...I didn't already have a full-time job. The photography thing, that is. Wow. I am having a blast with it but it's a lot of work!

In the past two weeks I've had three shoots - two portrait shoots and one event photoshoot which lasted 4 hours on Saturday afternoon. By the end of it, I had a callous on my thumb and nearly 1000 shots to go through. The final cut for the clients was about 400, but let's just say...the editing took care of what was left of Saturday and my entire day on Sunday. I love the process and time flies by while I'm in the middle of it, but when I finally stood up just in time to see the late afternoon light, I realized just how much time it really takes.

Regardless, I was able to turn the photos around and deliver them to my clients today, which they were thrilled about.

I don't really know what my plans are for this business. While I'm very attracted to the idea of doing this full-time, I'm not sure how to get comfortable with the idea of sporadic income. I love my dependable monthly paycheque and to just *not know* what kind of income I would be bringing home? Scary thought. For me, anyways. I am charging a bit for photoshoots now, but still treating this mainly as a portfolio building exercise, so that if I do decide at some point that this is what I want to do, I'll have the experience I need to get it up and running quickly.

Anyhoo...I've made my first investment into this little side business. Besides the gigantic investment of time, which I hadn't really previously given much thought to. My relationship with my Dell Inspiron 1420 laptop are numbered because...I bought an iMac. It was totally an impulse purchase. A few Saturdays ago, K and I wandered into the local Apple retailer and I walked out 15 minutes later with a receipt in my hand. The idea of purchasing a desktop for my photography had been in my head for awhile, but I hadn't thought a lot about what make/model I wanted, other than the fact that I wanted a screen at least 20" wide. I have never had a Mac, and had never seriously considered getting one, but I played around with the iMac model in the store for less than 10 minutes before deciding that it was The One. I know I have a learning curve ahead of me with the whole PC to Mac thing, but I'm up for it. And I'm SO excited to pick it up! It was ordered the day I bought it, so I'm expecting a call in the next day or so to bring home my new baby.

Stay tuned. I will be holding on to my laptop until I've mastered the Mac, for emergency purposes.

In other news, we are gearing up for our trip on Saturday! The countdown is on. At 5:01 p.m. I will officially be in vacation mode. Actually, who am I kidding? Friday is going to be a write-off.

Every once in awhile, I'll get a totally subtle nudge (not) from a certain someone (Heather), on a certain social networking site (Fbook) which casually (not) reminds me that I do, in fact, still even have this blog. Sad, sad, sad. Not the Heather nudge. The need that I have to be reminded of this blog, which I was once so loyal to.

I don't have any of the classic excuses, either. I'm working hard, but I'm home by 7 and spend my evenings doing whatever I want. I don't have kids. Kids seem to be a great excuse for not doing things, but since I don't have any, I can't play this card. I can't even blame my absence on a dog, or a long illness or anything, really.

The real kicker is that so far, 2010 has been one of the most blog-worthy years of my life and most, if not all, of the blog-worthy events have gone unblogged, and some even un-discussed with even my closest of friends. It's not an intentional oversight...it's just that life has gotten in the way, it seems, and on my constantly expanding "to do" list, the blog has moved from "to do" to a "to don't" for no reason at all.

SO.

What HAS been going on on the Rock?

Well, in no particular order...

