Read-a-thon

I've kind of been out of reading mode since Christmas. I had been reading Friday Night Knitting Club when I went home for the holidays (oh geeze I just found out there is a sequel!), then started The Boleyn Inheritance when I finished, then had to try to cram part of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy into the routine for book club. I have only picked up Boleyn maybe twice since then and I'm still struggling to get going on Hitchiker again. Both are sitting on my bedside table, but I've been going to bed so late I haven't been reading.

If that's not enough, I started looking around the other day and realized the number of unread books I have here. Time to put a kybosh on the Gilmore Girls DVD marathon I've been having since FH left and get back on the reading train. Just look at all of the fun stuff I could be reading instead of staring at the tube!

I asked for the Twilight books for Christmas and was so excited to finally read them and find out what all the craze is about, but the interest waned and I haven't even opened them yet. Must get on that. The other book was just a little extra Xmas giftie from Mom.

This pile of books has been here since Autumn. I picked up the Jodi Picoult book after reading My Sister's Keeper for our first book club meeting and LOVING it...thought I'd jump right into more of her books but still haven't made it to this one. The Memory Keepers Daughter I have actually read...and loved it. The Marion Keyes book is one of three that I picked up at Costco on a whim....very cute, easy reads and I just haven't made it to this one yet. I think the Fern Michaels one I may have picked up at an airport...and the other two were books Mom read while she was visiting and left behind for me to read.

These ones were dropped off by my neighbor. I've wanted to read the Emily Giffin books forever and some girlfriends have been passing them around. Lovely Bones was recommended by those same friends and sounds like a great book (which I want to read before the movie comes out this year).

To top it all off, I will be picking up The Shipping News this weekend to read for book club this month.

Whew.

Good thing we are going on that trip to Punta Cana, where I plan to spend a lot of time reading in the glorious sun!

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

Wedding plans? Have we made any? What's the deal?

The deal is this... FH has himself a deployment he's dying to go on later this year. Of course, in true Navy fashion he has no idea whether he will actually get to do it. So we are in slight limbo. If he goes, he'll leave in November and probably get home in March or April.

So we are aiming for Summer 2010. I actually like the idea of September...Autumn is pretty everywhere and won't be too hot or too cold....I hope!

But it's sooooo far away. Further than either of us would like...neither of us are big fans of the long engagement and that pushes to almost two years....not ideal, but we don't want half-assed plans either. It's truly all up in the air. So be it. At least it provides lots of time for extra savings and arrangements.

It is a bit of a logistical nightmare too. We live in Halifax...and although we have some very important people here, neither of us have any family here so it's really not the ideal place to have the wedding. We don't feel right asking 90% of the guests to travel thousands of miles and spend tons of money. I, of course, would love to have it in Victoria since the majority of my family and friends are there (or at least within a short drive or ferry ride away). FH would love to have it in Winnipeg as he has his son, some family and some very dear friends there. Having said that his Mom is in Ontario, his Dad is in BC, and he also has some great friends on the island. Talk about wide spread!

Simplicity says have a destination wedding. It's the thing to do now, don't ya know? Vegas would be hysterical and memorable. A beach would be lovely. But the con to that is that a lot of people wouldn't attend due to time constraints and finances (which is the same issue we have with a non-destination wedding anyway). Besides, we are really looking forward to a big party! And honestly if we do a destination wedding it means we would probably have to wait another year for the honeymoon... that just drags it all out even further.

We'll work it out! Just brainstorming in black and white here. Many of you have asked for the scoop and this is where it stands just now. It's only been two weeks of engagement though...so we've got time! :)

The Weather Followed Me

So while I was watching the satellite TV on the plane yesterday I happened upon some BC news where they kept talking about the snow storm that had hit the lower mainland and Vancouver Island. I knew there was snow in Nanaimo because I had talked to my Mom, but when I had checked with a friend in Victoria on Thursday it hadn't snowed here so I assumed the news wasn't talking about Victoria.

Oooops, you know what assuming does!!

