Today I wrote my last exam of what I will believe will be the end of my academic career. I feel so much relief I could cry. I'm a bit at a loss for words as I also got up at 6:30 this morning to watch the royal wedding. This was also a beautiful event and brought my nearly to tears. What a beautiful ceremony with wonderful music, fashion, love, and excitement.
Today I also said goodbye to my German friend Kirsi who flies back home tomorrow. It's more of a "so long" as we will meet up again when Lenny and I visit Milan in May.
Well this has been kind of an emotional day for me so I'm going to head to bed soon. Just wanted to let you all know that I'm done and I survived!
Friday, April 29, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Tuesday happenings
This morning after dropping Lenny off at work, I headed over to the doctor's office on campus to have my ears checked out. I've been having a lot of pain for about a month now but thought that it might have been cleared up with the antibiotics I took for the pneumonia or the antihistamines I've been taking for my allergies. Unfortunately for me, it has been diagnosed as not related to either, nor an infection or build up of wax (tmi?my next two best guesses...). Anyhoo, the doctor thinks it is related to stress as my ear drums look fine and the antibiotics didn't seem to make a stab at it. Stress certainly has strange ways of manifesting itself!
After the doctors, I cam home and started clearing out my e-mail inbox. I ended up applying for work in some way, shape, or form with the following organizations in London:
Not too bad for a few hours of work! Hopefully something materializes out of this but as the Italy trip gets closer and closer, I am caring less and less about finding work asap.
I'm off to have some lunch and then study a bit for an exam I have tomorrow. I have some Easter weekend pictures to post as well and am hoping to get to that sometime in the next few days. Until then, happy belated Easter!
After the doctors, I cam home and started clearing out my e-mail inbox. I ended up applying for work in some way, shape, or form with the following organizations in London:
Not too bad for a few hours of work! Hopefully something materializes out of this but as the Italy trip gets closer and closer, I am caring less and less about finding work asap.
I'm off to have some lunch and then study a bit for an exam I have tomorrow. I have some Easter weekend pictures to post as well and am hoping to get to that sometime in the next few days. Until then, happy belated Easter!
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Job!
This afternoon my goal is to enter the home stretch of my mega spring cleaning initiative: pink storage room, the office, and the bedroom left to go! I LOVE cleaning! So excited! :)
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Finishing
Today is off to a good start. I've complete my tax return and am getting enough money back to pay for almost half of my Italy trip.
Secondly, I also think I successfully booked a tour of Mt. Etna and some Sicilian wineries, again in partial Italian. This conversation was more difficult because there was a lot of background noise on the other side of the line, but after an email confirmation, I think everything should be ok.
The third nice thing is that the blogger picture uploader is working again for me. Here are three pics from our adventures in the last little bit.
First up is a pic of a new Dr. Who shirt that I bought Lenny. He loves this show and wanted some new shirts, so when I came across this one on a recent trip to the mall, I had to pick it up! This one (along with the bazinga one in yesterday's post) are presents for finishing his reclassification to a PhD and although that doesn't happen until May, I simply couldn't hold them back from him for that long. I have that problem a lot when I find the perfect gift. ah well. :)
These next two pictures show you what typical geocaches looks like. These pics were taken last weekend when it was a sunny 23 degrees. Right now the ground is snow-covered with a high of 5 degrees today I think :-/
Monday, April 18, 2011
Silly Lenny
Yesterday was a really funny day for Lenny.
First, while booking some flights from Catania, Sicily to Florence, he realized that his Canadian passport is set to expire May 3 and his Italian passport expires at the end of July. Ha! This morning he remedied the Canadian situation, however, discovering this happened by luck so let's not hope anything else turns up like this!
After booking our flights, he made some delicious pea soup for dinner. When we sat down to eat in the living room as we often do, he spilled an entire bowl of scalding soup all over his belly, laptop, and the new couch. Luckily he didn't burn himself too badly and the laptop was easily cleaned. The couch is also doing ok with some newly washed cushions now adorning it.
To top off his day, he did some dishes before bed and dropped a glass on the floor which proceeded to shatter and make its way under his feet. Poor guy. At least he kept us both laughing the whole night long!
Yesterday for me, I just recovered from writing my last difficult exam in the morning. The exam went pretty well and I feel a big relief to have that stress off of my back. I'm hoping that since this is over my health will now improve. I'm still having difficulties breathing deeply but am feeling less fatigued and stuff-uped.
Well that's it for me for now. I'm off to try some more relaxing and eat some chocolate cookies that I made with the proper amount of flour!
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Saturday happenings
Today Lenny and I spent a lot of time out and about checking out some places we've never been in town and spending some moola. We started off at the Western Fair Grounds farmer's market where we bought Lenny some coffee, an amazing butter tart for moi, and then two scrumptious hot-out-of-the-oven apple fritters (with an entire slice of apple inside it!) that didn't even make it to the car.