• We sold our house. I am no longer a landlord and I no longer have any need to spend a precious vacation day selecting a furnace for a home I don't live in. The house, needing approximately $25K in upgrades like...immediately...was a constant sore spot for us. As of April 30th, we unloaded these issues. We are absolutely over the moon. As lovely as it was to be "in the market", I am thrilled to be back out of it again. Opening my Canadian online banking to see a balance of $0 on the mortgage is, in a word, fantabulous. Later, debt.
• I started my own business. It is going amazingly well and I'm actually having to turn down photoshoots because, well, I have a real job. And a guy who I occasionally like to spend time with. But it's an excuse to build my portfolio quickly and gain experience and who knows...maybe sometime down the line, this could actually be my full-time job. God, I would love that. I'm having a blast with it. I'm booked solid until our vacation in June, and have bookings throughout the rest of June and into July. YES. As for the name...it is not just a shout-out to the lovely Beacon Hill Park, a stone's throw from the home I used to live. It's also the name of the neighborhood in Ottawa where Kurt grew up, AND the name of the neighborhood on the Rock where we ended up when we first moved here. Isn't that weird? It's like it's haunting me. In a good way.
• We're going to Ottawa, in less than two weeks. 10 days of visiting, relaxing and hitting up our favourite spots...I seriously can not wait. I love Ottawa!
• I got another promotion. I don't talk about my real job on this blog for obvious reasons but the short story is...office life is good. My secretary is still pretty much the most hilarious person alive, the best part being that she doesn't mean to be funny at all. She starts every sentence with "Giiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirlll..." and there is normally a lot of finger-snapping involved when she's making a point. I love her. Last week, she told me that her nickname used to be "Rumpshaker". Awesome.
• Tourist season has officially begun. I'm not really sure why anyone would believe the reports that tourism is down because every time I try to wedge myself into my favorite coffee shop, it is literally swarming with tourists...Americans, mostly, and specifically of the New Jersey variety, with a smattering of le Quebecois mixed in for a bit of variety. It makes for an interesting combination. They seem to be enjoying themselves, which I love to see, but the weather has been less than stellar so far this year, so they probably aren't leaving with the tans they were hoping for. Oh well. That is what spray tans are for.
• I've finally figured out how to get to Victoria this year...thanks to the timely announcement of the wedding of one of my favorite cousins. Nothing is booked, but the plans are in place for August!
• Another favorite cousin - and friend - and I are going to be experiencing the sweltering heat of NYC for a weekend in July, for no reason at all other than we're both turning 3o this year and thought it would be fun to meet up and do something a bit different. And really, there aren't many things that I think are more awesome and different than NYC. Four days of wandering, eating, wandering some more and oh...an outdoor MIA concert...no big deal. Oh, and the hotel we're staying in? Madonna used to live there. Hello...awesome.

So, there has been some stuff going on. There is other stuff too, but it's 11:05 p.m. on a Sunday night and I am exhausted and going to bed.

Night, y'all. That means you, Heather.

Ummmm...where did April go? I logged onto my bank account this morning and realized that I'd been paid, which meant that the 20th of the month had passed. What? When? Must have been while I was at work. It feels like I've been there a lot lately. This time of year is kind of crunch time for us, and I'm feeling the crunch, big time. To the tune of at least 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, for the past month or so. Blech. I'm not complaining, but I'm pretty tired.

In other news, 8 days from now I will no longer be a homeowner. I think I'll do a sentimental flashback post when the big day comes, because I distinctly remember blogging when we bought the house. It wasn't something we'd been planning on, but the opportunity came up to sell the house and we jumped on it. To be perfectly honest...it was a headache and a major stressor for us both. Besides the annual paperwork, worrying about whether the furnace would fail, or how we were going to arrange to have the windows replaced, was getting to us. We're just simply too far away to deal with it without help on that end and even though our tenants are fabulous, it was always still in the back of our minds. Bye bye, house. Bye bye, mortgage!

That's probably our biggest news right now.

Besides work being insane, life is pretty good. The weather is getting fabulous, which is exciting. Happy hours have started up, and it's light out until almost 8:00. We planted a tiny garden on the weekend - just tomatoes, salad greens and some herbs. I haven't had a garden since the tomatoes we planted in pots in our backyard the summer before we moved to the Rock. According to the little information sticks in the seedlings, we will have salad in about 50 days. Awesome.

The next trip off the Rock is in June when we're headed to Ottawa for 10 days or so. We don't have a lot planned. Without the house to deal with, our social calendars are much more open than they would have been, had we been shopping for, say, a furnace. We plan to spend time catching up with friends, sleeping in, and hitting up all of our favorite Ottawa spots. I miss Ottawa a lot. More than Victoria sometimes. It's funny...but there are just a LOT of happy memories for us there, and it's such a great city. Can't wait to get there!

I have a few other exciting things happening right now, but not ready to say too much yet, so stay tuned!

{a view of the Plaza, from Central Park}

I have said it before and I'll say it again: NYC is awesome.

