Babbles of a Procrastinating Grad Student

It's 11:35 pm here, and D and I are about to hop into his hot tub to ring in 2013.  I may have had a bit too much wine and Kamora, so I suspect I'm going to pass out about 3 minutes after 2012 goes out the door.  :D 

I'm kind of hoping that we'll be able to see the firewords from the hot tub.  Or maybe just Natures fire works - the northern lights!  *hopeful* 

I should probably write something of more substance, but see comment about wine and Kamora.

HAPPY 2013!  I'm off to sit in a hot tub surrounded in snow.  YES! 

(This is going to do wonders for my cold)

It's Christmas eve, and I'm 3000 kms away from the people I love (plus one about 300 kms away in Whitehorse).  I'm mostly alright with it, but I am feeling pretty lonely.  There's lots of activities planned for those of us stuck in camp, and I already had a fun time playing BINGO with a bunch of dirty miners.  :D  The phone call home this evening was tough, but I'm glad to have talked with everyone back home.

Not quite over the camp plague I caught 4 days into my 2 week rotation, but at least I don't feel like death anymore.  Still coughing, and now have a runny nose, but it's better every day.  Still sound like I have a frog in my throat and/or a 13 year old boy going through puberty, but I sound worse than I am!   Most of the time, anyways. 

Anywho, I'm to bed.  5 am comes along really quickly, and I should try to get to sleep before 11 pm tonight.  Oh, being a night owl with an early morning shift.  :P

Happy Christmas all!  I hope your day is filled with friends, family, and fun!  And if, like me, you're not with family this holiday, I hope you find joy in the little things.  Like BINGO filled with filthy jokes and a miner in a Santa hat!

Got some decorations up outside, the outdoor light on, and a bowl of candy stashed up on the highest shelf to keep my fingers out of it until the kids arrive!  I haven't given out candy in years, so I'm super stoked.  Of course, one of my neighbours said that not many neighbours in our complex give out candy anymore, and they only get about 10 kids a year, but what ever, I can't wait!

Of course, it'd be more fun if I didn't have soccer at 8:15 tonight.  :(  But considering the amount of parents on our team, I don't think it's fair for me to bail.  

Oh well. Time to find a Halloween special on TV and work on my sewing project while I wait for kids.  LETS DO THIS HALLOWEEN THING!

Well, the sammaches were a hit (as were my skinny jeans, and bugger it all but they are sort of comfortable), and we all stuffed ourselves silly.  After that, both of my bosses ditched work, and the afternoon was basically a giant waste of time.  Oh well, I'll make up for it next week.  Will probably bring some work home with me to catch up.

But for now, I'm going to enjoy my long weekend!  Oh Louis Riel, thanks for being awesome (yes, as a Métis and a Manitoban, I am firmly in the Team!Riel camp) and landing us a much needed mid-February holiday Monday!  Think I'm going to go on an adventure on Monday and find the two statues of Louis Riel that are here in Winnipeg.

Tonight, I'm going to be boring and tidy up my living room.  Think that's why I'm balking so much from working on my winter coat.  It's messy, and I hate sewing in a messy room.

Enjoy your Friday, everyone!  Stay awesome.

Just got back from having lunch and going to see the Eaton's Fairytale Vignettes at the Children's Museum with my Grandma.  The outing was actually my Christmas gift to her, since I figured the best thing to do was to spend some time with her instead of trying to buy her something.

The Vignettes were actually some of the old Christmas window decorations that used to be on display at Eaton's, years ago.  When I saw the advert, I immediately thought of my Grandma, who used to work downtown, and figured she might like to go see them.  It was a much smaller display than I was expecting, but it was lovely to go see, and I even discovered a couple fairytales I hadn't know about until then (The Owl and the Pussycat, and The Little Match Girl).

Here's a link to the photostream at flickr if you're interested in the pictures.  Not too fancy, but lovely in their simplicity.  And they were all animated as well, which was fun even if it was just small movements.  My favourite display was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with all the dwarfs in their wee beds and their wee blankets.

All in all, a fantastic day!  It was nice to finally spend some one-on-one time with my Grandma.  :)

Good weekend is good. 

