My Other Blog

Hi all,

By now most of you have probably figured it out, but I'm not really into maintaining two blogs these days. I have been focusing on building up my health blog instead, and most of my regular life happenings are being included there as well.

Embracing Balance

I know you aren't all interested in my menu habits, gym days, or food porn but within that is a lot of fun regular stuff too. :) Check it out.

Monkeying Around

I finally hooked up the scanner, so here's the photo of me and the little resort monkey in Punta Cana. So cute!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY!

Today is Arron's birthday! Woooooooooooooo!

Our plans for a little night out on the town got shafted by the Navy (of course!) so instead he had himself a boy's day when he got back from a couple of days at sea yesterday. Beers, chips, F1 on the big TV, Kartbahn (go-carting), and video games. Good times. (I went shopping.)

For a giftie he ordered himself some sort of fancy guitar thingamajig. It's a port thingy to connect his guitar to his computer and it has all sorts of different settings so he can record music and be a rock star in the basement. He'll have to explain it. But that's what I got him. :)

There may be cake or something later today. If he's a good birthday boy.

:)

Tourists Can Finger Paint

OK, so when Lex told me to do the finger painting at our resort I thought maybe she was a little crazy. haha. I mean, finger painting isn't usually an adult activity. Maybe she'd been hanging out in the kids club while on her vacation last year. :)

But low and behold there it was on the daily activities sheet. Finger Painting!

I sort of forgot about it, but one day at poolside a large crowd was gathered so we checked out what it was...and sure enough it was the finger painting class. Of course I was too late for the free first class, so I ended up paying $10 to sit in on the second round (nice setup on their part....get everyone all interested then throw a price tag on it).

The teacher was a hilarious Mexican guy that spoke about a zillion languages. He was funny and completely trashed on everyone's artistic skills. "oh, that's terrible." "geeze lady, give me that." "holy crap, what are you doing?" Totally worth the $10 for the comedy alone. The fun painting was just a bonus. Of course, he touched up everyone's work so we didn't take home a totally amateur piece of trash.

Super cute bathroom art!

Fuzzy Pants

Mr. Stoopy has been feeling a little left out of the blog lately, so here's some current photos of my furry little man...

Punta Cana Vacation Recap - part 4

Obviously we had a great time! I guess I just wanted to comment on how impressed we were with the resort. I've never been to an all-inclusive before, and FH has been to a few but all were in Mexico at least 8-10 years ago. According to him, EdenH was considerably better than any he'd been to and much more reasonably priced. In 2000, he and a buddy stayed at a 2 star resort in Cancun that wasn't even on the beach....and they paid $500 more per person.

We read a lot of negative chatter on TripAdvisor about this resort (having said that it came highly recommended by the lovely Lex and our travel agent) but honestly can't figure out what people are whining about. Everyone we encountered was super friendly. The drinks flowed all day. The food was much better than expected (I reviewed the food on my other blog). They offered entertainment each night and activities every day. The room was nice. The pool was beautiful. The beach was literally a step away, clean, and free from local vendors, etc. There was construction next door (expanding the resort), but it never once bothered us. I think some people just go looking for things to bitch about.

I will say this....if you are 20-something and looking for a party spot, this probably isn't your place. Although we did meet a couple of college girls having a great time just sunning by the pool, and we did see a couple of dozen younger people they definitely were in the minority. Boys, this wouldn't be a place to go meet drunk girls. haha. More of a couples destination for sure. They did have a shuttle to a local disco each night though, so potentially you'd find a good party there. :)

Our second to last day the weather was absolutely perfect....clear blue skies, sunny, hot, with a beautiful breeze:

FH, of course, made buddies with the poolside bartenders. Alexis (left) is somewhat famous on TripAdvisor....we saw him the first day, and he was kind of cranky...but then he must have had his three days off because we he came back on Thursday he was a changed man! Raul (right) was there the entire time and was always full of smiles.

And on the last morning, I was sad to go home:

Is it next year yet? We're ready to go again!

Punta Cana Vacation Recap - part 3

Our Excursion: Tropical Storm "Happy Hour" Sunset Catamaran Tour

Honestly, we chose this one because it was one of the cheapest and because it didn't leave at the crack of dawn. I don't know who the crazy people are that want to be up and ready to sail by 8am while on vacation, but we certainly weren't interested in that. hehe. Besides, the afternoon one has drinky-poos included!