As we did in 2008, Kurt and I met up with our good friends EAP and Mugsy for a fabulous time over the Easter long weekend. Only two weeks after our mini-trip to CayMAN, this made us a bit more jet-setting than usual but we've been talking about going back ever since 2008 and the deals from the Rock to NYC are pretty incredible. It is actually cheaper for us both to fly to New York and spend three nights in a 4 star Midtown hotel than it is to buy two return tickets to Ottawa. While going home is always appealing, something about the Chrysler Building was calling my name, so we decided to jump on the deal and spend 4 days enjoying the sights and sounds of the City.

Mission: accomplished. Once again, we had an AMAZING time. Captured in a few of the many shots I took over the weekend:

{New Yorkers, enjoying a sunny Saturday in Central Park}


{blossoming trees, everywhere we looked}

{looking up...waaaaaay up}

{the most amazing sandwich ever, courtesy of the Amish Market (45th & 2nd)}


Yeah...I fell in love again. You could spend months there and never run out of things to do or see. I just can't get enough.

...until you rear-end an imbecile who slammed on their brakes WITHOUT brake lights, end up sprawled all over the road, discover that your scooter has died and, to top it all off, tear ligaments in your foot. THAT is definitely one way to start a Thursday and guess what? It's how I started mine. Now I'm home, with an air cast and a freakin' cane, and I'm hobbling around that way for the next two weeks.

I know the rear-ending thing is on me, though the guy riding next to me also hit her because she stopped so quickly and neither of us were expecting it because there was NOTHING in front of her. No car, no person, no chicken...nothing. She just stopped, in the middle of rush hour, allowed two people to slam into her, and then drove off. It was like bang...bang...bye bye. What? The other guy was OK and helped me up off the road and helped me to get my bike back into an upright position, but I knew something was very wrong with my foot. I managed to get my bike further up the street by a block or so before it died, and then I called my knight in shining helmet (Kurt) to come and help me out.

The end of the story is that I'm home on the couch after 3 hours at the hospital and the very good news is that nothing is broken. The bad news is a) the 2 weeks of air cast, b) taking the air cast to Cayman, and c) my poor little bike, parked downtown, dead as a doornail.

I'm a careful driver, and I was paying full attention to what was going on...I didn't even hit the car very hard, because I had reacted quickly enough to hit my brakes too (and could not conceivably have been going more than 10 km/hr anyways...I just could not have anticipated her stopping like that.

Laaaaaame.

Podcasts. OK, so I'm a bit late on the Podcast scene. Does everyone know how awesome they are?? Because I sure didn't. Sure, the last time I checked out the Podcast section in the iTunes store was approximately 2006, when the offerings were less than stellar, but 4 years have done wonders. Now, when I'm trying to drown out the sounds of my colleagues, or my phone, I just put my ear buds in an let Rick Steves take me on a wild adventure through Armenia, or discover why magnesium is a good supplement to add to my diet. Excellent. So I can work on things that aren't interesting whilst listening to things that are (and yes, nutritional supplements are fascinating to me...no judgment, please). Anyways, the best Podcasts I've found so far are Travel with Rick Steves (I love his books, so it makes sense that I'm into his Podcasts), Sex with Emily, Dishing up Nutrition, Savage Love (as in, the Dan Savage newspaper column), The Moth and Sound of Young America.

The local farmers' market. Again, a bit late to this scene. I've only lived here for over two years, no big deal. There is a fantastic farmers' market on Saturdays not far from where we live, so for the past month I've been dragging Kurt to it bright and early and loading up on fresh, organic vegetables and eggs at a fraction of the cost of their half-rotten, overpriced, supermarket counterparts. It has made a huge difference to our meals and our grocery bill. Not only are we now eating local and organic, which are both so important in my opinion, but we're eating seasonally as well. This is a huge, fantastic step forward for our life on the Rock, since produce has been such a huge downer for me since pretty much the first time I ever set foot in a grocery store.

Getting OFF of the Rock! We're going to Cayman in just over two weeks, which is going to be a.w.e.s.o.m.e. Not only will we be reunited with Ash and Andy, our much-missed pals who left this Rock for that one, but we will also get a chance to hang out with Heather and James, who are going to be there at the same time to celebrate Heather's birthday. I sense some mayhem approaching. There might be stingrays involved. And boats. And rum. And a lot of food. Good times!

