blog jam - Northern Edition

31 weeks

2012-02-12T18:50:00.002-05:00

Just a quick update for the newest pic. I'm at 31 weeks and feeling pretty darn good. We found out that the baby is in breech position just now, but there's plenty of time for her to shift.I hope she does soon, it will be a comfort knowing she's in the right spot as she bulks up in the home stretch.

Also it turns out that I am group B strep positive, which is not a problem, just a thing. It's a bacteria we all have, I just happen to have lots, or it's somewhere it usually isn't or something (clearly needing to pay more attention to the doc!). You can look it up if you are curious, but the end result is, I have a choice to accept 2 doses of antibiotics during early labour which will make its way to the baby and immunize as she's born, protecting her form infection as she passes through my birth canal.

Even though the chances of her getting sick are low, I'm going to opt in to the antibiotics. The only part of this I'm less happy about is if my water breaks and I don't go into labour right away, or labour fast enough, the docs will want to induce to minimize chances of the baby being infected in a non-sterile environment. I'd rather avoid induction, but oh well. It's definitely common and not a serious problem at all, so we'll just roll with this one!

Speaking of rolling, I can feel different types of movements now, including shifting and longer drawn out movements. Not just bump and pushes. So that's neat. Also I can feel around and when my belly is soft (not in Braxton-Hicks) I can find her and poke her personally, not just generically poke my belly as before. We haven't started any games playing of pushing back and forth but usually when I pus on the top part of my belly I'll feel pressure inside on the bottom. Reminding me she's not that small a baby anymore!

Every day of gestating is a good day, and one day closer to having her home. We're acquiring things that we think we'll need and hoping to have enough to be ready to take the best possible care of her when she's here.

My exercise buddies are getting too pregnant/about to deliver to hang out with me at the Canada Games Center now so I have to devise my own regimens and self motivate. I want to keep up with everything to help me sleep and deal with the added weight and all that.

To aquafit and away!

29.5 weeks

2012-01-31T18:46:00.003-05:00

Still plugging along, gestating every day.

I went in and did my one hour glucose test, which is a screening to see whether you should be checked out more thoroughly for gestational diabetes. My paperwork was labelled "Diagnosis: Pregnancy" which I find hilarious. I guess it's true, but it sounds like a doctors tv show that plays well in the mid-west US, with a thinly veiled Christian undercurrent. Major show themes would be various unexpected pregnancies and counselling to keep the babies, happy times for baby keepers, woe on the rest!

Anyhoodle, everything is moving along. I am thinking a lot about cribs and trying to decide of the older one we got used is safe enough or not. Choices in Town are very limited and so I'm not sure. I will continue to waffle a bit longer I suppose.

I'm still loving corn flakes with blueberries.

Also I failed that one hour glucose test so tomorrow morning I'm off to the hospital for the 2 hour version, compete with fasting and multiple blood draws. Should be a good time. I am hoping I am not gestationally diabetic (sp? haha) mostly for medical safety but not insignificantly because going off sweets cold turkey would be very tough for me! Carbs are whatever, but no more sugar...I shudder to think.

If I tug my belly up a little bit i can plainly see the bottom of my belly button. Totally unsettling experience and sometimes I squish my belly together so it looks normal again, for a few seconds. I can't feel it so that's fine, it just looks weird.

I got my first "hey are you sure it isn't twins" comment this week. I said it would be more efficient if she were twins, but maybe next time.

In the meantime I am enjoying this pregnancy lots and starting to wonder more about what the baby will look like and what will she like and not like, which is fun. We are trying to sort out space in our house and make room for some newer things and figure out what we need to get by for the first while. Soon I will be emptying the freezer from extra food and filling it again with meals and other nesting things. I actually voluntarily cleared out and washed 2 cupboards the other day, which could only be hormone driven, but who chooses that?!

Work is good, I'm getting to the point of tying up loose ends and thinking about the person who should be taking over for me (a person not yet found). I am dreaming of sleeping in and nesting full time or just sleeping all day, whichever feels more compelling.

It's a nice time in my life just now.

27 weeks

2012-01-13T21:40:00.003-05:00

Heyo! 27 weeks, coming along nicely. I had my monthly check up at the doc's and the doc's assistant casually mentioned "oh, I guess Christmas and New Year's happened" as she weighed me in.

Yeah, thanks for that!

I'm all good, still healthy, the baby' heartbeat is good and strong and she's moving around. Still not tonnes of movement every day, but always something here and there, and some days she moves a lot. I love every bump and tickle from her!

Also, I am in the third trimester! Excellent! In the bottom left corner of the pic you can see the box of cloth diapers my friend gave me, the first part of what will become our stash. Yippee!

Wrong number

2012-01-05T10:59:00.000-05:00

I got this e-mail re-directed from an old address. Is it bad that I'm tempted to take her up on her offer? Look at all those exclamation points, and almost exclamation points!

HI MARY WE ARE ALL SETTLED IN CAN U SEND ME KATHY FITZS EMAIL ADDRESS FOR SOME REASON SHE DOES NOT POP UP WITH THE REST OF U HOPE THINGS R GOING WELL R U FREEZING DONT FORGET GRAB ELLEN AND COME DOWN FOR A LONG WEEKEND SUN WATER AND WINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

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I could use some sun., water and wine today. Although, last night I dreamed I was drinking wine and I realized most of the way througha glass that oh, I probably shouldn't finish this. Oopsie!

My belly button looks freaking weird

2011-12-31T01:36:00.002-05:00

25 weeks!

23 weeks

2011-12-20T11:23:00.003-05:00

Hello hello,
We took another bump picture! Here I am at about 23 weeks plus 3 days or so. Also featured are our Christmas antlers and the little tree rob got at sally anne a couple years ago. It's a nice little setup except our "special" cat Ludwig like to chew the branches. Not sure what his motivation is, since he ends up shaking his head and sneezing a bit when he does it. Special!

So, the bump is growing, which I take to mean that the baby is too. We had our monthly check-up and she was moving so much, the doc had a hard time pinning her down for a heartbeat! Good girl, protect your space! She kicked the doppler amplifier a couple times which was also very cool, since I couldn't feel those kicks yet.

I am feeling more and more but still not a lot. A few bumps a day usually, when I'm being good and quiet. Having an anterior placenta means she has to work harder to make herself known so she'll have to grow a bit more before I feel her all the time. For now it's lovely, and I'm really enjoying my reminders that she's active and healthy.

Another thing I'm growing is a beautiful pelt of peachfuzz on my belly. Not exactly something I hoped for, but there you have it. I am developing a respectable mohawk of longer, darker hairs on the centre line of my belly, from my belly button on down. Klassy, I know, but there you have it. I don't seem to be experiencing the silky head hair everyone raves about but I guess beggars can't be choosers and you take your nice hair where you get it.

I'm in a good stage of pregnancy where I can do most things I ever could but have a nice tidy little bump. I'm not sleeping too well these days but I think it's equipment failure and a humidifier and the correct pillow configuration will help. We'll see.

All in all things are going great! I still haven't been out cross country skiing yet, but hopefully this weekend is my chance. The aquafit is working out great and my yoga class has ended, so I want to fill the void and not get too sloppy.

The weather here has been so nice that we are all a little worried about January. This time last year it was -38, two days ago it was -2. We'll get it sooner or later!

Until then, I'll keep gestating and let you know how it's going!

Ultrasound pics 20 weeks

2011-11-28T18:28:00.005-05:00

We only got 4 pictures because we got them for free. In the first pic, we're seeing the soles of her feet. The other three are profiles. In the second set she's just chilling, although in the last pic I like to think she 's digging for gold. I even labelled the pic 20 weeks - nosepicker for this upload. There's a bit of a skeletor thing going on, but that's alright because a) it's a bit badass looking and b) I want her to have bones (ALL of them)

While it would have been neat to have a huge collection of pictures of her, we're happy with the experience we had of watching her move and seeing all her parts come together to make this little person who is super freaking tiny, eyes fused shut like a kitten, but who is already so important to us.

I still can't stop thinking about her with exclamation points. If you could read my thoughts about this little one it would be intolerable, a never ending string of exclamation points, half-long sentences, all caps love notes and "get big and strong!" vibes. Worse than reading a text from a 15 year old. 4 realz, yo!

I think the next 20 weeks will pass quickly and slowly, the same time paradox most kids are in with the run-up to Christmas. This is such a joyful part of pregnancy. All the fin of being pregnant, none of the sickness or joint pain etc. The Golden Age is here and I plan to enjoy it!

She's a girl!

2011-11-25T12:47:00.002-05:00

Our 20 week ultrasound went beautifully yesterday. Well, except for the part where they re-booked me for an hour later and failed to let me know, so I sat there with a full bladder for a bit longer than is considered humane by the World Health Organization.

Our ultrasound tech was a great score, she was experienced and young and talked us through the whole thing, showing us what she was seeing and breaking the rules a bit by telling us that from what she could see everything looked good. I requested pictures of the baby picking her nose or throwing the horns if she could do it and she did her best. She talked us through the 4 chambers of the heart, the major veins and arteries she was looking for, both in the baby and also from my uterus to the placenta, we got to see some blood flow, we got to see her arm bones, kidneys, brain, the tib/fib in each of her legs, check out her face for cleft palette etc etc.

The tech told us the baby is measuring a bit small, but not too small. In the 36th percentile. She weighs 9 ounces at this point(only!) and is measuring about 18.5 weeks even though she is really a few days short of 20 weeks. I want her to be strong but a petite baby is a novelty in my family and would be nice in terms of birthing. But she's got a lot of opportunity to bulk up and I won't put it past her to do it.

Our tech said that she wasn't able to get a good picture of the spine due to the baby's movement, so she took a couple non-standard pics. She said the doc may ask for a followup ultrasound to get a better spine picture, and if that happens not to worry. Very kind of her to say, and it would be awesome to get another peek inside and spy on her again!

My philosophy is if the baby's personal space bubble is inside my personal space bubble it's fine to inconvenience her to get the info we'd like.

It was amazing to have almost 30 minutes to look at (and through)the baby! I have not started to feel movement yet so it's totally bizarre to see this functioning human on tv and then try to make the mental connection that actually, she is inside of me. Right now!

Actually, the (relative) worst part of the whole affair was at some point the tech had to jam the little wand into my belly button, which is a total no-fly zone in my regular life, since belly buttons are super gross. The tech told us about a patient she had who, due to various surgeries had his bellybutton removed. That actually seems fairly awesome.

After the ultra sound we spent some time high-fiving in the parking lot and then it was back to work to sit at my desk all jacked up on adrenaline and not being able to concentrate at all.

Rob and I can't express how grateful and excited we are to add to the pack of girls in our families and provide another cousin to the fold. What a privilege to raise a girl and we can't wait to see what she's like! She is probably going to make us crazy!

It was knit night last night so no time to scan photos, but I should get the chance today. We got 4 nice ones. I will update!

My Aquafit Intructor is Adam Duritz (circa 1993)

2011-11-21T22:54:00.003-05:00

Hey, whaddaya know? My new hobby is gestating!

So the bump is sticking around and we have the anatomy ultrasound on Thursday. Maybe I should drink coke and eat pop rocks to make sure the little one isn't sleeping so we get a clear view of the sex! Ah, mom fail. Pre-mom fail! Any guesses on whether I am currently a two-vagina-d super woman or temporarily transgendered?

I have several friends who are also due in late winter and spring (in Whitehorse I guess I am the only one with a hope of actual spring weather at delivery in April). My pal who is due in February lives in my neighbourhood so we have joined prenatal yoga together and we have started going to aquafit at the Canada Games Centre.

I LOVE aquafit! I have never been before in my life and it is somehow simultaneously boring and hilarious. My first class we had some disenfranchised teen who would demo a very sensual rumba beat with a totally dead face. From the neck down he was Antonio Banderas and from the neck up he was Dead Antonio Banderas.

My second class was a daytime (over early lunch) with about 30 elderly folks who also seem to consider this social hour. The instructor looked exactly like Adam Duritz from Counting crows, early times. He has the same facial hair, the short dreads, the colouring. He was WAY into his class and really mixed it up with a lot of exaggerated miming for the folks in the back. We listened to Oldies remixed with a techno beat (sample song: techno workin' on a mine, going down down down). I laughed and laughed until my calves started to cramp.

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Today is my first day in actual maternity pants. I imagine whatever sadist invented panty hose was sent back underground until he came up with pants that look normal but feel like jogging pants. And they were right to make him.

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So, boy or girl? No splitting the difference, the ultrasound is at about 20 weeks so a girl's junk should be internal by then, and a boy's junk clearly boyish. We are excited!

Ideas Plus Inaction

2011-09-30T14:04:00.001-04:00

Last post I brought up someone doing something great. A few posts ago I mentioned my efforts to streamline my life a bit and take more responsibility for things. All nice things, but never without hiccups.

One of the things I decided I wanted to do was take in more live music. We get some young bands coming through outside the major festivals here and there, lots if plays and things (which I'm not interested in) and lots of people I've never heard of, maybe local folks. Anyway, I checked out the arts centre to see if anyone interesting was coming to town adn was excited to see Karkwa was going to be here. I mentioned it to Rob and decided it would be awesome to go.

Karkwa won the Polaris Music Prize last year for best Canadian album (best album, not best song, most sold, best advertised, most popular...just best album, period). I bought the tickets online.

So how was the concert? F*cked if I know, it was on Monday and I didn't think of it again until yesterday.

I totally, totally biffed that so hard. We just. didn't. go. Rob did homework on Monday night and I'm pretty sure I watched t.v.

Ugh ughuhguhgughgugghgghghhg! I was/am SO DISAPPOINTED. Yes, the money wasted sucks, but really I'm super sad we missed out on the show, something I really wanted to go do. Obviously it's an easy fix to remember to write it down, or order early enough to get the tickets mailed out next time, a physical reminder. But for now, it's a life lesson, good intentions aren't always the answer!

The next band I'm excited about will be here in March. Long winter until then, yo.

*facepalm*

Ideas plus action

2011-09-14T17:00:00.001-04:00

Things like this always make me think about being more active. And magically having a genius idea to develop. This is a wonderful short story about someone who is doing good.

Activity Updates

2011-09-07T15:34:00.002-04:00

So it's been about a month since I wrote about my change in mentality and grabbing life by the short 'n' curlies to max it out. I'm pleased to report that things are going great (does that mean I have a mittful of short 'n' curlies? I need a new metaphor).

I've continued bike commuting each day, rain or shine and have gotten in a couple more mountain bike rides locally. I've been out camping to the Tombstone mountain range during fall colour changes with my parents and Rob, which is a world class destination. I've established with Rob that we're getting cross country ski passes to the 75 KM of trails located 5 minutes from our house and I have a couple of pals who want to set regular ski dates. I'm cultivating my "yes" into the universe and taking more responsibility for my own happiness day to day. It still feels good, if a bit more normalized. It's good.

Life here is really such a gift, work is interesting and good, I have a great partner and a good home and more opportunity that is fair. Way more. So it's just appalling that I could overlook that even for a minute, you know? The complacency that comes from comfort and bounty I guess. So yeah, it's going pretty well. Yay.
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So my parents were just up for over a week and are just at the airport this minute, waiting for their flight into a blue sky. They were lovely and we all had such a nice time. We ate out in a couple new places (to us) and we found out that Whitehorse actually has some fine dining opportunities, which is pretty cool. We had a wonderful time driving the 600+ KM to the Tombstone Mountain Range through the most vibrant fall colours the Territory has on offer, deep reds and bright yellows, and even still some green. We visited Dawson City, old school gold mining town that keeps its unpaved roads, boardwalks and historical buildings in original shape (sometimes that means the buildings are melting into the ground slowly).

We did some hikes, camped for 4 night and experienced sunlight, wind, hail , torrential rain and witnesses the first snow on the mountain tops...It had to be 10-15 degrees C cooler up there than in Whitehorse! In Whitehorse it feels like the summer side of fall, in Tombstone it felt like the winter side of fall. It was exciting, winter is coming! (heh, for those of you that watched/read King of Thrones).

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Just for funsies, Rob decided to acquire symptoms of appendicitis and spend the afternoon in emerg yesterday. They did some tests and said maybe appendicitis, maybe a rando intestinal infection (yerg) or maybe kidney stones. They basically sent him home to let it fester so it would be easier to pinpoint (no cure for the common cold but they can treat pneumonia!). He woke up feeling not worse and possibly a mite better and opted for work, so we'll just watch and see if he gets worse and has something to treat.

Incidentally it makes me feel better that I finally learned to drive the car because my face would sure be red if Rob had a burst appendix and I couldn't get him to the hospital! (note sarcasm, this possibility is not an option, imagine the shame and guilt...nope, had to learn). Since he hasn't called to let me know he's gone back in to the hospital I assume he's doing fine. Yay!

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I've been deeply neglecting my garden, which is a total shame to myself since I know I have wasted broccoli at least, peas and maybe zucchini too, which I DON'T want to talk about, ugh. But I need carrots and to not suck at taking care of the garden, where did my gumption go? Maybe it was that 2 of our 3 cabbages were stolen? First time we've experienced garden theft, I suspect hooligans since who wants cabbage for anything but lobbing at cars, right? And borscht, but I'm skeptical that some meemaw in a babushka came by to yoink my cabbage. So.

Oh well, I do hope at least someone ate it.

What's new with you? Summer's well over here and it's fall colours and time to think about knitting again. Anybody thinking of a winter adventure? We might do something radical this winter and go on a true holiday in the sun. Maybe. You?

Taking charge

2011-08-08T12:15:00.003-04:00

Over the years I've become pretty sedentary. Which is the exact opposite of my interests and lifestyle as a carefree teen. I went off the rails in first year undergrad because school was way too hard for me suddenly and I was spending all my time in class, in lab , or trying to understand calculus and physics (didn't happen). I was in the co-op program so I couldn't join any sports teams and I didn't know how to do individual exercise of any kind, I'd only ever been on teams. So I gained the freshmen 25 (ahem) and carried on.

Fast forward about ten years on and I've taken stabs at running (hah! failed), walking stairs, cycle commuting, cross country skiing and snowshoeing. I do some of these things some of the time but have found that I do none of these things all of the time.

Now, I've been in Whitehorse for 2.5 years and typically that would be the time that I would move again, find a new job, finish school, whatever. But we're not going anywhere at the moment and I've been feeling restless. Planning travel (never a bad thing anyway) but also starting to feel really disappointed in myself for how little I'm taking advantage of my surroundings. I'm in one of the most beautiful and accessible wildernesses of Canada and I even know very active people. And I realized how much I was complaining to Rob and others and myself about how I miss being strong, and I miss being independently active and growing outside the way I know I love to do. So I made the decision to be in charge of my own happiness and make some important changes in my life.

