Good weekend

cuppa joe (fetching), originally uploaded by saburke.

I had a *real* weekend, and now I actually feel refreshed.

We did a few projects around the apartment we've been meaning to get to on Saturday, and refused to go outside in the windy -20deg C weather. We drank lots of coffee, made cookies, Hubby played some Civ4 and I did quite a bit of knitting.


I finally finished up my fingerless gloves (Knitty.com: Fetching in an alpaca/silk blend), pictured above. Not very practical, but cute. I like. (Photo credit to Hubby.)


Sunday we went to church and got to see the Deacon who did our marriage prep with us... he is an amazing person and seeing him made me feel like all was right with the 'Verse again. :)


Then it was off to the lab for a quick stint...


Until... Hockey! For some reason, I was really, really super excited about the game yesterday. Maybe it was hockey class on Friday (my first time in Hockey II: Intermediate, not Beginner), or maybe it was feeling well-rested from Saturday... but as I sat on the bench waiting to go on I found my legs bouncing up and down like a little kid who just can't wait. Anyway, we lost. Totally out-played. Sometimes frustrating, but I had fun. They were a little rough, but not too bad. Pig-tails continue to protect me for the most part. ;) (Who checks a girl in pig-tails?? Note: I play in a non-contact men's league, and yes, I have been knocked around a bit.)

So, today, despite a bit of soreness, I feel good. I'm doing a sample this week, rather than writing (the draft has gone out to authors again, fingers crossed for it being the last draft), so it's going to be a better week. I can feel it in me bones. :)


Just so you don't get the impression that I'm some great hockey star...



... me, last semester after miraculously getting the puck from someone... I lost it about 2 seconds later.

A really truely "special" day... or... how God smote me for not going to church

Two words: Giant Cockroach

Now for some background...

In Sept 2002 I moved to Montreal to start my MSc. Since I did my undergrad in my hometown, it was my first big move, my first place to myself, first time (since being too small for it to be relavent) living in a big city (I grew up in a small city). My Mom made extra effort to make sure we found an apartment that would not present any problems for me. We thought we had done well. I moved into what seemed to be a well kept building with semi-respectable neighbours (though mostly students). Looks can be deceiving. I met the first cockroach one morning at 6am... it was crawling up my leg. I didn't know it then, but it was just a baby. Actually at the time, I didn't know what it was... just a weird-ass bug. Anyway, I managed to kill that one and a couple more that morning, and promptly threw out my new plant (lest it was the source). I met the next one a couple weeks later staring me down from atop my toothbrush. That one was I think fully grown for the particular variety (somewhere half an inch to an inch). I met various others on occasion over the next 9 months... then I moved. The building managers never dealt with the situation properly. Only after several months of chasing the damn things around by spraying individual apartments did they hire a real exterminator. Apparently the problem was a tennant two floors above me who must not have minded roaches. Ugh.

Anyway, needless to say: I have a problem with bugs now. Not that I was ever the kind of kid who really enjoyed bugs (I also have a bee/wasp/hornet phobia and I hate spiders and earwigs etc), but now I get to a point where my adrenalin is pumping I get super paranoid and twitchy and I absolutely cannot sleep if there may have been bugs around. Did I mention that I hardly slept for several months in that first place? No? Well I didn't.

So, the events of yesterday went something like this:

I didn't sleep well Saturday night for no particular reason. Maybe it was the espresso I had at 7pm, or maybe Hubby was being a bad bed-sharer and stealing my space and blankets. Whatever. Point being I overslept Sunday morning and we really had planned on going to church. When I realized our lateness I hopped in the shower and tried to get ready as quickly as possible... I just couldn't quite make it, and I refuse to go to church late (I hate it when people walk in 20 min late... you've missed half of it! it's disrespectful! to God of all people! ... sorry pet-peeve with my current church). Anyway, so Hubby shouted out "cancelled" and poured another cup of coffee and retreated to the couch. We ended up starting on one of our many little home-improvement projects and realized we needed more glue, so out we went. All's well so far...

On our return, as we walk down the hall of our floor, we notice a black spot on the floor near the baseboard... it's between lights, so it's hard to see... I ask "what's that??", Hubby says "nothing, keep walking". As I walk by I'm certain I saw it move... I say "it moved"... I've said this before about shadows, bits of leaf, a piece of a chocolate bar... so when Hubby says "I'm sure it's nothing" I'm sure he meant it. We drop off our stuff in our appartment, and I insist on investigating. So we go back into the hall and check it out... this time it definately moves and it is definately a cockroach measuring about 1 1/2 inches... maybe 2 inches.

Oh... God... here we go again...

Fortunately, even though this is a Sunday, the girl in the office was there. So we went down to tell her about our "discovery", and ask her if she wants to come see... she hesitated a moment, but came. Now, I have new respect for this girl. She seems like a somewhat waifish girly type, and I had my doubts about her abilities to deal with crises. However, she looked at that bug, looked at us, and said "oh no, that's just not normal"... in a tone that really said "oh no, that just shouldn't be... and then, get this... proceeds to try and stomp on it!. Anyway, I offered to go get my super-duper roach spray that I'm never without... you know... just in case... and I swear it took half the can to kill this thing... and I'm pretty sure it was dying anyway.

So now the real question is: are there more?? Was this just a hitchhiker from someone's tropical Christmas? Or maybe a special live dinner for someone's exotic pet that got away?

Not knowing, we went into lockdown. We cleaned everything. We established a perimeter with spray to deter them. We are leaving lights on 24hrs a day in at least the kitchen and bathroom. No dishes will be left un-washed. No water left standing. Still... despite our efforts, I didn't sleep. I maybe caught a few zzz's at 5:30am, woke up, and went back to sleep at 6:30am. Alarm went off at 8:00am. I'm so tired.