Two weeks or so after we get back from Cayman, we're off again - this time, to NYC. The main components will be similar to Cayman...a chance to visit with our much-missed friends, EAP and Mugsy, fine dining and general good times. I can't wait. We're staying a bit longer than our first trip in 2008, trying a new hotel (still in Midtown), and I'm mostly just looking forward to exploring, night and day. My camera will definitely be the first thing I pack.

We're also planning a bigger trip for late in the year - likely November. We've got the general idea mapped out but still need to work out a few details, so more to come on that later.

Dreaming up home-based business plans. It's always been my dream to work at home, for myself. After years of having no really good ideas for how to accomplish this, 2010 has presented me with three totally different ideas, all very do-able with a bit of business training and some experience under my belt. One would require about two years of course work, but it's something I'm really passionate about, so I'm thinking I would really enjoy the schooling anyways. Anyways, after the madness that is my work life, it's really nice to think that working for myself at some point is more feasible than I had previously thought.

Happy thoughts, indeed.

Remember when I blogged? Wow. I'm pretty embarassed about this.

Five years ago (!!), I started my first blog. It was kind of the lead-in to this blog, which I started when we moved to the Rocks. Anyways, I was a pretty formidable blogger, back in the day. Sure, I still only had like...6 loyal readers but I was blogging regularly. Sometimes even more than once each day. Imagine. Anyways, I went from being a blogger extraordinaire, to an OK blogger, to a shamefully delinquent blogger. Ouch. How the mighty have fallen. Or, how the moderately adequate have fallen, rather.

So, what is up with you, my 3 remaining readers? Are you still out there?

I'm still here. I'm still on the Rocks, lost at sea.

I spent two and a half glorious weeks in Victoria over Christmas, soaking up all of the comforts of home. It wasn't originally supposed to be such a lengthy trip, but when the time came for me to start packing to come back to the Rock, I decided that I wasn't ready yet, so I somewhat randomly decided to have a tooth pulled. Not a random tooth, mind you, but that devil tooth that started giving me trouble about this time last year, while I was working in CayMAN. To make a long, gory story short, I managed to weasel my way in to see the same specialist who yanked out my wisdom teeth when I was 16. This guy is THE guy to see in Victoria, should you ever require any tooth yanking services. In 20 minutes, my troubles were gone. And now, two months later, my mouth is finally back to normal, after a year of pain. Oh, the lengths I will go to for extra time at home. Sad. But can you blame me?

The highlight of my trip? The family Christmas dinner, hosted at my parent's house. 20 persons of varying levels of Swede gathered in our living room for a feast. No roast beast, but a formidable spread anyways.

I came back to warm, sunny, beautiful weather and, of course, my lovely man. The warm, sunny, beautiful weather gave way to the Rock's "winter" about mid-month, leaving us with miserable torrential rain and gale force winds pretty regularly since then. Can I complain? No. It's not cold. I work indoors. Some rain and wind is not the end of the world. It just means that I haven't had a good hair day in awhile.

My job went from being 8:59 - 5:01 to more of a 7:01 - 6:30 kind of situation. I'm not making excuses, but coming home and blogging was pretty much the last thing I wanted to do. And then I got a secretary aaaand...back to 8:59 - 5:01, for the most part, which is absolutely fine with me. As an added bonus, my secretary has also made it her personal mission to save my soul and to assist me in finding Jesus. We get along great, but if I get annoyed, all I have to do use some mild profanity or casually yell "JESUS CHRIST!" and she gets all quiet as she undoubtedly contemplates just how effed I am, spiritually. I love her.

Obviously, we are very excited about them. They are pretty awesome. GO CANADA!

The Rock has some representation in the Olympics, believe it or not. One guy. We were cheering for him too, but he was disqualified on, like, the first day. Kind of like the idea of a Jamaican hockey team, winter Olympians from the Rock are...challenged. Though, I understand that he is quite the luger. Lugist? Whatever.

By far, the Olympics were trumped for us by the appearance of George last weekend! Our 30 year old tortoise came out of hibernation last weekend for an hour. He ate half of a ham sandwich and then went back into his igloo for a few weeks. I don't think we'll see him regularly until the end of March, but it was nice to see his smiling face for a little bit, anyways.