I started by dusting off my bike and cycling to work every day. Every day, rain or shine, tired or late. Some days it was all those things! On my way home I have some altitude to gain, some of which is achieved by pushing my bike up 222 stairs. Every day I'd get home sweaty and out of breath and my gums would hurt (that happen to anyone else?) and I'd feel triumphant.
The bike commuting was great but I think my feeling came from knowing that this feels a little different. I'm not charting days, or making goals about numbers of anything. I'm just doing what I know I will feel good about.

Then, I decided to purposefully cultivate friendships with active acquaintances, people I should be better friends with anyways. Interesting, supportive, outdoorsy folks who will share their experience with me and help me integrate back into the lifestyle I let slip but never forgot.

And it hasn't stopped there. I had plans to go to a local community to play a softball tournament, but my acquaintance who recruited me bailed the day we were supposed to leave. My car was packed up and we were supposed to leave after work. So instead I drive to a campground 30 minutes out of town on Lake Laberge (a widening of the Yukon River) and pitched my tent and lit a fire with kindling I chopped with my own hatchet and had a beautiful sleep by the water. Just me. It was peaceful.

Saturday morning I came home, picked up a friend and we went to a local mushrooms hike. Then on Sunday Rob took his new kayak out to a local lake (10 minutes away) and I tried my hand at mountain biking the loop trail around the lake. I loved it. We did our usual 18 holes of disc golf then headed home.

I still got all my usual stuff done, except sitting watching tv and eating out of boredom. I feel good. I'm taking care of the part of me that I haven't been looking after, even though I would consider it a central part of myself. So this morning I feel pleasantly stiff in my arms and legs because I used them well.

I have plans to continue cycling and mountain biking, and maybe getting some local hikes in too before the snow flies, then it's cross country skiing and snowshoeing and maybe volunteering for the dog races again.

I'm not there yet but I'm starting to feel stronger, every day. And I'm making better decisions every day and choosing to say yes. I have put YES out into the universe and now it's up to me to take advantage of my many opportunities to live well up here and live the life I value so much.

I remember seeing a house in Waterloo in the winter that had 4 sets of snowshoes set up outside, two big pairs and two little pairs and I remember the feeling in my chest of wanting that life. The pang of wondering if we'd be like that. Now I think about that scene and I remind myself that the possibility is there if you start now and show your priorities.

So that's what I'm thinking about these days and working on.

And I've noticed that it doesn't take more time. You just spend less time on stuff that isn't as important and you never know it's gone. So.

Onward.

Another cat video

2011-08-02T13:35:00.002-04:00

This one has a theme song and swearing and I tried my hardest to laugh silently at work but may have cried a little bit from joy.

14 stores and services

2011-06-18T00:25:00.004-04:00

Educational video about Whitehorse's premiere "mall". Awesome execution, but you should know that since this video was made, the Liquidation World has shut down (sad).

Edited to add: also the first Canada Post is gone.
Edited again to add: the mall is next to the liquor store, so.

Enjoy awesomeness.

Another reason to love humanity

2011-06-07T18:55:00.003-04:00

American Freestyle Canoe 2007 - Marc Ornstein

Thank god for people, folks. This totally exists.

I got this link from http://thedailywh.at/

Summer's here, sometimes

2011-06-06T19:02:00.002-04:00

We had a wonderful unprecedented visit with my sister, brother in law and niece the week before last! We generally had nice weather except for a bit of dramatic mist and rain in Skagway and Haines, Alaska.

The baby figured out clapping and took her first stumbled steps while she was here and helped us feel important as we sang and swooped her around and did everything we could to make her smile or keep her attention!

The weather here was hot and wonderful and we enjoyed a series of amazing blended drinks including cafe latte smoothies, strawberry lime and pina colada.

This week's weather has been cooler and rainy again, so it was a brief and lovely moment in time. Truly a visit to remember and maybe someday we will make it so we aren't so inconvenient to get to. The last two times we were all together was during the winter and when the baby was 2 weeks old. This time, we were just super freaking far away. Thanks for coming you guys, that was awesome.

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There's a guy in town here that I met that collects produce from the supermarkets that they aren't going to sell, for whatever reasons. Usually it's because it's getting a bit "mature", or there will be one rotted orange in the bag, but the rest are fine. Anyway, this guy collects the produce, delivers some to women's shelters in Town and brings the rest home. I go to his place every week or so and see what he's got on offer.

Well, I got a couple pounds of organic shiitake mushrooms, gold nugget mandarins, a bag of oranges, a full case of organic pears, 1/2 rotting, 1/2 perfect, some eggplant, a leek, a big box of granny smith apples and a bag of gorganic snap peas and organic green beans. So this week we feast. it took a couple hours but I made 8 litres of apple pear sauce on saturday, with the sweet pears balancing the tart apples. That should do us for a while!

Tonight we'll have a curry with eggplant, leek and bok choi (oh yeah, I got bok choi too).

This is undermining my effort to try and think it is normal to pay for food. I like to pay farmers but not stores. Not sure why exactly.

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My new hobby is couponing. Between sales and coupons I carved $39 off my grocery bill on Saturday. I should mention $5 of that was an ice cream coupon off a cereal box, which I bought for $2. 25 (coupon plus sale), which I might not have bought otherwise. So, money "saved" might be a bit misleading. But really, I think $39 is my best yet.

Also, some of my coupons were for things I don't want, like a free bottle of ranch dressing. I get that dressing anyways and then donate it to the food bank, it's part of my couponing habits. Scratched an itch I have to donate AND it scratched my coupon itch, which I am pretty excited about.

Yes I have seen the extreme couponing show. No I am not a hoarder but you better believe any house I buy will have a spot for a stockpile, oh yes. And now I know you don't absolutely NEED to pay more than 50 cents for toothpaste, if you plan right and don't mind reading flyers. If I were in the south I suspect I'd be in even better shape, lots of stuff doesn't make it up here, like tearpad coupons. Anyway, my new hobby is fun. Hopefully it actually saves us money, we'll see :-)

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Disc golf season is open and we're all considering mosquito suits. Never been so bad but it's been wet, so I guess that's how it is. I missed the game though and I am happy to be back out and about.

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The garden is mostly planted, thanks to my sister walking in with me one night to get it done. I still have not managed to plant potatoes and zucchini, and it may be too late for that. I hope not but can't seem to get organized. Hopefully the carrots get me though instead, and then there's always the cheat of buying the plants, which I might do to fill spaces I missed in the plot!

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No pics, I'm at work, boo. Trust me, it's nice up here, and we've got foil on the guest bedroom window so you can sleep when you visit. We call it the cave and it's sooooo lovely.

Heavens above

2011-03-10T18:41:00.003-05:00

I am not out of stories! Although I do repeat myself a lot, some things will never change.

We had visitors! Brave intrepid adventurers who traded the mild rain for the mild winter, suffered though the exponential decrease in coffee shops (and people) and lived to tell the tale.

A short list of things we or they did over the course of the week:

* Used the cross country ski trains (x2)
* Snowshoes around a local lake
* hit up the hot springs (x2)
* Ate out in a bunch of new places (new to all of us, actually) and Boston Pizza (new to none of us but actually open Saturday evening)
*Checked out a couple art galleries
* Yukon Brewery tour
* Went to the closing show of the Frostbite Music Fest (SO GOOD!) (no actual frostbite sustained)
* Went to Rendezvous Winter Festival (risk of actual frostbite a lot higher)
* Made food, ate drank, hung out, slept in
* Dogledding on the Yukon River
* Flight seeing in a little Cessna (or whatever) for a 2 hour flight where I discovered I am not into little planes so much (no one barfed but for a hot second I found religion).

Did I miss anything major or minor?

Anyway, we had SUCH a great time and are SO happy that C&A came up and gave the ol' Yukon a shot. We miss the company very much!

I'll post pictures when I'm at home later on, everyone looks so cool in winter gear!

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Now the days are getting longer and longer and brighter and brighter. I think I've figured out my hack for making the bedroom good and dark without spending a pile of money, so I'm excited to try it out. I'm going to re-purpose the curtains I have hanging in the doorway to downstairs (blocking warm air upstairs where we live in the winter). I can drape them over the curtains we already have up making each curtain actually 3 layers thick, We'll still be able to open them easily and I won't have to spend $100 on blackout curtains.

Or maybe this year I'll just finally freaking adapt, but I don't know.

***************

Next big excitement is gearing up for a visit from my sis, brother in law and niece (!!!) in late May!!! A whole new season to max out the opportunities we have up here. We'll have a little over a whole week to tool around, maybe do some camping, see the sights, have some fun, visit like the dickens. I'm planning to fill up my cuddle tank with the niece, it is running quite low since my last chance to refuel in December. She is so freaking cute, it kills me.

I think we're going to ride the historic White Pass train! Fuuuuun.

**************

Other than that, everyday is every day! I'm trying to buy hormone/antibiotic free meat. I can get it at the supermarket. Local organic is sometimes possible but you have to know a guy who knows a guy and I haven't really worked that hard to sort that out. The local elk meat we bought is so good and we have been enjoying that a LOT. Kind of expensive though. We'll see. For now I'm trolling the supermarkets on lunches looking for discounted hormone free meat and hoping I'll get lucky.

**************

Recently I have found renewed energy and interest in being frugal, DIY and healthy. I was slipping quite a bit into convenience shopping and I noticed my grocery bills getting way off budget. I realized that I've been nickel and dime-ing myself with garbage like buying organic stock rather than making it like I used to. It has felt so good to get back to making new recipes and finding recipes to use what I have. We've been eating great and haven't had any "let's just eat out" impulses.

The budget is back in a comfort zone, ahhhhh. I like the feeling.

That said, I just bought two coats, although from consignment. I got the Lululemon Audrey coat in shark grey and a black nice fall/winter coat for $160 total. A little spendy but I'm trying to slowly upgrade my wardrobe here and there so I have options. Whatever, the only one who cares how much I spend is me ;-) Savers unite!

**********************

Everything is generally pretty great, thanks for asking. How are you?

Tro-lo-lo-lo-lo-loooooooooooo

2011-02-11T19:06:00.001-05:00

I give you this without further comment.

Pine Point

2011-02-10T18:32:00.002-05:00

Pine Point was a mining town in the Northwest Territories, a ocmmunity made specially for the mine. The town was shut down when the decisionw as taken to close the mine.

The national film board funded this amazing interactive look at the place and the people of Pine Point. Please, take 10 minutes and watch this, it's incredible work and so interesting and sad and engaging and hopeful and and and...

Pine Point Revisited

And it's low calorie too.

2011-02-08T18:32:00.001-05:00

Toothless Joe

2011-01-24T17:18:00.002-05:00

We brought Ludwig to the vet on Saturday to have a look at a tooth that was about halfway rotted though. Sure enough, it needed to come out and the little buddy's been at the vet all day today, making it rain (with my visa, natch) all over the vet and vet techs.

That blood work won't pay for itself, and since he's our special snowflake we opted to be cautious and make sure his organs could take the strain of anaesthesia and so on. Looks like he came through it perfectly well and is chilling on IV until we go to pick him up. Just the one tooth out, no extras which surprised me. We told the vet we're not likely to put him under again so do what you need to do, Ludwig doesn't use his teeth anyway (true story). Hopefully this works out to be the mid-life tune-up he needs to stay well for a good long while.

I guess I'm excited about the aeroplan points off the Visa. Sort of.

Hey, Nestle is running a promotion with ice cream , dog kibble and chocolate bars to give away aeroplan points, and until the end of the month it's 5X the points. I bought a box of clearance Halloween mini chocolate bars and ended up with 100 aeroplan points.

If you or anyone you know has a PIN on their ice cream or chocolate or dog kibble please, send'em my way. You can tell which ones are included because there's an orange circle on the package with e 10, 20, 50 etc. inside. We're collecting aeroplan obsessively to buy tickets to and from Ottawa. We've switched almost all our purchases over to my visa to rack up the points.

That's it that's all for now. It's -1 degrees and everybody is feeling funny after such a cold stretch. Also the sun is started to lighten the sky behind the mountains in the mornings on the way to work, sigh. Days are getting longer and longer, faster and faster.

-39 and OMG

2011-01-14T18:08:00.004-05:00

Ah, did I miss this weather the last two winters? Where was I? It is currently so cold the very moisture in the air is freezing in place to create Ice Fog. It's creepy! It looks like Mississippi humidity except it's instant frostbite. Cars that are plugged in are freezing. That is to say the chemicals in batteries are freezing! Spooky.

Outside the fog, it is beautiful outside. It amazes me that people and animals survive out there, and have survived out there. I guess some don't.

Rob had the car out at lunch to warm it up. he parked and had it running in idle, and within 3 minutes the engine cold light was on. I didn't know there was such a thing as an engine cold light.

We have a warm house, chili in the crock pot and warm snuggly pajamas, but holyhell baby it is cold outside!

I just know how bad all of you want to move here, so I'm letting you know of the situation so you don't feel so bad for living down south. I like to feel helpful.

Whitehorse: "It's finally the soul-hardening winter ice-planet-Hoth wasteland you always imagined it was"

(is it bad I feel really excited and kind of gleeful about this? Is it funny to remark our southernmost community is enjoying -50 degrees Celsius right now? )

Yes

2011-01-12T20:07:00.002-05:00

By Nathalie Staempfli

Note to self

2011-01-12T18:47:00.002-05:00

Possible pet names for future pets (an ongoing list):

Robocop
Kevin Bacon

'Sup?

2011-01-06T19:35:00.002-05:00

It turns out when we've been away for a bit and haven't bothered to go grocery shopping we can still pull together decent lunches from the freezer and the cupboard. Mostly soup and cheese and toast, but there you are.

Oh, also we cheated and rob got milk and a tub of yogurt, so there's that too. My late night snack last night was edamame with a drizzle of sesame oil and a bit of salt. How bourgeois!

My newish cube view out the window is perfect for watching planes land against the setting sun sky. It looks pretty cool. When you come visit I will watch for your plane.

Adjusting to the short days after adjusting to the longer days in Ontario has been pretty easy. Except I feel super sleepy all day, which I attribute to my body being irritated that it's at work 3 hours past home time, in its mind. My mind. Whatever. We slept for about 11 hours the night we got in which always helps with jet lag recovery. 3 hours isn't really such a big deal, thank fully and mostly it's the recovery from all day travel and an early morning more than jet lag.

Tonight is my first knit night and next week I start Tribal Belly dance classes on Tuesdays. Also my craft group is firing up and we still have plans to try out archery. That may be too much, since I am a homebody and we have lots of movies to get to watching.

I finally saw my first 3D movie (no 3D in Whitehorse). I saw Tron: Legend in Imax 3D. It was super loud, I went with my dad and it had a few issues, but mostly it was awesome and I liked the music. And laser discs, pew pew pew pew pew!!! B+, would see again., especially in sequence with the original.

***

I don't do new year's resolutions since I think about resolution-y stuff all the time, but lately I've been focussing on kindness, and not being sloppy and lazy and slipping into sarcasm too easily. Being "easy on the people, hard on the problem".

So far I am adjusting to writing 2011 fairly well, which is nice. I truly don't believe in destiny or superstition, but I do enjoy occasionally assigning random meaning to random things and I have decided that 2011 being easy to write means it'll be a good year. Which, of course, is totally fucking ridiculous. Sometimes totally fucking ridiculous is just the thing though.

Have fun.

Quick search

2011-01-06T13:19:00.000-05:00

Google image search the number 241543903

Rejoice in humanity.

Pictures 2.0

2010-11-08T22:56:00.002-05:00

View of Brewery Bay hotel room in Atlin, BC
18th hole of disc golf...it's MUCH steeper than it looks!
Atlin BC
Mud Bog, Whitehorse, July 2010. Those are cars driving through rivers of mud dug out specifically for this purpose. They also run children's foot races through the hip depth mud!
Skagway Alaska is PALIN CRAZY! There is a Sarah Palin store. I regret not getting a "you betcha" mug!

Picture Post

2010-11-08T22:43:00.002-05:00

Remember that time I said I'd post pictures? Wait, I said that how many times? Oh well, here are some pics!
We went to Atlin BC (2 hrs from whitehorse) for a post honeymoon jaunt, in a real hotel!
A few weekends ago I went on a hike 5 mins from town, nice view!
Ludwig prepping for Rendezvous festival 2010. This year he'll be the belle of the ball!
Warm springs near Atlin, that pond is electric green and tepid as bathwater
Atlin, meet Rob: Male Model

Round up

2010-10-27T13:47:00.002-04:00

1. It's "Iceland Weather" for me these days. The time of year I fantasize about wandering around either the moors of Scotland or moody Iceland, swimming in outdoor geothermal pools, knitting by fireplaces, eating stews and being cozy. Its the reasonable approximation of the weather here at this time, not sure why it makes me want to travel to experience more of the same. It's pretty clear to me that I will one day have to make it back to both those places.

2. Babies all around me (not in me!). So far, 2 baby girls born to people near me, two more girls on the way this winter, one work colleague just had her baby girl on Saturday (the baby is called Juniper!). Busy knitting season, yo. If you're thinking of having a baby and want a girl, consider getting to know me better.

3. I have been walking home up the stairs AND been walking the stairs on Wednesday lunchtime recreationally. Even though hallow e'en candy is the bane of my existence I can feel progress. The first time I did lunch time stairs (approx 22o stairs x 6 sets) I thought my calves were going to burst off my shins and stomp away in protest. Now I can do it , stretch and be okay. Hooray!

4. Work's going pretty well these days! How about that!

5. Hard frost these days, wintery shill but no snow sticking just yet. Definitely light mitt and ear covering weather though. Brings me back to my annual realization that I don't really care for myself in hats and also I need to knit myself a decent hat once and for all. Until real winter kicks in , then I wear that fur, ear flappy thing and revel in the warmth. I respect the warm citizen, not the stylish ones come -40 degrees.

6. I finally discovered the good consignment store in town! I brought in a bunch of stuff, it all sold off really quick and I've found lots of great clothes and shoes there. Hooray! We have no value village, the sally anne is hit and miss at the best of times, and buying new leaves you at expensive boutiques, wal-mart or reitmans. Or the teen board shops. So the consignment store is a godsend, since lots of the stuff is from Outside. Niiice.

7. I finally went on a real local hike! It was about 3 hours return, up into the hills near town. Super nice. I took a super quick video at the top. I will try to remember to post it. I try to stay off the computer after work, who needs that?

