Sitting here watching Hubby get ready to go. He's fiddling with his bike. His flight leaves tomorrow morning at 11 am. I'm torn between wanting to stay up all night to spend as much time with him as possible and wanting to go to sleep so that I can stop being sad (and, because let's face it, I'm me and therefore always tired).

Plans for things to keep me busy while Dylan is away:
-Work (please just shoot me now).
-Obsessively follow Japan Andrew's blog for their updates on the trip.
-Do 4 people's taxes and help someone else with theirs.
-Help Japan Andrew with his website by transferring over pictures.
-Singing lessons. They're only once a week, but I can spend time practicing.
-Watch lots and lots of hockey. Playoffs are coming!
-Whatever Clair comes up with to entertain me. So far we have going to a concert on Tues. and making lasagna on Thurs.
-Lastly, I have plans to blog more. I don't know what about exactly. It will probably just be me typing out how bored I am hundreds of times. But that could be fun, right?

Speaking of Japan Andrew's blog, for the few of you who read this who don't already what their website is: The Unframed World. Click on Japan by Bicycle at the top and feel free to donate! They've decided to use their trip as a way to help raise money for earthquake relief and their plan is to have at least one of them do a trip update daily.

All this news about Charlie Sheen just makes me want to watch more West Wing.

Hello world. And by world, I mean all three of you. Yah.

There are two things that people who REALLY know me know. First: that I've had a weird obsession with mustard since the summer. Seriously, I put some in pasta I made the other day. Pasta, asparagus, mushrooms, cream cheese, and mustard. I thought it was fantastic, although the asparagus wasn't quite cooked enough. Anyway, secondly: one of my favorite non-Canucks hockey players used to be Maxim Lapierre. Used to be?! OMG, Tammy, you love him! What could he have possibly done to fall out of favour with you? Nothing! It's just that now he IS a Canucks player! I am super excited.



In other news, hmm, yah there isn't really any other news.

Umm, oh, right! My dear hubby's trip is drawing ever nearer. He leaves in three and a half weeks, I believe. So, he obviously has a whole bunch of stuff he needs to do to get ready for that besides training. For one, we have to get online banking sorted out so that I will actually have access to the account that my pay cheque gets deposited into; he also needs to buy more stuff for his bike like a new chain (salt is not really good for it) and new breaks. On top of that, he's gonna have to squeeze in as much time as possible with our dear Clair since she's coming back sometime before he leaves. It's like they are bitter exs who are trading off being here because they know I can't be left alone. Except without the ex part, or the hatred part.

I've been trying to figure out what it is that I'm going to be doing with my life come the summer since, if I do decide to go back to school, the earliest I could do that would be Sept 2012. What do I want to get out of the next year and a half of life? I have it rather haphazardly narrowed down to three cities. Which I was totally fine with and wasn't really feeling any pressure to make a decision on at least until the snow melted (being stuck in -20 degree weather kinda makes you hate being where you are and I felt it unfair to make any decision while in that mindset). BUT, my dear, sweet in-laws gave me the Christmas gift of the promise of tickets to go see Josh Groban in concert whenever and wherever it was going to be happening. And he just came out with his concert dates. And it just so happens that it is in the late summer and he's playing in all three of the cities that are on my list. Now I feel all of this pressure to make a decision because I am SO excited about the idea of seeing him in concert and I want to buy tickets as quickly as possible so that I have them in case it sells out. But I have no idea what where I'm going to be after July 1st. And I know a concert seems like a really stupid reason to make a decision on where to live. But, really, the concert isn't the reason I'm making a decision, it is just the reason that I'm not trying to put it off for longer. Would it be ridiculous to drive 7 hrs. down to Buffalo in June to see him so that I can avoid making this decision?

Aren't you proud?

In a completely out of character move, I decided to go out last night. I know, right! Not just out, but out to one of thems fancy Montreal cultural thingys that people are always telling me I should take advantage of. Last night was Montreal's La Nuit Blanche, an all night extravaganza to celebrate the end the Montreal Lumière festival. Just don't ask me what the Montreal Lumière Festival was, because I don't really know. Anyways, La Nuit Blanche boasts about 120 seperate venues with everything from a ferris wheel, to fireworks, to crazy art shows, to concerts. The majority of which were free. The Metro even ran all night for it.

But, don't worry, I am still the old lady you know and love - I came no where close to staying out all night. Mostly because Dylan and I both worked at 8 am today. But we did stay out past my normally ridiculously strict bedtime.

What did we decide to do at said festival? Well, we first headed out to this trippy art exhibit at some club that was originally a swimming pool. It was all black lights and craziness, but neat. We went from there to the Cathédrale to Marie-Reine-du-Monde for a classical church choir concert with the big organ and everything. It was super pretty (although whenever I go into a big old cathedral, I always have such mixed feelings). And, for our final stop of the night, we decided to spend the big bucks and pay $2 each for a flashlight tour of the McGill Redpath Museum. Now THAT was super fun. Seriously. Well, except that apparently everyone thought that it would be fun and we ended up waiting outside in the cold for about 45 min waiting to get in. There was a short lecture at first in french (by a lady whose first language was clearly English since she would switch whenever she got flustered and she would completely drop her accent when saying proper nouns). Then we were free to wander around and there were tour guides all over giving tours in English. It worked out well for us and it makes sense because it's McGill and the tour guides were all Anthropology students, but was kinda funny. Our first tour guide was this really laid back guy who was hilarious, but did really know his stuff, That ended up taking longer than we'd thought, so we ended up rushing through the rest because it was after 11pm and I was sleepy. We'll have to go back sometime since the rock exhibit is pretty big and Dylan does so love his rocks (well, and to actually see the exhibits lit up with more than a flashlight).