Today is my birthday. In my head, I am 23. In reality, I am 29. Yiiiiikes.

I was totally spoiled today. First of all, my amazing mother sent me a birthday present which arrived last week and has been staring at me from the dining room table. I was good though. I waited until this morning to open it up and found a new pair of super cute shoes and a kit for this new form of art called Zentangle which is 100% addictive doodling.

At work, I was spoiled too. One co-worker made me a cake, some friends took me for lunch, and then there was some singing....it was fun. And tonight I was spoiled by my man, who took me for a birthday date to one of my favorite restaurants.

Fun day. So far, 29 is pretty awesome.

2010 is my year.

That's the sound of our new dehumidifier, dehumidifying. Thank effin' God.

I told a few people at work about the Mould Incident and they all asked why I didn't have my dehumidifier on, because obviously I wouldn't be having any mould issues if I did. When I told them that I didn't own one, there was a lot of finger wagging (whilst snapping) in my face and "Giiiiiiirl, why you don't have none? You out your mind!"

In other words, I got told.

I acted quickly and we just plugged in our new (to us) appliance. Which may send our electricity bill to the Moon but really...my Frye's are worth it.

For most of the year, the humidity on the Rock is very high (it hit 98% in the summer). For my skin and hair, this is fabulous. My hair has never grown faster and I hardly ever need to use moisturizer. But it's not all good news. With houses made out of coral and rock, that means that dealing with dampness in the home is just a regular part of life here - a fact which we have recently become acutely aware of.

Our previous apartment, which was in a 400 year-old building, was framed and drywalled, much like a house in Canada. There are probably 3 houses like that on the whole island...it is VERY rare. I'm guessing this is because moisture + drywall = eventual disaster. But, our apartment was dry as a bone, all year round. It was fabulous. Besides the lovely floors, it was pretty much the best thing about the place.

Our new apartment is less than a year old. However, it is a regular-style house, made out of coral, cinder blocks and cement. No moisture barrier. No drywall. Not dry.

I noticed it shortly after we moved in...a bit of a coldness in the sheets tipped me off one night and then the fact that it took 3 days for a pair of jeans to dry on a hanger sealed it for me. We are now officially living in a regular house and now we have to deal with what everyone else is dealing with: the War on Mould.

Mould...is gross. I'm not a fan. Up until now, my experiences with mould have been confined to the food variety - leaving an open juice box in my locker for weeks on end would normally sprout something pretty, and there has been more than one container of forgotten leftovers in my fridge that was "discovered" to be a greener shade than necessary. I'm not messy...it happens.

But when mould sprouts on my SHOES...everything changes.

This evening, Kurt and I were having a casual conversation in the closet (our closet is huge - larger than our bathroom) and I randomly pulled my beloved Frye sandals out of the shoe organizer to discover this:


Oh, hell no.

Yes, that is a crop of mould on my lovely sandal. A tiny green forest of gross.

Disgusted, I pulled out all of my shoes and discovered that The Mould had invaded another favorite pair, my Born sandals (you will probably note how similar they are to the Fryes...at least the Mould has good taste):


I said some words that I don't feel comfortable repeating on my blog, gathered up my beloved sandals and every bottle of shoe product that has ever been hawked (successfully, apparently) to me by shoe sales people, and got to work in the kitchen.


30 minutes later, my pulse had gone back to a regular pace and my sandals were looking as good as new. Some shampoo and conditioner were all it took to bring them back to life. However, I'm now freaking out about everything else in my closet. Like...my clothes. My luggage. My PURSES. My pashmina collection. What else is quietly becoming a home to The Mould? I don't really care to find out.

We got some closet heaters from a co-worker of mine and installed them immediately. They don't heat up much - just enough to zap the moisture from the air. Hopefully that's enough to prevent future invasions. Until then...daily inspections.

Ahh...life in the tropics. Always a pleasure.

Welcome, friend. December is my absolute hands-down favorite month of the year. First of all, it involves my birthday. A tad less exciting than when I was turning ages that didn't make me think "no effin' way am I that old...", but exciting nonetheless because right around the corner from my birthday is...Christmas! Obviously.

And to celebrate December 1st, and because I have zero imagination today, a Christmas MeMe. Stolen from Heather's blog. Thanks once again, HAO.