We were picked up just after 3pm by the tour van...lucky us we were the last stop so we didn't have to wait or drive around while they picked up the folks from two other resorts. Got us to the beach down the road within 10 minutes where we met up with the rest of the group. On the boat by just after 330 and sailing away 5 minutes after that. We had a funny, energetic French-Canadian hostess...referring to herself as "froggie"....and a crew of at least 5 locals. "Froggie" was quick to get through safety instructions (basically don't jump off the boat you idiots) and had lots of good jokes for the tourists. We had a full boat and everyone was in a great mood (how could you not be?)!

There was a snorkeling stop. I've never been snorkeling and wanted to try it, but failed miserably. I rarely swim and when I do it's not with good form (whatever happened to all those swimming lessons from when I was a kid?). We were in a designated snorkeling area but it was a bit choppy and there were a lot of us....I think had it been a bit calmer and less busy I would have been able to get it together and stay out there...but as it was I was struggling with a loose flipper and trying to get used to breathing through the mouthpiece and that was just too much....so I called it a day about a minute after I started. Oh well. FH was in a little longer, but he had a crappy mouthpiece and kept sucking in salt water so opted to hop out too. It was fun just watching the others anyway....all those bodies floating face down looked like a shipwreck!

See here...my hair is wet...proof that I was at least in the water!

After snorkeling they really started pushing the booze. This excursion was the one and only time either of us had a true booze buzz going on. We drank a lot on this trip, but we really think the resort drinks are watered down...but not on the boat! The crew gets everyone dancing and singing and goofing around (of course they are trying to get you to buy the $25 video they are making the whole time!). Hilarious. Then they give everyone a shot of "mamajuana"...Dominican Viagra they call it...which is a mix of wine/honey/rum and some crazy tree bark...tastes like ass I have to say. LOL. They are also trying to sell that stuff in bottles with your photos on them...too bad our photo was actually quite nice but we had no interest in the drink.

FH referred to this guy as "little papa bling"...pretty sure his only job as crew member was to get the ladies dancing!

Anyway, carrying on....the ride was smooth, warm and lovely. The sunset was gorgeous. Lots of lovely beach and ocean scenery. Different gorgeous colors of water. Interesting clouds in the sky. So totally perfect. We couldn't have picked a better excursion. There was another stop for a swim in a "natural pool"...calmer water only about hip deep...which I fully intended to do, but we were having such fun on the boat that I decided just to stay on board.






We finished up around 7:15 and were taken back to our resort in the back of one of those big open back canopied trucks...lovely evening. Where we cleaned up and headed to the buffet and then sat in the courtyard for drinks and chitchat with our resort buddies... *sigh

Punta Cana Vacation Recap - part 2

Up until the last day, we actually got up at a relatively normal time...like by 930-10am. I wanted to be up and ready to go when FH woke up so we could head off to breakfast as soon as he was showered. Gave myself extra time to lather from head to toe in sunscreen after that first day of 20 minutes giving me that crazy burn. We'd head down to the pool and stake out chairs (there were always chairs available, even when the resort was at full capacity...but on the first day we waited until after breaky and didn't like the location of our chairs) and then head to the yummy buffet for some good eats and coffee.

the aforementioned burn - see my "dominican tattoo" where my necklace left a mark? ugh.

Admittedly we were extremely lazy. I'd had all these visions of trying out a few of the included activities and dragging FH out on an excursion or two. He had wanted to play tennis and go parasailing. We did none of this. Well, we went on one excursion....to drink on a boat! We mainly just parked ourselves in our poolside loungers and either chatted with other guests, or watched and laughed at the water aerobics, or tried to avoid staring directly at the over-the-hill European men in their speedos. I finished one book and almost finished another. FH traded iPods with a buddy he made on the trip and they compared notes on their musical tastes. Occassionally FH would head to the room for a quick nap and I'd either wander the beach or just read.

Bliss.