We found out about this whole thing through my coworker friend lady who I was supposed to go with, but she had a friend visiting and somehow got sucked into hanging out with this big group of people and eating dinner outside on a patio in about -10 degree weather. So we never ended up meeting up. And it sounded like she did not enjoy herself and I felt bad. The invitation, however, was really nice and hopefully it'll work out better next time.

Short Update

I'm afraid that there's not too much to report on our end of things.

This past week, Dylan and I have had rather conflicting schedules. All of a sudden, I'm off working 40 hrs/ week and our dear Dylan picked up an extra three shifts this week as well as staying late on one of his regular shifts. And by staying late, I mean that he ended up working 14 hours that day if I'm not mistaken. On top of all that, he is picking up a little extra cash shoveling snow from the walkway of an apartment complex for the month while the manager is on vacation, so he has to run off an take care of that a few times a week. Needless to say, we've seen slightly less of each other as of late. Seeing the other one sleep is almost like spending quality time together, right? It's such a crazy change from how things were a month ago. I like to think of it as practice for when he goes away on his trip.

But, have no fear! We both have Friday off. Which I'm sure will result in us just hanging out here, doing nothing like we normally do. Oh, the lives we lead.

And, with absolutely no segue, I think that working in a call center is going to end up giving me an identity crisis. Like most jobs I've had in the last few years, I've decided to go by Tamara. Since I introduce myself when answering a call, I thought that it sounded more professional than Tammy. It might have been a slight mistake on my part. Man, do I spend the whole time repeating my name and then I just end up going along with whatever name the customer says that sounds even remotely close. I've gotten Tara, Tam-air-a, a couple words that didn't even sound like anything. And more than one person has thought that my name is Camera. Seriously, that's not a name! My parents did not name me after a piece of photography equipment. If that's not enough, my last name was entered in wrong by whatever IT person for my user id to get onto the computers, so everyday when I log in I have to misspell my own name. In a few months, I'm going to have no idea who I am.

Ok, have a good night. And have a good time with your above-average sized apples, P-Face.

Hubby.

Week two of training is officially finished! It's going well in terms of me understanding everything and I'm even laying some good ground work for making my very own first Montreal friend. She's really sweet, really smart, has good level of chattiness (e.g. sometimes we both just sit at the same table and read our books during break without any awkwardness), and we have the same taste in movies and tv shows. I have a good feeling about this one. But that's besides the point. I got off topic and it's only the first paragraph.

What is my point, you ask?

My point is this: Dylan is awesome.


I

him.

Now, I know, I know... you're all thinking, 'Yah, duh. Of course he is! Tell me something I don't know.'

But I think that even something as obvious as the awesomeness of my hubby deserves to be restated every once and a while. And what better time than now? Especially since this is being made easier by the fact that he has recently been pulling out all the stops in awesome. Even if we completely overlook how patient and understanding and not totally-constantly-freaking-out-OMG-we-have-no-money!!! he was when I didn't have a job (which we shouldn't), he has made going back to work so easy for me. He makes us dinner every night, packs me adorable lunches to take to work with all sorts of little things he's made or baked to make it more interesting (my coworkers are all horribly jealous), he listens to me go on and on about work stuff (which isn't all that interesting, trust me!), he has yet to complain about how the alarm goes off every morning at 6:30am even on the days where he works nights, and he's been doing his best to wash dishes and do that sort of thing around the house now that I don't have as much time. And the other night he even took me out to a fancy dinner as a Congrats/early Valentine's Day thing.

All in all, he's a pretty rad guy. So, I thought that since Valentine's Day is quickly approaching and that romantic spirit trying its best to infect me, I'd take a minute and share with y'all just how blessed I am that he puts up with little ol' me and with a smile on his face no less. (I hope you'll forgive me for making you vomit 'cause of all the cheese.)

Ok, we got back from Maine. Hung out more then people left. Nice, but not that full of adventure. Yadayadayada. We're into February, I think it's time for me to stop talking about Christmas (as awful as that sounds to my ears!). And as my dear friend pointed out, somewhat exciting things have been happening in my life since then that I've been neglecting to inform you kind folk of since I've been trying to play catch up.

