I'm smack in the middle of booking our summer flights home. It's exciting. While we're touching down in Canada at the end of this month for Teresa and Evans' wedding, this will be our first significant trip back to Canadian soil since we arrived here, and we can't wait for it. We're splitting our time between Ottawa and Victoria, with a bit more time in Victoria for me. As beautiful as the rock is, there are a lot of things we miss, meaning that our vacation will be on the busier side as we try to get our fill (literally, in some cases).


I'm not one to disguise my deep love for my hometown, but some may be surprised to know just how attached I am to Ottawa as well. After all, I was pretty young when I moved there, so the vast majority of my awesome adult (?) memories are definitely concentrated there. I built quite a life for myself in 5 years and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't miss aspects of it every day. I'm every bit as excited for that portion of the trip as I am for Victoria, but Victoria needs just a tad more of my time due to Operation: Wedding Madness Prevention.

In order to fit everything in, I'm already working out an itinerary for the trip. Ruthless? Maybe. Essential for our (my) sanity? Yes.

Here are some of the "to-do's"...in no particular order:

OTTAWA:

1. Ensure that house is still standing, roof remains intact, driveway has not buckled under the weight of the snow, and tenant's dog has not effed up the basement carpet. I'm fairly certain that none of the above will be issues...we have the most amazing tenants known to landlords anywhere, despite their four-legged friend.

2. Purchase and arrange installation of new dishwasher to keep above awesome tenants happy.

3. Purchase and arrange installation of new carpet for portion of house, to encourage above awesome tenants to sign on until at least 2010.

4. Have a brief yet satisfying dance party when above awesome tenants sign on until 2010.

5. Pho at phive. Unless phive doesn't work, in which case it can be rescheduled to phour.

6. Thirty (30) full minutes in Wal-Mart, stocking up on the essentials, like $0.97 toothpaste. I loathe the place, but I can't deny the deals. Don't tell my Dad.

7. EAT. We are so homesick for Ottawa's restaurants. There's no way we'll fit all of our favorites into 5 days, but we're going to take a crack at it.

8. Costco. I miss the culture.

9. Ottawa engagement photos, if I can convince a certain D50 to come out to play...

10. Starbucks. Yes. Starbucks. With a stop at Tim's for Kurt.

And...of course...visiting and catching up with various friends/family.



VICTORIA:


1. Victoria engagement photos. No, it's not huge egos...we get a free one with our photographer (which will also be a great way to get to know her).

2. Wedding location visits and preliminary planning with Kurt and Mom.

3. Very first get-together with my bridesmaids. :-) Perhaps with a side of dress shopping. Yikes.

4. Two words: Heron. Rock. Perhaps a get-together is in order?

5. Some running along the waterfront, though I'm not as starved for ocean air as I have been on previous trips home.

6. Noodle Box.

7. Real estate envy. Maybe a little research on this front as well.

8. Moka House soy praline latté.

9. Reminding Harley of who his true parents are, combined with some general cat love.

9. Home time, plain and simple.

And...of course...visiting and catching up with various friends/family.

Yes, I'm definitely ready to go home. Even if it's just for two weeks, and even if those two weeks aren't particularly relaxing, they will remind us that the world still exists out there (contrary to what you might think if you ever bother to read a copy of the local newspaper), and that home will always be home. Even if you have two. Or, in our case, three.

I have officially resigned myself to the fact that my lovely mug is gone forever.

Bitches.

Mondays are Mondays, no matter where you live. I greet Mondays with roughly the same level of enthusiasm that I reserve for dealing with photocopier paper jams or cleaning out the fridge. After two glorious days of freedom (plus a little extra, since I tend to count Friday evenings as weekend time), I wake up on Mondays facing a 33.75 hour work week filled with flourescent lighting and somewhat mundane responsibilities. I'm not complaining, but thoughts that I am not cut out for the Monday to Friday nine-to-fiver cross my mind far more on Mondays than they do on other days. I'm just not that into it.

We spent yesterday afternoon laying in the sand, swimming periodically to cool down. My major concern was whether or not I would successfully even out my blotchy tan on my left arm. So, is it any wonder that when Monday rolls around, marked by the easy listening radio station on the alarm clock, I stay in denial (and in bed) for as long as possible?