Each evening they offered some form of entertainment. Around 7-8pm they would set up a big outdoor screen and either play a movie (like that Scorcese Rolling Stones' movie) or just have music playing...this was in the big courtyard so as long as the weather was clear everyone would sit outside and enjoy drinks and chat. It rained a couple of times, so we'd just move into the lounge bar. At 9:45 each night they would have live entertainment....one night karaoke, one night some "romantic" singers, one night a dance-party with breakdancers, and the best was the "cirque"...really cool. This would go on until 1030 or 11pm, then we would either stay in the courtyard or go into the lounge bar for a few more hours. They have a rooftop club as well, but we only went up a couple of times...it had a DJ who really likes Lady Gaga! We also discovered the Sports Bar on our second to last night...and played some pool. They also have bowling which we thought was cool but never got around to playing. (I told you, we were lazy!)

The Dominican "boy-band" singing the songs of 98 degrees & N'sync. Cheesy but great!

The "cirque" performers. These people are amazing and work their asses off. Many of the performers were dancing in the different shows each night, and/or working at something else on the resort during the day.

On our latest night, I think we were still in bed by about 1am. haha. Sleep is glorious when you can get it!

Punta Cana Vacation Recap - part 1

Just as a reminder, we stayed at EdenH Real Arena Punta Cana.

Amazing bang for the buck. 4 1/2 star resort. All inclusive. We travelled with . One week, less than $3000 for both of us...taxes, fees, etc in. The only extras we paid were our cancellation insurance (we have to, due to FH's crazy job) and the one excursion we took. We don't need travel health insurance as it's covered in our plan. Other than that we turned $500 Canadian dollars into $380 US dollars (ouch) for tips and trinkets. We tipped well, bought a couple small things and came home with some cash.

Day One was fairly exhausting...6am flight had us at the airport just after 3am....then about a 4 hour flight...and another hour or so to get luggage and transport to the resort for about noon. I was pooped but FH managed to get into the mood and got a second/third/fourth wind.

airport arrival

on the bus

Check in was quick and painless...our room wasn't available until 3pm but no biggie because they give you your bracelet right away so you can eat, drink and be merry while you wait. We changed right away (however, due to the silly flight regs regarding liquids my sunscreen was in my big luggage and I forgot to get it before checking our stuff with the bell desk...that'll learn me to put a travel size in my carry-on for next time) and immediately found the pool/bar/beach. :)

first shots of resort/beach

Spent a couple hours getting the lay of the land (by this I mean bar), had some lunch, then about 20 mins in beach loungers (this is where I immediately got my sunburn....grrrr). I was dozing off, so thankfully it was now after 3pm and we headed back to the lobby to get our room info.

glorious first rest on the beach

Ready right on time, they loaded us and our bags onto a little golf cart trolly (FH had a beer delivered to him right on the cart) and took us to our room. I immediately fell asleep....FH went back to the pool (and by pool I mean bar). I slept for a few hours, then went to find him but I think we were circling each other because I couldn't find him.....so ate dinner at the buffet, got a couple of drinks, and just wandered through the courtyard and little bars...eventually found each other back at the room a while later. He had already made some friends so went back for a final drink and I headed back to bed. Bit of a loss of the first night, but it made the rest of the trip much more enjoyable because I wasn't tired anymore!

Waaahoooooo!

One of my bestest West Coast buddies is coming to visit!! Thanks to Westjet and another incredible seat sale, she surprised me out of nowhere by booking a ticket to come out here next month! Oh how fun to have one of my girls out here for a whole week!!

Adios Amigos

Our bags are packed and we're ready to go. And none too soon. Did you see the snow today? Seems like a great time to get outta town!

Hola sun, sand and fun!!

Last Minute Vacay Countdown

Weeeeehaaaaaa! I can't believe we leave tonight for our much anticipated, much needed vacation to Punta Cana! (Not stoked about the 6am flight that requires us to be at the airport for 3am...actually a little earlier to Park n Fly...but if it means I'm going to have sand between my toes in 24 hours then I'm all for it!)

Being the planner that I am, I made myself a to-do list this morning:

Since writing the list I've added in printing Park n Fly coupon, charging my iPod, charging my extra camera battery, stopping by the clinic for my final Twinrix shot, paint my toenails, confirm flight, and shower and blow-drying my hair before our nap (so I'm not futzing around at 2am!). Man I hope that's everything. It's an action packed day that's for sure. Good thing I'll be relaxing for the next seven days.

FH will be out and about this afternoon buying shorts and swimtrunks (nothing like leaving it til the last minute!) and getting us some travelling cash. I'm putting him in charge of bringing home dinner too, since I don't have time to cook and don't want any extra dirty dishes laying around.

See you all in a week!