8. Buhhhhh, everythign is fine, nothing unusual or interesting is really happening!

9. We bought a latex mattress! It's in BC though...we have to wait to get it. Healthier option by a long shot, and kind of weird to buy at a distance, but I'm confidant it'll work out and we got such a a good deal. Lemme know if you want to know why we went with a natural latex mattress. It's pretty much our wedding present, hooray!!!

10. Got not much else. Hope to be back with photos soon...

Ninja Cat

2010-10-01T14:25:00.000-04:00

Reposted from etiquettehell.com

Oh, it's September now?

2010-09-22T13:55:00.003-04:00

Onward!

1. We have passed our fall colours peak for the season. We had weeks of glorious yellows and electric greens with deep pinks and reds on the ground and on the mountains, which were positively glowing. Sunny warm afternoons and frosty chilly mornings are upon us. It's the stuff you see on the front of vinyl records from the 70's called things like "40 songs for you and your lover" and "25 songs to gaze romantically across a park path into each other's eyes". But less smudge-lens looking. It's sweater time!

2. I have discovered a shop in town that will bulk order my beloved ginger chews for me, since no companies ship to regular people in canada. Original chews only, 5KG, $98. I'm....still working on the justification for that one. I have another dentist appointment today which might help remind me that no, I don't need to pack my molars with dense sugar paste. But then, the chews....we'll see.

3. I'm making my way through my Temporary Assignment, a nice part-timer. I spend 2 days a week at my regular job and 3 days a week at this other cool job. It's cool, and I suspect I'll miss it come December. I was always a girl who enjoyed some variety. It feels Ike I have 2 short weeks every week.

4. Rob's work is going great, as usual. He loves the kids, the kids love him. I am getting over a cough and sore throat though, because while rob is now bulletproof to kid germs, I am not. I could go around licking doorknobs and I think I would still blame the daycare for any illness that came my way. I think I'm still scarred from Rob's daycare plague times at the start of his job. (Hint, if your spouse works in daycare, choose a home with a spare bedroom and more than one bathroom! oops!).

5. I think I may have to learn to properly knit this winter. Like, hold the needles properly. My hands have been cramping on smaller work and i know my style is inefficient. I really am into knitting this season, so I better get good before I ruin my fingers and wrists. Plus even though it's hard to be surprised by the birth of babies (A&S excepted!) it feels that suddenly there are and will be babies in my life that needs welcoming to the world of hand knits. Let me just tally here...yeah I'm up to 4. Actually I love it, baby clothes are the easiest to knit and so satisfying. 5 inch long sleeves etc.

6. Today I am wearing a dress to work. At my TA job, since I'm not sure how I would feel wearing a dress to my regular job. Well, I do know. I would feel weird and I would get comments since I'm usually in jeans and a shirt. I guess I just need nicer jean and tops, but really, I like the dresses I have. Huh. I got a cat call from my co-worker Cathy. heh. It's kind of shocking for people when I choose to wear clothes that don't immediately fade me into the furniture.

7. Due to the aforementioned dress, I am wearing tights (!). I haven't done the tights/pantyhose shimmy in years. Decades, probably. At least since I started dressing myself. I didn't even wear any on my wedding day. It's okay, it feels nice to wear tights, kind of cozy. Like socially acceptable long johns.

8. I failed to recall, when dressing myself today, that I have a dentist appointment today. I guess I'll be the sexiest dental patient ever flashing anyone downhill of me.

9. It's not light when I wake up! It's not super dark, but it's clear we are dumping daylight by the bucketful each day. Noticeably darker each morning despite the wake up call. This morning the street lamps were on! Time to plasticise our windows and dig out the space heaters. And switch up our summer clothes for the winter ones we tucked away. Fat woolly socks, I'm coming for you.

10. I just realized I'm totally going to need legwarmers. Aaaaaaawesome.

11. We dug up our sadly neglected garden yesterday and managed to get potatoes, chard and carrots, onions and some broad beans. We've been having lots of frost overnight so it's time. Again, I miss canning, but this season I didn't give myself much to freeze even. Hopefully next summer I'm more committed and can make a bigger dent in the home grown food department.

12. Being married is the same as dating, except I have a ring dedicated to one finger, people ask me about my holiday, and Rob and I have moments of permanence, like "wait! when did this happen!". I still react poorly when people ask me what my name is, since it takes me a second to realize that they are acknowledging that I got married and might have changed my name. My mind always races for a reason for the seemingly random question and ends up somewhere in "brain injury? Joke I don't get?" territory before I realize what they mean. By then it's too late and I look like an idiot. I think they think I'm making some kind of statement with my WTF look, but really it just never occurred to me to change my name, we always knew I wouldn't and it's not the first thing my brain goes to. Apparently it's the third thing. Sigh.

13. Still disc golfing one to twice a week. Rob and I are pursuing the idea of archery for a winter hobby/sport together. We will miss disc golf but if we're firing arrows all winter that might just fill the void! And int he summer, the outdoor range is on Grey Mountain, with about 25 styrofoam animals to shoot at. Heh. Should be cool. I have to figure out how to get suited up though, so I'll let you know how that goes.

14. I have to go floss lunch out of my teeth befor ea 2 hour dentist session. ugh. I hope i don't have to pee or cough! Wish me luck! heh

Oregon Trail...the trailer

2010-08-31T15:34:00.001-04:00

Ever play that game in school on those old square macs?

Then, watch and laugh. Awesome. From khumpty.org

Lists to keep me honest

2010-08-03T13:54:00.002-04:00

I wonder if I will get back to daily/weekly updates here? Dunno. Lots of news to share, though.

1. My baby niece was born on July 26th. I am in love. She is perfect. My sister is a trooper and endured a tough 4 day labour to deliver this littlest pumpkin and while they are all well, the respect for the achievement is significant. My brother in law was by all accounts the best ever and suffered and celebrated alongside my sister, moment by moment (no surprise there). They are a family unit to aspire to. I am so proud.

2. Sylvia had her baby girl on July 26th as well! Her labour was relatively short but also scary. All are well at home again, healing and adjusting to the tidal wave of love they must be feeling from all sides, inside and out. Well done, S&A, you did something difficult and beautiful and your daughter is precious. I am so proud!

********
Things get more mundane from here, not quite on the same level as the miracle of birth and the transformational change to families who experience birth and babies. And yet...

3. A parent at the daycare is a big fisherman and gave Rob a 5 inch middle section of a huge beautiful salmon. It must have been 3 or 4 pounds of meat, gutted and ready to go. We're talking $40+ worth of prime, local wild fish, which is a wee bit better than the wieners and beans we were contemplating for dinner. Yay parents at the daycare! We had rice and seared zucchini form the garden and our first meal of the fish was glorious. We used som eof my notepaper to write a proper thank you and everythign, hoping that when they have spare fish they might think of us. Heh.

4. Wedding in less than two weeks! We are finally getting truly excited to get married, although I still worry a lot about sobbing. I can't talk when I cry and my heart gets really full really fast, so I cry pretty quick whenever anyone is saying loving things to me. I am worried about speaking during the ceremony and avoiding the ugly crying. Any techniques would be welcome. All I can think of is a rock in the shoe like they do on tv to nullify lie detector tests. I will have hankies on hand.

5. We sold the mazda MPV! We got back half what we paid for it 18 months ago, which is more than I expected. And as much as I will miss the 4 wheel drive, the space to haul people around and the automatic transmission, I just think about that brick of cash and I feel better. Imagine that! mmmm, brick of cash.

6. I finally (finally!) went and practiced driving yesterday. Rob took me out for 45 minutes and I just stopped, and get into first the whole time. Shifting to second and third and stopping is easy, it's just getting going. So I stopped and started up an abandoned street, three point turned, stopped and started my way back. I definitely got better , but I stalled twice and Rob says I can't complain when we have to replace the clutch (I definitely will complain). I don't think it was that bad. But no one get mad (me) or worried for he car (rob) and it was great.

7. We got our first windshield chip arrrrggghh. Yukon insurers don't insure windshields because you are guaranteed to chip. But the chip we got was accompanied by an instant 5 inch crack on the one side and 2 inch crack to the other. As soon as we have to use defrost, we're hooped. We'll take it in but they won't be able to do much. Boo Yukon.

8. We fly home on Saturday and have plenty to do in the meantime. We made a schedule of activities, but I am so ready for a break from work that I don't mind the chores and am looking forward to it all. How about that! Hooray for family! And i get to meet my nice, which will surely burst my heart. My poor heart will be beat up by the end of the wedding. So much love. I'm sure I'll sleep well.

Oh, funny

2010-07-21T12:09:00.002-04:00

When I am doing non-thinky things at work I sometimes listen to This American Life podcasts on my computer. They are really a fantastic resource and really great listening, if you haven't already checked it out. In one of the newer episoodes they included a short few minutes of a comedy routine about a new street drug.

It's so good. Please go here and click on the streaming episode of Million Dollar Idea, and go to about 20 minutes in (Act 2) and listen to comedian Kumail Nanjiani for like 2.5 minutes. Please, it's worth it.

In fact, that's where I'm headed again. Awesome. Thanks NPR! (This is special for my sister! You will like this!)

xoxo
m

Winning at shopping

2010-07-19T18:46:00.002-04:00

Because I don't live in the USA and don't have access to the couponing schemes that can net you free food and products, I make do with Canadian points systems. Most aren't worth the time, however I like to collect PC points, I occasionally collect Canadian Tire money, and now, I'm in on the Shoppers drug mart game.

Everyone's heard of shopper's optimum points but I never really collected.

I am boring myself as a write this, so I imagine things must be worse for you. Here's the long and short of it:

- I only by the minimum needed to trigger massive points collections on certain days: 20x points day, spend $75 and get 18,500.
- I combine that with buying items I need that have other bonuses attached, such as buy 2 get 5000 points.
- I will only spend my points when I max out the 95,000 max point limit
- And I will only spend the points on one of 2 occasions a year where you get bonus $20 when you spend your 95000 points.

If I make sure I only buy things I need/want/are a good price, then I estimate I can spend $350 (maybe less if I get more bonus points opportunities on products I need) and get $200 in returns off the points.

So long as I buy things I would anyway at regular or better prices, the rate of return is the best of the points.

It's helps if you are obsessive and have time to kill (obviously).

*********************************

What's new?

Nothing much man. Maybe I should jump into these memes that are going around. Pre-emptively: I had Kashi for breakfast, but I decided I should just make my own granola with organic oats. So there, my boring blog meme.

Today after work we are picking up a wild sockeye salmon (I think?) that we got hooked up with. No idea what to do with it though. We bought a filleting knife, which is about the most this city slicker (I hear you laughing) can do.

I hope your day was less boring than mine!

Eh, whatever

2010-06-29T14:52:00.003-04:00

Just dusting off the cobwebs with a lazy swipe of updates:

1. We bought a car! A 2010 Nissan Versa SL, base model. It's black, and yes, it alrady looks really dirty. There was only one available and I'm jsut happy it wasn't that wretched periwinkle purplish colour.

2. We are going ot Skagway Alaska opn a day trip for Canada day with friends. I will buy American candy and breathe deep the ocean air! Plus,l ther will probably be cruise ships in dock and those are fun to look at too.

3. We both still really dig disc golf> We play all the time and I am a wildly inconsistent player. Sometimes, really good; other times, I surprise everybody by hucking the disc 90 degrees from my intended trajectory. So far I haven't wanted to quit!

4. I stopped writing in my daily journal in April and I know I am going to be so pissed off next year when I stumble upon the blank spots on the page. What a chump! I still bring home my day planner every day thinking I'll use it to job my memory but no, still too lazy.

5. Rob has enthusiastically gotten into making kettle corn. He made a double batch last night so we'd have a few days' worth.I'm just happy it's gotten us away from PC brand. $3 doesn't seemlike much till you stop and take stock of your habit...3 bags a week = expensive! So, thanks Claire for the recipe and the hack. If we're gonna eat it, it may as well be almost free.

6. Wedding planning is going fine, so that's good. I am feelnig bits of anxiety but it's manageable. I think it's time to start thinking about the honey moon and what route we're going to take to get home.

7. I am successfully growing my 5th and 6th green peppers in my window sill at work. Yay!

8. The comunity garden plot is doing okay. The broccoli and bok choi I started indoors has bolted already (or is tryign to) so that's a failure. The bok choi is still edible but the broccoli isn't porducing florets. Looks like I will have to up my game next yar. So far, growing potatoes in containers seems to be working, we'll see. And all the beets and carrots adn lettuce and beans are great! I am sad we will be away fro 3 weeks in August tomiss watering and harvesting! boo.

9. The days are slowly getting shorter. The sunstroke music festival is over and it's twilighty at midnight (ish). Sorta. Anyway, it's geting better. It's till sunny and warm every day, but never too hot or too cold. Shhh, don't tell anyone. The weather here is actually very nice.

10. Futurama is back on the air! Oh my god! It's my favourite show, and has been cancelled and resurrected a few times. Hooray! It's back! It's the only DVD collection I ever bought adn wold consider getting. When they are well and truly dead in the water I will get he master collection, but will content myself with the seasons for now. Yay, nerd jokes!

Midnight Sun

2010-06-09T14:04:00.002-04:00

The rumours are true. It's daylight at midnight. I know it's not possible, but it seems brighter this year than last year. Maybe the earth shifted a wee bit?

We have been having a really hard time going to bed on time, and then falling asleep on time, even though we wake up exhausted. When the light levels tell your brain it's 7 or 8 pm until midnight (or later) you can't waste the time. It feels like we need to stay away to at least witness the daylight, like going to sleep while the sun is up is giving up, or wasteful.

Oh my god am I tired! I woke up at 3 am to pee and I could read a book in my room easily. There is literally no way to tell the time unless you have a clock. I mean, of course, it's totally awesome, you can go do anything and know you won't get caught after dark anywhere. You can go for a midnight swim or a walk or a round of disc gold in broad daylight at what should be night.

Plus it's sort of just a cool thing to experience. The extended daylight is way more noticeable then the extended darkness in the winter. Winters are always dark. But summers were never this bright. The garden is turbo growing and everyone is out on their bikes again. The clay cliffs and the vast forests have filled out with the deciduous poplars and the snow on the highest furthest mountains is just about gone.

I am making use of my little hotel sleep mask, though, since SOMEONE likes the light and seeing what's outside all the time. I'll tell you what's outside : perpetual cocktail hour!

***********

Our car died and re-animated over the weekend. We have stopped going to the hot springs and haven't been out camping because we don't trust our vehicle. With no cell phone, and no point of a cell phone between towns we aren't comfortable risking getting stranded up the alaska highway somewhere (although there's enough RV tourists I thin we'd really be fine). We had told ourselves that our next car would be a late model used car for reliability and long term use.

Well, based on a lot of research, hemming and hawing, and looking around, it appears the better deal is to be had on a new car. Based on the math and the used car market up here, and the fact that our chosen car (Nissan Versa) is on 0% financing at the moment, plus Nissan incentives to buy new (adds up to $1800 credit) it's actually cheaper to buy a new car than the 2008 use versa we found for sale. Even with the extra tires that come with it.

I never in a million years thought we would buy a new car. But it looks like we are about to do it. I've never had a car on warranty, a car with fewer than oh, 175,000km on it, and most significantly, a MANUAL!

Automatic cars cost about $1300 more to buy and I've always wanted to learn standard, and I've got the benefit of an open highway to learn on...we're going manual transmission. I'm excited and nervous. It's about time and I know I'll be frustrated practicing, but when I get it I'll be so happy I did the work.

So we'll see how we go. We aren't sure between the base model S or the base model SL (the SL is more luxurious and would cost about $1900 more than the S). For the long term the luxury might be much appreciated. Not sure. We'll have to test drive and see what we think. So long as our credit check works out...I've never checked my credit before!

Spendy spendy. And yet.

The car has a fantastic back seat so don't fret, if you visit we'll be able to take good care of you. Finally.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$argh!!!!!$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$aaaaahhhhhH!$$$$$$$$

I am not a robot

2010-05-31T17:27:00.004-04:00

Since I saw this on Much Music, I'll assume I'm the last person in north america to hear this person, but I LOVE Marina and the Diamonds' "I am not a Robot"

Vancouver peeps she's playing at Lillith on July 1st, her only Canadian stop it appears! I bet she's cool in person. She has branded neon lip paint for pete's sake. Check her out!

Who are you listening to at the moment?

****ETA**** The way she pronounces "vulnerable" like it's spelled without the "L" is irritating but I'm working through it based ont he awesomeness of the robot voice she uses just afterwards. Fair's fair.

Why I love The Yukon (Reason # 815)

2010-05-04T12:39:00.003-04:00

Morning alarm: 7:00 a.m.

Actually stand up out of bed : 7:55 a.m.

At work, logged on and working: 8:35 a.m

(on shower days I'm up at 7:30)

Yes, I ate, brushed my teeth and hair and put on clean clothes. I made my lunch last night.

sigh. I heart the Yukon.

music

2010-05-03T15:29:00.002-04:00

Hey peeps.

It snowed all last nigh and allll this morning and we had accumulation! It's melty now, which is a wee bit of a bummer, because I had the pre-Christmas shivers all this morning and it was so nice! I brewed up tea and wore snuggly clothes (not atypical anyway) but it felt really nice. I miss winter.

But summer's coming, it's a good season up this way. But still. Summer's no winter.

I just bought Hannah Georgias' album on iTunes for $6.99, which is a steal. If you don't have it already, I recommend it. If you are not sure, you can pick up a track of hers as this week's free iTunes track. If you get the free track then the album, iTunes is smart enough to recognize the duplication and warn you about it, but not delete the duplication. So, whatever that's worth.

I am a month behind on my daily 5 year journal. It's a spiral, the more I don't do it, the more I can't do it because the catch up will be so excruciating. But, I'm always pissed off when I get to a point where the last years entry is blank, so I know I have to bring my work agenda home and fill in as many blanks as I can. I can see myself filling in crap about what we had for dinner. That has anthopological value, right? hah.

First world problem!

My seedlings are coming up, but coming up spindly, so I need to get a breeze on them and get them exercising and getting strong. It'll be a bit before we transplant to the garden plot (thanks for the reminder, snow!) and I want the head start to count. Right now I'm on the look out for growing potatoes in pails or something beside the plot, so they don't take up as much room. Any free suggestions? Otherwise I have to buy Rubbermaid buckets, which makes them less economical to grow.

******************

Request: I have chapters gift cards to use up from December. I can't seem to decide what I want to get. I know I plan to buy Gayla Trail's gardening in small spaces book. What else should I get? I have about $50 total to burn and I want to max out for the free shipping.