When my plane had a touchdown in Edmonton I had a window of opportunity to use my cell phone, so I called my girlfriend here to find out the scoop and sure enough a little blizzard had blown through the southern island and Victoria got about 10cm of snow overnight. Oh yippee. Didn't I just leave that stuff? Minus 6 here yesterday (un-freaking-heard of) with lots of icy wind and disgusting slushy roads. Victoria is just so unprepared for snow. It's been 36 hours and some of the main roads are still a mess.

Oh well.

If only I had actually packed snow-appropriate footwear. Gah.

At least I'm happily seeing my friends and have a cozy place to stay and work. The snow is supposed to stay all week and the below zero weather has no plans to leave town. Hopefully it stays at bay and the highway is clear for Mom to pick me up next Monday.

Let it Snow!

...but only as long as my sweet DBF is home to do the shoveling!

Yup, all remnants of the big snow dump from a couple of weeks ago were gone. You would never have knowed it had snowed at all. Then last night while we slept, another few inches (6?) fell. We awoke to a Winter wonderland.

Which normally would have me cursing about shoveling...but not today! DBF made short work of it, and even dug out the car to go buy coffee. Yaaaiiieeeee! I would have been here suffering with tea and a sore shoulder and turning the air blue with my angry muttering.

(FYI: It's not that I don't like the snow...I actually do...but I hate the shoveling...mostly because I suck at it!)

I took this lovely photo from the bedroom window and cozy in my hoodie and slippers while DBF toiled away in the driveway:

Oh Christmas Tree

DBF got home on Friday...finally! Yaaaaieeeee!

I had waited for him to return so we could decorate our Christmas tree as this is one of his favorite Christmas traditions. We decided to buy a bunch of new decorations this year so we'd have something to call "ours", as opposed to "his stuff" and "her stuff" mashed together trying to make a semblence of something cohesive. So Saturday morning we set out to do just that...get our new decorations.

Thankfully it wasn't near as painful as we thought it might be. You know, shopping on one of the busiest shopping days of the year...with a hundred bazillion other people...after the shelves had already been seriously picked through. Not so bad, really. Whew.

We brought home our loot and decided to wait until it started to get dark before embarking on the actual decorating. DBF put together a CD of holiday tunes while I sifted through our existing ornaments to see what we could still use. Turns out a lot more of his stuff matched our new theme and a lot of mine was mismatched from too many years of collecting a lot of crap. In the end, I even ended up deciding that even though it was my turn to put my angel topper on the tree his Santa looked better. She's too silvery for the gold and red theme, so instead she earned herself a spot as a tabletop decoration.

DBF took on the task of putting the tree together (I helped fluff!) and stringing the lights (the most monotonous part) before it got dark in the room. Oh, I put on the beaded garland though (with some help as I got tangled around the base...lol). Then we put on our festive tunes, poured some wine and got to decorating. We were worried that we might not have enough new stuff, but with our new red bows the tree filled out nicely. (Now, if only my camera took decent night time shots...booo to the blurry!)

Shopping with the girls

As most of you have probably read either on my other blog or on Angie's blog, there was some girl time spent on Saturday that involved two of my favorite corporate obsessions (yes I know I have issues!)...lululemon and Starbucks.

Thanks to my girl Tiffaney's lovely birthday gift I had a lulu gift card burning a whole in my purse, so I was excited to go in and find something new. I had picked out a warm-up jacket online, but in reality it wasn't as cute or as long as I thought. That was OK though because they have these new to/from jackets that were really quite cute, long and less sporty so I can wear it for many more occasions. :)

This is the Full Medal Jacket. Cute, right?

I particularly love the high collar, the dual layer long sleeve cuffs, and the length...my tushy always gets cold. :)

I also finally got a new BPA-free water bottle. Yaaieee for chemical-free drinking at the gym! I like the new bottle design...all covered with lulu affirmations (such as "friends are more important than money." nice.)

Happier Thoughts

Since I'm sure you are all sick of my bitching about the friggin snow-in...I thought I'd share some happier thoughts...via photos!

My girl Tiffaney sent me this coolio belated birthday gift. A Lululemon GC for my Lulu addiction!

My Mama sent me a second birthday card with a second Starbucks GC...for another of my crazy corporate addictions!

