yay me, goal

Sleepy. I should have posted earlier, but my new printer/scanner distracted me. New toys are so much fun. I was very busy scanning in polaroid pics of me and playing with the quality. I reached my latest weight loss mini-goal so I needed new pics to play compare and contrast. I might post them later, but I'm having problems with yahoo right now.

I had a pretty cool week. I got to cover in my old department - urinalysis - which was fun. Back on my regular duties this week though. Had another nice weekend as well. On Friday, I went out with Rod and two of his coworkers to a blues bar. Great band, but I was so sleepy that I had to leave early. In bed by midnight! Saturday, I did the usual housework/trip to the gym and then met up with Ian for his birthday. He's not a fan of birthdays and just wanted a quiet night. We made supper together - Hawaiian Venison (ie venison stew meat with veggies and pineapple over rice) in the slow cooker and then watched King Arthur on DVD. I also gave him his gifts, which I think he liked. He spent a large part of Sunday working on the puzzle while I read and kept checking out the Tiger Woods game. Sunday night, we went to his parents for his birthday supper.

Wow, really I have nothing to say, do I? I need a rant. Too sleepy for one though. Maybe I'll get irritated later in the week.

Election Night

I'm currently watching the election results come in, even though I really thought I didn't care very much. That same weird urge that makes you stare at a car accident makes me watch it though. So it looks like it will be a Conservative minority government with a strong Liberal opposition. Pretty much how I thought it would turn out. NDP (the really left party) got about 29 seats, which I'm happy about. I think this is really the best case scenario. Guess we'll have to wait and see how it all turns out. Kind of strange though - this is the first Con government since I was old enough to vote.

But there is way more to life than politics, thank god, and in case you really wanted to know, I had a pretty nice week.

I saw The Matador with Pierce Bronson and Greg Kinnear on Monday. I enjoyed it, but it is a very odd movie. I guess it qualifies as a dark comedy, and not a thriller. I love the tagline for it: A hitman and a salesman walk into a bar... I'm trying to decide if it's worth full price (13.95). Not quite I think, but that's because I'm cheap. It would be an excellent choice for half price Tuesday (if you still have that) or a matinee. I'm glad we had free passes, it was most certainly worth that! We also saw Underworld Evolution yesterday. I gave it 3.5 out of 5, although Ian probably gave it 5 out of 5. He enjoyed it a lot. The effects and the action sequences were really good.

I interrupt my typing to announce that Paul Martin is resigning his leadership of the Liberal party. I'm not surprised there will be a new leader - but I'm surprised he's announcing it tonight....

I tried a couple of new recipes this week. Last night, I made Dilly Beloved Chicken from the cookbook I got for Christmas - maple syrup, lemon and dill marinade. I liked it a lot, Ian didn't think it was anything special. I'm going to try it again though, and leave it in the marinade a lot longer. Like all day, instead of barely an hour. I also made venison ribs with hickory bbq sauce, beef broth and some veggies in the slow cooker. After 11 hours of cooking, the meat just slid off the bones and tasted amazing. Hmmmmm, I'm getting hungry just thinking about them. I wouldn't add the veggies if I did it again, just the onion and garlic for flavour. BBQ sauce flavoured veggies are not tasty, although it would have been okay if I had served the veggies and sauce over rice I think.

I finished a really really great book this week and I highly recommend it to anyone, particularly if you are into medicine, biology or World War I history. By John M. Barry, it's called The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History. I really liked the angle he took as he didn't just write about the 1918/19 pandemic itself (although he covers that in detail). He really got into the people involved in medicine and science at the time and you get to know the men who were desperately seeking a solution, any solution, to the crisis. He looked into the links between public health and politics. Although it was 99.9% a book about the United States, it was still really fascinating, especially all the parts about the WWI war machine, how it just consumed all resources, how the censorship affected health reporting and so much more. I now want to read a book about Tammany Hall and books about World War I. I also want to read John M. Barry's other book: The Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 which is not something I think I would be usually interested in, but I really enjoyed his writing style. The Great Influenza was a non-fiction book that read like a novel in the sense that I always wanted to get back to it to know what happened next.

