Thankful

Yo.

Had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner last night. I like to think that our boss purposefully gave us both a day off so we could have dinner together. That or it was just a coincidence. But it worked out either way. We had Kyle over, along with a coworker who doesn't have family in town and therefore had no plans. And we made ourselves a fancy turkey feast! And by we, I mean all I did was tidy up the apartment and make the yams. Other people handled the actual cooking. Oh, and Clair made a fantastic pumpkin cheesecake. I kinda want to eat nothing but this cake for the rest of my life. It held it's own against pumpkin pie, which is impressive since I didn't previously know of many deserts that could accomplish such a feat.

It was, however, the first Thanksgiving I've spent apart from Hubby since we spent our first one together in 2003. Sadness. And considering most years we did the whole two family dinners, I was plenty used to being thankful for his face this time of year. Pretty sure I talked to him on the phone 30,000 times yesterday though, even if he kept shoving the phone off to whoever happened to be nearby.

Yes yes. Anything else to report on? Hmm, hockey is starting up again, so that is probably going to start taking over my life again real soon. Good times. I don't know. I've had a really good last week. Life's good. What more do you want?

I'm no liar.

I promised an update after my trip home and an update you will get!

It was lovely. The end.

Haha, aren't I hilarious? No, seriously, it was more or less everything I could have asked for. I got to see a whole bunch of fantastic people, I got to go to a wedding (where Hubby even won the trophy!), I got to relax and have fun, I got to take a side trip to Van, I got to have a picnic in the woods. The only thing missing was the always lovely Dylan's mommy. Well, and the trip could have been a bit longer too.

So, I (obviously) flew in and was picked up by my Paul-Face. After meeting Hubby and me getting to drive by myself across town to (you wouldn't know it if you've met me in the past couple years, but I do love driving - it just apparently has to be at home), then... ahh... then I got a sandwich. And not just any sandwich, BUT a sandwich made by my favourite daddy-in-law. This was a much awaited sandwich. I could write an entire blog post about how much I love his sandwiches. I won't, at least not today, but believe me that they are amazing. From there I went on and saw my Mom and Dad and Grandma. Caught up a bit with them before heading off to tormented a sales associate for half an hour trying to find a good wedding present, and finally to pick up Em so I could hang out with her since it was the only day that she was in town the whole time I was there (boo). Then a bunch of lovely people came over to Dylan's and we hung out for the evening until I more or less passed out from exhaustion.

Then the next day was the wedding! Oh, I almost cried! I didn't get close to crying at my own wedding, but this one almost did me in. I was so excited to see my friends get married and I thought their minister did an awesome job of describing the beauty that can come from committing yourself to that person for the rest of your life (maybe I'm getting soft in my old age?). I got to catch up with some more lovely people at the reception, notably Allison and the bride and groom.

Ok, can't keep going through day by day or this will quickly become really long. Highlights:
-Having dinner at my Mom and Dad's, seeing them all and getting to spend time with my lovely nieces. The older one isn't scared of Hubby anymore and I hadn't seen the younger one since she was in the hospital after she was born.
-Getting to meet/know the lovely Ashley. She's lovely. I say we keep her.
-Almost dying at WildPlay, the stupid outdoor tree-top adventure thing. Not really almost dying, but it was terrifying. And my husband is a freaking monkey and has no fear of death.
-A pre-wedding lunch with my girlies. And Jordan.
-Getting my hair cut. So much easier to do when you know where a half-decent place to go is.
-Permanently marring my body.
-Hanging out in Vancouver with my sister, even if I did spend way too much on sushi and sorta steal her sweatshirt.
-My daddy-in-law being a sweetie and staying up late to hang out with us, and playing silly role-playing card game with us, and buying me my gross bagel/cream cheese combo, to name just a few things.
-Paul-Face. I didn't get to spend as much time with her as I'd have liked, but it is always uber fun to hang with that.

That being said, one of the best parts of the whole trip had to be stepping outside after the flight. It just smelt like home and that was exactly what I needed. Adventuring around is great and all, but nothing quite compares to that feeling. Gush. I could continue this trend of being really sappy, but I'll spare you.

As many rants as I've gone on about how people make fun of the Island and laugh at how 'quaint' it sounds (also, no, there is no bridge!), it was interesting to go home after being away and living in much bigger cities. Because it is kinda quaint (although I maintain that you can only call it that if you come from there!). You can get everywhere so quickly, the malls are smaller, there aren't as many options for some things like restaurants and whatnot, you run into people you know who then turn out to be a friend of a friend, and I swear you will not find another city in Canada where people actually drive more safely or considerately (it helps that I know where I'm going and don't get lost as easily). And, I've been trying to figure out exactly how for a while, but West Coast friendly and East Coast friendly are two very different things. I would say that West Coast friendly seems more genuine, but of course I'd feel that way since that's what I grew up with and what makes sense to me.