After our adventures at the market, we headed over to the Forest City Army Surplus store in search of some camouflage tape to hide some geocaches with. We didn't have any luck finding the tape but did come across some great deals on things you'd never know where to purchase in London - like a megaphone, or 1000s of cases of army rations. The Surplus store was attached to another market, the Gibraltar Market, so we checked that out too. This market wasn't really terribly much to write home about but we did find the perfect pick-me-up gift for Mark, who is feeling better now by the way.
After our adventures at Market #2, we headed downtown to Novack's - an independent travel store that's a London landmark. Lenny wanted to go because they were having their annual spring shoe sale and we sure made use of it: we walked away with 3 (!?) new pairs of shoes. I bought my first ever pair of Vibram Five Fingers (like a glove for your foot), Lenny bought his 2nd as well as a pair of trail running shoes. I didn't take the Vibram Five Fingers off all day because, as it turns out, they are a-w-e-s-o-m-e. It's kind of like a little massage for your toes and feet the whole day through. I was initially concerned about the amount of protection they provide the bottom of your foot but they're actually a lot better than a lot of the ballet flats I own so hazzah! New favourite shoes for me!
We continued our epic shopping adventure with a trip to the mall where we picked Lenny up two new pairs of shorts (that don't fall to his knees! Bonus!) as well as three new shirts. He's lost so much weight since we met two years ago but unfortunately for him, this means a lot of new clothes buying. We did manage to take advantage of the Bay Day and Sears deals though so all in all not too much damage to our credit cards. As a side note, it's still Really awkward to see my university friend Maxim as the new Calvin Klein underwear and general clothes model for Sears. So strange. I wonder if he finds it strange to see himself in fliers at his house too? Will have to ask the next time we run into each other.
After the epic shopping day we came home and I started my epic cramming adventure. My last difficult exam is tomorrow morning at 10:00 and my lack of motivation to study for it has carried over right into the very last minutes. The final is only worth 25%, which in comparison to other courses is not much, but the professor hasn't told me what I've got with 50% of my final grades worth of assignments so I don't really know how important it is that I do well on this exam. This course has a lot of memorization so we'll see how my brain holds down all these little anecdotes I've made to remember lists of things. At least I feel quite confident about the general concepts.
Well that's it for tonight. Tomorrow afternoon we'll have to find some way of celebrating the end of this horrid course. We'll also work a bit on the trip to Italy and I'm sure I'll go to town on some spring cleaning projects as well. Hopefully some sun will shine too!
After our adventures at the market, we headed over to the Forest City Army Surplus store in search of some camouflage tape to hide some geocaches with. We didn't have any luck finding the tape but did come across some great deals on things you'd never know where to purchase in London - like a megaphone, or 1000s of cases of army rations. The Surplus store was attached to another market, the Gibraltar Market, so we checked that out too. This market wasn't really terribly much to write home about but we did find the perfect pick-me-up gift for Mark, who is feeling better now by the way.
After our adventures at Market #2, we headed downtown to Novack's - an independent travel store that's a London landmark. Lenny wanted to go because they were having their annual spring shoe sale and we sure made use of it: we walked away with 3 (!?) new pairs of shoes. I bought my first ever pair of Vibram Five Fingers (like a glove for your foot), Lenny bought his 2nd as well as a pair of trail running shoes. I didn't take the Vibram Five Fingers off all day because, as it turns out, they are a-w-e-s-o-m-e. It's kind of like a little massage for your toes and feet the whole day through. I was initially concerned about the amount of protection they provide the bottom of your foot but they're actually a lot better than a lot of the ballet flats I own so hazzah! New favourite shoes for me!
We continued our epic shopping adventure with a trip to the mall where we picked Lenny up two new pairs of shorts (that don't fall to his knees! Bonus!) as well as three new shirts. He's lost so much weight since we met two years ago but unfortunately for him, this means a lot of new clothes buying. We did manage to take advantage of the Bay Day and Sears deals though so all in all not too much damage to our credit cards. As a side note, it's still Really awkward to see my university friend Maxim as the new Calvin Klein underwear and general clothes model for Sears. So strange. I wonder if he finds it strange to see himself in fliers at his house too? Will have to ask the next time we run into each other.
After the epic shopping day we came home and I started my epic cramming adventure. My last difficult exam is tomorrow morning at 10:00 and my lack of motivation to study for it has carried over right into the very last minutes. The final is only worth 25%, which in comparison to other courses is not much, but the professor hasn't told me what I've got with 50% of my final grades worth of assignments so I don't really know how important it is that I do well on this exam. This course has a lot of memorization so we'll see how my brain holds down all these little anecdotes I've made to remember lists of things. At least I feel quite confident about the general concepts.
Well that's it for tonight. Tomorrow afternoon we'll have to find some way of celebrating the end of this horrid course. We'll also work a bit on the trip to Italy and I'm sure I'll go to town on some spring cleaning projects as well. Hopefully some sun will shine too!