I don't usually buy novels or read-once books since I go through them fast and sloppily, I and don't re-read often. So reference books like cook books, DIY/how-to books, what kind of thing go over well. I don't know. Any recommendations?

Thanks guys, you're the best :-)

How Modern Society Is Trying to Kill you

2010-04-27T00:08:00.003-04:00

Okay, maybe that's dramatic but I just learned something shocking about something regular...something that's IN YOUR CUPBOARDS RIGHT NOW!

Did you know an ingredient of table salt is sugar? SUGAR! Go look, it's on the ingredients list nestled between one of several anti-caking agents and/or iodine additive.

I mean, I get that no one eats enough salt to have a sugar OD, but it's one of those things. Why not have salt whose only ingredient is salt. Why do we need to add sugar to the salt? Why have the extra processing, the extra calories and the dental corrosion? Salt, which if saltier would still be fine. Or possibly even better. Apparently this happens with sea salt too. Salt, like pepper, is something I never thought I would have to check ingredients on. It ought to be a single ingredient. Even in this day in age, for pete's sake.

Just the universe reminding me that there is no such thing as one ingredient unless you grew it yourself, and hen refined it yourself and probably packaged and marketed it yourself too. Somebody out there is trying to add a freaking ingredient to middle-man up the ante.

Anyway. Everything is fine. I just...Sugar. In the salt. What's wrong with us?

Oh, for the love of pearl

2010-04-22T00:17:00.002-04:00

Hey all.

Excuses:

- work has been very busy (occupying work time and home time mental space)

- I am very lazy about blogging

- No real updates to speak of

In the meantime:

- We went to Vancouver and bought wedding clothes

- I started seeds indoors, we signed up for our same garden plot again and I'm super excited about the upcoming growing season

- We bought a little terrace BBQ and use it pretty often

- I started using my airline sleep mask for the sunny mornings

How about right now?

- I'm taking tea drinking to a more hobby level with better quality teas and learning what I like and brewing properly, I'm actually pretty excited about it

- I'm really looking forward to turning over the garden and planning out what goes where. And growing potatoes in rubbermaid buckets!

- I got back into walking pups at the shelter. Today I walked a three legged dog who is SO CUTE named Wolfie. I forgot how good that makes me feel.

- We took the insulating plastic off our living room picture windows. Wish you were here to inspect :-)

What else? We found $25 in bills this melty season. Check your local snowbanks!

Ramblo

2010-03-09T18:31:00.000-05:00

It sounds ridiculous to say it aloud, but this is what’s on my mind these days: when value added conveniences make sense. I alluded a bit to this way of thinking when I talked about life hacks that make me do things that by all rights I should just do anyways.

For example, we used to have a stupid kitchen garbage pail with a lid that snapped down. At the same time, I never used it basically. I left little bags of garbage in shopping bags on cabinet knobs and piles of veggie ends on the counter. Rob assumed it was just a fact of life with me (so did I). Then we bought a real kitchen garbage can with a roll top lid that opens and closes easily with no pedals or feats of engineering. Now, I put garbage in the garbage (and compost too, I only can compost at work. I know, right?). So, my leaving crap around “habit” is broken. I needed help to do a basic behaviour.

So it got me thinking about other conveniences that normally wouldn’t consider that might really be worth the improvement to my life. I never wanted to buy a garbage can, since we already had one. Now, I’m thinking that buying quality, or buying things that actually work is well worth it. Obvious to many, yes. But it’s a change of mentality for me.

So, with my newfound mentality (heh) I have started making progress in living well. I bought a packet of stainless steel wipes. The method natural ones. I flipping hate stainless steel appliances. They look like crap all the time, you can’t keep them clean. I spent less than $4, wiped them down over like 18 seconds and now they are fine. It took me a year to get to this point. Do you feel sad for me? Or happy that I’m improving? I’m on the fence, people.

Also, we started buying megabags of shredded cabbage/carrot coleslaw. It lasts way longer than lettuce mixes, it works perfectly as a salad/wrap base, and it’s a great soup base too. It’s a convenience since it is value added cabbage, essentially, but now I don’t have to shred or chop cabbage. Worth every penny.

But, I also recently took a step back from value added foods too. We used to buy yogurt cups on half price and freeze them. Now, we get a huge 4 kg pail of plain 1% yogurt with no additives (hah! I KNOW, right?!) and I use the frozen berries from the garden this summer (or supermarket bought) and make my own fruit on the bottom with little jars. The little jars once held pesto. They are prefect, even though I still get flecks of green in the yogurt. I add a little honey and voila. I can eat lots of delicious yogurt minus weird additives. AND no peach flavour. Who actually likes peach yogurt please?

My point is, I forgot that yogurt doesn’t have to come in little cups. Or have odd ingredients to be good. And I forgot that sometimes there are value added products for a reason too. It will be different and a good exercise to think about the things I need or want and whether there is a simpler way. And, whether the simpler way will work for me too.

Incidentally, did you know Method makes daily natural shower spray so your shower doesn’t scale over or soap scum over? YES I WILL GIVE $5 FOR THAT!

What do you buy that makes your life better? I think it’s very personal depending on what your lazy points are. I was too lazy to use a garbage pail lid, so I won’t judge you, I promise.

Choices

2010-03-07T14:17:00.004-05:00

Blogger lost my post! Ah well. I was going to close with this, but since I can't seem to re-order these pics without losing them: behold the best infant picture of all time! Because I like to see you smile, witness Rob showing what an awesome person he was to become. I mean come on:

Last weekend was Rendezvous winter festival ! It's a week long thing but it culminates into a big weekend celebration. We don't get family day, but we do get Heritage day on Rendezvous weekend so everyone can get out and see the sights (which include snowshoed can-can dancers!).

I participated in the corporate challenge with some co-workers, and we came second place! We killed the competition at smoosh boarding (see below) and tricycle racing, but got beaned on Yukon trivia. Hint to challenge planners: no need to use trick questions, Yukon history is nuts and is impossible to guess on the best of days.

The Property Management Inukshuks. We kicked ass in our Tyvek suits! Woo!

Globs of maple taffy make me very, very happy. Oh my god, so good.

Snow sculptures!

Cross country skiing around the airport across the street to see the planes and helis practicing the air show...sooooper coool.

So it as a killer weekend, we got out every day, and had some fun. It was warm and busy and good. Yay! Also the days are getting bright an loooong. I want to see when we start pulling ahead in terms of daylight from the south. I've got my airline sleep mask at the ready!

Life Hacks

2010-02-19T16:45:00.002-05:00

Life hacks, which is a term coined on www.lifehacker.com seems to refer to things people can do to improve productivity and beat procrastination. I have been thinking about my own life hacks that I use every day, just to get things done. Things I might have been too lazy to do otherwise. Here are some of my personal life hacks:

1. I consider my bed "made" if the sheets and blankets are pulled up and reasonably centered on the mattress.

2. If I use the toaster oven for anything, I do dishes while the timer is on. The 4 minutes it takes to toast bread, I've got the dishwasher unloaded. Or that soaking pot wiped down. I've had dirty dishes mould in the past (dirty secret), so this is progress.

3. I try to live near work and supermarkets if possible. I don't like driving so I will walk or bike more just to avoid it. No, it doesn't make sense, yes, that's how it is.

4. Sometimes I leave my socks out on the drying rack to make sure I change them every day. Otherwise I'll wear the same pair a couple days in a row. Which, if I'm being honest, I also think is fine. But, cultural norms and all that.

5. I make the same exact lunch every day for work. I eat the same snacks at the same time every day. I don't care and it makes assembling my lunch in the evenings really quick. Plus I know I get a good nutritional balance and I know what to buy at the store each week.

6. I let myself get emotionally entangled in long term animal shelter dogs to make me go back and walk every day at lunch, otherwise inertia gets me and I don't bother (like today). I waste the chance to hang with a cool mutt and get my vitamin D and some exercise, for no reason. But the thought of my sad buddy waiting for me to take them out gets me over there.

7. I turn the volume off on our alarm clock radios on friday night so when Ludwig walks on the "on" buttons in the morning he doesn't get me up. I win, deaf cat!

8. I buy boxes of little freezies to keep me from binging on candy, and I eat one extra chewy gummy a day, which also curbs bingy candy-a-thons. I make sure to have exactly the type of candy I love in individual wrappers so I have portions and I'm not eating tons of substitute stuff trying to satisfy a particular want.

Do you have any life hacks you use? Strategies or things you do because you realize you can't make yourself like doing something, so this "good enough" trick will work? How do you get around the things you never feel like doing?

People, hack your life. Really. When I realized that I can live to my own standard, things got a lot easier. Yes, all our plates are chipped. I care exactly not at all about this. No more dishes shopping! I win!

Sometimes, doing part of something is amazing. Shine your tap. No the sink's not clean but whatever, incremental improvement! I win again!

Feeling beerish

2010-02-04T16:02:00.002-05:00

A few days ago I bought some non-alcoholic beer. It's the Beck's brand, if you're curious. I occasionally like to have a bit of wine or a bit of beer, but I'm trying to avoid too many non-nutritional calories these days and I already have a big gummy X-ray fish every day (don't ask, and yes they are delicious and very very chewy, and not fishy).

So I picked up a 6-pack of the non-alcoholic Beck's at 60 calories a bottle and popped one open. I decided to approach it the same as soymilk trials. It won't taste like milk, but do I enjoy the flavour on its own merit?

The near beer tasted beerish and hoppy, and good I thought. It's not beer, but it is beerish, and it fills the "huh, I feel like something beerish tonight" void without the extra calories and without the extra trip to the liquor store.

So, sometimes a girl want s a beer and that's why we have the Yukon Brewery, but sometimes a girl just wants something beerish. Good to know there is such a thing.

* Added bonus: 3 ingredients only (water, barley and hops I think), no preservatives or weird chemicals, so it's a good choice!

Life Lessons

2010-01-08T18:15:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I learned that if you use a router to split internet between two computers, any old asshat can steal your then-unknown wireless signal (which you were not using and therefore not aware of) and rack up massive internet usage.

To the tune of $175.

well, to be fair, $90 of that is fair and square internet and phone. But still. I saw the bill and freaked. out.

Yukon: land of limited internet and opportunistic jackasses!

In other news, holidays in Ontario were hectic and good and productive and hectic. Lots to recap. So much, that I think I might just not do that at all and start now, like nothing happened at all. Ok?

I've slept 12 hours and 10 hours over the last two night and still feel a little groggy. I'm looking forward to getting back into regular routines, and grocery shopping after work today.

Also, I have to go-ahead from the work H1N1 pandemic planner to eat into my emergency food supply, which is awesome. Yukon responded so well to vaccinations, and also had access to vaccinations, that the next spike is expected to be more of a hiccup than an emergency-causing-apocalyptic-tragedy.

Rice and powdered milk, here we come!

Joke

2009-12-23T12:23:00.003-05:00

Q: What do vegan zombies eat?
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A: GRAAAAAAAAINS! GRRRAAAAAAINS!

Today - hoar frost, dogs and pictures

2009-12-12T00:07:00.007-05:00

Wow, I took photos and will pos them on the same day! Hooray for me.

FIRST: Happy birthday to my awesome amazing sister!!!!!!!! wheee!

Part of the view from my office window. In reality you can see the Harley Davidson shop, but hey.
My office. You can see my grow light CFL on my pepper plant.
Mini pepper on my pepper plant!

The humane society is in the north end of town, in the industrial area. We walk by a couple fields full of old cars while we're out with the pups.
We had fog in the mornings then cold days so everything is covered in thick hoar frost.

April the dog and my co-worker at the star of the walk. it was tough to get them to sit because they were so excited.
This is Bailey. He is my doggy boyfriend and I love him. More importantly, he loves me. He has had a really crappy first year or so of life. Now, he's almost two and has been a the shelter since March. He's really anxious when he's there. After 5-6 weeks of walks, Bailey loves going out with us, he can sit on command and he has relaxed with his food issues when he gets a treat (new this week!). He has become more and more relaxed an sweet over time, as he learns to trust us. He is a big suck at heart. I am a big suck at heart. Also, his ears are up when he's happy an the tips bob as he trots around peeing on everything. It f*cking kills me.

sigh.

What did you do today?

Things [...] hates

2009-12-10T23:25:00.002-05:00

Things [someone I know] HATES but [activity/action] I do anyways.

1. [Molly the cat] hates it when I [lift her up above my head and swoop her around the room like a plane].

2. [Rob] hates it when I [make him promise to do household tasks by threatening to touch him with ice cube feet before sleep hits him].

3. [Ludwig the cat] hates it when I [prevent him from stealing Molly's food].

4. [Rob] hates it when I [leave piles of stuff in pathways in the house] but seems to have accepted it anyways.

5. [I] hate it when I [have to leave Bailey the dog full of anxiety in his Humane Society kennel every day].

But I DO IT ANYWAYS!

Life Lessons

2009-12-04T15:51:00.003-05:00

So last nigh for dinner we had homemade guacamole and organic corn chips and cheese for dinner. Then Rob had his class at the College (he's taking an early childhood education series from Partners for Children) to get a certification. Here is an actual sample comment from the instructor on his last assignment: "Those children are very fortunate to have you here. I am so happy that you have somehow managed to get into this line of work. I feel fortunate that you take our workshops and give me energy and inspiration, thank you" .

Ever had a teacher actually thank you for attending their class? I'm proud :-)

Anyway, the main event. So Rob gets back from class and he's fine, then he notices he has a bit of a rocky stomach. And then , every 45 minutes from that point until 7 a.m. Rob was up purging his system. Fun fact: the human body can hold (and then release) a tremendous amount of water.

So we took the day off to recover. I went out and bought a sick kit...baby food (mmm puree and rice cracker dissolvy biscuits) juice and vitamin water and ginger ale. Now Rob is sleeping and I am supervising the cats as they go about their grueling schedule of napping and stretching in different parts of the living room.

The next thing I have to consider is what to do with the next 6 avocados we happen to have. Because there is no way on god's green (hee) earth he will eat an avocado for a long, long time.

ps baby food! pureed fruit and such, cheap and few calories..seems like a good work snack, right? Just get'm on sale and you can have a jar of strawberries with no preservatives or artificial colours or anyhing. Perfect!

ps boo illness, but yay having a guest room for yours truly. Awesome.

Video!

2009-11-30T23:47:00.002-05:00

Excellent video, check it out! My sister tipped me on it...mmm bed :-)

The Darkness

2009-11-26T12:18:00.003-05:00

You guys remember that band? I believe in a Thing Called Love? I still love that song. When the singer sings "just listen to the rhythm of my heart" sing over him in a high pitched voice saying "gobble gobble gobble" like a turkey and I guarantee you will crack up whoever you are with.

Just a morning tip to get your day going (or continuing, for eastern folks).

Anyway, today sunrise is a t 9:30 am and sunset is at 4:04 pm. I have discovered some unextpected benefits to the additional darkness. For your information:

1. Sleeping feels sooooo good in the dark. It's neat to look out the window in the morning and see what's what. I'm hoping for Northern lights out the bedroom window at some point, when it's not overcast.

2. When I get to work I feel like I am getting a jump on the day, like I showed up early. even when I am late.

3. I can enjoy the beauty of the sunrise over the mountains from the comfort of my desk, after having a long nice sleep and breakfast, and morning tea. Sunrises for people who sleep in. Nice.

4. The darkness is cozy. It encourages me to knit and make tea and be mellow.

5. I don't seem to be experiencing SAD (probably thanks to my handful of vitamins I take each day and my lunchtime walks at the humane society) so it's actually pretty fun to have the stars out and the lights of the city spread out in front of me on my way in to work.

6. Since I am sub-artcic, not arctic, I still have decent daylight and will have decent daylight even on the shortest day of the year...so I nnever feel like I didn't get a day of some kind.

Winter! It's what's for breakfast!

Weekend update

2009-11-25T22:38:00.004-05:00

I like how blogger fills in my title for me, since I use "weekend update" a lot.

Anyway, on Saturday it was the Spruce Bog craft fair up at the Canada Games Centre. There as some cool stuff like carved bone sculptures and lots of neat art, and also some other cool handcrafted things. I bought some stocking stuffer-y things, but not much overall.

Sunday I volunteered with the Copper Haul Twister dog aces, where I was a human sign post in the woods, telling mushers and skijorers which way to go down a split trail. I was out on the trail by myself for a few hours and my new coat and multiple layers kept me toasty, which was awesome!

The race started at and was sponsored by Icy Waters Arctic Charr (among other sponsors like the Yukon Brewing company). Volunteers got a packet of two fat charr fillets plus entry into door prize draws, where I won some delicious local beer!

I had fun. Next race is sponsored by The Chocolate Claim o

n Dec. 6th, then the race after that is sponsored by Air

North...wonder what the prizes are then???haha Honestly it was so much fun and such neat people. I took a few pictures (I was shy to

snap the mushers and skijorers on their way towards me but I got some other pics). If you need exciting photos, head on over to the Whitehorse Star

Happy puppies on a beautiful day.

Skijoring! This was the "pet dog race" and this man's rottie Asha pulled as he skijored

I was out on the trail or like 2+ hours by myself. I also did a lot of jig dancing to keep my feet warm. Wish you were there!

weekend update

2009-11-21T14:04:00.002-05:00

So, hey. Hi!

I have had trouble lately knowing what to say on this blog! Unfair since I devour others' blogs regularly and always enjoy hearing even banal day to day doings. Heh, I typo'd banal and left off the "b". I went ahead and fixed that to avoid unnecessary googling.

Did I tell you bunch that I'm volunteering at the Humane Society? It's just up the road from work, a benefit to being located at the north end of town. My work buddy and I head out every day at noon and get a couple mutts to walk around with for about half an hour, then we head back out to the office. This has multiple benefits:

1. I'm finally actually volunteering! It has been a while since I could say that.

2. I get out every day in the most daylit part of the day, good for vitamin D and mental health as we continue to lose light every day.

3. It gives me a dose of dogs hen I can't have one myself at home. Soooooo nice.

4. The dogs love it, they get out, they get personal attention, they get socialized which helps them get adopted, and if they were abuse or abandoned, they get one more good human experience to counteract their previous experiences.

5. My buddy is going to adopt one (then maybe another) of some of our faves! Vicarious success!

6. I get exercise myself, AND out of the office. Every day. So good.

The Humane Society up here as established from an estate donation, and it's the only no-kill shelter north of 60. I found out that one of my favourite dogs to walk is not up for adoption because he's only on loan, sort or. It turns out the humane soc. has a deal with one of the emergency women's shelters, so they'll take in the pets of women who have had to flee home on very short notice. The pets are cared for then returned when the women are able to care for them again. I can only imagine how important it would be to have the unconditional love of your own pet. So they do good work.