Okee, this is officially long enough. If I think of anything else I just have to write about, I can do so later. Bye lovelies!

Oh dear.

It's now Sept. How did that happen?

So, what have I been up to, you ask? Well the reason I haven't updated in a while is mainly because I haven't really done anything. When Dylan was here I at least had some incentive to go out and be dragged along on whatever he wanted to do. But, alas, since he boarded a bus to head out to beautiful B.C., I've really only gone to work, to the grocery store and to the laundromat. Oh wait! Clair and I went to the library to get library cards last week and we went to the mall AND we went out for food. Ok, so I'm living it up here!

Works gotten crazy. All the lil' kiddies are back at school and apparently need coffee to drown their sorrows. Or something like that. It took a bit of adjusting to get used to being so busy after the store having been fairly tame, but it's fine. Makes it go by faster. No one can really slack off. I got my colleague card that gives me a discount at other stores, which would be awesome if I ever ventured far enough away from home to get to another store.

And today I was super adventurous and went out all on my lonesome. Now, on top of having a Ottawa library card, I also have Ontario health care. OMG, how amazing am I?

I swear my life will be more exciting next week. I get to see awesome people get married and see other also awesome people not get married and yes. It will be awesome. Awesome. Ok.

Extrawesometasticy

You know, I was super stoked to get tickets for Joshy at Christmas, but then I waited so long to get the tickets and then so much longer for the date of the concert to come around, that it didn't have a super excited build up for the concert. (For some reason I started calling Josh Groban that. Not really sure why.) I knew it was coming and I wanted to see him, but I got stuck in that mindset of 'Oh, it's still a ways away.' But, oh man, when he walked out and I actually saw him..., well I think Dylan still has dents in his arms attesting to how excited I was. And I stayed out-of-my-mind giddy the entire night.

I'll back up and start a couple days ago. I got an email saying that they closed the 300 level of the arena, so our tickets got upgraded. So, instead of sitting front and center row 301A, we were sitting front and center row 201A. Much better tickets; sad because that means crazy people out there didn't want to see the amazingness that is Josh Groban, but good for us. We were going to pick up the new tickets on Thurs., but were told we had to pick them up on the day. Seeing as how we're not crazy and didn't want to be in a crazy line right before the concert, we decided to get them during regular box office hours.

Now, me, I'm used to the Bell Center or Rogers Arena, both of which are smack down in the middle of downtown in their respective cities. Ottawa saw the flaws in that thinking and made the obvious choice to have their arena in the middle of freaking nowhere. Stittsville, or Kanata, or something like that.

So, it took us a good hour to hour and a half to get out to the general area by bus, then we brought our bikes to make the 20 min ride to the actual arena (there are buses that run special for events that we took home afterwards, but the website doesn't think it's a good idea to specify times for these buses). We got off the bus about 15 mins before the box office closed at 4pm, so Dylan took off to obtain tickets. He was successful with ticket-getting, slightly less successful at appearing sane to the box office people. He came back to me and we wasted time in the wonderful air conditioning Walmart offered. Then ate dinner an delicious fast-food burrito place, Mucho Burrito. Think Subway, but classier and with burritos. Doors for the concert were at 7pm, so naturally by 6pm I was getting antsy to get to the arena. After Dylan convinced me to wait 20 mins, we headed down and got there about 15 mins before doors... for a concert that we already had our tickets for and it was assigned seating. And, since it was Josh Groban, security wasn't that tight (as in they didn't look twice at Dylan and his huge backpack), so there weren't any delays there either. Dylan was very good, though and let me have my crazy. The concert itself started at 8pm, and even then it was just the opener.

Some guy opened. A rock jazz pianist who did a lot of medley-covers. He was good.

Then Joshy comes on. But instead of walking straight on stage, he walked out from

the back of the arena, directly under our seats, and goes to this mini-stage that was in front of the sound guys and WAY WAY closer to us than the main stage.He sung a couple songs from there right at the beginning, then came back to sing a couple more near the end. Plus, it was nice for the people with floor seats because he obviously had to walk through them to get to and from the main stage. The whole idea he built the tour was to bring a more intimate feel to arena concerts, which I think he did a good job accomplishing. For instance, the last two songs he pulled a few people up from the audience, had them sit on couches, gave them wine, and sung to them. Of course two of the four people were having their 40th wedding anniversary, so Joshy sung them a gorgeous song about cheating.

He's a pretty funny guy. Now, I've watched more than a few clips of him doing talk shows or guest appearances, plus his little vlogs he makes for his fans occasionally, plus follow his twitter (did I mention I'm a fan?), so I knew he was hilarious. But obviously it's going to be better in person. He called his band the Groband. His security guards call the stairs from the floor to the stage GAPs - Grobanite Access Points, and he made fun of them because his fans are not really the type to rush the stage. He told all the men in the audience to sit back and relax, because the concert was probably just the beginning of a long night for them. And, at one point while in the aisles, he did an impromptu chorus of Biance's 'Single Ladies,' in falsetto of course. I enjoyed it.

