Saturday, December 30, 2006

pre-New Year's Resolution

so let go, jump in
oh well, whatcha waiting for
it's alright
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown
so let go, just get in
oh, it's so amazing here
it's alright
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown
(- Let Go, by Frou Frou)

I do not make New Year's resolutions; I don't need to have a special day to resolve to make improvements to myself and my life. Last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I thought that I have accomplished a great many small things this year. I have over come a few fears and inhibitions, and wouldn't it be great if I could continue with that in the next year?! I mean, who ever would have thought that I would be running in public?! Not me.

Starting now, I am going to LET GO... or at least make an honest attempt at it. Let go of the fears that are holding me back, let go of my inhibitions, just let go... of course all within reason. (It's not like I'm going to do anything drastic and character damaging.)

Cheers to LETTING GO!

Friday, December 29, 2006

Go Elf Yourself!

Ah I wish I had found this before Christmas! Whatever, anytime is a good time to be an elf, right? Check out my Elfamorphosis.

Now you go elf yourself and send me a copy!

Like a Seinfeld episode

Some girls have stalkers, but I have a WAVER!

PART 1:
I was at the gym, running circles on the track. At one point, I was passing a walker when I saw a guy in the weight area, reclined on one of the machines, wave. It was a small hand-at-the-waist wave. I didn't recognize him, so I assumed he knew the walker, and was simply waving a friendly hello at this man walking beside me.

Later in my run, I spotted this guy again when he was in a different part of the weight area, and I saw him wave again. This time, there was no one else around me so he was actually waving at me! So I thought that I must know him! Dark hair, well built, and it must be this guy who I of who goes to my gym. I smiled and figured he would catch up with me when I was walking or stretching.

He never did catch up with me. When I was walking for my cool down, I started to regain the ability to focus, and try to search him out in the crowd, but I couldn't find the face I was looking for. I called him when I got to my car, expecting to leave a message on his voicemail. I was suprised when he answered his phone, but not entirely since he lives close by and could have left the gym before I did. He denied being at the gm that day, so I told him the story about the gym waver. We had a laugh over it. Why would a guy just wave to a girl in the gym?

PART 2:
The next day at the gym got to the top of the stairs and was waved at. I was in shock so I didn't know how to react and kept walking. It was the waver! He went on the treadmill and I was on the track so I could see him as I passed by, but because of the angle it was hard to make eye contact or something unless I was looking behind me, which I was totally not about to do. When I was finished running, he was over in the weights area and I just left. Who just waves to a girl at the gym and then never comes over to say hi??

Funny thing is, I don't really know what this guy looks like. I don't think I would be able to pick him out in a line up! Attractive, well build, square shoulders, dark hair... that probably describes 1/2 the guys in the gym. lol Since people can change the clothes they wear to the gym, I think I need to look for a more consistance distinguishing feature like their shoes, since most people wear the same shoes to the gym each visit.

Monday, December 25, 2006

Merry Christmas!


Will catch up on all the trip details later.....

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Mistletoe

a little holiday haha

The Current Fad?

Is this some sort of new modern craze, to display your Christmas tree upside down ? I saw one of these at London Drugs and thought it was quite odd and un-natural looking (aside from the fact that the tree was fake). It's actually a 12 century central European tradition, when they would hang the fir trees from the ceiling, the triangular shape symbolizing the holy trinity and Christianity. Nowadays it's a convenient way to free up a place for sitting, posing for pictures, and of course more room for presents.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

for the person who has everything

What do you buy as a Christmas gift for the person who already has everything they could ever want? How about an $80.00 chocolate bar! Toblerone makes this one that is 4.5kg.What the heck would someone do with such a thing? ok, share it, but how on earth would you cut it? You'd need a chainsaw to hack it into bit sized pieces! If one person was to eat it, I wonder who long it would take. Talk about going into sugar shock! I like Swiss chocolate (Lindt is yummy too, especially their Lindor truffles!), but I'd end up in a coma if I tried this massive bar. I am quite content with the little 100g bars, thank you very much.

If you're shopping in the city, I found this one at Shopper's Drug Mart in the East side of the City Centre Mall. And they had 2 of them on the shelf.