Thursday, April 14, 2011
No pictures x2
So still no consistent internet connection allowing for an upload of pictures... Perhaps while I'm home all day tomorrow I'll try again a few times.
Today I went to the optomitrist in the morning. Nothing too exciting to report other than that I got to have my pupils dilated for the first time -- an interesting experience if you've never had it done. I also learned that the quality of the antiglare coating on your glasses can strongly affect your ability to see at night. Turns out my inexpensive Hakim optical ones are some of the worst offenders but I'm relieved to know that it's not me! One other thing I learned is that for me to get laser eye surgery, I will be looking at $4000 and not the $1000 I had kind of guessed at. I'm not looking at doing it anytime soon, but it's good to know.
Today I also did an epic amount of spring cleaning. I dusted all of the bookcases in the kitchen and one in the living room, cleaned out half the cupboards, and amassed quite the pile of stuff to give away or sell. I l-o-v-e the organizing kind of cleaning and spending so much time doing this has definitely fed my soul which is still suffering from this terrible cold.
This evening Lenny and I hid our first ever geocaches. We put one under the bridge in Springbank Park and two more in the park behind the Kinsmen arena. We ran into our landlord and her kids on the way to hide them and now they're excited to go for a little walk to find them. They donated some toys that are too small for them to play with (ages 3 1/2 and 1 1/2) to add to containers. We're excited to watch and see who else finds them!
Well I've pooped myself out today. Time for sleepy!
Today I went to the optomitrist in the morning. Nothing too exciting to report other than that I got to have my pupils dilated for the first time -- an interesting experience if you've never had it done. I also learned that the quality of the antiglare coating on your glasses can strongly affect your ability to see at night. Turns out my inexpensive Hakim optical ones are some of the worst offenders but I'm relieved to know that it's not me! One other thing I learned is that for me to get laser eye surgery, I will be looking at $4000 and not the $1000 I had kind of guessed at. I'm not looking at doing it anytime soon, but it's good to know.
Today I also did an epic amount of spring cleaning. I dusted all of the bookcases in the kitchen and one in the living room, cleaned out half the cupboards, and amassed quite the pile of stuff to give away or sell. I l-o-v-e the organizing kind of cleaning and spending so much time doing this has definitely fed my soul which is still suffering from this terrible cold.
This evening Lenny and I hid our first ever geocaches. We put one under the bridge in Springbank Park and two more in the park behind the Kinsmen arena. We ran into our landlord and her kids on the way to hide them and now they're excited to go for a little walk to find them. They donated some toys that are too small for them to play with (ages 3 1/2 and 1 1/2) to add to containers. We're excited to watch and see who else finds them!
Well I've pooped myself out today. Time for sleepy!
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
No picturessss
No pictures yet. My internet is still Really special and cutting in and out.
I wrote my industrial relations exam tonight. It went pretty well and considering I only need a 53 on the exam to get the mark I need in the course, I say good riddance to industrial relations studies!
I've been doing a lot of work for our Italy trip over the past few days during my study breaks. Here are some highlights of things we've confirmed thus far.
Some highlights of places we're going:
The Best of Tuscany Tour -- http://www.walkaboutpass.com/nqcontent.cfm?a_name=bestoftuscanytour_homepage
The Naples Underground -- http://www.napolisotterranea.org/
Amalfi Coast Grottos Tour -- http://www.amalfiboatexcursion.com/
Mt. Vesuvius -- www.parconazionaledelvesuvio.it
Herculaneum -- http://wikitravel.org/en/Herculaneum
Sicilian Wine & Mt. Etna Tour -- http://sicilylife.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26&Itemid=28
Pompeii -- http://wikitravel.org/en/Pompeii
Museo Archeologico Nazionale -- http://museoarcheologiconazionale.campaniabeniculturali.it/
Rome & Vatican Walking Tours -- http://romaexperience.com/tours.php
There's a bunch more places that are on our "maybes" list and more things that we'll just walk by (like the Trevi fountain or Teatro della Scalla). We also still have to finalize things to do in Florence, Milan, and Venice although those things are coming along nicely.
I'm getting SO excited about this trip. It's been a long time since I've been this excited about anything and it's a most welcome feeling. So far we're also doing really well budget wise. Knowing that I'll have more money left over for when I get back is also pretty exciting!
I wrote my industrial relations exam tonight. It went pretty well and considering I only need a 53 on the exam to get the mark I need in the course, I say good riddance to industrial relations studies!
I've been doing a lot of work for our Italy trip over the past few days during my study breaks. Here are some highlights of things we've confirmed thus far.