The snow might suck but it looks nice with my festive Christmas decorations. That new wreath on the garage door is 42" and pre-lit!

In keeping with the festive theme, I set up our lighted Christmas village last night. We got it last year but never got to use it. I love it!

And because no random photo post would be complete without it, here is a pic of Mr. Stoopy looking tough in the hallway today. Moments prior he had been rolling around in the sunny patch on the carpet.

I'm Ready

Thankfully it didn't snow anymore yesterday so once I got the driveway shoveled and the car cleared off, it didn't just get covered up again. And today the sky is clear and blue and the sun is shining...actually makes the snow really pretty!

I got my Winter tires put on today (and no I'm not that late! my neighbors just did their yesterday and they are lifelong East Coasters!) and now I feel like a true Haligonian. I guess it's only right, since we've been here almost a year now. My, how time flies.

Another bigger storm is predicted for tonight into tomorrow morning. 20-30cm of snow accompanied by some strong winds. Oh joy. So I properly cleared our porch stairs and salted them and scraped out the last bits of snow from the driveway. I dug out the edges of the mouth of the driveway the best I could because last year the previous owners didn't do that...they just kept driving over the snow and it turned into an ice block that we couldn't get rid of until March. I dumped some salt on it too to try to head it off before the new snow. There is a slight chance of power outage (as there is anytime it gets windy here) so my flashlights have batteries, I know where the blankets are, and I always have plenty of candles. I guess that's about as prepared as I can get.

Hopefully the power doesnt go out because I have a cozy weekend of reading, movies, baking, and cooking planned. I don't care if it snows to high heaven because I don't really plan on going out...but losing power would stink. I like power outages at night for about an hour, but after that they aren't so much fun.

Wish me luck. Happy weekend everyone!

Waiting Paid Off

Last night I started noticing my neighbors shoveling their driveways and thought I probably should get out there...but I wasn't going anywhere, so I decided to wait.

When I got up this morning, it had frozen overnight so I was desperately worried that the snow would be all hard and heavy. So again, I decided to wait on the shoveling.

So I finally went out there about an hour ago and low and behold it was easy-peasy! A lot of the now that was on the asphalt had either melted or at least started to melt and soften up. The main part was getting the broom unstuck from the icy back deck (haha, it had fallen over, then got snowed on, then froze to the deck...I had to dig it out with my boot and kick it until it came loose). I brushed off my car and then spent maybe 2 minutes shoveling the snow away from the side and rear of my car. Of course, it took closer to 10 minutes to clear the mouth of the driveway from where the plow had gone by....I wish there was a way to avoid that!

Catch Up

I know, I have gotten bad about keeping this blog up to date. Not a lot to report as often, and then when there is I put it off and it becomes old news. But here I am!

DBF was home for a glorious 3.5 day weekend. I managed to keep work to a minimum on Friday (worked while he caught up on sleep and F1) so we got to spend a fair amount of time together.

Friday night I went to the Feist concert, so he had a boys night with his buddy Mark. He ended up having car trouble though so wound up staying over at Mark's place because he didn't want to get stranded in the middle of the night. I got home from the concert and thought that he'd decided to drink and stay out...haha. So we sorta lost that night. He got home right after I got up on Saturday morning though (I was dressed and heading to Starbucks) so we got to go out for a greasy breaky which for some reason is one of our fave things to do...and something I rarely do when he's away (if ever).

We ran a few errands, then he brought me home while he went in search of a birthday day prezzie for me. I did some chores and read my book and that was about it, until the evening when we got dolled up for our dinner out (only chance for us to do my birthday dinner together).

We met up with Mark & Cosette, and our friends Brand & Collen who we haven't seen forever, and their friends whose names escape me right now, at Bish. Yum! Arron and I arrived early (you just never know how fast a cab is going to arrive at our place) so we sat at the bar for a cocktail until everyone arrived. I had this yummy raspberry vanilla martini that I wish I had written down. Dinner was really tasty and fun...with 8 people it's tough to really do a lot of good conversation, but we managed to get caught up a bit.