To celebrate the 1st of December, here is a Christmas meme for you all!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Gift bags wherever possible, but normally wrapping paper for the bulk of the presents. I'm a pretty decent wrapper, 50% of the time.

2. Real tree or artificial? Currently, the most artificial of artificial. And by that, I mean that it's only a tree in that it's shaped like an inverted cone, but it's made out of sparkly gold wire and has little gold beads here and there. It's festive...but it's not really a tree. At the homestead, where I'm spending actual Christmas, we have an artificial tree.

3. When do you put up the tree? Thanks for the reminder! I'm going to go get it out of the closet right now and plunk it on the coffee table. Decorating...CHECK.

4. When do you take the tree down? My family was of the variety that put the tree up late and took it down before New Years. In and out, no muss, no fuss. And then we'd drive around and laugh at people who still had their tree up on January 15...because THEY are the ones who are weird, obviously. Don't get me wrong...no one gets excited about Christmas like my Dad...we just contain our excitement to a smaller window than others.

5. Do you like eggnog? In small quantities.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? Every Christmas had a special gift (Santa has always been very good to me), but the one that is standing out at the moment was the year that my parents decided to get Kelsey and I FIVE turtles of varying sizes and a gigantic turtle tank. The largest was the size of a dinner plate and the smallest was the size of a toonie. They met varying fates, but I believe one of them can still be found at the Beacon Hill Park Petting Zoo. By the way, turtles are really boring and stinky pets. The novelty for my parents wore off on or about December 26th.

7. Do you have a Nativity scene? I do not.

8. Hardest person to buy for? My Dad.

9. Easiest person to buy for? My Sister.

10. Worst Christmas Gift you ever received? The year I didn't make the connection in Toronto and spent Christmas Eve at YYZ. Worst. Day. Ever.

11. Mail or email Christmas cards? MAIL!

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? A Christmas Story ("you'll shoot your eye out, kid!" never gets old)

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Usually sometime in November.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Probably.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Anything from my Mom's kitchen. She is a-freakin-mazing.

16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? Clear lights.

17. Favorite Christmas song? "All I Want for Christmas" - Mariah Carey. No joke.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Home, but I have to travel to get there. Christmas doesn't feel like Christmas on the Rock.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? Dasher, dancer, prancer, vixen, comet, cupid, donner and blitzen, Rudolph.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star. Or, in the case of my "tree", a glittery bead. Glorious.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Present from Dad on Christmas Eve and the rest on Christmas Morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? People...everywhere.

I'm coming to you from the frontlines of H1N1, the bug that stole the past 5 days of my life and ruined what was supposed to be a romantic weekend getaway with my man. Eff you, Swine.

Last Tuesday, I went to bed with a tiny tickle in the back of my throat. I woke up Wednesday morning with an aching body - the kind where even your hair hurts - and a persistent hacking cough. By the next morning, it was clear that I was man down. Or, woman down, really.

And enter...Swine Flu.

As a survivor of the dreaded H1N1, I have a little secret to share with you all. This is pretty hush hush...you're not going to find this on CNN or Fox News, so read the next sentence very. carefully.


The Swine Flu is....


...THE FLU!


My only tip-off that this was likely H1N1 was the cough. The cough that kept me up for an entire night (incidentally, the night spent in a super swank hotel in 800 thread count Egyptian cotton). The cough that went away for hours and then returned with such a venegeance that I thought I was going to literally hack up a lung. The cough that even Buckley's wouldn't touch.

My hair has hurt before. I've hacked until I gagged before...this was nothing new. Of course, I've been lucky enough to avoid the flu for awhile so this was a longer span than usual away from the office for me, but that was just good sense. I'm not one of those people who tries to look like a hero, or a really dedicated employee at least, by showing up at the office sick as a dog and hacking all over their co-workers. I loathe those people. Those people are why the rest of us get sick! At least, those of us without tiny germ-mongers kids.

I did not get the vaccine. I wasn't planning on getting it, even if I were allowed to get it, which I'm not (not being a child, pregnant or elderly). Me and my iffy immune system took it on and we won.