Spent all of yesterday sewing a Christmas dress - a green satin thing - and finished JUST in time to get to my work Christmas party.  Got lots of compliments on it, and then people were surprised when I mentioned that I'd sewn it...that day.  :D  The dinner was nice, we were at a fondu place that I've always wanted to go to.  Plus drinks were free!  

Then one of my co-workers, her fiance, and I took off to go to my best friend's brother's Christmas/Birthday party.  Turns out my coworker is friends with the crew.  It was a good party, even if I was a little overdressed.  lol!  I got called 'Silky' all night because my dress was apparently silky feeling.  I got groped often as people wanted to touch my dress, but it was all in fun.  :)  The round of 'spin the bottle' was hilarious and felt like we were back in junior high!  

Today, I cleaned my apartment in anticipation of my Grandma and Uncle coming over to visit.  Then tonight, I'm off to a show at the local theatre down the street.  Figured it was about time I went to something there, and bought a ticket to whatever was on this weekend.  I have no idea what I'm going to see.  Actually, hold on, let me look it up on the theatre website.

The Bert Johnson Quartet, featuring free-word poet T'ai Pu

Oh god.

Heading to my parents place in a few minutes for Thanksgiving dinner with my very extended functional disfunctional family.  Mom's coming to pick up my step-sister and I.  Glad I'm not the only one who has to be delivered to family events anymore! 

Happy (Canadian) Thanksgiving Day (weekend)!  Or just Happy Day to those who don`t celebrate it.  :D

I haven't been posting much since I'm in Toronto visiting my best buddy, and we've been really busy.  Holidays are great yo!

Today, we had a fantastic Canada Day!  First we had an fruitastic breakfast at Cora (I had a strawberry and custard filled crepe.  Then we headed to the Black Creek Pioneer Village for the day.  The Pioneer Village was so awesome, I can't even tell you.  I adored the woman who was carding sheep wool and then spinning it on the spinning wheel.


So overall, it was a great Canada Day!  I hope you guys had a great day too, regardless of your Canadian citizenship status!  :D

I've been so busy working on my thesis of late, that I haven't given much thought of what tomorrow means to me.

Thirty years ago tomorrow morning, I came into the world in a flurry of fear and tears.  Poor ickle sick Heather, who came out a girl with a heart condition instead of the healthy baby boy the doctors thought I'd be.  Don't worry, I got over it.

I've been vacillating about how I feel about hitting the "big 3-0" for months now.  When I consider the fact that I'm still a student, that I live in my parents spare bedroom, that I'm a single woman without any of the Things You're Supposed To Have by now (a job, house, family, a life, etc.), I start to panic a bit.  I think about the fact that I've been in university for 9 years and sometimes feel like I wasted my 20's.

But why am I thinking of these things?  I mean, 30 is just a number, right?  How is it any different than the last few birthdays I've celebrated?

I'll tell you the why and how.  Because of the expectations drilled into your head your entire life.  Of course I should be married.  Of course I should have kids and a house and a car and a job and the Ideal Life.  And if I don't have all that, well there's obviously something wrong with me.

Stupid, eh? 

I love my life.  Okay I hate that I'm still a student and that I need to rely so much on my family's support right now, but I have a great family, amazing friends, and I've learned the last few years that I value things like that more than I'd ever value Things.

Thirty is just a number.  Maybe it's a little bit of a scary number because of all the heavy expectations that come with it, but it's not the end of the world and it's certainly not the end of my life.  I like who I am, going into my 30's, far more than I liked myself throughout most of my 20's.  And more importantly, I know who I am and what I want, and I'm not afraid to get it.

So yeah, I'm glad to be bidding my 20's good-bye and moving onwards into my 30's.  It's going to be fucken awesome.

Yay internet!  Probably the last time before Christmas too, which sort of sucks.  I keep doing things or seeing things or thinking of things that I want to post about, but I can't.  I should type them up anyways and them post them in one go when I do have internet time.  That'd probably help me feel less frustrated about the entire situation.

Christmas will be nuts this year, since we're pretty much combining 2.5 different families together.  Don't ask, it's complicated (like most families).  But it could be really fun, so I'm just going to be optimistic, and probably bakes lots of cookies.  Can't go wrong with shortbread!  :D


Happy holiday everyone, whatever holiday you choose to celebrate (or not celebrate)!  Take care of yourselves and those around you this season!