After dinner we were all supposed to meet up for drinks, but Brad & Colleen ended up calling it a night and their friends had gone home to relieve their babysitter, so the other four of us hit up the Shoe Shop because that's what we always do. Lots of chit-chat, drinks and fun. :)

(I only wish I had taken pictures!!! Boo me.)

Sunday morning we slept in, then went for a fast food lunch and picked up a video. Stopped at the grocery store for dinner fixings, but ended up picking up Chinese take-out later in the evening because it was a lazy day and I didn't feel like cooking. Spent most of the afternoon sitting next to DBF reading my book while he played Playstation. :) He picked up my prezzie while I was in the grocery store...an iPod dock for the stereo so I can have tunes for my girls party tomorrow (of course I have no idea how to hook it up!).

Then it was Monday again...and up at the crack of dawn I drove him back to the stupid ship.

Good news is that as soon as he got to work he found out they are coming home a week early...so Dec-5th instead of the 12th. I guess that's something!

Honey's home!

Yup, I got home from the hairdresser and there he was. Almost didn't recognize him. Who are you? hehe.

Of course, he's leaving again on Monday morning. Booooo. They don't even get an extra day home for the stat on Tuesday. Lame-o!

Good news is that he is supposed to be gone until Dec-12th (which would suck because I'm leaving to go back to BC for the holidays on the 14th), but there is a slight chance that they might actually come home on the 5th instead. Cross your fingers for a non-functional submarine!! If the sub can't work with them, then they don't need to be out. Down with the sub!!

Beechville Book Club

Our book club is once a month. So far we've done two books and had two meetings and it's pretty fun! I even got to pick the book this last time, which means I got to host the meeting. (and by meeting I mean the wine and food party!)

Unfortunately our founding members...my neighbors two doors over...only have one more meeting before they are moving away. See how the Navy tries to screw me over...it's not even my family this time...but they are taking away some of the only cool new friends I've made here. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

But I digress....tee hee

The book I chose was Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill. (honestly I chose it partially because it sounded good, but mainly because I had a faint recollection of Eurydice talking about it...haha). It received mixed reviews from the club....and some people found it a hard read and didn't even finish it. I think in the end we all agreed it was well written and a good book, but the people that said they didn't like it were more disturbed by the subject matter than the rest of us. I found it a gritty subject but I like that. It seemed really real...even one of the hubbies that joined us (and hadn't read the book) thought it sounded like non-fiction.

I do understand what they meant though, because last month's book was My Sister's Keeper...and although it was also controversial in it's subject, it was a much easier hard-to-put-down read. That book I plowed through in a couple of days. This one I had to fight for three weeks...and only finished it the night before our meeting.

The next title we are giving a go is The Average American Male by Chad Kultgen. One of our members had it recommended by a coworker who said she couldn't put it down. We shall see. I picked up one of only two copies in stock at Chapters so it's not a hot seller...but I don't think that means anything. I did find it interesting that while Googling we found that they have YouTube videos about this book. hmmmm.

Highway Robbery

How is it that the last of the good Christmas seat sales for flights home were in the first week of October? Ya. I've been trying to find a good deal to fly home for the holidays and after I missed that first seat sale I've been shit outta luck.

I finally just gave in and bought my tickets...with a departure date much earlier than I wanted...because I saw one sneaky little one-way seat sale that I couldn't pass up this time. But still $399 one freaking way. And I had no choice but to pay full price for my return ticket because the only cheap seats are on Dec-31st, which is such an unfair way for them to do it.

Anyway, I could vent all night about the robbery of it all, but I won't. Argh.

It would be cheaper to fly to Europe than it is to fly within my own country!

Halloween in Suburbia

I've been trying to think back to when the last time I truly had kids at my door for Halloween and I really can't remember. The past two years, we were in our military housing in the country back in Victoria (only 14 houses)...so there were about a dozen kids from the neighborhood but that was it. For three years prior to that I was in an apartment....before that a condo apartment...before that a shitty apartment...before that a condo in Nanaimo...before that a basement suite on a street that didn't get trick-or-treaters...wow, so it was before that when I lived in a house with my ex. Yikes. What's that, like 10 years?!