Some highlights of places we're going:
The Best of Tuscany Tour -- http://www.walkaboutpass.com/nqcontent.cfm?a_name=bestoftuscanytour_homepage
The Naples Underground -- http://www.napolisotterranea.org/
Amalfi Coast Grottos Tour -- http://www.amalfiboatexcursion.com/
Mt. Vesuvius -- www.parconazionaledelvesuvio.it
Herculaneum -- http://wikitravel.org/en/Herculaneum
Sicilian Wine & Mt. Etna Tour -- http://sicilylife.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26&Itemid=28
Pompeii -- http://wikitravel.org/en/Pompeii
Museo Archeologico Nazionale -- http://museoarcheologiconazionale.campaniabeniculturali.it/
Rome & Vatican Walking Tours -- http://romaexperience.com/tours.php
There's a bunch more places that are on our "maybes" list and more things that we'll just walk by (like the Trevi fountain or Teatro della Scalla). We also still have to finalize things to do in Florence, Milan, and Venice although those things are coming along nicely.
I'm getting SO excited about this trip. It's been a long time since I've been this excited about anything and it's a most welcome feeling. So far we're also doing really well budget wise. Knowing that I'll have more money left over for when I get back is also pretty exciting!
Monday, April 11, 2011
So....
So... about that Internet thing... I've been trying to upload some pictures of our geocaching adventures on Sunday, a dinner with Jorg & Kirsi Sunday evening, and some neat purchases I bought today, however, our Internet is spazzing out and not letting me do that... so no pictures it is!
Yesterday we had Beautiful weather here: 23 and sunny. I actually got my first minor sunburn of the year! We took advantage of the nice weather and went geocaching on the outskirts of the city. We had a lot of fun exploring abandoned railway lines and the edges of some farms as well. We saw a lot of wildlife and it really made me cherish growing up in the country.
Today I did some pre-Italy shopping while Lenny was at work. I also managed another doctors appointment (feeling better-ish now finally!) and some more Italy trip planning. We now have a few day tours booked as well as one hostel confirmation. As a side note, when looking for somewhere nicer to spend a night in the Amalfi region, I found this beautiful top-rated hotel only to find that they charge $1600 a night! Ha! Seeing as the Internet's a little poopy right now, I'm gonna go see what I can find on TV. Ciao ciao!
Yesterday we had Beautiful weather here: 23 and sunny. I actually got my first minor sunburn of the year! We took advantage of the nice weather and went geocaching on the outskirts of the city. We had a lot of fun exploring abandoned railway lines and the edges of some farms as well. We saw a lot of wildlife and it really made me cherish growing up in the country.
Today I did some pre-Italy shopping while Lenny was at work. I also managed another doctors appointment (feeling better-ish now finally!) and some more Italy trip planning. We now have a few day tours booked as well as one hostel confirmation. As a side note, when looking for somewhere nicer to spend a night in the Amalfi region, I found this beautiful top-rated hotel only to find that they charge $1600 a night! Ha! Seeing as the Internet's a little poopy right now, I'm gonna go see what I can find on TV. Ciao ciao!
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Pictures!
Hello everyone!
While I'm not feeling much better at all today, I did make a point of doing a lot more house work which seems to have kept me a tad more awake. As promised, here is a picture update from the past week.
First up is a picture of Tamara's birthday gift. I was kind of proud of the wrapping considering we don't seem to have a whole lot of gift wrapping supplies right now.
These are the gag gift gums that were wrapped in the little silver box thing. I found them quite amusing and thought they might provide adequate humour while she's marking oodles of papers (she TA's a political science class).
Before I wrapped the scarf I took a pic of me wearing it. Our store has started selling these and they're SO nice for spring -- pretty colours and nice and light. So far I haven't bought one for myself, but there's still time for me to cave...
Here's T opening her prezzie. Not the greatest pic, but you get the idea. We had dinner at the Bungalow and had some delicious bison (me), portabello mushroom (T), and venison (Lenny) burgers. What a great restaurant for something casual. Highly recommended!
Next up I have some pictures of Lenny's birthday gifts. He got some nice steak knives which will be Awesome for our first barbeque. I'm hoping that might be tomorrow if this nice whether keeps up. Next to the knives are some higher quality tools for Lenny in Jimmy Johnson colours. This will be great for us because neither of us have a collection of higher-quality tools. Beside the tools is a giant salt shaker of Hawaiian alaea sea salt. This stuff is Delicious. Finally we have some Italian travel books and a phrase book to assist us in our next trip.
This is our current collection of literature for Italian travels. Lenny is working on our iternary as we speak. Oh the excitement!
The last picture is something we found today at Shoppers': laundry detergent that foams through a pump. We're thinking this may be helpful if we want to handwash some items.
Today we had our pictures taken and got our International Drivers License Permits. It was a really painless process done through our local CAA and is probably the fakest looking piece of ID I own however it will do the trick!
This afternoon we went on our first successful geocaching adventure with one of Lenny's new toys -- an Oregon 350 GPS unit. There was only a dime in the one we found but it was still exciting to find it. I'm almost done our current peanut butter jar so we'll be stashing one of our own sometime soon.
Well I think I've maximized my concentration abilities for now. Talk to ya tomorrow!