The romantic getaway was a bit of a bummer. We had a great afternoon/evening and an AMAZING room to lounge around in (photos will be forthcoming), but as soon as I tried to go to sleep, the cough kicked in and did not let up until 5:30 a.m. Awesome. So, I spent the night on the couch in the living room, watching The Shopping Channel (I hate Snuggies) and trying not to wake Kurt up from his peaceful slumber. Oh well. We have another little getaway planned for the weekend before we both fly home for Christmas, so fingers crossed that Kurt will remain Swine-free and we'll be able to enjoy that one a bit more.

So, I survived the Swine. And I'm better for it. At least, my immune system is.

They can be such a downer!

We had a super relaxing weekend. Did a bit more unpacking (yes, there is STILL unpacking to do), had a nap, hit up the driving range, paid too much for mediocre Indian buffet, had a friend over for dinner, made some pumpkin muffins...you know. Standard weekend stuff.

I'm starting to get very excited to go home for Christmas. I hate travelling at Christmas time, but I'm not even sure I'll mind this time around. I just can't wait to get there.

In my unpacking today, I re-discovered a number of purses I haven't used in awhile. Don't you love that? Especially when you leave money in the pockets? Brilliant. One purse in particular has been out of the rotation for far too long, so I'm thinking I'll ease it back in tomorrow and see how it does. My lovely mustard-yellow fall purse (scored at Winners in September) is about ready for a break.

I'm about ready to head off to bed, but I have a phone date tonight with a good friend from home who I haven't talked to since August. We obviously have a lot to catch up on. After that, I plan to curl up with some Bengal Spice tea and my book in my fresh sheets. Ahhh.

Maybe Sunday night isn't SO bad after all. It's Monday that's the bitch.

I've made a few purchases lately. I "discovered" Etsy back in 2006 but haven't bought anything from the site since before we moved to the Rock, since PayPal hasn't always been cooperative with internationally-based credit cards. However, that changed. And so I was able to surf through my (extensive) list of favorites and pick out a few things that I decided I couldn't live without.

One of these purchases arrived on Friday. EcoChicHandKnits organic hand-crocheted nesting bowls.

I'd been trying to find something for us to put sunglasses and keys in, by the door, so that we can avoid the classic morning scramble for these vital items. So, I contacted the seller to see if she would ship internationally (yes) and whether the shipping costs would be reasonable (yes) and the adorable little package arrived on Friday, all wrapped up with a little card, thanking me for my purchase. Delightful. And the bowls are just as cute in person as they are in the photo, and perfect for what I wanted them for. The large one is for sunglasses, the medium-sized one is for keys, and the small one sits on my nightstand as a safe place to put jewelry before bed.

I love buying handmade and think it's more important now than ever. Etsy = Awesome.

Check out the EcoChicHandKnits storefront...definitely a seller who is staying in my Etsy Favorites!

On Friday, we picked up most of the huge order of IKEA stuff we put together before we moved into the new apartment. The order was mostly dressers and shelves, so quite a bit of our unpacking has been strewn about in boxes and bags waiting for it to arrive. A few things were sold out (apparently, the 'Walnut' finish is the colour de jour), but we got our MALM, ORGEL, SKUBB and small BILLY. Yesterday morning, K went out to run some errands, so I put on Season 1 of The L Word and got to work. I decided to tackle the MALM six-drawer dressers first (we bought two, because we can't share) and figured I could bang those together in an hour or two, tops. No problem, right? Gong. I started at about noon...and finished just before 6:00 p.m. During that time, I'd taken, cumulatively, one half hour break. It was a nightmare. The dressers went together beautifully...they just had a lot of extra steps and they are actually kind of huge, which made putting them together alone a bit of a challenge. Anyways, we got them moved into the bedroom and (finally!) emptied our suitcases out and filled the drawers, had a friend over for dinner and went to bed early.

When I woke up this morning, I felt as though I'd been hit by a truck. My back and legs were killing me and my arms felt like I'd been toting around a huge watermelon or a heavy child for hours. Turns out, assembling MALM on your own is harder work than I thought. It was a workout. But the results were worth it, because I woke up this morning and dressed without having to dig through suitcases...an amazing feeling after 4 weeks of living like gypsies. Gypsies with Samsonite.