Final Moments

This is how Miranda spent her final moments as a 6-year old.
And now she is 7. Happy birthday, baby girl!

Monday, December 18, 2006

Visiting HO HO

Miranda went to see Santa Claus (aka Father Christmas) at the mall today. She was very excited and wrote a letter this morning to give to him. She was impressed that he knew her school was just down the street, and when he asked her who her teacher was, he knew she was in the French Immersion Program. Santa wished her a happy birthday and told her to let her teacher know he would be also bringing something special for her on Christmas. Miranda said he was a very good Santa helper, and Santa must have told him a lot of stuff.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Christmas Party

Last Saturday was the company Christmas party at Dante's. Raj and I sure know how to put on one hell of a party! Dinner was fantastic! The salmon and potatoes and salads... yuuuummmmm! and Daniel was a dear and even brought me a nanaimo square for desert (not without giving a little of his arrogant English attitude first). We all did a lot of hamming it up for the camera. And James and Pokey (who used to work with us) showed up for some fun. But it wasn't all fun when Pokey fell off the chair and fell face first to the concrete floor. There was a pool of blood, it was a mess. He walked away with a nasty cut on his face, and his buddy promised to take him to Emerg to get checked out. That was sooooo scary.
click image to enlarge


Since I am usually the one taking the pictures and not in very many of them, this year I made a point to get lots of pictures of myself. It was my project to get a photo made with all the office guys who were there. In the end, I ended up missing three of them (Mark, Sean & Jason) but scored extra points for getting one with the cute bartender.
We had LOTS of good prizes. The most popular ones were the the envelopes, an ipod, a pink frying pan (like the one I have at home) and a set of casserole dishes. Initially I won a 6 DVD Harry Potter set, which I gave to Mark's wife because I heard her exclaim how much she wanted that and took her bottle of Jagermeister. Later, Kevin stole the Jager from me and gave me a tin of chocolate covered cookies. Then I drew my own name as one of three winners of extra prizes and I got some liquor.

Friday, December 15, 2006

One Week

In one week I will be on my way to Phoenix. Running in the cactus covered mountains, ahhhhh! Goodbye snow! I cannot wait!!

Click for Phoenix, Arizona Forecast

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Empty your purse, ma'am!

Last night I was teased as to why my purse was so heavy (it's really not that heavy). I emptied the contents on to the table: note pad, digital camera, wallet, ipod nano, jewelled hair clip, gum, 2 Future Shop gift cards, allergy and back pain pills, extra car key, nail file, hand cream, mobile phone, mints, hair ties, hair pins, and 12 diffent kinds of things to apply to my lips! Gloss, coloured gloss, chap sticks, lip sticks. (one was hiding so there are only 11 in the photo) And there should have been even one more, but it was in my jacket pocket when I went out on the weekend.

What can I say? I like to keep my lips moisturized and soft!!

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Happy Couple

Congratulations to Tara & Tom!

My dear, sweet, beautiful friend just got engaged! She sent me pictures of the ring on her finger and it's gorgeous. *happy envious sigh*

Monday, December 11, 2006

Nightmares

There's a hole in your soul / Where your heart used to me / All the doors are locked / And you can't find the key / There's fish in the sky / And there's birds in the sea / And you hate me / But you need me / You're drowning from all of the tears in the sky / It's a bad dream / You can't even close your eyes / It's a bad dream / A bad dream / Screaming from the voice inside / Trying to find a place / Inside / To hide / From the bad dream ..... Badream by Jakalope


I had another bad dream last night/this morning. When I woke up it was already morning, so I didn't have to worry about trying to fall back asleep. I wouldn't have been able to; I didn't want to close my eyes again.

That makes 2 in just over a week. The other one was on the night of Dec 1st. I was up sobbing at 3:30 and it was such a bad dream that I did not want to go back to sleep. I would close my eyes and see the dream all over again and I didn't want to dream more about it.

The dreams had the same theme, and it won't surprise me if it happens again.