Exciting post-Christmas things in my life:

1) I've started singing lessons. My dear hubby is not one for predictable gifts and he's been getting more and more dedicated to this task seeing as how it's somewhat difficult to surprise the person you've lived with for almost four years and see everyday. But this year, he managed to shock me with this. I didn't know how I felt about it at first, seeing as how I normally do everything I can to avoid singing in front of people. Well, that's a lie. I did know how I felt about it: terrified. I also questioned what exactly I'd learn, seeing as how I've been playing instruments since I was in gr. 4 and have done my fair share of choir. What was this lady going to teach me that I either didn't already know or was too old to be able to do anything about? I figured that I was just one of those people who couldn't. But I'm two lessons in and it's a lot of fun. And she's a really good teacher who really knows her ...stuff. So, it turns out that there may be hope for me yet and I might be able to not embarrass myself in the singing department forever.

2) Dylan and I have taken up skating. When his parents were here, they were kind enough to buy Dylan and I each a pair of used skates. Montreal is sick with free outdoor skating rinks, so we've been availing ourselves of them. Turns out that skating outside is for some reason just way more fun. It makes me feel so Canadian! The other night we went out with a coworker of Dylan's who grew up in Saskatchewan. Man, can that guy skate! And not just skate as in go quickly and not fall down. Like, actually, full on skate. I was absolutely amazed. I think he's the only real live person who can actually play hockey that I've ever known (other than people who played as little kids and whatnot). He thought it was hilarious that I was so impressed. He brought along a couple of hockey sticks and was helping Dylan learn a couple things like how to do hockey stops. And he even let me play and shoot pucks at the net and pass back and forth with him and Dylan. I think it was the first time I've ever held a hockey stick while on ice. I can see why people think it's fun! I morph into a five year old girl when I put on skates and I love it.

Hmm, what else... (hahaha, aren't I funny?)

3) I managed to get meself one of those them job thingys. FINALLY! We can finally live life extravagantly and go out and buy ridiculous luxuries like cheese or meat or maybe even some juice (on occasion - we don't want to spoil ourselves or anything)! I works at call center (another thing Montreal is filled to the brim with). Turns out that I'm actually not allowed to talk about specifics of what I do or who I work for online - they specifically mentioned online social network websites and personal blogs. Woah, working for big companies! Something that I am very much not used to. And I know that the point behind it is so that people don't go and spend pages and pages go on about how awful whatever is or how big of a jerk so and so is which I would never do, but I figure I'll err on the side of caution and tell you all more or less nothing about it. Which I know you are thinking is ridiculous since no one is going to stumble on my modest ol' blog and get mad at me for anything on here, but I'm ever the little rule follower! I've told most of you about it anyway.

Other than that, we're up to our eyeballs in snow with no real end in sight. Mere hours after our street got cleared yesterday, we got probably another 7 or 8 cm. Crazy real winters.

Maine

Right, Our trip to Maine. Our lovely friend Japan Andrew was home for Christmas and since his home is in Maine and therefore decently close to us, we decided to take him up on his invitation to go down and see him. It was somewhat unfortunate because his visit to the States was almost completely overlapping with Dylan's family's visit here. But they were understanding and entertained themselves for the day and a half we were gone. Dylan worked until midnight on the night of the 25/26th, so we got a few hours of sleep and left here around 3am on the 27th. Drove peacefully through lovely Quebec for a few hours, until we got pulled over for speeding in Ayer's Cliff, a tiny town near-ish to the Vermont boarder. The police officer didn't speak much English and didn't seem overlyimpressed with us when he first came up, but when he came back and I answered a few of his questions in french his english really seemed to improve. It was magical! Considering we were maybe going 12 km over the limit, he just gave us a warning and told us to "drive prudently."

Crossed over the boarder no prob once we told him we were visiting our friend Andrew in Maine (this seemed to reassure the guard greatly that we didn't have any ill intents, I'm guessing that it was since nothing involving Andrew could possibly be malicious in the slightest). So we went on our way and drove through Vermont and got into New Hampshire. Around then, we decided we were bored of this whole driving thing and though we'd take a break in a snowbank for about 4 hrs that involved taking an hour-long nap (we brought along some blankets for just such an event) and then spend some time with the local park ranger in his truck getting to know him and his heater. Did I mention that this trip had us heading straight into a pretty big north-eastern snow storm? After a spur of the moment, brief party on the side of the road with the park ranger, a state trooper and a couple guys with a tow truck, we figured we had had enough fun for one morning and continued on our way.



We eventually got to Maine without further incident. Spent the evening catching up with Andrew, plotting future adventures with him, meeting some of his friends (one of whom we got into a fairly interesting conversation with about the differences between canadians and americans), and having his adorable mother try and feed us until we burst.



After an (at this point) amazing 5 hour sleep, we got up around 6am, showered, ate some breakfast, spent a few last minutes with Andrew, took the lunch that Andrew's mom had gotten up to make us, and were on our way back up to Canada. This time, despite it not being the fastest route according to the GPS, we stuck to the nice, clear interstate and made it back just fine. Apparently the GPS didn't know that it was the middle of the winter and that the smaller highways don't always get the same number of snow plows frequenting them. The boarder guard had a few questions as to why our car had B.C. plates since we'd said we were living in Montreal but I think our story about the banana bread Andrew's mom had packed us really won him over. I think as we were turning onto our street, I realized that I had my keys in my coat pocket and had therefore failed yet again to leave any keys with Dylan's family. Oops.