want something bad enough, go for it.
39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. I will think about this…

What an eye opener today was for me. I did a ride along with Brent in the ambulance from 1:00pm until midnight. He was working right downtown Vancouver – the East Side, which is known as the “not so nice” part of town. That is putting it mildly. It was a relatively uneventful night – especially for a Friday night. We only got to drive Code 3 (lights and sirens) twice. That was the most exciting part for me. I loved being able to race through traffic and watch as all the cars moved over and stopped for us. So cool!!!However, the not so cool part was seeing things that I don’t normally see, and things I don’t normally think about. We drove down several dark alleys, full (and I mean full) of people, mostly addicts. From the safety of the ambulance (with doors locked of course) I saw drug deals taking place, and some other not so nice things. Each call we went on, and each person that I watched Brent attend to, has left a small impact on me in some way, some left a bigger impact. We first went to the hospital to transfer an 89 year old Punjabi man to a rehabilitation hospital. He suffered a stroke and still hadn’t regained the use of his right side. He also didn’t speak or understand a word of English. Apparently he has been living here for almost 20 years! How is it possible to live here for 20 years and still not speak or even understand English?? His daughter in law was there though and she translated to him, she also followed us to the rehab center so she could translate again to the staff there. Kudos to her, what a remarkable daughter in law! Next we went to a community sort of center (icky) to see a 50 year old schizophrenic who hadn’t taken his meds for a couple days and was thinking about hurting himself or someone. 2 cops were there with him and since he was a psych patient, one of the cops rode in the back of the ambulance with the patient and Brent, and I sat up front with Ian (Brent’s partner who was driving tonight). The guy didn’t get violent, but you never know with psych patients. We ended up waiting awhile with him at the hospital. The cop waited too and he was really nice. He tried to convince me that it would be more exciting doing a ride along with them then it would be with the ambulance. By the way the night went, I am beginning to think he was right! Next we got called to a “3 house fire”. Lights and sirens!!! 6 fire trucks were there on the scene – roads blocked off. How cool it was to be able to drive right through. It turned out to be a garage fire only and they had it out about 30 minutes after we arrived. Luckily no one was hurt, so we headed back to headquarters. The next call was a transfer from the hospital to a care home. We picked up this man who was about 72 or so (who had a hip replaced several months ago and was just in the hospital for a procedure) – he talked a lot but was friendly and harmless. He lived at this care home (which was more just like a hospital) but he seemed to be happy there. He talked about it fondly and said they feed them well there. We got there and it was not a great place. He shared a room with 3 other men and it was nothing more then a regular hospital room. No privacy whatsoever. Stark…bare….sad…. well, it made me sad. He seemed happy to be “home” though. The few other patients I saw there were simply sitting in their wheelchairs staring blankly at something. Lifeless. It made me wonder what kind of life this man had before coming here. If this seemed like such a great place to him, my goodness, I can only imagine what he has been through.

Onto the next call, to a skuzzy hotel. We were told to wait outside in the ambulance until the police who were on scene came out and gave us the go ahead to go inside. When it was ok to go in, we trudged up this dingy stairwell where all the stairs were uneven and sagging. I thought they might crumple right underneath us. 2 cops were with us and we went up to find a 62 year old man in the hallway. Drunk and had a nice big gash at the back of his head. Seems he got into a fight with someone. This was an odd one. He lived at this trashy place and had dirty clothes on. However at the hospital he took out a wad of cash from his pocket and had about $1000 on him! He wasn’t cooperating at first with Brent and didn’t want to go to the hospital even though Brent told him he needed stitches. One of the cops stepped in and told the man to be quiet and listen to Brent. Oh and they found a knife on him too. (Brent and Ian did, not the cops). He finally started to cooperate so we took him to the hospital. Next was a call for a 40 year old lady who was nauseous and throwing up. Lovely. We pick her up from another not so great building (although not as bad as the previous one) – she is all skin and bones. She was moaning that her head hurt and she was feeling sick and it was like pulling teeth while Brent was trying to get information out of her. She was trying to make herself throw up which was just disgusting. Then she admitted she did crystal meth earlier and then had a few drinks. Off to the hospital we go. We got called to check on a guy who was wrapped up in a blanket sleeping at the back of a parkade. Someone passed by and thought he was dead, so they called 911. He was just sleeping. Poor guy, he only looked like he was in his 20’s. He was wrapped tight in a blanket, had a couple sweatshirts on, and had a bag of chips beside him. Brent and Ian woke him up and just asked him if he was ok. He said he was so we gave him a couple emergency survival blankets, then we left. All this made me so thankful for what I have. I am thankful for my family, thankful that I have people who I love very much and that they love me back, I am thankful for my friends. I am thankful for my pets. I am thankful for my house and that I have a warm place to be every night. I am thankful for the clothes in my closet and the food in my fridge. I am thankful that I am relatively healthy (I have a disease called Ankylosing Spondylitis – it affects my spine and sacro iliac joints. There is no cure and I will have it for the rest of my life. But to look at me, you would never know anything is wrong.). I am thankful I can walk and take care of myself. I am thankful I have no addictions (well, unless you count candy or things with sugar….). I am thankful that I have a warm cozy bed to sleep in every night. I am thankful that I have a car. I am thankful for everything that I have. I don’t want to take things for granted anymore.