The humane society will be my charity donation this year. Go humane society!

Sooooo, what else? Today is the annual Spruce Bog craft fair for locally made goods and I'm heading out with Christmas on the mind. I have no idea how expensive it might be, of what will be there, or what...hopefully it's cool and affordable!

Tomorrow I head out to volunteer on a dog mushing race, which include kid races, a 'pet dog race" (i.e. dog with NO mushing experience or breeding, and ski-jouring, where someone gets kitted up for cross country skiing then straps a dog on and flies down the trail. Should be interesting..plus it's sponsored by the local brewing company as well as the local Arctic Char fish hatchery so we'll see what happens!

Back soon..with pictures! It's been -20 and it looks like we live in a snow globe at the moment. Beautiful.

comments

2009-11-14T21:50:00.002-05:00

So, I got a nice comment selling viagra and so on on my last post, so I've enabled the stupid word verification thingy. Also, I don't know how to erase comments, so if you want cheap viagra, go ahead and click through.

Super boring

2009-11-12T23:16:00.003-05:00

So what! Nuttin' honey.

I went to Winnipeg last week for work. It was cool, I met lots of northerners...seriously northern northerners...Nunavut, NWT, Yukon, Nunavik. A woman a few seats away form me was taking notes in Inuktitut. I have never seen that script flow off the end of the pen and I spent a good deal of time sneaking peeks at her paper, just watching her write.

I sometimes catch myself watching APTN (Aboriginal People's Television Network) broadcasts in First Nation's languages...so interesting and incredible to hear. Here is a picture of Winnipeg, the big city disappearing as I flew into the night. The thing about flying north is....nothing nothing, nothing OH a light! A tiny community! Nothing nothing nothing....

Winnipeg from my hotel room. The bed had one of those sleep numbers beds with a remote so you could control the firmness. Nice idea, in theory. In reality, my digital reader thing was broken and I spent two night trying to get the two halves of my bed to have the same firmness, even just to get it close. The motor was loud and I didn't like too much choice. Just like the relief of going to Quiznos. You ask for a sandwich they give it to you, and if you don't want mayo it's your own damn problem.

I was very happy to see Whitehorse spread out under the plane, and I was happy I packed carry on only and waltzed home myself. It took me about 4 minutes to walk home. I had bought a super warm down coat at the MEC in town and not I'm just waiting for it to be cold enough to wear...

***********

Starting two days ago a work buddy and I have taken to popping over to the local Humane Society to walk dogs over lunch. When the weather is bad I suppose we'll socialize cats. I love it. I love getting the chance to hang out with dogs and cats and feel like I'm helping. And the walking is really nice too. It's a lovely solution to get me out of the office and to do some volunteering. I'm donating a big bag of diet cat food that Ludwig has made clear is inferior. I like the idea of this shelter, the only no-kill shelter north of 60. Oh also, they took a case to the supreme court over a dog called Trevor...possibly the only such case in Canada? Google Whitehorse and "Trevor the dog" and marvel at the north ;-)

***********

How normal is everything else? I smuggled my vermicomposting to work as well as my sweet pepper plant, and they are both doing well. It's so warm there! Anyway my worms definitely need to have a baby boom and I think I need to bring them more mushy fruit and veg to start them off. Go little worms !

C'est tout!

5 things

2009-10-19T19:45:00.002-04:00

1. Of all the benefits to doing yoga at home, the best is being able to fart freely

2. It surprised me how happy it continues to make me to have stackable recycling sorting bins in our basement

3. I hate putting nails into the walls. I always things it's going to cost us our security deposit.

4. I wish Yukon would sort out butchering laws so I could get local meat easier. It's stupid to ship it from Calgary.

5. I enjoy that, other than mountains and the Yukon River, my view from work is the enormous setting sun biker logo of the Yukon Harley Davidson store.

Bam II

2009-10-09T21:42:00.003-04:00

man

2009-10-06T12:27:00.003-04:00

I wrote a whole post with pictures last night, a really good one that was frigging long and blogger lost it. when I stop being so pissy about it I'll try try again.

Blogger! *shakes fist*

Bam!

2009-10-05T22:40:00.005-04:00

Okay, so lots happened over the last little while, mostly to do with my parents visit (hi mom and dad!) coinciding with my sister's conference/visit (hi C!).

Mom and dad spoiled us with lots of delicious food and awesome visits and one semi-eventful drive out to Haines Junction where our car, which we have owned for a whopping 7 months, came up with seriously freaky bad engine sounds. I believe that R and I have not owned a car together that has been on the road for more than 8 months. We take it for a second opinion Thursday, wish us a tolerable damage report!

Anyway anyway, the reason for this post: pictures. I would like to say that fall has come and gone and it is currently snowing outside, and the snow is sticking.

I would like to repeat that IT IS CURRENTLY SNOWING OUTSIDE AND THE SNOW IS STICKING. Time to separate the southern northerners from the northern southerners, y'all.

So anyway, I took Monday afternoon and Tuesday of last week off to hang with my sister before she headed back to sunny Ontari-ario. We went to Miles Canyon, about 10 minutes form town and saw eagles and beautiful vistas and the aquamarine of the fast flowing Yukon River. I would talk more about it except Tuesday was so awesome the relative awesomeness of Monday was DEMOLISHED.

Tuesday we woke up and after spending an invigorating 45 minutes walking the National Rental girl through the exact same process as we went through the night before booking the car (since the no one picked up the phone) We hit the Alaska Highway. [She made the exact same mistake both times, tried to charge us for 2 days both time and needed help both times. Less than 12 hours apart. ]

We drove to Skagway which is truly a scenic drive, the mountains get pointier and awesome, you pass through alpine regions above the treeline, an you pass though valleys and lakes that are emerald in colour. You go through the US border which is not really near anywhere. The drive is about 2 hours.

W get to Skagway, a port town and it is abandoned for the season (almost). All the shops are shut, the last cruise ship went through yesterday, the last ferry was that day, it was also the last day for the diner in town. There were no tourists and it was sunny and beautiful with no clouds in the sky. We had planned to do a hike up a hill past a historic graveyard to get a good view of the town and surrounding close pointy mountains.

Until, as we wandered around, C asked, "hey I wonder if there are any sightseeing tours still running"? She didn't mean the trolleys pulled by horses, narrated by seasonal workers in period costume (true fact). She meant: airplane.

We walked to the airport (3 blocks away) and chatted with the wings of Alaska Ladies and they said," Oh we'll call Pilot Paul and see what he says!"

45 minutes later we were in a 5 seater plane with pilot Paul, two people from Haines Alaska, having our minds blown. We had an unforgettable, unbelievable trip. Here are the verbal highlights before I get into the pictures:
- When we called Pilot Paul was 15 minutes away from taking off from Haines with his passengers, we would have missed the whole thing if we hadn't called when we did
- the Other guys paid for the 1.5 hour flight, we paid for the 1 hour and got the longer trip (yes!)
- It was the only fully cloudless and sunny day for a week and since then too
- there were only 2 seats left, and 2 of us
- it was the only time of day we could go since we had to drive home that evening
- keep in mind the following are not screen savers, not fake, and were taken from like 14000 feet
- also keep in mind that my sister and my minds were blown immediately and from emailing her, I can say our minds have not unblown. We went over Glacier National Park and saw mountain goats and a whale! And on the way home on the road we saw a damn huge black bear which doesn't even matter since the rest of the day was so unreal. THE BEAR ALMOST DIDN'T MATTER, PEOPLE.

Check it.

BAM!

BAM! (Glacier at 14,000 ft)

BAM!

still around

2009-09-28T11:51:00.002-04:00

hey so it hasn't escaped my notice that my new-mom friend Batman is posting higher quality and more frequent posts than I am managing to do. Not my fault if she's a hero ;-)

1. My parents have been in town for a week, but they leave this afternoon which is hard. The only really tough part about being where we are is how far away from family we are. We both miss them right away. I hope they felt liek thay had a full visit.

2. My sister is also in town! She got in last Wednesday evening and leaves this Wednesday morning first thing (ugh) in the morning, so we still have some time. We're gonna check out Miles Canyon and Canyon city and maybe hit up Skagway or some other day trip.

3. Yesterday we took a family road trip to see the mountains in Haines Junction/Kluane. Which was fine until we got there and the car started shaking and the check engine light came on and it felt very very odd. We nervously made it home, around 140 km (for a while between signs announcing we were outside the 911 zone). So that cramps plans for the next few days of sightseeing. I guess we'll rent. Car! Whyyou gotta be this way? I'm wondering is it's time to start a car fund.

4. We are experiencing lifestyle creep. Now that we both have jobs and feel stable, we keep buying stuff (well, sort of. It's spendy from what we're used to, whatever that means). Each month there seesm to be an off budget, one-off expense. The Dawson City Music Fest, the engagement, outfitting the guest bedroom (which is approved by my sister! book now!), and this month: a 32 inch LCD tv. What! You can imagine this one was driven by R and not myself, but it is nice and should keep us company over the winter. Next big one-off expense: a car? Jeez I hope not.Probably just repairing the thing.

5. Work is good generally, and I'm getting to do some kick butt training soon which is cool. R is still very happy at his work too.

6. The far hills have been dusted with snow for the first time in the season and it's sticking! Now week after week we will watch it get deeper and further down the slope, then make it to our own hills closer-by and then we'll get our own.

7. Awww yeah! I went for coffee and our hills have snow! Apparently a few of the neighbourhoods in town got snow, and a few cars had an inch or so on th roof! hah! Oct. 17th is the ski exchange at Mount Mac (the cross country ski facility built for the winter games a few years ago). We hope to get R set up and get me some poles and then we'll be ready to hit the trails. We also have or snowshoes, thanks to my parents so that's awesome. yeah!

8. It is now dark at night. A few days ago we were driving at 8:30 pm and it was totally dark and we realized it was the first time we've driven in the dark since last season, since it's been so light for so long. weird feeling. Now, it's time to start northern lights watch and think about winter hours at the hot springs (monday is cheap night). Anther thing that happened a while back was on the weather network. You know the screen they flash with daytine weather symbols and night time weather symbols? In the summer our night time symbol was a sun. Now it's a moon
:-) Times are changing.

9. We wish family were closer. Why doesn't everyone move here? Alternately, we can offer excellent guest accommodations with a mattress warmer (don't go another winter without one, OMG) and access to mountians and hills, wildernees, dogsledding, skating, forests and a sort of stunning dog per human ratio. Come visit! It's the best possible value for your aeroplan points in Canada! Seriously.

10. Ten is a good number, too bad for you I'm out of scintillating witticisms. Instead, I'll suggest that a crock pot bison roast is so amazingly delicious and you should give it a try. Time to grow your beards and fatten up for fall!

so

2009-09-14T15:19:00.003-04:00

Another post started with so... not too much to say, but time is passing. here is a note of what's been going on!

1. Congratulations Batman! Lots of adjusting to do, but can I say I am so pleased for you AND I feel very happy to know the name of baby J. I was waiting so patiently after all... ;-) heh.

2. Fall is here and I am SO HAPPY. The mountains look like they have permanent sunrise colours and the trees are beautiful. Mornings are crisp and the morning there was a stunning mist pulling off the river, all the way up the mountains...it felt magical on the drive in to work.

3. Due to #2, I am happy I bought a crock pot (on sale, natch) and am looking forward to stews and winter foods. I'm getting potatoes, beets, kale and carrots out for the garden. Digging up potatoes is the most awesome and rewarding thing over, and I can't believe this is the first time I've done it.

4. Since my parents (yay!) and my sister (yay!) are coming up, we have finally gotten the back bedroom set up with a real bed, with an electric mattress cover, which will be heaven as the winter creeps in. This also means that any visitors will have a lovely room to retreat to AND YOU SHOULD CONSIDER COMING UP. Yes, even in the winter. I'll take you to a dogsled race and we'll go for a winter steam in the hot springs with the locals, k? And I'll make you stew. You'll get vacation street cred too, just sayin'.

5. I bought myself the cookbook "How to Cook Everything" by Mark Bittman. So far, it looks amazing, but did not contain the first recipe I looked for (shepherd's pie..which possibly doesn't have a recipe because it's very very easy). I don't care the rest of the book looks awesome, with variations and everything.

6. I went on a mini iTunes bender. Thanks for your suggestions! I didn't follow them (yet..I will next, promise). I bought the new Imogen Heap album (extended to get the instrumentals too). In our house, Imogen Heap and Frou Frou's stuff has imprinted on us as fall/winter music and it really put us in the mood for the season to have her back on rotation. I also got the new Amy Millan, mellow and awesome, also winter music. Finally, I got the Regina Spektor album. Love her, check out Eet, my favourite track so far...for some reason there's 3 or 4 versions of her album Far listed..the $8 is totally fine and I don't know how it's different from the $11 one, so whatever.

7. Hey, if you go to Patrick Watson's page on the iTunes store and click on his album, there's 2 free tracks listed! I don't know why, but they are great tracks and I want you to have them! I feel like if you troll around iTunes, you can get free music. For example, were you aware that iTunes canada has a free french language track each week too? Buried at the bottom of the home page, and sometimes late, but three times it's been a real keeper. Next is to get individual tracks with my remaining credit based on all your suggestions. If you find free tracks on iTunes as you move around, tell me please!

8. Fall pictures next time. I'm thinking I should start up a picasa page and have pictures not just on my mac..I would choke if I lost them all. Perhaps time to get an external hard drive. hmm.

9. Life's good! R starts teaching pre-school today and is signed up to complete an early childhood education level 1 this month, so he's jazzed about that. He bought an old man puppet named pops to help him and he'll be a fun addition.

10. I've been officially made permanent at my job, which feels nice and grown up and secure. Can't wait to complete probation and get my frikking benefits. Also, it's annoying to have to apply for vacation time. Worth it though ;-)

11. Pictures next time!

errrrr

2009-08-28T00:09:00.002-04:00

Hey thanks for the well wishes guys!

I...don't really have much of a follow up for that though. Nothin as exciting. So how about a request?

Here's my question. I have like $40 to spend on iTunes. What, oh what, should I buy? I like bad music and good music, but not ALL bad music or ALL good music. Helpful, I know. Okay, here's stuff I'm listening to right now:

Slow (ish)

- Hayden, Neko Case, Sigur Ros, The National, CBC podcasts which are usually awesome.

Faster, bikeable:

- Mother Mother, Yeah Yeah Yeah's, Roy Orbison (yeah!), TV on the Radio, this one kickass song by a French band (Orange Orange) called Sors-Moi, whatever free tracks on iTunes except that horrible french rap that one time.

So, suggestions! I like 80's music but for me to buy it I really, REALLY need to love it. Catchy is good, new is good, Canadian is good but not necessary.

Also, band/music I don't like: Creed/Nickleback/you get where I'm going with this. Actually, most radio music form the 90's too, really. Seriously, any good hits form the 90's?

Help me bike to work! I need 4 songs to get there, and like 5-6 to get back!

Thanks guys, I clearly need the help. So, what are your top 5 picks, bands of songs...mellow me out at work or push my butt up those stairs.

massive thanks!

I liked it so I put a ring on it...

2009-08-16T18:11:00.003-04:00

Hey, we got engaged this weekend! Here's a teaser, more story and pictures to come...(ps no engagement rings, which is why we are sporting the future wedding bands).

Smoke on the water

2009-08-04T00:12:00.003-04:00

So our garden is growing so well! We're getting zucchini, snap peas, bok choi, kale etc etc. The lettuce is getting bitter so next year we'll plant a second round in July so we can keep that train going. We also are picking lots of raspberries ad saskatoons these days too. Yum!

And smoke all over town...

There is a Yukon wide fire ban on just now and there are a few biggish fires burning across the territory. One is pretty close to Whitehorse, not so much a fire threat, but the smoke. The smoke! Three days so far and more to come...it's pretty severe. Check it out, a picture of what's normal and a couple pictures of the smoke.

Where are all the mountain! Poor rob is hacking up a lung, booo that! Smells woodsy and kind of camp-y though.

Go Yukon!

Another list

2009-07-29T23:30:00.002-04:00

5 things that Rob absentmindedly does that bugs me

(I just want to add that this comes from a place of love, like the last list...it never occurred to me that it might be awkward to read. So, no dealbreakers here, all in good fun...no worries!)

That said, this stuff is nutty-making:

1. SOMETIMES ROB LIKES TO SING ABOUT WHATEVER'S ON HIS MIND REALLY LOUD AND OCCASIONALLY I AM WATCHING TV AND CANNOT HEAR WHAT IS GOING ON EVEN IF IT A CRITICAL SCENE. THIS DOES NOT PHASE ROB. But he's so happy, how can I shut him down? Oh right. Loudly and with large gestures. I AM WATCHING TV!

2. Rob gets so into his hobbies so much SO MUCH that he will literally disappear for days. It's really cyclical though, right now he's on a break. But man.

3. Puts WAY too much sugar on his cereal, syrop on his pancakes (and beans BLURGH) and eats the skin of mine AND his roasted chicken...can you say heart failure? yuuuuuck.

4. He sometimes forgets to take tissues out of his pockets before putting them through the wash. This means that all my clothes are covered in a fine dusting of tissue shreds. So much fun. Incidentally, every wash I find a rock in the machine (from a kid's mouth at his work I gather).

5. He's totally unhelpful in suggesting things he does that bug me. pffft!

Winning

2009-07-27T23:36:00.002-04:00

So we just got back from a bunch of errands and it went AWESOME. Here;s a rundown on what happened:

1. We went to the community garden, like every day, we got a beautiful zucchini, several handfuls of sugar snap peas and a bag of lettuce. AND we're picking beautiful raspberries every day from the garden bushes, washing and freezing them for winter use. Free.

2. We went to the superstore and managed to score the following deals: we needed pasta and found name brand boxes of whole wheat penne with $1 off manufacturers coupons. We got all remaining boxes (6) for $0.77/box. We ALSO got 2kg of aged basmati rice for free..it scanned at $8 but was supposed to be $6. We have a system where I go get the price scan tag (you have to do that now) while rob queues up.

3. We went to Canadian Tire to get taller legs for our loveseat. And I got a silicon mat for the cookie sheet because I am trying to phase out non-stick in our lives. That stuff is toxic and squicks me out. Nothing on sale but still a good thing.