While I'm not feeling much better at all today, I did make a point of doing a lot more house work which seems to have kept me a tad more awake. As promised, here is a picture update from the past week.
First up is a picture of Tamara's birthday gift. I was kind of proud of the wrapping considering we don't seem to have a whole lot of gift wrapping supplies right now.
These are the gag gift gums that were wrapped in the little silver box thing. I found them quite amusing and thought they might provide adequate humour while she's marking oodles of papers (she TA's a political science class).
Before I wrapped the scarf I took a pic of me wearing it. Our store has started selling these and they're SO nice for spring -- pretty colours and nice and light. So far I haven't bought one for myself, but there's still time for me to cave...
Here's T opening her prezzie. Not the greatest pic, but you get the idea. We had dinner at the Bungalow and had some delicious bison (me), portabello mushroom (T), and venison (Lenny) burgers. What a great restaurant for something casual. Highly recommended!
Next up I have some pictures of Lenny's birthday gifts. He got some nice steak knives which will be Awesome for our first barbeque. I'm hoping that might be tomorrow if this nice whether keeps up. Next to the knives are some higher quality tools for Lenny in Jimmy Johnson colours. This will be great for us because neither of us have a collection of higher-quality tools. Beside the tools is a giant salt shaker of Hawaiian alaea sea salt. This stuff is Delicious. Finally we have some Italian travel books and a phrase book to assist us in our next trip.
This is our current collection of literature for Italian travels. Lenny is working on our iternary as we speak. Oh the excitement!
The last picture is something we found today at Shoppers': laundry detergent that foams through a pump. We're thinking this may be helpful if we want to handwash some items.
Today we had our pictures taken and got our International Drivers License Permits. It was a really painless process done through our local CAA and is probably the fakest looking piece of ID I own however it will do the trick!
This afternoon we went on our first successful geocaching adventure with one of Lenny's new toys -- an Oregon 350 GPS unit. There was only a dime in the one we found but it was still exciting to find it. I'm almost done our current peanut butter jar so we'll be stashing one of our own sometime soon.
Well I think I've maximized my concentration abilities for now. Talk to ya tomorrow!
Friday, April 8, 2011
Sicky bear
I was checking back to a post I did in the fall when I was sick for 6 days with some sort of bronchitis pneumonia combination. Well today I'm outdoing myself and marking 7 days of feeling really under the weather. I celebrated by going in to see a physician and getting a perscription for azithromycin. As much as I like not studying for exams, pretty soon it's going to be time to get on that... Here's what the next few weeks hold:
Wed., Apr 13 - Industrial Relations Exam
Sun., Apr 17 - Training & Development Exam
Apr. 22-24 (Easter weekend) - Mildmay with Lenny's family and a visit to Paula's new home on the way back
Wed., Apr. 27 - Recruitment & Selection Exam
Fri., Apr. 29 - HR Planning Exam
Fri., May 13 - Departing for Italy!
Last night's birthday celebrations with Tamara were a lot of fun, but I'll leave that story until I have the energy to upload some pictures. I also have pics of Lenny's birthday gifts to come...
Well I'm off to watch some more tv and just continue zonking out while Lenny's a the gym and I don't have to try to be coherent. :)
Wed., Apr 13 - Industrial Relations Exam
Sun., Apr 17 - Training & Development Exam
Apr. 22-24 (Easter weekend) - Mildmay with Lenny's family and a visit to Paula's new home on the way back
Wed., Apr. 27 - Recruitment & Selection Exam
Fri., Apr. 29 - HR Planning Exam
Fri., May 13 - Departing for Italy!
Last night's birthday celebrations with Tamara were a lot of fun, but I'll leave that story until I have the energy to upload some pictures. I also have pics of Lenny's birthday gifts to come...
Well I'm off to watch some more tv and just continue zonking out while Lenny's a the gym and I don't have to try to be coherent. :)
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Stuffed.
Well I'm still all stuffed up and coughing. No real movement on the whole getting better front, but I can't complain because Lenny's still recovering from his 30 km race, my mom is recovering from her third chemo treatment on Monday, and Len's stepdad Mark has been in the hospital since last night with some undiagnosed problem. When it rains it poors.
Speaking of weather, today we had snow?! What's up with that? You know what's strange -- telling people/students to have a good summer when it's snowing outside. I don't ever remember it snowing this late into spring, but maybe this head cold is fogging my memory.
Today was a pretty productive day. Aside from working two more hours at the store to help out with the sale, I also managed to make appointments to get my haircut, have my eyes checked, go to the massage therapist, and see a nutritionist about incorporating OAS into a healthy diet. I also did a bunch of cleaning and tidying and am feeling a whole lot more relaxed with less things on my to-do list. Tonight I finished marking all of the exams and assignments (minus one student's who's sending it later this week) for my class. Marking is quite a monotonous chore and I'm SO glad that I don't have to do it for a while, or maybe if I find a really well paying job, ever again!