So anyway, we now live in uber-residential suburbia, so I planned for about 100 or so kids. I didn't count, but I'm guessing I probably had 60-70. They didn't start coming until around 6pm, but once they started they came full force until about 7:30. Short and sweet. Surprisingly, it was mostly little kids....like 8 and under...with the majority being under 5 and carried by their parents. We have a lot of stairs so I met a lot of them at the bottom because those stairs were slowing the little ones down all up and down the block.

By 8:00 they were all gone. I think there may have been some older kids a little later, but I went out at 8:30 and the street was pretty quiet.

What I learned at Starbucks today...

...all this time, if I'd just registered my card, I could have been getting my extra espresso shots and vanilla syrup for free!

I started buying myself a Starbucks card on payday to help me limit how much I spend there in a month. Today when I used my card, the girl looked at my order and told me I should register online so I could save on my drink. Since I almost always order an extra shot and vanilla, I could be saving a dollar every time.

I'm all over it. That's like a whole extra latte by the end of the month.

As an added bonus, I discovered that I can get two free hours of wi-fi there now too...which is awesome since they are like the last place on the planet to still charge an arm & a leg for internet access.

Aaaand, I buy a pound of coffee every month for at home....with which I usually get a latte because I'm weak and can't seem to go in there without getting one...and now that latte will be freeeeeeeeeeeeee.


Enjoy the Benefits:

• Two Hours of AT&T Wi-Fi
• Refills on Brewed Coffee
• Beverage Customization
• Free Beverage with purchase of whole bean coffee

My Computer is Freaking Me Out

I think my poor computer is trying to tell me something. I've been talking about buying a new desktop computer lately because of the physical grief working on a laptop is causing me. It's about six months earlier than I'd planned (this one will be three years old in February) but for the sake of my body, I think it's time to suck it up and get it done.

I'm sure my computer agrees because yesterday it gave me the scare of a lifetime when it crashed and seemingly lost all of my documents and such. OMG...I thought my heart actually stopped. Especially because I've been a slacker in the maintenance department and it's been at least a month since I backed up (probably longer). Not only bad for my photos and personal stuff, but particularly bad for the work situation. Bad me.

Anyway, I let it run it's blue screen of self-correction while I was out last night and when I got home it seemed to have at least recovered all of the documents and settings...phew! I think the reason it showed nothing when it crashed and rebooted earlier was because I cancelled the blue screen file checker. But even when it seemed OK it wasn't. It wouldn't detect any wireless networks (in addition to ours, I can usually see about 10 others in the neighborhood) and it was moving really slow.

So I shut down and restarted again, and it launched the blue screen checker again so I let it run again. It moved sooooooooooooooooooo slow but I was determined to let it run. I watched a movie and it was barely at 50% after almost two hours, so I decided to just let it run overnight and see what happened.

Woke up this morning and all seems well again, so maybe the blue screen found another file to correct while I was sleeping. Who knows? But now that I'm safe for the moment, I'll be running this baby up to my office for a full-on backup!

And I guess I'll be stopping at Future Shop while I'm out today to start pricing and planning for that new computer....just in case.

Autumn Decor

Last weekend being Thanksgiving I decided to do the final clean up on our yard for the season. I mowed and weeded on Friday evening, then did more weeding and weed whacking on Sunday. I cleaned out my planters and stored them away, and put away the hoses for the Winter. I had already cleaned out our front garden and the hanging baskets a week or so before. Fresh, tidy and clean for the season. Love it.

Since I got us a fab new lawn mower this year, I put our old hokey one out at the curb for $25 and someone bought it before the sun went down. Nice.

The weather has been crisp and clear and even sunny, so I've been taking walks around the neighborhood and noticed that a lot of folks already have pumpkins and Autumn decor on their porches so I decided to join in too. I picked out a festive wreath from Michaels and spruced it up with some extra leafy garland, repotted a chrysanthemum into the flower pot on our porch (with some cute scarecrows), and picked out three good sized pumpkins that I can carve closer to Halloween.

I still wish I'd been able to paint the porch this Summer, but funny how the weather disagreed when the timing was right and now that the timing is wrong the weather is dryer. Oh well. Next Spring I'm on it.