The house is really coming together. The cookbooks are shelved (thanks, BILLY), our BBQ is in place and had it's debut last night, and in about two weeks, the last of our furniture should arrive from New Jersey.

I was looking around last night and realized that this apartment is definitely the nicest place that we have lived together so far. Our house was great, but this place just suits us. Maybe it's the fact that the front patio always smells like rosemary, or that the apartment is so quiet when a car does creep by on the crescent, it's noticeable. Unlike the old apartment, where quiet periods on the road would have us looking at each other like "what's going on? Where is everyone?" It's lovely. I had a two hour nap in the middle of the day with my sleep mask and it was heaven.

Love, love, love. I'm going to take some photos this week and update the Facebook album, now that we're moved in and it's looking more like ours.

My favorite month, next to December. I'm not even sure why, but I expect that it has to do with being the start of the lead up to Christmas...my absolute favorite time of year. The other great thing about November? November 1st means that October 31st has passed. I really do not love Halloween at all. This year, we spent all of Saturday scouring our old apartment and came home feeling so tired and annoyed by it all that we ended up being those assholes who FOR SURE will get egged at some point. We closed our blinds and turned off all of the lights and pretended that we weren't home. Oh yes, we did. And then we snuck out for Indian food. I will take baigan bhartha over teenagers dressed like vampires (because every. single. teenager. was dressed as a vampire) anyday.

The little ones though...I'll make exceptions for them. When did kids get so damn cute?

We kicked November off quietly, just how I like it. We did a bit of unpacking around here and I'm happy to say that our house is starting to look a little bit like we actually live here! Not that we've spent any time here at all, other than to sleep, until this weekend. Now, finally, we've had some quality time in our new digs, just hanging around, and we are loving it. It's quiet, always has a nice little breeze, and our landlords are probably the nicest people on the planet. I think we'll be happy here for awhile. How long awhile? I have no idea.

This weekend marked our anniversary on the Rock. Two years. Amazing...especially since when we first moved here, two years was the plan. Get in, get out. And now, two years in, it still feels like we just got here. So, I went back to the beginning of this blog and found this post, written just a few days after we moved into our first apartment. I like to look back on what my initial thoughts were, back when everything seemed so new and we felt like we were on a permanent vacation. Back when I apparently hated those little frogs I love so much now. Before life set in, before the noise of the street below our apartment started to get to us, before we'd figured out that life is just life, no matter where you live it. That being said, it's been a pretty interesting two years.

If you had asked me back in November 2007 what I would be doing in November of 2009, I would have absolutely predicted that we would be back in Canada, preparing to buy a house in the city we plan to "settle down" in. Without question, that was the plan.

Seriously though...how long has this been my plan, now?

I moved to Ottawa in 2002, planning to return to Victoria in 2004. Didn't happen.

We bought our house in 2005, planning to sell and move to Victoria in 2008.

Before that could happen, we moved to the Rock in 2007 with a two-year plan.

Those two years are up and we're still here, and have no plans to leave anytime very soon.

Maybe I should take a hint. MAYBE...if I really wanted to be in Victoria, I would have found a way to be there by now. This is me, getting introspective. I'm getting deep here, people. Seriously though...wouldn't we be there if that's where we were supposed to be? As much as I complain about rude people and how much a leek costs, some very big part of me must have fallen in love with the Rock. I know I like it. I like my job, I love the weather, I like the freedom we have and I like that we now have the means to do a lot of things that were out of our reach before we moved here. Of course I hate being away from family and friends, but I have been away from my family and a good chunk of my friend base for a very long time now. I'm used to missing people. And the thing is, is that being in Victoria doesn't mean that I'll have everyone I love around me. One crappy thing about having three homes is that there are people to miss in each of them.

OK, enough depth. Back to shallow blogging.

I made vegetable soup tonight. No recipe. I just noticed that we had an inordinate number of red peppers in the fridge and a bag of shredded carrots that looked as though it was considering a turn to the dark side. So, I tossed them into a pot with a diced onion and some broth and spices, boiled up a storm and then blended the works and served to my (obviously very impressed) man. It was delicious. Made me feel clever.

This time change has left me sleepy at 8:57 p.m. How sad. Probably great news for my body though, which has been craving sleep like no one's business.

Bed time!