4. We went to Marks Work Wearhouse for rob to get a pair of shorts. Well, amazing belted shorts were on clearance for $9.99 (down from $40), we found the last two plaid summer shirts he seems to love so much, also down to $9.99 (down from $25) and he talked his way to 50% off new awesome slippers, even though they weren't on sale. BUT THERE'S MORE. At the checkout there's a promotion where you get 10% off per item on top of the clearance price, knocking off another $12 or so.

After shopping like this I feel like I am WINNING AT LIFE.

Some people run, some people paint. I frugal. (can we verb frugal? I frooged?). Yes.

A List

2009-07-24T17:06:00.000-04:00

5 things I absent-mindedly do that bug Rob:

1. When I chop veggies for my lunch or dinner, I always leave the piles of ends on the counter

2. When my arms are full of clothes or boxes or whatever, I’ll put them down in a pathway instead of against a wall, then wander away.

3. When I get into bed or shift from my side or whatever. I disturb the VERY SENSITIVE warm air boundary he’s created and that is apparently a MORTAL SIN.

4. Take sips of his drinks or spoonfuls of his ice cream (even though there is more).

5. I can’t watch awkward moments on t.v. so I constantly flip from channel to channel wheever tension is being created, supposedly “just as he’s gotten into the show”. It’s not my fault that t.v. sucks!

Dawson City Music Festival 2009

2009-07-22T01:02:00.004-04:00

Well, the drive was ugly.
Strange things at the festival...these guys were landing right next to acts performing all weekend!
Melissa McLelland and Luke Doucet rocked one of the venues, the riverside gazebo.
Our tiny campsite was barely big enough to contain our two man tent (can you find it in this picture?)

The main tent venue, we saw amazing bands play here. This was around 1 a.m. and the sun had just set. Dawson's got more light than us still, it felt normal for midnight to feel like 8 pm!
Dawson's other major venue and typical buildings, unpaved roads and wooden sidewalks.
Nutrition is important! This cinnamon bun is from Braeburn, a place on the Klondike highways known for gargantuan sandwiches, massive cinnamon buns and a bizarre grassy airstrip next to the restaurant. On the way home we saw a fire crew heli land on the airstrip and pick up 3 buns.

Bottom line, it was an amazing trip, we loved the festival an can recommend almost all the acts. One act I didn't see was the Acorn, which was disappointing. They are from Ottawa. Former high school buddies...check out the band members and tell me, do we know one of the line-up in the band??? I was too shy to stalk and ask!

Yay Dawson!

Day to day

2009-07-11T20:58:00.005-04:00

Dusk on our way into town from the South Access

Rob made this kite for canada day and it was amazing, it flew for hours and we had to pull it down when we were ready to go. Shipyards park by the river is still a favourite spot.

Fireweed, the Yukon's official flower. You can get fireweed syrup, fireweed honey and other fireweed edibles. It's about 3 feet tall.
Mmm rob made a cake.
Swimming at Ear Lake, our local swimming hole. Supposedly it's where the nudies go, but no luck so far. It's about 5 minutes from home and a new favourite spot for us.

Our garden as of July 1st..today it's MUCH bigger and we can't keep up with the bok choi or the lettuce. The carrots and beets look great and the chard is coming along well. I better get ready to fill our little freezer. I'm happy we have a nice cold cellar for the poatoes coming in strong too. Hooray community garden!

We had a good week

2009-06-28T20:46:00.004-04:00

My mom was in town and we went to Skagway last weekend!
This is our backyard around midnight or one-ish.
Back in Alaska. We speculated whose yacht this might be...kind of hard to picture a celebrity breaking out the Cristal in Alaska? Even still, I think it was Beyonce looking for anonymity.
We saw three bears but I didn't want to stop for pictures because bears get shot when they get used to people, and they also get hit by cars. They were cute though, munching on dandelions.
Carcross, Yukon is quite the tourist destination! Errrr...

On Health

2009-06-24T16:11:00.001-04:00

On Health.

Over the course of my adult life I have thought a fair bit about my body and my health. Probably a lot less than is common, since I think I’ve had a better than average body self-image and confidence level throughout my life. This occurred to me one day a few years back when I realized that I think of myself as thinner than I am. When I lok in a mirror or look down at my own body what I see is different than what I see in a picture of myself.

As I typed that I realized that actually, it’s probably not that I think I’m thinner than I am, it’s that I’m unused to seeing other angles of my body. I rarely if ever see myself sitting, from the side, or from behind other than in pictures. So the cognitive dissonance of seeing my body from a new angle, or at all (since I don’t often look at myself other than to see if my outfit looks okay, as in I don’t look at my body specifically). So my mental image of myself is made up of a very limited data set; limited to my own observations of myself in whatever piecemeal fashion of checking my mouth for toothpaste residue or my shirt for stains. I bet if I took the time to look at myself from a variety of angles I would not think I’m thinner (or fatter) than I am. I would be aware of my true size and there would be no issue or concern, since everything is as expected. As with many things, practice helps.

It’s the same cognitive dissonance we all feel with things, like the way tattoos used to be shocking and worth of a double take, but now it’s been mass consumed and it’s not really that shocking anymore. Things that get lots of exposure get normalized into our culture. If I was used to seeing myself, I wouldn't notice myself.

And this makes me think about health. My own health, which I have been gauging to some degree with my weight which is, as I am learning, not accurate or, get this: healthy. I was surprised to learn this about myself, since I would say I have a great body image and sense of self-worth. I’m a feminist and I have a strong body that has never done me wrong. And yet, very recently I found myself counting calories and looking up restrictive diet and exercise routines to change my weight. I like eating healthy and I love food, so in part learning about the nutritional value of certian foods has been really interesting. But, not entirely purely motivated.

I’m not fat. I weigh more than I did when I was at my peak physical level, which happened to be when I was 17 and in high school…when I hadn’t finished growing into my body and was doing roughly 3-5 hours of athletics a day on average. Possibly I weigh more than I could if I really changed my life to make that happen, and that’s when I start to wonder about health. Am I unhealthy if I weigh 165ish pounds at 5’7”? Even if, generally I rarely become ill, have never had a major disease or sickness? Or am I just a bit fat? And if I’m a bit fat, is that really a problem for me? Or is it more of aproblem for the people who look at me, in which case, why the hell would I care about that?

I’m thinking more about this, because I’m interested in deconstructing the things I take for granted in my life, my attitudes and reactions. Usually I don’t know it is happening until it’s pointed out to me. So now I’m thinking about my attitudes towards fat people and fat in general. In my recent foray into healthful eating and exercise regiments I’m discovering that fat doesn’t automatically equal unhealthy any more than “thin” automatically equals healthy. This is interesting to me because I had already accepted that thin people aren’t always healthy, but I hadn’t made the connection that fat people aren’t automatically unhealthy.

I have been this weight (and height) for over 5 years now. In those five years, my eating habits have not been consistent, nor have my exercising, but I have been the same weight. Could it be that this is the weight my body wants to be at? And why should I try and change that? Wouldn’t forcing my body away from a size that it chose by restricting food and pushing exercise be less healthy than allowing it to be what it is?

Similarly, when it comes to exercising, I notice that I have developed what I consider to be an unhealthy association. I have connected any athletic activity with fitness (and therefore weight loss). I love riding my bike, and I especially love cycle commuting. I love that we aren’t paying for gas for the car and that I get to enjoy the scenery of my awesome town. But, when I do that ride I ALWAYS think about how much exercise this is and how it’s contributing to weight loss, which takes away from the joy of the activity itself, because all of a sudden I’m not doing it because I love it, I’m doing it to change something about myself. It feels like a change for me to think about activity as amusement in itself and not as a tool for thinness. It's a tool for fun.

I love feeling fit and strong, but you know, I’ve done those stairs on the way home a bunch of times and it‘s way easier now than it was when I first started. Guess what? I’m the same weight as always. So, by my traditional thinking my cycling is a failure, as it has not resulted in the desired effect of weight loss. Except it HAS! I still love the feeling of winning at those steps and seeing the mountains and the town laid out below me. I have sincerely not thought about any physical activity from walking to kite flying without considering whether it’s “exercise” or not. Now what in the hell is “healthy” about that?

I’m going to continue thinking about my body and how I think about my body. I want to say that I’ve read quite a bit of a blog of a fellow Marianne at www.therotund.com. Other than having an awesome name, she’s a well spoken blogger championing fat acceptance, and I encourage you to go and read her stuff. What I wrote today is only part of what has made an impact on what I’m thinking about these days, and she’s got plenty of great thoughts and very good points.

Some of the points I gleaned form her blog that I really appreciate are things like couching lifestyle judgements as concern for health, and suggesting that being fat means you are either lying about your food and exercise habits (because you wouldn’t be fat if only you etc etc) or you deserve it (i.e. improperly applying morals to food with “good” food and “bad” food). Consider how a naturally thin person who “can eat anything and not gain a pound” compares to the belief that calories consumed – calories burned = weight gain or loss. Like, the inability for a naturally thin person with an equally complex body system as a fat person may relate to a fat person’s inability to lose weight, and that really, why is it anyone’s business since as a feminist I don’t believe that public and cultural judgement of ANYONE’S body is acceptable anyways?

I continue to think on it, but it’s been very interesting.

Food for thought! Hah!

Milestone

2009-06-18T11:54:00.002-04:00

Aw, I got my first offer to publish my academic thesis as a book. Exciting, no?

Well, no, as it turns out.

Here's the e-mail I got:

Dear [My full name],
I am writing on behalf of the international academic publisher, LAP Lambert Academic Publishing AG & CO.KG.

In the course of a research at the Library of [My University], I came across a reference to your thesis on [my actual full thesis title]".
As we would like to make your work available to a larger audience, I am wondering if you may be interested in publishing your thesis in the form of a printed book.
Your reply including an e-mail address to which I can send an e-mail with further information in an attachment will be greatly appreciated.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely yours,--Ronnie AntoineAcquisition Editor

LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing AG & Co. KG
Theodor-Heuss-Ring 26 / 50668 Köln, Germany
Fon +49 681 3720-310Fax +49 681 3720-3109

r.antoine@lap-publishing.com / www.lap-publishing.com

Handelsregister Amtsgericht Köln HRA 26549Partner with unlimited liability:VDM Verwaltung AktiengesellschaftHandelsregister Amtsgericht Saarbrücken HRB 16777
Board of Directors: Dr. Wolfgang Müller (Chairman/Vors.), Christoph Schulligen, Jürgen Gerber,Supervisory Board: Prof. Dr. Johannes G. Bischoff (Chairman/ Vors.), RA Thomas Bischoff, RA André Gottschalk

Some brief Internet googling has turned up the results. It's not a scam, per se, but it is what is called a "vanity press". You tell them you want them to publish your thesis, which they take verbatim (no editing! no changing your mind either as they charge a fee to change anything after submission). You retain rights to publish journals. They then send you a free copy and allow your thesis to be purchased in full for like $60-$100. No one would buy that...oh except Aunt Suzy who always supported you, and your parents of course, and...there's the profit. If you get less than $50 royalties per month (likely) then you don't get money, you get credit towards their other publications. Other people's theses that means. The ones generally available free on the Internet (like mine!).

So I have the non-exclusive right to self publish at an exorbitant re-sale fee. This service is apparently helpful to those who want to claim they are published too. Technically true, not exactly prestigious. So, beware the unsolicited e-mails!

So sad to know I won't be submitting my author photo and my bank details (!) for royalty direct deposit! hah!

Catch up

2009-06-16T23:46:00.002-04:00

Well I don't know why my text is underlined, and I obviously didn't take the time to turn my pictures on their side, but oh well. Crank your head an feast your eyes on the set of 200+ stairs up the clay cliffs which we roll our bikes up and down on our commute to town. Lots of motivations (read: cursing) speech on that set, and routinely there are ladies doing laps up ad down. Sometimes I try to remember y CPR because I can't imagine people doing 2, 4, 10 trips up and down and not needing some kind of defibrillation. Lord knows I do, although I'm noticing it's easier each time I do it! I'm kicking my own ass the old fashioned way and it beats the alternative, which involves hauling ass up Two Mile Hill (which I hear is a conservative estimate anyways). Also sorry the picture is washed out!

This helicopter was doing turns and spins in the clearing across the road form us. I took this picture from our balcony. I was too shy to snap a picture when the heli was right on top of the road because I was pretty much eye to eye with the pilot and I felt weird about it. So cool, and I still have no idea what was happening. Forest fire water drop practice?

Again on the way in to town, this is the view form the top of the clay cliffs just behind the airport. The stairs are nearby. You can see the town, the industrial area (all while with fuel spheres) to the north, and the river too, if you squint or enlarge.
Flying kites last weekend at Rotary Park. There's a burrito van there and you can see the Klondike, an old paddle wheeler used as a museum and welcome to the south access of town. The river is just beyond the boat there, maybe 200m away. The mosquitos were harsh but it was worth it.
Oh that picture of town again. Next time I'll go further down the path and take the pic of the view o the south end of town including the Yukon river snaking it's way towards Marsh Lake.

Blessed Geo Metro

2009-06-13T00:41:00.002-04:00

We're getting lots of tourists in town these days. Lots of RV's (mostly parked at the Wal-Mart - ugh).

Anyway, we also see lots of cool trucks/army vehicles/eccentric people in cars. On the way into work this morning I saw a little Geo Metro (I hav a soft spot for these) with a little hitch open trailer PACKED with stuff. It has Tennessee plates and a bit Got Jesus sticker on the window (incidentally, no. I haven't). So I was expecting a teen or twenty-something dude but it turned out that the car was packed to the gills around a 50 something guy with a bad look on his face in full fatigues.

The scene in my head went from sweet God-fearing kid seeing the country to a dude on a mission from God to MAKE US ALL SEE THE LIGHT. In a Geo Metro. A blessed Geo MEtro, one would assume.

Suck it, Palmolive

2009-06-12T17:57:00.000-04:00

I’m still working on my quest to reduce dependency on store-bought personal care items. This week I’ve made and started testing shampoo/conditioner, deodorant and anti-frizz curl definer. This might seem like a big step, but once you buy like 3 ingredients you just combine them in different ways so it was easy and made sense. Here’s how that’s going:

Shampoo/conditioner recipe:
Dr. Bronner’s liquid castile soap (no lye, all natural ingredients), tea tree oil, water, apple cider vinegar (you could add vitamin E oil but I didn’t want to buy any so I didn’t). It’s in a squirt bottle and I like it so far. I’ve only used it twice so far, and this time was way better than last time (my hair kind of looked not soft). The shampoo is really a two-in-one thanks the apple cider vinegar. I’m definitely opting to keep using it as so far it’s been fine and getting better. I’ll report back alter on after more extensive use!

Anti-frizz: just a couple dabs of coconut oil melted on my hand and rubbed through my wet hair. This is working AWESOME, as I barely use any at all (like less than a pea size) and my curls are defines but not wet-looking and stay all day long. It’s as good or better than the commercial stuff I’ve used so far. Bonus: I rub extra coconut oil on my hands into my hands for a nice easy moisturizer.

Note: coconut oil is solid until warmed by the sun or your body heat, and it doesn’t smell like coconuts. Also, the stuff I found was organic and will last forever.

For the deodorant (a simple mix of baking soda, a few tablespoons of coconut oil and cornstarch) is also a big win at least for day to day usage. I haven’t done any really smelly sweaty work using this yet, so I don’t know its range. But for day to day office, walking around town it’s awesome. The texture is the same as commercial deodorant, but when you rub it into your armpit (I just pinch off a pea sized amount) the coconut oil melts and lets it all rub in nicely. No mess, no smell, no aluminum or whatever trying to give you breast cancer. So far, big win on this one.

Next, to use the last of the Dr. Bronner’s liquid soap to make some dishwasher detergent…here’s hoping because it would be so cool to not rely on cascade or whomever.

Also next...the wonderful world of soapnuts, the apparently be-all and end-all of the cleaning world. Imagine, a natural berry that contains saponin, which can be used as laundry detergent, handsoap, dishwasher detergent and more. My sister is going to test this out a little bit, so we’ll see what she says.

I'm gonna prove it

2009-06-07T21:53:00.003-04:00

At about 12:20 a.m. Saturday night Rob took a couple pictures and a video to display the relative lightness. It's not light really, but neither is it dark. At 11:30 it was full regular brightness.

Here's his video!

Peanut Butter Sandwiches

2009-06-03T17:07:00.000-04:00

Aw yeah. Happy anniversary C&M! I loved your wedding.

I noticed that the low-flow showerhead we just bought went on sale this week, so I popped out on lunch for a quick walk to get the difference back. $5 back in my pocket. I’m gonna add that to the total of free money on the sidebar because we were prepared to pay full price but didn’t due to coupon-fu. Also it makes me feel awesome.

This is obvious to most I’m sure but I was reading a book about frugal living and the author pointed out that if you save money on a purchase with a sale or a coupon, you haven’t saved anything until you’ve actually put the extra $$ in the bank. I never thought of it that way before, so if we saved money on a grocery shop, we’d feel free to buy some dessert or whatever. So, no money saved at all. Now, when we get a deal we are trying to mentally add it to the savings goals for the month rather than considering it a license to waste money beyond out budget, which already includes more than adequate allowances and entertainment room.

Also, we now have an envelope system to complement our newly stabilized budget. It lives in the car and each envelope represents a part of our variable spending (oh Gail Vaz-Oxlade, I crush on you). Usually when we buy stuff we’re in or near the car. The receipt goes into the corresponding envelope and the total cost is tallied on the envelope. We stop buying when we hit the limit. Extra goes into savings or is shifted to another envelope. Each month we’ll empty out the receipts, keep the keepers and ditch the ones we don’t need. This is also very helpful for us because we use receipts a lot to return stuff we don’t need or to get the better price when stuff goes on sale, a la low-flow shower head. We used to have a pile of receipts on the floor of the car to kind of keep them around. Rob and I require very clear and very easy systems with very defined boundaries…it’s gotta be obvious where everything goes to both of us or we’ll each try to fake it till we make it, resulting in a hodge-podge. This envelope system fits snugly under the passenger visor. [Aside: does anyone else want to yell “peanut butter sandwiches!” when someone starts out with “a la”?]

We’re on our bikes. We washed the car yesterday and we plan to paint it yellow over the next few days, so we have to keep it parked. Of course this is Rob’s project because I don’t care what colour our car is, but whatever. We’re in it together I guess. But! Awesome side effect is the car is grounded! We got groceries earlier in the week and we are riding to and from work. I love love love the ride to work. It’s beautiful scenery-wise, easy as anything and we save gas money. We use $20/week in gas money when we drive together including occasional extra trips into town for groceries, CDN Tire etc. It’s in no way difficult for us to be on bikes, and it makes us think more efficiently about making trips etc. The less I rely on supermarkets and infrastructure the more empowered I feel. I don’t want to ditch it, just know I’m not destitute if/when service is ever interrupted.