Plow Follow Up

I guess I should clarify...

This wasn't just slightly annoying, this was downright the world is coming to an end and the entire neighborhood is awake loud. Beyond ridiculous. I'm not just complaining because I'm not used to Winter...this was a new low, even for around here. We've been here two full Winters now and haven't experienced this level of stupidity prior to this.

I will say that our sidewalk guy almost always comes in the middle of the night, but I generally overlook him because A) it's great that we don't have to shovel our own sidewalks B) he's a private contractor and it's impressive that he gets to us at all C) he is only in front of each house for about 2-4 minutes...not 20-30 (and even though I have thought he was loud, I will never think that again!).

As for the roadside issue....it's like I said...we are a totally residential neighborhood...there is absolutely nothing else here...only houses. It's not like people have to pass by here to get anywhere....it doesn't lead anywhere but into the subdivision. The road was more than wide enough....both lanes fully operational. Ya, it's a bit tight if folks are parked on the road, but it's not like it's a crazy high traffic area. Trust me, we'd all rather have a minor slowdown on the road in exchange for our night's sleep.

It just didn't make sense that this job was any kind of a priority that would require the 5 hour middle of the night ruckus.

For those of you that know HRM....what really got us was that there is a TON of snow and ice along the edges of Chebucto Road...so much so that it's actually blocking half a lane...on one of the highest traffic roads in town....but THAT has not been cleared yet!

If you can't vent about the city or the weather, what can you vent about?! :)

Dear HRM

Dear whichever one of you asshats is in charge of scheduling dumptracks and ice plows,

Just a quick note to let you know that midnight is NOT the ideal time to send heavy duty equipment to forcefully scrape months-old ice stores from the edges of our street. Are city employees and planners all nocturnal vampires? If so, that's really neat, but I'd just like to remind you that most of the general public is not. Many of us prefer to sleep during the night hours.

I am sure there is a completely logical reason for needing to remove the ice. In fact, I do applaud the actual idea, just not the execution. I mean, sure...a wider street and clear drainage is certainly appealing...however, I'm pretty sure this could have been done during normal working hours when most people are generally awake anyway. There was no time-sensitive safety issue that I'm aware of so keeping our entire neighborhood awake for hours and hours seems just plain ridiculous to me. If your team is running behind schedule, don't try to make it up by keeping an entire subdivision awake.

If I were to go outside at midnight and start jackhammering my driveway, you can bet your buttons that my neighbors would complain and I'd receive some sort of fine from the city for breaking a noise by-law or some such thing. So why is it OK for a city team to come and make 10 times that amount of noise? It isn't. But you did it anyway.

It's not like Beechville is a community of all-night business or industrial traffic or any other type of situation that might work with this late night work....we are a community of 400 private residences and that is all.

Open your eyes and have a look around the next time you plan one of these midnight events. May your brain prevail and remind you that people need sleep. Show some respect.

Regards,


Sleepless in Beechville

United States of Tara

It's no secret that FH and I like a lot of the less mainstream TV shows. I mean, I still like to watch my occasional episode of ER or Law & Order SVU, but I don't go out of my way to find them. The only regular TV I go looking for on purpose anymore is Amazing Race and I think that's just out of habit and a slight interest in some of the cool places they go.

Anyway, we've burned through all of the most recent episodes of Entourage, Dexter, and True Blood (man do we love Video on Demand)...and the most second season of Mad Men isn't out on DVD yet....so we were looking for something to fill the gap. Conveniently, Movie Central offered up something new at just the right time!

United States of Tara

Love it.

Toni Collette stars as Tara (and others) in this great new show created by Diablo Cody (you know her from such gems as Juno). Tara is a seemingly normal wife & mother...but with a twist...well, three twists actually. Alter egos. Three completely different additional personalities that arrive at the damdest of times depending on her stress level and current situation. Alice gives June Cleaver a run for her money. Buck is a man who loves his beer and boobies. T is a teen who'd rather show you her thong than make meaningful conversation.

Collette makes each personality totally believable and gets you invested in each one as though they are all separate characters. Really, they are...just played by the same actor. She's great.

And who doesn't love a little (big!) John Corbett playing her amazingly understanding and supportive husband? Not to mention her two oddball teenage kids having good storylines of their own, and her attention seeking sister who offers up the option that multiple personalities are bullcrap that Tara has made up and could do away with at anytime.