As for the job interview today, it turned out to be for College Pro Painters. Not my cup of tea. The advertisement was pretty dubious because it really sounded like the company (not listed as College Pro Painters) was looking for a regional manager. Ah well. I made myself feel better by applying to one HR job and a retail position with a really cool furniture company that's opening in London soon -- Struc-tube. This brings me past the 20 resumes mark. Only about 180 more to go until I hit the average number of applications it takes for someone with my business degree to get a job in this economy! At least it's getting a little easier to copy and paste a "management resume" versus a "retail resume" versus an "HR resume."
On a quick side note, I was really excited and happy to learn that my cover letter/resume critiquing was able to assist in Len's brother Zac getting an interview for his dream job with a famous gardener. Zac really did most of the work in terms of content and stuff, but it's still nice to have played a part in it. Hopefully it works out for me sometime soon.
Tomorrow's a busy day with some work, my last class ever, and a birthday dinner with Tamara and friends. Lenny and I are also planning on visiting the local CAA store to get our International Drivers Permit which apparently only involves giving them $15 and two passport photos.
Time for sleepy sleepy. See you tomorrow and best wishes to all of those people feeling under the weather right now!
Speaking of weather, today we had snow?! What's up with that? You know what's strange -- telling people/students to have a good summer when it's snowing outside. I don't ever remember it snowing this late into spring, but maybe this head cold is fogging my memory.
Today was a pretty productive day. Aside from working two more hours at the store to help out with the sale, I also managed to make appointments to get my haircut, have my eyes checked, go to the massage therapist, and see a nutritionist about incorporating OAS into a healthy diet. I also did a bunch of cleaning and tidying and am feeling a whole lot more relaxed with less things on my to-do list. Tonight I finished marking all of the exams and assignments (minus one student's who's sending it later this week) for my class. Marking is quite a monotonous chore and I'm SO glad that I don't have to do it for a while, or maybe if I find a really well paying job, ever again!
As for the job interview today, it turned out to be for College Pro Painters. Not my cup of tea. The advertisement was pretty dubious because it really sounded like the company (not listed as College Pro Painters) was looking for a regional manager. Ah well. I made myself feel better by applying to one HR job and a retail position with a really cool furniture company that's opening in London soon -- Struc-tube. This brings me past the 20 resumes mark. Only about 180 more to go until I hit the average number of applications it takes for someone with my business degree to get a job in this economy! At least it's getting a little easier to copy and paste a "management resume" versus a "retail resume" versus an "HR resume."
On a quick side note, I was really excited and happy to learn that my cover letter/resume critiquing was able to assist in Len's brother Zac getting an interview for his dream job with a famous gardener. Zac really did most of the work in terms of content and stuff, but it's still nice to have played a part in it. Hopefully it works out for me sometime soon.
Tomorrow's a busy day with some work, my last class ever, and a birthday dinner with Tamara and friends. Lenny and I are also planning on visiting the local CAA store to get our International Drivers Permit which apparently only involves giving them $15 and two passport photos.
Time for sleepy sleepy. See you tomorrow and best wishes to all of those people feeling under the weather right now!
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Nom nom nom
I'm still feeling pretty sick today -- dry coughs and fatigue. I'm pretty sure this is just how my body likes to celebrate being nearly done school, but let's hope it doesn't celebrate for too much longer.
Poor Lenny didn't sleep really last night (thinking of experiments and I was coughing and giving commands in my sleep apparently) so I made him a delicious breakfast of coffee, Omega 3 eggs (because let's face it: we hardly have fish), and turkey bacon. After dropping him off at work, I picked up some groceries and came home to make some chocolate chip banana muffins using some bananas that went bad over our weekend trip. I was amazed how quick these bananas turned ripe but was Super excited to make these delicious muffins again -- usually they're gone so fast! I doubled the recipe to use up all 3 of the bananas and the batter made a LOT. Here's a final pic:
After another succesful work day at the store, I went to my last night class for this degree! Awesome sauce! Also nice was that it ended only 45 minutes into the 3-hour class.
Tomorrow I have a phone interview for a summer recruiting job (WOOT!), am working for two hours over lunch, and then tackling my to-do list! Ttyl!
Poor Lenny didn't sleep really last night (thinking of experiments and I was coughing and giving commands in my sleep apparently) so I made him a delicious breakfast of coffee, Omega 3 eggs (because let's face it: we hardly have fish), and turkey bacon. After dropping him off at work, I picked up some groceries and came home to make some chocolate chip banana muffins using some bananas that went bad over our weekend trip. I was amazed how quick these bananas turned ripe but was Super excited to make these delicious muffins again -- usually they're gone so fast! I doubled the recipe to use up all 3 of the bananas and the batter made a LOT. Here's a final pic:
After another succesful work day at the store, I went to my last night class for this degree! Awesome sauce! Also nice was that it ended only 45 minutes into the 3-hour class.Tomorrow I have a phone interview for a summer recruiting job (WOOT!), am working for two hours over lunch, and then tackling my to-do list! Ttyl!