He also did some singing. Kinda the whole point. A lot from his new albums, but obviously did a few of his big hits like 'You Raise Me Up' and 'You Are Loved.' I have nothing bad to say. I could have sat and listened to him sing for twice as long. It made me goose-bumpy. Most of the time I go to are somewhat more age-appropriate concerts so it's hard for me to compare, but I definitely can't think of a concert I've enjoyed more.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! JOSHY!! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

More later once I've calmed down some.

...EEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

Ok, right, using my blog to update people in major life things at the bare minimum.

Ottawa. Yes. So far doing good by me.

Got myself a job, oh, a couple weeks ago. I'm now the proud employee at a coffee store, which makes me happy because I love working at coffee stores and couldn't get anyone in Montreal even slightly associated with coffee to hire me. They also hired the always lovely Clair, so I'm a happy llama. Did the online training and started my training shifts earlier this past week. I dig it. It's a grueling 5 min walk away (barely enough time to pull out my ipod, pick a song, and get through the first verse).

We found ourselves a place for Sept. It is a floor down from where we are now. For everyone who knows our address, as of Sept change Apt 4 to Apt 5 and you'll be good. More expensive than we were hoping, but still quite manageable. We really like the neighbourhood, so good good. On our way to sign the lease we were all, 'Oh, so I guess we're staying here through the winter... Everyone cool with that? Stresssss. Okay.'

Another major bonus of Ottawa is that one of Dylan's uncles also lives here. He's nice. It's nice. He's shown us around a few places, given us a whole bunch of advice on things to do, answered our questions on good places to volunteer, and fed Dylan more food than is speakable. He even went out in search of bikes for Clair and I, getting a loaner for Clair and went so far above and beyond as to buy me a used bike from a guy he knows. It's red and white and pretty and I'm excited because I don't think I've ever owned my own bike with the possible exception of a tricycle. But, the biggest advantage is that at the end of the day, it helps us feel less alone on this side of the continent.

And, in news unrelated to Ottawa for the most part, my laptop (known affectionately as Lappy, both for the obvious reason and after Lapierre) has been giving me problems again lately. It was running off the power cord, but wasn't charging the battery at all. It was alarming since Lappy is definitely one of my most beloved possessions and somewhat annoying since having to have a laptop plugged in to use it sorta takes away from the whole portability thing. Anyway, it's still under warranty, so I took it in. This led to three separate repairs, a new MagSafe board, logic board, battery, trackpad assembly (still don't know why this was replaced), and a new display (this was just because they could and I asked since mine was somewhat dented...). A grand total of $1,362.91 worth of repairs. But Lappy is now working like a Pro! Get it? 'Cause I have a MacBook Pro. Hahaha. Anyways. Have I mentioned I love extended warranties? Because paying for that would have sucked.

Oh right, updating. I do that. Yes.

So, we are safe and sound in Ottawa. First impressions: I really like it. Smaller than Montreal, which makes me happy. Less traffic. Fewer people. More English. Seems more laid back, which I wouldn't have expected from the capital. If jobs work out, I can see this being a really good summer.

Byward Market, close-ish to our place

I kinda lucked out on the moving end in that the Uhaul truck only had two seats. So the three of us loaded the truck up, then hubby and Clair drove it over here and emptied the truck whilst I stayed behind and cleaned home. Hubby drove the truck back to Montreal (much cheaper for a two way trip). Playoff finals happened. Then we wrapped things up in Montreal, packed up the car with everything that was left and headed to Ottawa a couple days later. Those two days were super fun without any furniture whatsoever.

The gorgeous Rachel was Montreal for a day since she was out this way for her sister's grad from UOttawa. After she managed to actually into the city, it was lovely albeit too short. Oh, we also had the ravishing Vanessa stay with us in Montreal and got the chance to meet her boy. We approved, even if he kept trying to take her away from us. His initial plans failed and they followed us to Ottawa. She stayed with us here for a few more days (although was conveniently at some cabin on a lake the days that we were actually moving). Ultimately he won though and she left us. An old girlfriend of Dylan's was also in Montreal with her husband while Vanessa was there, we had coffee and caught up a bit with them. Super fun to see everyone, but, really you guys, couldn't you spread it out so that everyone wasn't here in the same week, let alone the week that we're moving?! Oh, then Bill and Jan were in Ottawa and we had lunch with them yesterday.

What else? Our neighbourhood is nice. Really close to UOttawa, a few blocks away from two grocery stores both of which are 24 hr, laundromat nearby. Easy walk to downtown, but we're on a quiet side street. Young building, so we never have to worry about our noise levels. Being in such a university/young area means that there are a lot of drunks wandering around, but the only problems they cause is occasionally throwing up in the driveway that goes to the back of our place. The apartment itself is good, and slowly getting organized. But it's a furnished sublet, so between everything left here and all our stuff it will be a cramped summer.