While I was on a roll with the Autumn decor outside I decided to make myself a quick centerpiece inside too. A few glazed gourds, a yummy pie smelling candle, and some leftover leafy garland...et voila, cozy festivity for the coffee table.

When I get back from my work trip to Vegas next weekend, I'll start adding some spookier Halloween decorations. I see some ghosts, spiders and black cats...maybe some lights...and definitely some creative jack-o-lanterns. I'm so excited to finally live in a house in a neighborhood with lots of kids to trick-or-treat. Boo!

Massage-er-iffic

So today I tried Massage Therapy for the first time. My chiropractor and I agree that everything he has done has definitely loosened me up and things are going really well, but it's still not correcting the main arm pain issue. I'm glad he was down with that, because I can't keep paying him and being in pain at the same time.

I still had a chiro treatment this morning, but then did the consult with the RMT. I have to say I'm learning a lot about my internal anatomy these days. Which is funny because you would think that since I've been seeing a chiropractor fairly regularly since I was 16 that I might already know a lot...but neither of my previous doctors really spent a lot of time explaining things. (Well, in fairness, my first one probably did but I was 16 and likely wasn't listening!)

Anyway, I don't remember it all because it was a lot of medical terminology, but it turns out that my biggest problem is actually these muscles called scalenes that are located right under my collar bone. Funny because all of my pain seems to be just below my shoulder blade and radiating down my arm. Turns out its all connected! The scalenes are stiffening and because they are attached to that muscle in my upper back, it's being pulled too....and if I understood correctly it's the combination of the two of those and a few others that are affecting that nerve in my arm. He actually had a diagram on the wall of different hot spots, and this is one of them. Quite text book apparently.

The bad news is that this is basically postural and environmental. Mainly from sitting at a computer all day and from other things like driving. Wrong angles and hunched back and bent neck and blah blah blah. So we'll try a few treatments and I'll do stretches and we'll hope for the best. Oh, and I'll try to move the purchase of a new computer up in my financial schedule (of course I've spent all the money for that on all these damn appointments!!!).

So I did go back this afternoon for my first session, and this is when he really figured everything out. He had been right in his guesses based on my symptoms but was totally sure when he actually started working on me and saw how my body reacted. Funny enough I wasn't in any pain while I was there because laying down is the least aggravating as long as my arms are in the right position. And unfortunately, even after the session I still basically feel the same. I knew it wouldn't magically fix me right away, but I had hope that I would feel something that would lead me to believe that it would help.

I'm getting so frustrated.

And next Wednesday I have to sit on an airplane to Vegas...which I imagine will feel a lot like sitting in my car...which is the most painful position I can be in. I hope the other passengers don't mind my heavy breathing and whines of pain.

Time to Catch Up

Oh lord, how is it already the middle of October? And how is it that I haven't written in this blog for like two weeks?

Where to start?

DBF is away again. Yup, what's new right? He left on the 6th and is gone until sometime around Christmas, or possibly whenever hell freezes over...whichever comes first. Actually, he'll be back for one weekend in November and then back for December 10th apparently. Of course, shortly after that he'll be making his holiday trip to Winnipeg to visit his son (and I'll be heading back to BC) so really between now and Christmas we'll have maybe 4 days together. Oh the joy.

Before he left we did manage to have a couple of weeks together after my Mom went home so that was nice. We got in one weekend roadtrip to Wolfville in the Annapolis Valley, where we found a great pub for lunch on the Port Williams side of the bridge. Too bad it's an hour away because it was super yum. Maybe I'll take myself there as a treat while he's gone!

We also drove up to the Lookout to check out the view of the valley. Soooo beautiful. Windy, but clear and it just felt like Autumn. I picked up some produce from a farm market while we were there...yummy Honeycrisp apples! I wish I had thought to take pictures at the market...they had their huge hay bales all painted up with scary jack-o-lantern faces. Very cool.