Narcoleptic

On Wednesday I suffered from a narcoletpic attack on the way home from work. It was a normal day and I wasn't overly tired. I walked to my car and turned on some hopping music (The Presets!). By the time I reached the end of Jasper Avenue (we're talking 14 blocks away from where I park) I blinked and I have no idea how long it took for my eyes to open again, but it was a lot longer than what it should have been. It happened another 2 times before I got home. The second time it happened I only jerked awake because I felt the car rolling forward.

I had always been aware of how easy it could be to fall aleep while driving, like if you were super exhausted or a shift worker or something like that, but I never imagined that it would happen as it did. I think it has to do with the lack of daylight. It's dark when I leave in the morning and it's dark when I go home in the afternoon.

Wow, in retrospect, I had quite the dangerous week. I'm glad I made it out without hurting anyone other than myself (my back still hurts and my bottom is horribly bruised from the fall).

Friday, December 08, 2006

Unscheduled Trip

I took at trip at 6:30 this morning. I woke up and started to go downstairs. I took two steps down the stairs then slipped and fell down the remaining 12 steps. I didn't know what was happening until I felt the pain of my butt hitting the first step.

Everything hurts now. It will be even worse tomorrow, right in time for my Christmas party. Wonderful.

Last time Angelgirl took a major fall on the stairs: October 28, 2005 at the Central LRT station.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Eye Spy

my little eye


that's creepy

I'm wearing my long blue shirt and a blue & gold top to the christmas party and I just decided (with Michellini's help) that I will be wearing green eye makeup instead of the Raisin I usually wear. The green colour is actually called Cold Cash! I bought it because of the cool name. I even remember that I was on the phone with a panicked man (his new computer had just been splashed with paint) when I picked it out.

Damage Case

We're all damaged, it seems.
Some of us, more than others.
We carry the damage with us from childhood, then as grownups, we give as good as we get. Ultimately, we all do damage.
And then, we set about the business of fixing whatever we can.

- Grey's Anatomy (Season 2 Episode24, Damage Case)

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

My soul feels heavy today.

A white dream shivers
engulfing heartache chokes
the scream under the waves.

Putting out our shoes

Miranda, with her incredible memory, remembered that the start of December has that great celebration of Sinterklaas, so she made sure we put our shoes by the tree to have them filled with chocolate(the greedy little lass had to put out 2). She even remembers (and I'm using her words) that last year she was left with a chocolate of St. Nikolas and that I got the little dark helper.

We were good this year! and got chocolates instead of sticks and straw.
The Dutch shop by my house closed this summer so I didn't have a chance to track down some cool chocolate or Pepernoten. Even the Shopper's Drug Mart didn't have the chocolate initials like they did last year. They year she will have to be content with Swiss Toblerone chocolate& a kinder surprise.
With her birthday in a couple of weeks and Chrismtas a few days later, I am leaving it as just a celebration of chocolate (like she needs more, for her already gets her daily dose with her Barbie count down to Christmas calendar, with chocolates behind each numbered door) because she really doesn't need any more presents. If she remembers it next year then perhaps we'll write poems, but I just don't have any time to think of one right now. (My social calendar has me exhausted!)

Trimming the Tree

Sunday we put up the tree and decorated the house, while Lucky supervised.



Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Collection of Ladies

I guess I have started a sort of collection... this weekend I bought the small red one to hold a photo or something like that. The rest of them hold jewlery. The burlesque earring holder (far left) and the meshy one (to hold neclaces and bracelets) both go on my vanity. The one with with the long skirt, the red one, and the decorated wine bottle case will stay on the dresser.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Fateless

You can close your eyes. You can turn away. But you will never forget.

I saw a movie this weekend, Sorstalanság (Fateless).
Budapest 1944: it is a moving tale about a 14 year old Jewish boy as he is sent to to work in a brick camp and his bus is stopped and he is sent to Auschwitz and then later to Buchenwald. During this time, he comes to learn much about life and friends. The movie was visaully stimulating, as it was done in sepia, black and white, and coloured scenes to emphasize various moods. This movie is based on the contemporary novel by Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész.

Like any movie about concentration camps that I have seen, it is depressing at times, and also very thought provoking. How can human beings treat other humans like that, and are we still guilty of such crimes against humanity. Ultimately the movie shows the unbelievable resilience of the human spirit.