If you haven't seen it, you should. I bet you'll like it.

fly-by post

Yes, I know I've been very quiet this week....ooooops, sorry! FH is home and we are enjoying a week of hanging out, watching movies, and catching up.

8 days til Dominican! So I promise lots of photos and reports from that. :)

Hurry up!

FH's ship has been alongside for two hours now....and they still haven't been released. Hurry up dammit!

:)

Edit: OK, so half hour later they let him freeeeeeeeeee!

Radio Silence

FH's ship has met up with a task group out at sea and whatever they are doing has caused them to have to go silent for about 36 hours. No contact with outsiders. Boooooo. Emails are what keep us both going when he's away this long.

I guess this is what it was like for families before email became a day-to-day reality.

Ha, look at me. Twelve hours and I'm already comparing myself to folks from ten years ago.

Good thing he's home on Monday.

Seriously?

Do you know that the Twinrix shot is not covered by Nova Scotia MSI?

I don't mean the actual prescription...which by the way costs $67 per shot (and I have to have three shots because we are leaving on our trip within six weeks of my first shot...expedited version).

I mean that doctors' offices actually charge $20 just to stick the needle in your arm.

Yup, you read that right. $20 for the doctor to open the box, wipe my arm with an alcohol swab, and stab me. Takes less than 30 seconds.

And I have to do it three times.

$67 x 3 + $20 x 3 = $261

Oh, and I'll have to get the booster in about 10 months.

Ridiculous.

New Computer

My poor laptop has been dying a slow death for quite some time now...since around September I think. It has been a great machine for the price I paid, but honestly considering I use it for work 5+ days per week, plus blogging, surfing, etc. I probably should have spent a little more at the time. However, I did tell myself it would be good for three years and I think next month I would hit that mark...so not too shabby after all.

I started looking around and asking a few friends what I should be looking for in a new computer a couple of months ago. Things change so much in the world of computers, all of the knowledge I used to have has become pretty obsolescent. To my surprise I had several people recommend ordering a Dell computer. Even my computer savvy programmer friends. So I looked at the website a few times...but I was still a little confused between quad-core, dual-core, blah blah blah....plus I was still trying to prolong the usage of my trusty laptop so I never got around to seriously planning anything.

But a few more months went by and my laptop just continued to get slower and can't seem to do more than one thing at a time...which generally isn't an issue for me, except it always seems to freeze and freak out when I'm doing something for my boss or using it during a conference call. It is apparently quite into bad timing. So a couple of weeks ago I decided that waiting another month was just silly and sucked it up and went on the hunt.

I actually found a machine at Costco that I liked. An HP...quad-core, bigass hard drive, lotsa RAM, big shiny monitor. I even got so far as to put in on a cart and head to the checkout. Then I remembered that Costco doesn't take credit cards, and I hadn't yet transferred money from my business expense account to my day-to-day checking account so I wasn't going to be able to debit it (seeeee Costco, you lost a sale because I couldn't just whip out my MasterCard and get it done). So I put the computer back and came home to do some banking transfers online, with the intention of going back. But you know what? It was snowing that day, and when I got home I just didn't feel like going out again, so I decided to check out Dell online again just in case....

And sure enough, I found a similar computer for about $300 less. Same size hard drive, I think a little less RAM but it's sooo much who cares, a bigger monitor (hellooooo 22"). This one is dual-core instead of quad-core, but I actually had a very knowledgeable friend tell me this would be better for me in a lower end machine...less processing time. Sure, sounds good to me. haha. So I ordered it. Who am I to look a $300 savings gift horse in the mouth?

This bad boy arrived last Wednesday, two days earlier than anticipated. I was pretty stoked, but do you know that I didn't even take it out of the boxes until Saturday and it wasn't until last night that I got around to setting it up. And I still haven't finished setting up the email or software (although it has Works and everything all set up...I'm still debating on whether I will put Office on it) or transferring all of my files, etc. There was a time that I found all of that stuff fun, but now I just want it done and ready to go!!

So far it's pretty cool though. Man, what a difference between that little laptop monitor and this 22" beauty. Maybe now my neck will be in the proper position more often and my arm/shoulder will quit bugging me so much. One can only hope!! And it's much faster and smoother moving, which is a dream! I'm even considering going for the super high-speed Internet access now that I have a machine that can perform.

Fun. :)