I have a few more non-fiction books in my stack to read (The Pagan Christ and Hitler's Scientists are up next I think). I also have a new box of books from Wee Book Inn which is a very happy thing for me. Mmmmmm, books...

titles imply purpose

Woohoo - another weekly update! Too bad there's nothing exciting to report.

Mostly I seemed to go to work, go the gym, read and watch tv. It's a thrill ride a minute I tell you! My hips were still bothering me for most of the week, so I didn't feel like doing much. Still got my workouts in though, and I finally did weights today. Up to 58 minutes of cardio now. As for reading, I finished Kage Baker's Graveyard Game and The Life of The World to Come. I really like the Company novels and I need to find the one I haven't read yet. I should also look for Anvil of the World, her non-Company book.

This weekend was mostly relaxing. Friday night, Rod came over and watched a movie - Big Trouble - with Ian and I. Saturday, Ian and I went out to his friend's acreage and I did something I've never done before - moved hay bales! We loaded 153 bales into two pickup trucks (which means the hay was at least twice as high as the truck) and took them back to the farm where we unloaded and moved them into the barn. I somewhat helped load the trucks and helped unload and place them on the conveyor belt. I know I didn't work nearly as hard as Ian and his friend and his friend's girlfriend, but dammit I was still tired at the end. Those things got heavy around 125..... Afterwards, we had lunch and just hung out for a while.

I'm trying to think if there is anything else to add.... nope. Hmmm, I remember when I started this blog and how I needed it to rant about the world. You would think with the election only one week away that I would be full of rants. Instead, I'm apathetic and disillusioned and resigned. On the positive side, it's so much more efficient to watch taped tv instead of "live" tv. I think I might just keep doing this.

Weekly Update! Only 1 Day Late!

This past week was not a favourite, I tell you. First off, Fuzzy (my 5 year old cat) decided that kitchen twine was really tasty and ate about 18 inches of it. I didn't know about this until he had a lot of difficulty getting rid of it about 2 days after he ate it. I'll spare you the details, but it did involve a trip to the vet's and the blowing of my budget. He is my baby though (yes, I'm one of those people) and I didn't even think about the cost at the time. I also seemed to have screwed up my legs somehow and my hip muscles are killing me (hip flexors? I don't know, it starts in one thigh, wraps up through the hip, across my lower back and down into the other thigh - whatever, it sucks). The weird thing is if I'm walking, it's totally fine. I've been able to work out on the elliptical and the stairmaster (and it doesn't hurt while I'm doing that), but I don't want to bend over at all. Bah, I'm old.

Other than that - it really wasn't too bad. I got trained on a new bench at work which was cool. Went out with the campus crowd for Todd's going away gathering on Thursday. Had an absolutely boring night at home on Friday after my workout and it was great! Sometimes you really need those kind of nights. Saturday was quiet as well, although Ian came over with the perch he had caught and we had a really great supper.

Oh - no more live tv for the next two weeks. I'm only watching things I can fast forward. Election related commercials make me insane, and it doesn't matter what party. I get the urge to throw things at my television . Is it wrong that I want to scream "I hate you all" at them??? Weird thing is.... I'm a decided voter. Ugh, I'd hate to be a undecided voter. How do you pick between Vile 1, 2, 3 and Independent Guy? Hmmm, there's a Marxist-Leninist candidate.... I wonder if she's a viable alternative?

First of the Year

Ok, it's day two of 2006 and it's still looking good. As long as I avoid all news sources, all commercials, and all references to the elections, I'm sure January can be an excellent month.

Managed to keep my resolutions so far (woohoo! Two whole days!) - I'm actually down one pound from before the holidays which is fairly amazing. I worked out both today and yesterday. You are reading my weekly blog entry right now and I think I listened well to a friend today while we shopped. Of course, the shopping didn't help me meet my debt-free goal, but I only used cash, no credit! And the nightie was only $12, I swear!

The real point of this post is to show off the new super cool pic of me. It was taken New Year's Eve and I lovelovelove it. We had a semi-quiet New Year's Eve, as only 7 of us gathered at a friend's house for a typical night of board games. There was more drinking than our usual game night, but not by much. I liked it though, as I wasn't feeling incredibly social and my other invite had been for a gathering of 15-20. As much as I would have loved to see those people, I just wasn't in that kind of mood.

And now for the amazing, fantastic pic - - -



eek...giant head... :)