Did I mention the power went out for about 5 hours just after this?? That hindered our cleaning efforts.

Apartment-office-girl said she would call an exterminator today, if she couldn't get one on Sunday. She lives in the building. Despite her heroics I think she was distrubed... very disturbed. I felt bad for her, she had a shitty day too. I think she'd planned on sitting in the office doing some paperwork by her little Christmas tree for the day. The power outage also resulted in some kind of alarm fault she was trying to deal with.

I think I'll to church next Sunday. One Sunday year before last I thought it would be a good day to go to Ikea... that ended in the emergency room getting 4 stitches next to my eye after tripping on an escalator and catching my fall with my face. I've gotten away with no bad things happening on Sundays I skipped church, but I feel like there's a message here. Can't hurt right?

absenteeism

sorry to have disappeared on everyone! i am home for the holidays ~ yay! ~ and enjoying spendng time with family... but sadly i've developed a nasty cold and really haven't done a whole lot of anything.

santa? i'd like some healthy for Christmas please?

quote(s) of the day

Yesterday:

Hubby: "What?"

Me: "I didn't say anything. It's just the voices in your head... don't listen to them."

For some reason, he thought the fact that I added advice for a course of action regarding the voices in his head was incredibly funny. Why wouldn't you make this suggestion??


Also yesterday:

Hubby: "I made progress today by not going backwards"

Oh how true, how often this is true...


There was something this morning too... but I can't seem to recall.

Happy December!

Christmas sock, originally uploaded by saburke.

Being the first of December, we put up our small, fake Christmas tree on Friday. Now it feels like the holidays are getting close, and we are getting excited about going home. Miraculously we pretty much have our Christmas shopping done... honestly, I have no idea how that happened... but it should make for more relaxing times and increased holiday spirit rather than stressed, crowd-fighting shopping frenzies.

Of course, a tree - even a small, fake one - makes for a fun photographic subject, so I immediately pulled out the camera. This is one of my two favorite pictures I took... this one makes the blog though since I made the ornament myself. :) The Fortissima Socka (colourway discontinued?) yarn is from Germany, and is meant to become knee-socks for myself (a much grander undertaking), and the pattern is Kate Atherley's training sock from knitty.com made with a slightly longer leg and foot.

forever

So, I was tidying up my calendar yesterday putting in some dates that needed to be in there (lest I forget important meetings with lots of people eek!), and I decided it was high time I put in our wedding anniversary. As I typed the details into iCal and set it up to repeat annually, here's how it looked:



Note in particular "end: Never". Now, doesn't that just say it all? :D

Quebec is dumb... I can't change my name

Ok, so I spent a lot of time trying to decide what to do with my name when we get married. I had finally come to the decision that I would hyphenate mine and his so that officially I was both, professionally I would become Dr. Me, and socially I would be Mrs. Him. But since we are getting married in NS, and living in Quebec, it took me awhile to figure out how to do this... or rather find out that I cannot!

Here's the jist of it. Usually, when two people are married, the woman takes the husband's name. Some people find this antiquated, some like the tradition, some women keep their names due to professional reputations they have established. I grappled with all these notions to come to my decision. Despite not really liking hyphenated names, it seemed the best compromise. I'm a traditional kind of gal, and wanted to take his name, but I've got papers published in my name, and lots of connections made through conferences as Miss. Me.

Since we are getting married in N.S. and our marriage license comes from there, this seemed like the logical place to start looking for name change information. I very quickly found out that since we are now residing in Quebec, N.S. is not involved. So, I started looking for info from Quebec. It seemed to be very difficult to track down anything on the subject however. Wondering if perhaps we were a special case (of course we are... we always are...) and maybe this was all part of the marriage license process here, I sent a message through their website inquiring as to how to change my name. They sent a message back explaining that as of 1981, one does not, and cannot change their name by marriage, and must use one's maiden name for all official purposes, including legal documents, credit cards, etc, but may assume their husband's surname socially only.

I did some checking around, and it seems like other provinces do not impose this, but make it quite easy to make the name change when marrying. So I am frustrated. What right does Quebec have to dictate whether I follow this age-old, and widely accepted tradition?? Hurumph.

Wedding Planner is not a job!

So for many years, I never really understood why "wedding planner" was a job. I mean, it's supposed to be your special day, it seemed odd to me how anyone would want someone else to take over planning it... especially since I never wanted a "cookie-cutter" wedding (not that anyone really does). Plus, I like planning things. I like adding those little touches that make things special. But now that we're down to 11 days and have an increasingly lengthy list of things yet to do? I get it. Handing over the bizillions of details involved in planning a wedding does not necessarily mean that you hand over the vision of your day, but it would certainly free up a lot more of your time to enjoy the whole process.

People keep asking me: "Are you excited? Oh, you must be sooo excited!!!". I am, don't get me wrong, I'm very happy that in 11 days we will be there, on the actual day, getting married! But the planning, and the "what about this?" and the "oh, no, we forgot about that!" takes a lot of the fun out of it. And here's the thing: You only ever plan a wedding once! (well hopefully...) So, really, unlike most of the other things we do in our lives, you just don't get a chance to get good at it, and have the experience to know the when's, how's, how much's, who's, etc.

So now it all makes sense to me. If you're short on time, and have the money to spare, it seems perfectly reasonable to have someone else take care of the details. That way you can focus on the things that really matter and enjoy it all.

Anyway, I know we will have a wonderful day, and having done everything ourselves there is certain to be a touch of us in every aspect of the day. And yes, I am excited. It happened this morning when I looked across the breakfast table at my fiance and realized in just a few days he will be my husband. One can't beat that for a way to start the day! :)