Oh, and I dyed my hair darker for Fall. :)

Since DBF left I've mostly been tending to my screwed up shoulder. No idea what I did, but my new chiropractor (yes, new...I'm on my second one here in Halifax) seems to think the vertebrae have been out for a while and they finally wreaked havoc on the muscle, which in turn is irrating the hell out of the nerve. Not only has my shoulder/neck/upper arm been stiff and majorly sore and hard to move, but it's causing a radiating ache down my arm that makes it difficult to type or drive. Lovely, since those are the two main things I do all day!

Thankfully, keeping active actually feels good so going to the gym, or doing chores, or working in the garden are basically no problem. Odd I know, but it's an odd muscle.

It's been about six weeks in total since it first started bugging me, but it's been about 2 1/2 weeks since it got excrutiating. Hence, the new chiro...seeings as I'd been seeing the first one about the arm pain and it actually got worse, I opted to try someone different. The first woman was great for other stuff...she worked on my jaw and got rid of my headache, but her methods were not working for the rest of my body. The new guy is much more my style...crack, crack, crack!

I'm actually going to meet with a massage therapist tomorrow because my chiro work has really done well, but the muscle is still holding tight and the chiro admits that he thinks it's not going to get any better without proper muscle attention. I just wish I knew what I did, so I can be sure NEVER to do it again!!

On the gym front, since DBF is away I'm there at least 5-6 times a week. Gained me a few pounds while Mom was visiting and DBF and I were hanging out before he left (funny enough, he LOST weight!). So I'm back on track trying to drop those few extras, as well as actively working on my toning and cardio. Three times a week I do HIIT cardio (the fancy elliptical is my new fave) followed by a full body strength training routine I put together based on the two routines I got from the trainer I hired a while back. The other days I go for 60 minutes of cardio....20 minutes each on 3 different machines. I break that up with some squats, crunches, ab twists, etc in between machines. For the most part I enjoy it...definitely better than being home bored!

I think that's probably enough for now. I've discovered that my arm doesn't hurt if I actually sit with my laptop on my lap on the couch so now I can work and blog a lot more easily. (Prior to this I couldn't make it more than an hour at a time at my desk...and evening computer use was out the window.) So I will definitely try to be a better blogger.

Mom's Halifax Adventure - part 1

Monday:
Took a nice drive downtown in the afternoon. Learned that you can actually drive all the way around the Citadel, which was cool because I had planned on taking her there later in the week, but mainly just for the view....so we saved ourselves the inside trip there and just enjoyed the wicked view from the car. :) (I did the Citadel by myself last year, and was only going to do it again for Mom...and she didn't really care, so problem solved.)

After that, we drove down to the waterfront and strolled a bit. Wandered along the boardwalk a little ways, and browsed through the little touristy mall. Stood inside Cows Ice Cream and drooled over the smell of waffle cones....hehe.


Tuesday:
Peggy's Cove!

Made sure to head out at a reasonable time before lunch so as to make sure we had lots of time for the drive and some meandering once we got there. From our place it's actually only about an hour, but I had forgotten how long the road there is. Just when you think it will be around the next corner, you realize it's another 10 minutes away.

But it's worth it.

Once you do get around that last corner and start seeing all of those cool rocks all over the place, it's worth it. Glacial deposits. Natural phenomenon. Whatever you call them, they are cool.

We stopped first at the Swiss Air monument. Breathtaking view. Sad that it's not a happy place...but lovely that so many people stop to pay their respects there.

Then up the road and into Peggy's Cove itself. Touristy, sure...but not too terribly busy on a Tuesday. We looked around a bit, then opted to have lunch before heading out onto the rocks. The Sou'wester Restaurant has been there forever but I won't recommend it. We knew it was a tourist trap but I didn't expect the food to be as bad as it was. I won't make that mistake again ($10 for "chowder"...bullshit...it was potato soup with some fishy bits). We did enjoy gawking out the window at all of the folks gathered around posing with the live lobsters though...pretty funny. I guess if you are from a landlocked place, then shellfish are pretty exotic!

After that we wandered up to the lighthouse itself. It's pretty neat and I love lighthouses, but the true reason for going there is to see the ocean view and hop around on all of the smooth, huge rocks. Mom had the same reaction I did when I went for the first time last year....that even though she has spent her whole life on the ocean, this is just so different. The Atlantic seems a lot wilder than the Pacific (especially if you haven't spent any time on the wilder parts of Vancouver Island). We took a few photos and scoured the rock faces looking for the "petrified bear" but couldn't find it. I'll have to ask about it next time I go.