When I was a kid, my Dad took over the kitchen on Sundays. He'd make Sunday night dinner, but would also often make hummus from scratch in the food processor, which we'd eat during the week as a snack. By "from scratch", I mean that he'd actually buy dried chickpeas, boil them and go from there. The finished product was always delicious...enjoyed on WASA crisps or with carrot sticks. Yum.

I fell out of the hummus scene a bit after I left home. I didn't own a food processor so just assumed I couldn't make on my own and wasn't very big on paying $4.99 for a tiny tub of pre-made hummus. I guess I consider myself to be somewhat of a hummus snob, having been raised with the homemade kind, and I was certain that nothing else would do.

Hummus has really made a name for itself in the past few years. You can now buy it anywhere, in a multitude of flavors and even I can admit, some of the stuff on the shelves is pretty fantastic. Kurt and I would buy the big containers from Costco and work our way through their garlicky goodness, always vowing to try to make it ourselves sometime. Preferably when we wouldn't have to use a blender. My blender, for the record, hated chickpeas.

When we moved to the island, I started craving some good hummus but you can probably imagine what the price tags on those little containers were. $6.99...not going to happen. So, we decided that now was the time to spread our wings and dive into the world of homemade hummus. Armed with a new cookbook that has a whole section on hummus (about 10 different recipes) and some canned chickpeas, and a hand blender, we fired it up. And let me just say...Oh. My. God.

Our first try at hummus was a chickpea hummus with chipotle peppers and lime. The whole batch lasted for maybe a day because we ate it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The second time around, we substituted one of the cans of chickpeas with a can of adzuki beans and it just got better. Our third round, last Sunday, involved black beans and orange. We're addicted.

For whatever reason, I had been blind to the hummus possibilities that exist. There are so many recipes for different spice and flavor combinations that it would be impossible to get bored of and it's probably one of the most inexpensive and nutritious snacks that you can make ahead and have on hand for those snacky nights or for weekday lunches. I went from being a fan to being full on obsessed.

For the record, the PC-brand hand-blender is the best $29.00 I have ever spent. It comes with a chopper attachment so you can "process" bread crumbs or whatever, but the blender itself mashes chickpeas and mixes hummus perfectly. It was pretty much the only appliance we kept and brought with us, but it was a great choice.

With our visitors gone, life has returned to normal for us. Well, nothing really feels "normal" here yet, but we're getting back into our old routine anyways. April was FUN. Having Clay and Kathie visit was a blast and we really used their time here as an excuse to see a lot more of the island and do some stuff we hadn't done before. We also used their visits as an excuse to eat out far more than usual, stay up far later than usual, and drink far more than our livers are used to. Let's just say...time to tame the beast.

Last Saturday, after a final sushi feast at the local watering hole, we dusted off our weekly grocery/meal planner and bought groceries for a week's worth of food. We even made some new stuff - a potato-asparagus soup with dill and lemon, eggplant curry, and two different types of hummus for our lunches (with vegetable sticks and WASA crisps...mmmm). It feels good to be back on track.

The bank account is also feeling better after its April assault. It's amazing what buying food will do to your wallet. We've tamed our weekly grocery costs down to about $130/week, including breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks, so we're feeling pretty good about that. That's also taking into account those items that we stock up on because we know if we go back for more, they'll be gone (i.e. Eggo multi-grain low-fat waffles...hot commodity around here). I can't remember what we'd spend in Ottawa for the same amount of food, but we don't buy cheap ingredients or anything processed (except said Eggos, but I'm thinking we could do worse than those little morsels), so even in Ottawa we were probably spending at least $80-90 each week. Mind you, that always included things like salmon or a big package of chicken breasts...and we really don't eat meat here more than once each week, so long as we're cooking at home.

Last week was a bit of a roller-coaster. A very tempting job offer landed in my lap from another much larger company here. More money, more responsibility, more opportunity...it looked great. I wasn't necessarily looking to leave my current job, but it was just one of those situations where it was almost too good to be true. The snag was Immigration, which is sticky in the best of situations and with me only having worked here for 6 months, they were not going to hand me a second work permit. There was a way around it, but it would have meant big changes to our plans. So...I turned it down yesterday. It was actually a really hard decision for me and ultimately came down to whether or not I was ready to sell my integrity...which I'm apparently not. Money aside, it would have opened a lot of doors for me, but I'm now thinking that if this particular one came along that easily, that there will be more down the road when I'm actually ready for one. Ugggh. It was such a tough call. I'm still feeling queasy over it.