Wow, my own Blog. Finally I have joined everyone else and started my own Blog. Blog- what a funny name, I wonder who came up with it. Anyway, today is September 21, 2006. My Grandma’s birthday- Happy Birthday Grandma! It’s also Brent’s mom’s birthday too! Happy Birthday Suzanne! Oh- and isn’t it the first day of fall too? Or is it the last day of summer….. Its funny cause last week it was still scorching hot and now its so much cooler and rainy. The wonderful Vancouver rainy season has started.

Here are some pictures of us:

The first pic was taken in Victoria, the 2nd was taken at the Grand Hyatt in Hawaii

Now, back to my blog….

Never keep chocolate in the house. Actually never keep sweets of any kind in the house. I swear they call out to me until I gobble them all up. There is a bag of glossette raisins over on the table and I can hear it whispering my name. They aren’t even that good, yet I still find myself making a detour to the table everytime I get up. Bad chocolate. Is there really such a thing as bad chocolate? Yes, yes there certainly is.

I am so proud of Angus. He (and Zoey too) have been so good for so long now- no accidents in the house. They actually TELL us when they want to go out. What a concept!!!! Angus has a habit though of waking us up in the middle of the night (and it always seems to be me who ends up taking him out). He paces back and forth in the bedroom and then goes and scratches on the door. But at least he is letting us know!!! And its so much better then a year ago when we were in the condo and he’d just lift his leg on the corner of the bathroom door. Yeah, wasn’t that lovely. We have to keep all the doors in our house closed at all times because of Gracie the peeing cat. Yep, that is how I refer to her now: Gracie the peeing cat. She pees on beds. ANY bed. She especially loves ours though. She was doing so well for about a week and we were letting her sleep in the room with us. Then all of a sudden, I find a huge wet spot on the duvet. ERGH! I immediately threw the duvet in the washer. I know, its probably not good to wash the duvet, but it costs like $50 bucks to have it drycleaned. The other couple times I washed it, it was fine, but this time it must have gotten snagged on something in the washer cause there is a hole ripped in it. We didn’t even notice it until we found all these feathers and fluff all over the bed. hehe.

Angus is on the couch right now looking at me. He is so damn cute!! I just love him to bits.

Woohoo- tonight there are new seasons starting for good shows- ER, CSI, Grey’s Anatomy. Well, I don’t really watch Grey’s Anatomy. I wonder why I just said “don’t really”, its more like “not at all”. LOL. I think I’ve watched about 5 minute portions of the show a few times between channel surfing. I’m going to start watching it though, I’ve heard its an awesome show. At least now we have PVR (Like Tivo) so I can tape all kinds of things and watch them later.

I can’t wait for Desperate Housewives to start again- just LOVE that show, LOVE it.

So we went on a trip last weekend up North. A camping trip. Are we crazy??? Yeah, I guess we are kinda. I was so used to the nice weather we had down here that I wasn’t even thinking up North = COLD. I was so used to wearing shorts and tank tops at home, that I even packed capris and t-shirts to take camping. LOL. Its a damn good thing that I also packed lots of sweatshirts and fleeces, cause I was wearing 2 shirts, and 2 fleeces to bed everynight. The first night we woke up to find the tent covered in ice. Yes, ICE. We were sleeping in a friggin IGLOO.

We were also in the middle of nowhere at a campground we found down a logging road. It was beautiful though- right on Cariboo
Lake. I never even heard of Cariboo Lake before. We were 30 minutes down the logging road from the nearest town. If you can even call it a town. It had a population of 300. Town of Likely- consisted of one general store, and a pub located inside of the Likely Hilton Hotel. Certainly unlike any other Hilton I’ve seen. See the pic below.Ok, gonna sign off for the moment. Stay tuned for more stories of our Great Northern Camping Trip!!!

Those damn glosette raisins are chirping again……

posted by Jess @ 1:31 PM

Hmmm…the pic I posted of the magnificant Likely Hilton didn’t show up, so I’ll try posting it again. I just realized they have a gym at the hotel. Take note of the treadmill sitting outside the window. Now that’s classy.

 

Here is a pic of our igloo…er…tent.