On another note for once:

Oh it’s high 20’s, sunny with a warm breeze today. It’s the kind of weather that I actually thought it was Friday a couple times, since this is what Fridays are supposed to feel like. I got to take a really nice ride around parts of outer Whitehorse that I’ve never seen before, including nice little subdivisions and some really nice views. Some of the nicest vistas overlooking the river valley and mountains are occupied by trailer parks which, from a land developer point of view, could have been used to build expensive condos? Not to say that the trailers aren’t expensive, good lord. There are lots of condos in Whitehorse, and more coming every day. Not sure why. Who are buying all these houses/trailers/condos? My workmate has a theory that it’s a wave of newly divorced. One hopes not!

Otherwise all is well. We both still really enjoy our jobs and we both still really enjoy this town. On our way home around the airport yesterday we both had the same thought that we’ll be sad to go the next time we leave Whitehorse for a visit or whatever. We wish you would all just come to us! Also, I pointed out that in the winter we will probably be very excited to get out, excepting we are very aware of the runway conditions. I take a lot of joy knowing that when we fly we can stroll over across the Alaska Highway and show up 5 minutes later. It’s not a feature I’d look for in a home, but having it is kind of cool. It reassures me that this isn’t a huge town. Incidentally we had the bedroom window open last night and we didn’t notice the planes. Quieter than the bus.

It is now light at 11:30 pm. We still get tired but have to watch the clock because we can forget and think it’s 7pm for like 3 or 4 hours. I believe adjusting the other way will be much more difficult. I guess that’s why there’s SAD lamps, vitamin D pills and discount WestJet flights to Hawaii, right?

Our little community garden plot is coming along well, sort if. Maybe. Some of the seeds are sprouting but not like out neighbour’s plot is. We used older seeds maybe? We forgot to water a few days and burned up our pepper plants. The pepper plants on the balcony are healthy but don’t get as much direct light. Ah well, it’s experimental this season to see what’s what. I hope stuff grows! Rob waters it every day because he’s right there. I still like to check on it though after work. Having the garden and the car parked means we or I will bike into town once a day every day of the week. I really feel that commute will tip the balance and allow me to get fitter faster. My eating is good, (very good generally with occasional very bad = good). So I’m looking forward to that routine too.

Also my cool sister is researching an alternative to laundry detergent (and other soaps in the house)…natural, awesome…I will report back when she’s got an opinion. I’m stuck with homemade for a while, which really is no problem but I’m always on the lookout for improvements.

Much love!

Why We Rent

2009-06-01T19:04:00.002-04:00

I’ve been reading a lot lately about budgeting, personal finance and the age old rent versus buy conundrum.

I’m going to tell you why I’m renting and why that makes a lot of sense for me. When you consider renting or buying a home, there’s a lot of things to consider, and once you consider them it becomes clear to you, what the best decision is for you….not what’s best in general. I have found it to be intensely personal, and I have found that for now we are proud renters!

Here’s why:

We don’t have a down payment. Not any at all. And we have decided that we will have a 20% down payment before we buy. This will save us well over a year’s rent on CMHC buyers insurance as well as make sure our mortgage term isn’t obscene. In fact we expect to save hard as long as we can and not buy until we have a hefty down payment because interest makes me feel nuts and I want to avoid it as much as I can. Over a 25 year amortization an extra $100/month on your mortgage can save your years on your mortgage and tens of thousands of dollars. I am obsessive about frugal living and budgeting and having a mortgage generating 100% interest (with a loan on little down payment) will make me nuts, reducing quality for life for me all those near me. The amoubnt of interest on a mortgage ismortifying to me. We probbaly shouldn't buy a house until it's not so mortifying a thought.

We can’t/won’t buy where we live now. We’re not sure if we’re going to stay up here, maybe we will, maybe we won’t. The types of homes we are attracted to exist here but mostly 15-20 minutes outside of town, and we really, really dislike commuting. We both know that we are less likely to do something fun if we have to drive there. I hate winter driving and love riding my bike to work. Buying in town would be a huge compromise on our lifestyle. Plus we love where we are now with the view etc.

When we buy a house we will probably get one bigger than the apartment we are currently renting. Up here heating your home is not for the faint of heart. Heating, maintaining etc. a house is much more than we currently spend. Plus houses here are expensive to boot, so renting is cheaper. This works for us because YES we are saving the difference.

We are not savvy investors who play the market. While I will consider our future home an asset, I doubt I’ll consider it an investment, and if we buy now and pay for the house twice (once for the house, once in interest) I cannot imagine if the house will be worth 2X or better listing price at the end of a mortgage. Until we have a good down payment, the interest we’d pay over the long term would eat into this magical equity I hear so much about. It’s only equity if you can get more out of it than what you put in.

I like the flexibility of renting. We can move whenever we want, take advantage of cheaper rent, a job opportunity, whatever.

I really like having regular expenses to budget for. No big ticket items ever when you’re renting. No “saving for the roof” fund. This leaves me more time to dump money into RRSP. This will be great to help with the down payment as well, as we’ll be first time home buyers.

Renting suits us very well right now because we don’t actually want to own a house right now, and buying one would be financially oppressive and reduce our quality of life. I think we’ll keep renting until we can buy a house in a place we want to stay a while for sure, and have the savings to put a good dent in the down payment. I’m glad I did all this research because I was worried I was missing the boat and now I feel sure I am not. We like how things are now…and even though it’s normal to buy a house, rushing into a multi-hundred-thousand dollar purchase is right out of the question for a girl who spends long minutes evaluating the best value peanut butter.

Renters unite!

frugal bugle

2009-05-27T11:40:00.000-04:00

Money savers so far this week:

We were in town after work planning to pick up a few things, plant our community garden plot and then go fly kites at the park. Things took longer than we though and we were getting hangry (that grumpy that happens when we are hungry). We decided on the supermarket for a quick fix. We ended up getting some cold roast chicken which was very cheap. The whole roast chickens that loblaws has are $7.98 for one, which they claim is 1000g. The cold roast chickens are the unsold hot ones, clearly, quartered (you get all the good meat…in this case over 500g worth with none of the extra moisture and weight of meatless bones) and selling for less than $3. This is an excellent deal for on-the-go chicken, and if we ever decide to buy fast chicken again, we’ll get the cold stuff.

We planted our community garden! I’m hoping for big things, but it’s our first season so it’s hard to know what will happen. It’s nice to have master gardeners around to help us. My goal is to get a small chest freezer full for the winter, though that may be optimistic. Either way, we’re enjoying it and free food is good food.

This week we got free Ziggy’s fresh tortellini (1kg) and 2 free cans of tuna due to mis-pricing. Earned me about $9 back, putting us back on food budget after the expense of setting up the laundry detergent experiment (which is a huge success and we’re going homemade forever). I think we should be better about returning to the store to keep getting free food until they fix the pricing, but we have been a little lazy about it. Next time, may as well fill the freezer I guess!

I looked into homemade dishwasher detergent and the verdict is NO GO. There is no recipe that is mostly effective and it depends on what kind of machine you have. Also, if it mucks up it’s apparently very difficult to un-muck and can damage your machine. You can stretch your current powder detergent, but you can’t replace it. I’m still waiting for something better to come along.

I finally broke down and bought new jeans. My old pairs were ratty, especially for work, and worn out. I went to a shop having a sale (40% off last year’s styles). I found 5 potential pairs and picked out my top three, making sure to choose a pair missing a button. I negotiated extra discount on the buttonless pair. They were zippered with a good solid zipper, I just sewed on a big button I had at home and they are perfect. The cashier inexplicably ended up giving me 65% off two of the pairs and the regular 40% on the third, with a total savings of over $150, since clothes aren’t cheap up here. I got all three pairs for $140.My first genuinely new jeans in many, many years. Now I’m wondering if maybe I should have bought all five pairs!

Best Wedding Video Ever

2009-05-25T16:45:00.002-04:00

All my daily interactions look like this in my mind. Frigging awesome video from Lockdown Projects.

Via Mighty Girl

Brian and Eileen's Wedding Music Video

Getting homemade

2009-05-24T21:14:00.003-04:00

Ah, nice weekend.

Incidentally, we got 2 free cans of tuna and free fresh tortellini (1kg) this week thanks to Superstore's lazy price checking. I was tempted to go back today which would have been smart but whatever. I never abuse my free food finds by going back every new shift at customer service/cashier until they catch on, though truly I ought to. Still made my day.

This weekend I did something I have been thinking about but never gotten around to doing: I made laundry detergent. I'll explain.

I love to read about frugal living, with a few of my favourite daily reads being www.thesimpledollar.com, www.getrichslowly.com and various hard core Christian mom blogs, since those ladies know from frugal living. This one especially does tonnes of research and has great recipes for all kinds of natural living.

Making your own laundry detergent is really easy, fast, and cheap as chips. And fun, as it turns out. All you need is a bar of soap, 1 cup laundry soda (arm and hammer makes this) and optional is 1/2 cup borax (some people aren't into the toxicity of this natural product, and you don't have to use it). It takes half an hour and makes 16 litres, using 1 cup of detergent per load. The result is a gelatinous gloop in a bucket, and I've used it on two loads so far. I have found it works fine in cold water washes and the laundry is odourless/unscented though I suppose you cold influence that depending on which bar of soap you use. I'll keep you posted if we notice any issues wearing the clothes (some people report itchy skin, and then remove borax from future loads). We'll see. This is a staple recipe for mega families and frugal peeps and I love having tonnes of laundry soap on the cheap. Solutions like these help me feel like I'm winning at life since it's cheaper, easy, fun and produces way less waste.

I wonder if I could use half as much water and have a concentrated detergent? Hmm.

Next, I'm planning to delve into the world of home-made personal care products. I've found excellent and intriguing recipes for toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo and conditioner. I'll report back with sources of recipes and results when I get into it all!

Is there anything you do that's frugal or extra healthy because your gramma taught you from the old days or because you are a genius? I'm all ears and I love learning what people do to save bucks and time and whatever we insist on spending. Do tell.

pictures!

2009-05-24T14:37:00.002-04:00

We love to head out to Shipyards park by the river (jut beyond the trees there). This was two weekends ago. Now the trees are green with halfway there new leaves. Yesterday we were there for hours playing catch and flying RC and flying my new trick kite. A lady stopped to give us advice and we had a really good time. The sun set at 10ish but it was daylight until past 11, o we hung out till past bed time :-) I frigging love playing catch. When rob flew this toy yesterday he attracted 20 seagulls form nowhere, and they were all screaming and swooping. Pretty cool.
This pic is a couple weeks old too. I swear it's 19 degrees, sunny and green here! Anyway, this raven is regular sized for here, and that means it is really, really large.
Ah, KFC. From the park you can see KFC, Tim Horton's , Boston Pizza, A&W, Pizza Hut. Klassy.
Rob and I working over our little plot a the community garden. You can't see it here but (heh, butt) Rob's work is literally right behind that blue house, about 50 steps away. So, pretty convenient, all told. We're late to plant, but we'll get the seeds and seedlings in tomorrow and see what happens.
We were here yesterday and the grass is green, the dandelions are out, and the watering buckets are out. I should take more pictures to show you, because the clay cliffs are right behind the garden, you can sort of see the cliff foothills in the distance.

The more time we spend here, the more we love it. We get to spend more time than ever together while we're here, because f our jobs and because we don't know too many people. W really, really like it. We wish you all were here with us. The it would be perfect, no???

cycle commuting

2009-05-20T11:31:00.003-04:00

Oh! So Rob found a cruiser, but it's a supercycle so it's not that great. He seems happy enough with it. I Got Specialized Myka mountain bike...my first new bike since grade 8 and I really like it. The ride to and from town isn't far, it's the elevation that's a killer. We live atop the clay cliffs and the town is below on the flats by the river. It can't be more than 3-4 km to town, but the 220 steps (or alternately 2 Mile Hill, which, you get the picture) add a little oomph. Yesterday we biked home and pushed our bikes up the steps (there are little wooden ramps up the sides, like a trough for bikes) and it was work, but not too much work.

I got bike butt with our first rides, genuine bruises I think. But super worth it.

For what it's worth, my bike is white with a couple red-butterfly cut outs (girl!) and Rob's is red and black. My helmet has flowers on it for the maximum-girl effect. I'm really happy to be back on a bike, for the first time since we moved away from Waterloo, almost a year (excepting the off ride here and there in Ottawa).

@ Alan: wow, that's some mighty decent distance you guys are putting in! If I set out to do 56 km I'd be well on my way to Marsh Lake or out of town, anyways. I'll have to content myself with elevation challenges until I want to start hitting up the multitudes of trails around town. Any maybe wait to see where that moose got to.

top 9

2009-05-19T14:43:00.001-04:00

I had a nice weekend. Here’s some stuff we did:

1. Went 30 minutes south of town to a little neighbourhood in the woods to have dinner and drinks worth some old/new friends. This couple met in the Yukon on a field course, and rob knew the dude from middle school and high school in Ottawa…they found each other through Facebook and we’re all really happy about it. Their cabin in the woods is gorgeous and we had an amazing bison roast for dinner. Hells yeah. I regret not having my camera for the ride home in the setting sun (past 11 pm) through the mountains and across the river. Also, their dog is a husky/corgi mix (yeah, you heard me) and she is so freaking cute…a husky with extra big ears, smaller frame and stumpy tail.

2. We saw a moose cow in town (edge of downtown area) disappearing into some woods. So cool! So big! Makes me think twice about making our way home through woods if she’s got a baby with her.

3. We got bikes. The plan was to get me a used bike, but we ended up getting Rob a used cruiser and me a new bike, since used bikes are hard to come by at this time of year and I didn’t want to wait. First new bike since I was 13. Plus we supported an independent local businessman. Nice. My helmet had flowers and I call it my maximum girl helmet. Kewl.

4. We went to Shipyards Park and rob flew his toys while I read and ate goodies, and then we played catch for a while. Soaking up the sun and enjoying life.

5. We biked almost all the way around the airport. Turns out it’s not paved all the way around and riding in sand is hard. I’ll go back to bring you pictures of the views over town and the river below, it was mind blowing. Having beautiful surroundings matters a lot to me so this is a good thing.

6. Slept so freaking well. The kind of week-redeeming sleeps that feel so good.

7. Managed to squeeze in laundry and rob cleaned a bit which was pretty necessary. Not done but since we caved and started using the dish washer it’s been pretty nice.

8. I finished Jane Eyre and then launched into my Bitch book, which is a collection of essays from the magazine. Interesting dichotomy. I love reading the essays. The last one I read was about the pressures sexism puts on males to behave a certain way especially as related to libido compared to their female partners.

9. I need new pants but haven’t remembered to go shopping yet. One pf my pairs of jeans just popped a little hole in the crotch which means they are retired from work. And no doubt should have been long ago. Freaking pants shopping.

Hometown Pride

2009-05-13T17:01:00.001-04:00

Stuff I’m learning about Whitehorse:

1. The morning radio doesn’t have chatty contests or morning chatter. There’s just music. There must not be the money for contests, or advertisers.

2. The local buy ‘n sell is called “trader time” and people call in with whatever they want to sell or buy. Then they give out their home number. Over the radio. In this capital city. I love it.

3. The license plates here only have 5 digits. Three letters followed by 2 numbers. Our plate number is EST 58. Almost makes me wish I was born in ’58! Also, there’s a gold panner on the plate. Cool. It works out that lots of regular plates kind of seem like vanity plates, since there are lots of 3 letter abbreviations. Fun car game anyway.

4.There’s a guy at work today (not in my unit) who wore formal plaid work pants. It made my morning.

5. The RV’s have started to take up residence at the Wal-Mart parking lot. Apparently in the summer it fills right up. Bastards.

6. A lot of dudes up here have (awesome) bushy beards. You can’t assume that everyone has all their teeth. You can assume that lots of the people you’ll meet will be from Outside, at least originally.

7. Oh, are the VW buses rolling in. And the summer cars, which up here seem to be vintage trucks (cool!) or really weird foreign army vehicles. We saw a (regular) car from Quebec and were thinking: man that was a LONG drive. Regardless, bring on the hippies.

8. Last night I had trouble falling asleep from the light, for the first time. Yesterday the sun rose at around 5:30 am and set at around 10:30 pm, and we’re still gaining daylight, I think at a rate of about 7 minutes a day. Time to double up the curtains.

9. Wild animals I’ve seen: bison, foxes, ravens, caribou, ground squirrels, birds I don’t recognize. Apparently, occasionally, there’ll be a moose wandering in town, although maybe not on Main St. , A la Northern Exposure. I’ll believe it when I see it.

10. The Loblaws up here caught on to me and I hardly get free stuff anymore. Actually, I think they just have summer employees and keep on top of stuff now. Next winter I’ll be back on top I’m sure.

Incidentally

2009-05-13T11:43:00.002-04:00

1. It snowed yesterday, for hours! It eventually dried up but wow. Apparently there was one year where there was snow in every month, which is significant in this semi-arid environment. I wonder what will happen next month?

2. I realized that next fall/early winter when there is no snow it will be cold but the roads will be clear, which means my plan to regularly go to the hot springs on cheap Mondays will totally work. Yeah!

3. My body is rebelling against…something. [warning: may be TMI] First it was my uterus, more pissy than usual, then I got some kind of stomach barfy problem, then the next day that was replaced with a very sore stomach (no barfing, totally different, but couldn’t move or not move without lots of pain) and that was replaced last night by screaming temple headaches every time I stood up or sat down. Sleep helped in that it’s only happening on my left side instead of both this morning. Please don’t link me to articles about aneurysms. Good thing I have a desk job this week, I tell ya.

4. Rob got Strep again, poor guy. Well, we think so, results from the lab back in today. Stupid daycare plague. Daycare workers should get hazard pay.
My credit card number got stolen (probably from online shopping) and got used all over BC. I was supposed to get an affidavit to sign and I haven’t yet, although I got a new card so I have to sort out whether the charges are off my card yet or not. I’m not excited about more computer time once I get off work, and yet, there you have it.

5. I keep forgetting that I have a cell phone. I got it back from Bell after it broke a few weeks ago and I think it’s still in the back of the car. Oops. Since it’s pay as you go I probably have to put money on it. No one has the number for it. It’s a paperweight, but maybe someday it will come in handy. Maybe.