Monday, April 4, 2011
Blech.
Today is a day of not feeling well. I'm fighting off some sort of infection I think and I've spent a lot of the day coughing. As of about 4:00, I also now have a splitting headache to boot. Thankfully a shower and two ibuprofen seem to be doing the trick. I think my poor body isn't quite sure what to do with this less stressful week going on. The headache did keep me from doing something potentially a tad insane -- going to a program information session for doing certificate programs at the college in town. 4 degrees is enough Heather -- time to get a job!
This afternoon I worked at the store which is suprisingly busy because of the spring 20% off sale. This will probably we the last sale I work for (hey, a girl can hope) so it's the last chance to score some discounted school clothes if you're interested. I'll be going back tomorrow for four more hours followed by my last night class ever. I'm looking quite forward to that although I'm sure it won't be as good as finishing that last paper was yesterday.
There's not too much else to report for today. Other than I suppose it's as good of time as any to introduce you to my new phone. I ended up getting it through my current carrier, Fido, for a mere $25 + a 2-year contract. I have been having a LOT of problems with reception, dropped calls, delayed ringing, not getting messages for hours after they're sent, etc.. It was getting really frustrating and after unneccessarily flipping out at Lenny due to a texting error with my phone, I decided it was time for an upgrade. So far so good with the new phone but today it randomly wouldn't let me use any of the applications. A removal and full charging of the battery later, things seem to be back to normal.
Til tomorrow...
This afternoon I worked at the store which is suprisingly busy because of the spring 20% off sale. This will probably we the last sale I work for (hey, a girl can hope) so it's the last chance to score some discounted school clothes if you're interested. I'll be going back tomorrow for four more hours followed by my last night class ever. I'm looking quite forward to that although I'm sure it won't be as good as finishing that last paper was yesterday.
There's not too much else to report for today. Other than I suppose it's as good of time as any to introduce you to my new phone. I ended up getting it through my current carrier, Fido, for a mere $25 + a 2-year contract. I have been having a LOT of problems with reception, dropped calls, delayed ringing, not getting messages for hours after they're sent, etc.. It was getting really frustrating and after unneccessarily flipping out at Lenny due to a texting error with my phone, I decided it was time for an upgrade. So far so good with the new phone but today it randomly wouldn't let me use any of the applications. A removal and full charging of the battery later, things seem to be back to normal.
Til tomorrow...
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Lenny's Birthday Weekend
Yesterday morning we hopped in the car and drove to Toronto for Lenny's family birthday celebrations. We had some delicious chicken and potato fries for dinner and then some pizza and ice cream cake later on.
Here's a pic of Lenny's brother Zac and his girlfriend Vanessa:
I wanted to take some pictures of these, pizzelle cookies. They're a really light homemade Italian cookie and are quite deliciously addictive. Nom nom nom!
Here's Lenny's birthday cake: cookies and cream ice cream with chocolate cake on the bottom. SO delicious!
I really like this picture of Lenny with his Nona, his mom's mom. Nona lives in nearby Maple so we get to visit a lot :)
Here's a pic of Len opening his gifts. His mom & Mark got him a cute marathon card that he was pretty happy with:
Finally, I couldn't do a post about visiting Toronto without a pic of Dakota. Here she is with a tissue paper scarf as created by Zac. You can see Jon, Meg's boyfriend in the background.
In other news, we did a bit of shopping today and I got a new pair of jeans, a top, and a pair of kakhis that can convert into capris. They will all be great for our upcoming trip to Italy.
Tonight I finished my FINAL ESSAY EVER! I'm very excited to report that I will no longer have to write about these terrrrrrrrrrrrrrible topics. On another note, I got a 79 on another paper I wrote last week... getting so close to the achieving the end.
We'll leave early tomorrow morning to get back to London where I'll get to work a bit, start study for exams, and start working through a really long "to do" list I've been making for the past few weeks. I'm also Super excited to spend a good hunk of time knitting in the near future. :)
Here's a pic of Lenny's brother Zac and his girlfriend Vanessa:
I wanted to take some pictures of these, pizzelle cookies. They're a really light homemade Italian cookie and are quite deliciously addictive. Nom nom nom!
Here's Lenny's birthday cake: cookies and cream ice cream with chocolate cake on the bottom. SO delicious!
I really like this picture of Lenny with his Nona, his mom's mom. Nona lives in nearby Maple so we get to visit a lot :)
Here's a pic of Len opening his gifts. His mom & Mark got him a cute marathon card that he was pretty happy with:
Finally, I couldn't do a post about visiting Toronto without a pic of Dakota. Here she is with a tissue paper scarf as created by Zac. You can see Jon, Meg's boyfriend in the background.
