Christmas functions

This year I organised an 'Ugly Christmas Sweater Day' before Christmas.  The up-take was a bit sluggish, but a fun time was had by all, and look at this lovely sweater I get to charish for years to come.  None of us four in the picture below was actually the 'winner;' who's sweater involved a giant Winnie the Pooh, a blue base colour and was home-knitted by said winner's mother (who may be experiencing some dementia) for his 40th Birthday (with no intention of a joke present what so ever!!).

Our office Christmas party included Bowling this year (super fun!!).  Did you know that five-pin bowling is only played in Canada.  It was invented by a Canadian in Ontario in the early 1900's.  I always thought it was a British thing, because lots of our weird stuff comes from the British, but no it's all ten-pin bowling here!

This was my team on the night.  We rocked! (at being middle of the road)

P.S. I love my family; classy picture below; can't wait to come home to you guys! 

 

Hoarding!

This is the extent of my troubles

See Exhibit A:

an empty Disaronno bottle I picked up off the street, on the night of 16 February 2008, after going to the Shunt Vaults in London Bridge http://www.spoonfed.co.uk/london/venue/southbank-75/shunt-vaults-2333/ for my 25th Birthday celebrations, simply because I had 2 shots of the stuff earlier in the evening. A ‘memento’ to commemorate the night… who needs an empty bottle that was essentially garbage to begin with!?

I could only throw it away after taking a series of photos to remember it by.


How am I ever going to empty my house?

Moving Day

So guess what!? (I have realised I forgot to say)

My one-way ticket back to Canada has been purchased; 7 April 2012.

I say Canada, not Regina, because my ticket is to Calgary. Mom is ‘swinging by’ to pick me up, and then we are carrying on driving to Victoria to pick-up Kel after her school finishes up. Road trip!!! Yay.

Maybe on the way back we can swing down too Seattle (because I have never been) and drive back through the States. So many possibilities.

I have already given my notice at work, as notice periods in the UK are very long compared to Canada, 3 months at this company, and that has helped me get in the mind set of leaving. It is less than 2 and a half months now until everything changes. I have a house full of stuff and I am starting to panic a little bit. I have tried to do some research on moving stuff overseas but I don’t know where to start. The internet doesn’t seem as full of information as usual, or at least I am sure not looking in the right place. There are two schools of thought: suck it up and pay to get everything moved properly (as Mark has got a lot of stuff too), or cull like mad, get rid of most things, and start afresh on the other side. I change mind-sets every other day. I suppose a combination of both is the best option. hmmmm

Looking Back

I was just reading back in my blog which reminded me; let us look at my success rate for my 2011 New Year’s Resolutions.

 Considering I only remember I had one, I am not overly confident.

- Start knitting again (it didn’t happen, not even once!)


- Go to the Gym at least 2 times per week (I am reasonably satisfied I met this goal, now that I have ballet and Pilates it is always at least 2 times)


- Less snacking at work (definitely improvement throughout the course of the year, could still get better though)


- Eat McDonalds only 6 times in the whole year (Done! I was very regimented about this, I had McD’s once every 2 months, very spread out. This is the only resolution I actually remembered I had!)


- Be more friendly and open in work situations (hmmmm, not sure if there has been a change there, not to say I am not friendly, but I could be better)


- Get the 7:55 train every morning, not the 8:15 (I have failed on this one, could be my worst year yet)


- Decide if I want to go back to school etc. (welllll I did decide, and then got shot done  oh well, such is life)


Maybe I will set up some new resolutions soon.

The Hunger Games

My lovely sister Kel bought me the first book in The Hunger Games trilogy, aptly name ’The Hunger Games’ for Christmas this year. I started it on Wednesday last week. Flash forward to today, Tuesday lunch time, 1200 plus pages and 6 days later, and I am finished all three books!

They were great!

Thanks Kel for getting me reading. Is there anything better than a good book? I mean I like going to/watching movies and listening to music etc. but once you get going on a good book you are in a new world. I could read the whole day away; which can be a bit of a problem when you have to fit work into your day! On Monday I worked so hard in the morning to make the time go past quick to get to lunch hour and my book and what is going to happen to Peeta.

(possible spoilers alert – so don’t read on if you plan to read these books!)

The Hunger Games is an odd beast, immediately into reading I am struck by closely it matches the style books I enjoyed in my teenage years (besides being a Fantasy novel). Being put out by Scholastic it makes sense to call it young adult fiction, and yet it is pretty dang violent. Plus, even though my main concern was with what happens to Peeta, the story really got me thinking; about human-nature, war, dictatorships, communism, revenge, mental capacity, culpability, commitment…..

Before I read the books Jen said something to me about, she wasn’t sure about the ending (not not understanding, but not liking it maybe?) I am broadly satisfied with the ending (GO TEAM PEETA), but it could have explained a bit more, but perhaps it is left for us to decide how to digest it all. I could have used about 10-20 more pages at the end of loving Peeta being amazing (as that is what we were all hoping/waiting/reading for no?!), but oh well…

Looking forward to the movie coming out in March. Woody Harrelson as Haymitch – sweet!


(p.s. Amazon UK is amazing; I ordered books 2 and 3 on Friday at lunch on standard no-change delivery and they arrived at my door on Saturday morning - amazing!)