6. Not all doom and gloom! We are actually in good moods. Life’s okay, really. Every time I get sick I promise myself I will never take my healthy body for granted again. Perhaps this time it’ll work out better. Maybe this is a sugar withdrawal headache! That’s totally possible! Anybody quit sugar or caffeine and get headaches? What kind of headaches were they?

7. On to conquer a cloudy Wednesday. Later y’all.

heh

2009-05-01T19:37:00.001-04:00

I'm sure this is in no way fair but Lordo Mighty 'Tis Funny As Hell.

help me eat smarter!

2009-05-01T13:45:00.004-04:00

Dear readers, I need your nutritional opinions!

I eat the same thing every day for breakfast, lunch and snacks. I'm finding I hit a wall towards the end of my workday (3:30ish) where I can't concentratea and I feel tired and draggy. I think I'm getting enough calories (although maybe I'm adjusting to fewer, not sure). Is it the order in which I'm eating my food that's making me crash, or the foods I choose to eat? Opinions, please!

8:00 a.m. : 1C cream of wheat, made with half 1% milk, half water. Water to drink or home made iced tea (unsweetened tea bags in water, 2 reg. one herbal lemon per jug is a good recipe!)

9:00 a.m. : apple

10:00 a.m. : tea with the unit, occasionally have milk (1/4 C 2%) with tea if I'm feeling hungry

10:45 a.m. : muffin (muffin is small, homemade, 1/2 wheat germ, 1/2 flour with banana and 1/3 C each oil and sugar per 12, plus 5ish choc. chips)

11:45 a.m. sandwich (pb and honey or tuna/sweet chili sauce on brown), baggie of carrot sticks, water or herbal tea to drink.

2ish p.m.: 5 dried apricots and 10 raw almonds (just started bringin 20 almonds to help with wall crashing)

3:30ish: an orange

By 5 when I'm meeting rob after work I am hungry again, enough to want to get home and COOK. I don't think that's very good. During the day, the food I eat is en ough to keep me from feeling hungry and usually when I feel hungry I have the next thing to eat, pretty much always on that schedule. But I hit that wall, even after eating my orange. Maybe I'm sugar crashing from tyhe orange? I was considering bringin along a second baggie of veg for afternoons, and I'm going to try the 10 extra almonds. But I don't know if I'm doing things backwards, or when to eat what to keep my body happy. The fruit are the only sweets I have during the day now and the dried apricots, though high in calories, are also high in fiber and yummy to eat with the almonds.

In the evenings, I don't eat after dinner anymore (for a wek so far, anyways) and I'm fine with that.

Anyway, please weigh in (hah!). Suggestions, what you like to eat, how you avoid afternoon crashes , what I'm doing wrong...let me know! thanks!

Pictures!

2009-04-26T22:42:00.005-04:00

We went to Swan Haven, which is on March Lake about 30 minutes south of town. Each April over a hundred swans gather on the open water here, and there are scopes, nature interpreters and community events around it.
At the Takhini hot springs there's ice towes made every winter for people to try ice climbing. Maybe next year!
The view south of town on the way to Swan Haven. That's the Yukon river you see.
At the hot springs. I love it there big time. There's a covered walkway right into the water so you don't freeze your buns off in the winter. The wall in the water divides the really hot pool from the pleasantly hot pool.
We love you Takhini Hot Springs!

Commercial

2009-04-15T12:06:00.001-04:00

I've been watching a lot of original Twilight Zone lately. Sometimes at the end of the show there's a very short network ad for a show (not other ads though). Occasionally there's no picture but just the audio. This is one such ad:

Voice of man, not the typical announcer type:

"Every year the Red Cross needs money. Well, this year ain't no different"

End of ad

LOVE.

blah blah blah

2009-04-14T15:04:00.003-04:00

* I promise to add pictures once I get home. This is a lunch time report!

Free food report:
Amount: $7.07 (organic apples and split peas. The lady today went and got the tags to change the prices which = booo! My work is cut out for me. Harder to have guaranteed free food that way).
April total: $19.57

The extra long weekend was lovely. We had beautiful sunny weather and took advantage of the rest. By Monday night we were both ready to go back to our regularly scheduled events at work/play since we didn’t plan a trip or anything and we were getting bored of hanging around.

Friday was regular; we did errands, hung out and checked out Shipyards Park, Rob’s new favourite RC flying zone plus the site of the summer farmer’s market. It’s big and right next to the Yukon River so we’ll be spending a lot of time out there. The farmer’s market starts in May with the tourist season and it happily operates from 3-8pm, meaning we can get there on weekdays. Bison burgers, here we come…

Saturday I pretty much forget at this point. I’m sure we cleaned and walked around town and ate very, very well. I made a peas soup with a ham bone from our previous ham roast and it was fricking delicious. The soup should have lasted three days but made it about 1.5. And, we got the split peas for free thanks to Loblaws’ policy (and also the organic apples! Yes!).

Sunday we got up and drove out to the local hot springs (20 minutes away) for the brunch special. All winter there are daily specials, and when summer hours start they all end. So we got brunch at the “from scratch” family owned restaurant and then went in for a loooong awesome soak. There are two pools, one cooler and one very warm. I was glad I brought a water bottle. They offered to bring us coffees out to the pool since it wasn’t busy. The owner was saying they are considering offering non-alcoholic margaritas during slow times. Hell yeah. We got pictures, they will be added. So now I’ve been to three hot springs, here in Whitehorse, in Banff (least favourite due to chlorination and feeling of being in a lukewarm bath with 40 strangers) and the Blue Lagoon in Iceland. It feels different when you know you’ll be back and could pop through for a soak after work. I mean, 20 minutes is still a drive, but it’s beautiful and Mondays are cheap ($5) so hey. I was tingling all day long. Also, I had the Belgian waffle with cherry preserves. So. Good.

Monday we went walking around our neighbourhood and checked out a small number of the local trail systems. We can see that we’ll need both snowshoes and skis and we’ll be covered for local trails to meander around, never too far from hot chocolate and bailey’s. I watched a lot of original Twilight Zone and made more soup. We love our soup.

We have managed to blow any semblance of a food budget again. I can’t resist a sale or weekly special, so we have everything we could possibly need for quite a while to come. I hope. I mean, when a ham goes on for like $1.80/lb, what are you gonna do. We bought a $15 ham and have sandwich meat for a month plus the soup we ate for days. And this is with Rob, who has very poor self control around ham. He could have a ham dinner, and still be stuffing his face while he makes ham sandwiches. While I was butchering the ham I made a little pile of julienned ham to keep him away from me until I could freeze portions. So anyway, we have milk in the freezer ($1 a gallon! Come ON!), meat in the freezer, bread in the freezer, veg in the freezer, cupboards “full”, bulk of granola and such and I’m hoping we can coast for a good long while. We shall see. Apparently chicken are on for 1/3 the price in a club pack (club pack of chickens? What does that even look like?) and it’s tempting. An organic chicken here (I’ve seen one in one store once) was around $20 for a little guy. I can’t quite do it yet. So we’ll see.

I started my “workout routine” which consists of doing an exercise tape a day. I got my kettle worx videos by UPS at 9 a.m. Monday. Wake up call! The reviews I read seem accurate. Fine for beginners of exercise videos but no good for experienced people. The edits are rough and the video is repetitive. I like it fine but would not necessarily recommend it. I do like it though and it’s my favourite kind of work out so far: no dance moves, no “samba” or whatever and a lot of hucking around a cannonball. I did the “resistance” week one routine and have 5 more weeks of that plus the “core” the “strength” and the two dvd’s of 10 minute in betweener routines. So a video a day plus rest days and we’ll see. The easter bunny came for me for the first time since living with Rob (so, rob got snubbed. Whoops…we had no precedent!). I’ve been binging on candy all weekend so I suppose that will counteract my exercise ;-) It feels nice to have sore muscles and it also felt great to soak them at the hot springs. I love the hot springs.

Oh! I also got going (late) on my seed starting with peppers and tomatoes and a token optimistic melon. They are in toilet paper rolls on a window sill since I don’t have a proper light set up. I’m hoping long days and tonnes of solar gain will help with that. Maybe I’ll make a little green house with saran wrap or something. Does that work? Community garden plot sign up is May 2 and planting in June. Yay food!

Mmm. food. Lunchtime.

+/-

2009-04-06T11:24:00.003-04:00

Total Saved: $12.50
Total April: $12.50
Total to date: $102.77

+ free toilet paper (24) at the Superstore!
- We realized later we probably mis-read the sign for 12 rolls but oh well. It was their sucker marketing scheme
+ lovely birthday weekend, looking forward to presents in the mail!
- Superstore fixed the cream of wheat AND the dry soup mix prices! No more standard freebies and I'm SO SAD.
+ back at work, things are looking fun
+ it's melty in the 'horse (heh)
+ Our house is clean and tidy

fitness and food

2009-04-02T12:34:00.002-04:00

I’ve been thinking about fitness more and more these days. I know that I like to do outdoor activities but I’m not likely to go out and ride my bike for aerobic fitness every day. I like to have fun or move myself around but any fitness or health comes from incidental exposure to activity. I had an elliptical last year for a bit, a very crappy elliptical but I was on it pretty much every day, watching Futurama episodes. I know that I’m happy to do exercises at home, I like it when I can watch TV while I’m doing it, and I won’t go to a gym.

So I’ve been futzing around online checking out workout DVD’s. I was considering Jillian Michael’s 30 day Shred which sounds okay, you do the same 30 minute workout for 30 days in a row. Sounds kind of harsh and boring eventually though, no? Maybe if I offset that with a yoga video or something. And then I got on the Kettleworx. Kettleworx was invented by a Canadian (who lives in the US now, unfortunately for shipping). The kettle bell is basically a cannonball with a handle on it that you do weight-y stuff with. The Kettleworx deal is you get a 5lb kettlebell and a pile of routine DVD’s and do 20 minutes a day, 3 days a week. Supposedly swinging, squatting and whatevering with a 5lb (or more if you are string) kettlebell makes you string and fit but not bulky (it’s unisex).

I have some birthday money and I’m considering the kettleworx deal. My other option is Shovelgloving. Please go read that link and learn about shovelgloving. The premise sounds good, it’s low tech, it’s funny, it’s just the kind of thing that works. Plus I can watch tv with it. Plus it is hilarious. Plus, 14 minutes a day works for me. Simple = good.

WWYD? (What would you do?). Understand that no, I won’t run; no, I won’t do dance aerobics and no I don’t wanna buy a machine. Kettleworx or shovelgloving?

Next: nutrition!

I eat fairly well generally. I eat great day to day plus lots of garbage. So, my base diet is awesome I just sabotage a it with candy an cookies. I’m pretty fine with that. But here is my question for you: if you are a brown-bagger, what do you take in your lunch? I like to take the same thing every day and have a routine, and that’s for packing and eating. Here’s my lunch system so far:

-Sandwich (pb&j or tuna with lemon&pepper and lettuce) on homemade bread
-1/4 C of trail mix from the store. I have to pick out the preserved mango and pineapple bits though UGH. I only eat this in an emergency
- yogurt cup (super bad for the enviro but so perfect and portioning is easy)
- 20 almonds (raw) and 5 dried apricots
- apple
- carrot sticks
- 1 wheat germ banana choc.chip muffin and 1 choc. Chip cookie (both homemade)

I eat the yogurt and the carrot sticks at around 10:30-11 am, then the sandwich and the apple and the cookie at noonish, then the almonds and apricots at 2ish and the muffin at 3:30ish and the trail mix if I am extra hungry whenever throughout the day.

What do you do? What do you eat every day?
For breakfast I have cream of wheat every day. Today for the first time I made it with half milk and it tasted SO good. Dinners are planned out in advance and are almost always bean quesadillas and veg, pasta with homemade sauce, soup (homemade) and grilled cheese once or twice a week, tofu stirfry and on the weekends we sometimes get a chicken with is lunch sandwiches, stock for soup and dinners for a few days at least. Other stuff too but those are the staples.

I make muffins and cookies at least once a week, since when the oven is hot and it takes under an hour to make 24 cookies and 12 muffins. I know those recipes off by heart now too which helps the speediness and spares the grocery budget (one of my main recreational activities).

I would love to hear what your staples are, what you do for food and how you keep costs down! What is delicious and easy? How do you stay fit? How should I get fit?

Shop-Fu Ninja

2009-03-28T22:04:00.003-04:00

So this is a boring post about me getting free money, my new fun habit. Probs boring for the rest of ya but hey. I don't think anyone will get around to adjusting the scan of Cream of Wheat so yeah, I'm gonna get one every time I hit up the store.

Today we got $9.28 free (parmesan and cream of wheat). We also used a few receipts to take advantage of the "spend $250 get $25 free gas" coupon. Every week there's a promotion like this. Usually we don't qualify, or sometimes people give us their receipt and we combine it with ours and we use that. This time we got the gas coupon based on a few receipts, got the full $25 AND the reciprocal 3 cents per litre deal...$0.77 towards our next superstore purchase.

Total saved: $9.28 plus $0.77 free money for next time

Total March: $90.27

Total to date: $90.27

Actual post coming up, promise.

cha-ching

2009-03-27T22:06:00.002-04:00

On our way home from work today we popped in to the superstore for a few things. On impulse we bought 2 bags of chips (it IS friday, after all) and some vinegar (not an impulse, but still). At the checkout we notices they scanned wrong. The lady scanning said she could undo it and change us the right price or we could go to customer service and get it free. She could have done it but whatever. Long story to medium, the CS lady was new, couldn't figure out the system and refunded us $8.50 for the vinegar and 2 bags of chips (total value approx. $3.50). So, in the style of Jill the Juneau cyclist, I'm going to keep a tally. But not exercise miles. No, more gratifying than fitness. I'm charting my savings.

Date: March 27

Total saved today: $8.50

Total March savings: $80.50

Total savings to date: $80.50 (because I'm counting the printer price match I got 20 days after purchase).

I'm gonna keep track. I will count things I paid one price for, then got a discount later due to consumer ninja-ing. No fair counting clearance items (1L stainless steel water bottles on for $2.85? I'll take three!), no fair counting regular sales. Only legit shopping-fu free money.

I feel that this will, eventually, give me WAY TOO MUCH JOY.

In other news, things are good here in the Jamaica of the north. It's melty as hell and we're having fun driving around buying all kinds of stuff. Starting April we will officially be keeping track of purchases and implementing a straight up budget, since we will have pretty much bought all our start up special purchases and April is the month where we will both be in line for regular paycheques, which means a predictable income. Which means time to budget with a spreadsheet. Aw yeah! I'm freaking stoked! our "savings" from month one and probably 2 will go towards buying the car we are borrowing, but after that whee. Savings. I'm still rolling that word around in my mouth. Gonna be sweeeeeeet.

We had soy burgers and fries and I have skittles for later. We got a paper which means we have the tv guide and tomorrow we are going to the community garden meet up a the library. Then I'm going to buy some shoes. And check out the bikes. I'm thinking it's going to be a very nice weekend.

Another day, another dollar

2009-03-22T16:10:00.003-04:00

Well, not if you're us. We seem to spend like crazy all the time here, but really who can begrudge fire extinguishers and used furniture?

Rob's co-worker hooked us up with a buddy with extra furniture to sell. Now we have a loveseat in the living room along with a nice big tv stand (which contains all the flying toys, so no clutter). In the kitchen we've moved our little table and made a computer nook with a little computer desk. We bought some humidifiers because it's so dry. We also now have a small dresser that is my new bedside table/exclusive set of drawers (underwear and socks and shirts too if I want!). We got a pantry-like shelving unit for sweaters and things in the bedroom AND we got a free double boxspring and metal bed frame! We will eventually buy a nice mattress and the guestroom will be ready for people to sleep happily. If you come visit us you can have a humidifier in your bedroom too. You're welcome.

I get paid this week for three whole days of work. Thanks to the pay period system, I worked the last three days of a pay period, then two weeks in order to get paid in arrears...three days. In two weeks form the 25th I'll finally see my first paycheque. Even if you know money is coming and that all is fine, I really suck at spending money. I am so, so glad to have a house that feels like a home. Of course all this happened a few days after posted the videos, but maybe soon I'll get some pics up.

This morning we went out to the Airport Motel for breakfast (more money!), which is next door almost. I think it'll be our local greasy spoon and it was nice. Like a diner should be...staffed by older, grizzled women who call you 'hun' and make little jokes with you. The food was beige and greasy and therefore good. On our way out a trucker was coming in asking to buy a shower so we knew we were in the right place. If it's okay by the truckers, it's okay by me. We are also going to eventually try the brunch at the actual airport because we hear that's good and there's another hotel that just opened called the Skky so we'll get there too. Getting to know our little neighbourhood.

What else? Rob's loving his job and his job is loving him. I'm not over it yet. He has always worked hard but to have it pay off where his natural talents fit in and contribute to the overall goals is incredible. My job is working out really well too. I like where I work and what I'm working on a lot and I have high hopes. I know those don't usually last but or now I'm pleased.

I have discovered that my natural affliction of being super fastidious with thrifting pays dividends over here. I keep an eye on the fliers and I noticed that the printer we bought for $130 at staples was on at Canadian tire for $60. We did the prince match and got the money back. Yessss! Also, my new habit when shopping at the superstore is to mark the listed price of everything we buy, then check the receipt afterwards. This time 5 items were mis-priced including a $9 bottle of sinus medication. I got it all for free and saved us $16. You better believe it's worth the time at customer service and I'm going to to that every time. I think the key is to hit the sales the day the fliers go live to get the best deals, since the prices haven't been changed yet. But, we don't abuse the system (easy as it would be). Even being honest we do well enough. The $85 we saved doesn't come close to edging out the expenses of moving but it sure does help!

We are really beginning to feel like we are settling in nicely here. We are enjoying our weekday routine of coming home together (I walk to rob's work from mine because I finish earlier), make our dinner, do dishes and stuff, make lunches, read/watch t.v., sleep by 10. We are homebodies, really and don't need to go out to feel alive, but one day I suppose we'll make friends and go out now and then, which will be good. This summer I'm hoping we can find a good cat sitter and take some weekend trips.

We seem to be coming out of our illness phase. I think humidifying the air and keeping ourselves warm are helping, plus just being here longer. You know, pretty soon we're going to surpass the daily levels of daylight you (current) southerners call a long day and start making up for our longer winters. Next weekend I'm off to a community garden meeting...maybe soon I"ll be starting seeds on my window sill and dreaming of northern veggies!

Video of our house

2009-03-18T00:46:00.002-04:00

And I would like to say that it took well over 2 hours to upload this freaking ideo...no re-shoots! Also, it sounds like I'm heaving for breath but I wasn't I swear!

Enjoy!