We decided to wander around the town a tiny bit. Photo ops, yummy (and cheap!) soft serve ice cream, some goats, a stop at a monument....built over many years by a local fellow who died before he could finish it...carved right into a huge granite deposit in the center of town. Lovely.

When it was time to head home, we opted to take the back way. Turns out that the highway is actually a huge cresent that just loops past Peggy's Cove. It was nice to see some different scenery on the way back.

Wednesday:
Lazy day around the house, followed by an evening trip to Fisherman's Cove over in Eastern Passage. Left too late and wound up stuck in rush hour and got lost. Not exactly fun on the way there, but good once we found it. Would have been a great spot if it was a weekend and probably even better if it was still Summer season. Fun to go somewhere I'd never been though, and the scenery was totally different than anywhere else I've seen around here.

We mainly went there because I'd had the restaurant there, Boondocks, recommended to me...but again I think it might have been better when it's actually tourist season and sunny and fun. We enjoyed our seafood platter and had a good laugh with Larry our lobster when he arrived in front of us, but the service was mediocre at best and the food was only so-so. We still had fun though, so that's what counts!

Thursday:
Off to Mahone Bay! It's about an hour and a half from our place...taking the scenic Highway 3 instead of the freeway. Which also led us to Lunenburg when I realized that it was only another 10km. I thought it was a lot further. Glad we did that because Mom quite enjoyed their waterfront, and we found a fantastic restaurant where Mom got to try a Lobster Roll and I had the best freaking fish burger EVER. The Bluenose II wasn't alongside while we were there, which was too bad, but there were a couple of other tall ships there to give the idea.

Back in Mahone Bay we were too late to stop at the sweets shop, which was probably for the best. We wandered through the few stores that were still open and made a stop at the Market there. I bought a local canteloupe that ended up being THE BEST freaking canteloupe I've ever had. Sooooo juicy and yummy. We also got a few homemade baked good that we devoured in the car while we were driving around looking at all of the cute waterfront homes and trying to find a good spot to take a picture of the three churches of Mahone Bay.


Friday and Saturday:
Not much. We had planned to do a cruise on the Harbour Queen and to tour the Bluenose II while she was in Halifax, but the weather disagreed with us. Too bad, as I've been dying to get out on the water since we moved here and now with Summer behind us I'll be hard pressed to get it done. (I think I'll just take the ferry to the Farmer's Market over in Dartmouth one weekend!)

Saturday morning we took a trip over to Dartmouth to the Farmer's Market at Alderney Landing. We picked up some fresh corn, a couple of squash (for half the price I would have paid at the store) and some fresh homemade egg rolls from the cute little egg roll lady. Her deep fried wontons were fantastic!

We did do a little shopping... showed Mom the Halifax Shopping Center, MicMac Mall, and Dartmouth Crossing. Those places are all mostly dedicated to clothes shopping though, so we could only handle so much.

Also had a yummy dinner at my favorite little restaurant, the Armview. Mom asked for a good burger place and since I don't know very many I chose there and it was perfect. Best service I've ever had there too...so that was great.


Sunday:
I was hoping for sunnier weather, but at least it didn't rain! Headed downtown again, but this time over to the Public Gardens. I knew Mom would appreciate these. I remember wandering in there last year, thinking it was just some nice park...only to be super impressed by the massive gardens. Beautiful! This time of year is a little late, but still quite spectacular. And the swans were still there for photo opportunities. Mom enjoyed it for sure.

Then, of course, I made her wander up Spring Garden Road for Starbucks and a stop at LuluLemon. She didn't enjoy that near as much as I did. Ha!

Sunday night, DBF came home from his visit to Winnipeg...on the redeye. So I stayed up and drove out to the airport at 1:30am in the pitch dark, bloody hammering rain....with one headlight. Yippee. But I forgot all about that when he walked down the stairs. :)


Stay tuned for the report on week 2. I was back to work so not so much in the way of touristy stuff. :)