In other news, we did a bit of shopping today and I got a new pair of jeans, a top, and a pair of kakhis that can convert into capris. They will all be great for our upcoming trip to Italy.Tonight I finished my FINAL ESSAY EVER! I'm very excited to report that I will no longer have to write about these terrrrrrrrrrrrrrible topics. On another note, I got a 79 on another paper I wrote last week... getting so close to the achieving the end.
We'll leave early tomorrow morning to get back to London where I'll get to work a bit, start study for exams, and start working through a really long "to do" list I've been making for the past few weeks. I'm also Super excited to spend a good hunk of time knitting in the near future. :)
Most Lovely Bear Pictures
I came across this website of Most Lovely Baby Bear pictures and though you guys may also enjoy. I see a bit of myself as an adult bear but it's kind of fun to see baby bears. :)
http://thenaturephotography.info/25-most-lovely-baby-bear-pictures/
http://thenaturephotography.info/25-most-lovely-baby-bear-pictures/
Saturday, April 2, 2011
The last day of March
To celebrate the last day of March, I post oodles of pictures for your enjoyment.
The first of the orchids that Lenny's mom gave me for my recital last week. They're still doing really well and are super pretty. I love 'em.
Next is the cheesecake I made for Lenny's birthday. It was supposed to be an Oreo cheesecake but when I went to make it I forgot that I only had graham cracker crust instead of Oreo. Ah well, the cherry cheesecake was Delicious (and huge... probably going to take some back home for Zach to eat ;) )
The next pic is of the 36 cupcakes I made for my last Human Resources Planning class (and last class presentation EVER!). We did a presentation on a company called Greenwood whose colours were purple. Anyhoo the cupcakes turned out super well and I ended up with an 85 on the presentation. This means even if I score a 50 on the exam I end up with a 75 in the course. I'm not planning on that but the security is nice :)
After the presentation I headed down to the Grad Club where Lenny's lab mate Vanessa was celebrating the successful defense of her MSc thesis earlier that day. Here's a pic of her and her/Lenny's supervisor Savita. As a side note, the thing Vanessa is drinking from is the GC's "Goblet of Knowledge", reserved for special occasions such as this.
My cardigan is coming along really well. Here's a picture of the nearly complete back of it. I've made it a few inches longer than the pattern called for because a lot of the pictures I've seen of people that have made it on Ravelry really looked like they could've used a few more inches on the bottom. We'll see if I run out of yarn because of this decision, but I'm optimistic.
A pic of my first armhole in progress!
The last two pics are of our new couch which has yet to be introduced to the blog. Here's a "before I cleaned the living room pic" of the couch:
And here's an "after" including two new throw pillows courtesy of a sale bin at Sears and some money leftover on a gift card my mom sent a few months ago. Two pillows for $15 out of pocket = not bad!
Well that's it. I've got one more essay that's due tomorrow and then I'm basically free until exams. Huzzah! First we travel to Toronto for Lenny's birthday celebrations though. Yippee! My FAVOURITE (actually! Family, food, doggies, what's not to LOVE!?!!) :)
The first of the orchids that Lenny's mom gave me for my recital last week. They're still doing really well and are super pretty. I love 'em.
Next is the cheesecake I made for Lenny's birthday. It was supposed to be an Oreo cheesecake but when I went to make it I forgot that I only had graham cracker crust instead of Oreo. Ah well, the cherry cheesecake was Delicious (and huge... probably going to take some back home for Zach to eat ;) )
The next pic is of the 36 cupcakes I made for my last Human Resources Planning class (and last class presentation EVER!). We did a presentation on a company called Greenwood whose colours were purple. Anyhoo the cupcakes turned out super well and I ended up with an 85 on the presentation. This means even if I score a 50 on the exam I end up with a 75 in the course. I'm not planning on that but the security is nice :)
After the presentation I headed down to the Grad Club where Lenny's lab mate Vanessa was celebrating the successful defense of her MSc thesis earlier that day. Here's a pic of her and her/Lenny's supervisor Savita. As a side note, the thing Vanessa is drinking from is the GC's "Goblet of Knowledge", reserved for special occasions such as this.
My cardigan is coming along really well. Here's a picture of the nearly complete back of it. I've made it a few inches longer than the pattern called for because a lot of the pictures I've seen of people that have made it on Ravelry really looked like they could've used a few more inches on the bottom. We'll see if I run out of yarn because of this decision, but I'm optimistic.
A pic of my first armhole in progress!
The last two pics are of our new couch which has yet to be introduced to the blog. Here's a "before I cleaned the living room pic" of the couch:
And here's an "after" including two new throw pillows courtesy of a sale bin at Sears and some money leftover on a gift card my mom sent a few months ago. Two pillows for $15 out of pocket = not bad!
Well that's it. I've got one more essay that's due tomorrow and then I'm basically free until exams. Huzzah! First we travel to Toronto for Lenny's birthday celebrations though. Yippee! My FAVOURITE (actually! Family, food, doggies, what's not to LOVE!?!!) :)
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