What do you wear when the wife has chores for you to do?

Unprepared

I’ve lived in Southern Alberta all my life so I’m fairly used to our winters but yesterday really took me by surprise. Physically I was mostly prepared for my walk home in -25 but mentally it caught me completely off guard, I had forgotten just how cold -25 really is. Halfway home I started considering my options and realized I had none but to continue on; I couldn’t very well just stop and freeze.

It took a long hot shower, some caramel hot chocolate, a robe, a blanket and a good hour to completely warm me up.

I’m a little better prepared for my walk home today, the better scarf and long coat will be helpful.

Here’s to the first of many, many cold walks home.
L

What Just Happened Here?

This is one of those stories that may not translate well on a blog but I’ll do my best.

Last week I went to Chapters and bought a book that Brad and I have been wanting for a while but as I was leaving I remembered we still had a gift card to Chapters that we haven’t used, darn. We don’t buy books very often so now is a good time to use it. I didn’t have to card with me so a couple days later Brad and I decided to go back with card in hand.

The plan was to return the book and then re-buy it using our handy gift card, easy right? As we were standing in line we saw a cd that I wanted so we added that to the pile, slightly complicating things since the gift card now won’t cover the entire purchase, we’ll just give them some extra cash though.

So we get called up to the counter and we explain to the very nice man what we want and he’s on board says he’ll just need to get authorization to make the return (he seemed really new). His manager happened to be standing right beside him so he heard the story and said rather than do a difficult return how about he just gives us an additional $5 in store credit and we call it even. We agree immediately as it seems like a great idea, we make our purchase and leave.

And then we start to wonder... wait a minute, what just happened in there? Cause when you think about it, it doesn’t actually make any sense.

Goal: Use our gift card, not our bank account to pay for the previously purchased book.

Result: We got $5 off a cd.

The manager must not have understood what we were wanting to do, or perhaps he wanted to get rid of us, either way we figure we’ll take the book back and try again. Maybe we’ll have better luck this time.
L

Christmas Times A Comin’

So I have this fetish with Christmas music, I really like it and I have a lot of it, 260 ish songs. You would think that would be enough but last night I downloaded a little more, including Jessica Simpson’s Christmas album. Don’t be fooled, it’s just as bad as you think it would be. But not wanting to make a snap decision, and loving Christmas music the way I do, I didn’t delete it right away thinking I’d listen and give it a fair chance. So last night and today I put my Christmas music on shuffle... Every freaking other song that shuffles is from that crappy Jessica Simpson album!! It never stops! And now I’m here at work with no access to iTunes so I can’t even delete the thing...
Oh how I suffer
L

A Handprint on My Heart

I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you

So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend

I’ve been listening to the soundtrack to the musical Wicked a lot right now and today this song really hit me. There are so many people I’ve know who are with me now “Like a handprint on my heart”. I am who I am because of the people I’ve known. Just a few that have made a difference in me:

• Brad
• Nathan
• Chris
• Irena
• Dave
• Tekarra
• Jamie

The list goes on and on, thank you for making me, me
L

Update - Music?

Just wanted to draw your attention to the video I've just re-uploaded to the recorder post,
I realized the video I'd put up was only 4 seconds long, this is the real video.

It's funny so check it out. Enjoy!
L

Remember Remember

Remember remember the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason
Should ever be forgot...

Happy Guy Fawks Day everyone!

Unfotunately our celebration must be put on hold, who knew you needed a permit to set off fireworks?
L

Music?

So remember when I promised the recorder video? Yeah, I forgot until today.

We went to Jen and Ian's house a while ago and Brad noticed Jen's recorder lying on the table and he got excited. Turns out she has two recorders so they started playing duets together while Ian and I tried to tune out the noise... er, I mean music.

A little while later they were all set up to perform their beautiful duet for us and for some reason none of us could stop laughing, and playing the recorder while laughing doesn't work at all. Listen for yourself.
L

Happy Halloween

So it's a little belated but Happy Halloween!

To celebrate the occasion Brad and I got together with our friends Jenn and Ian and we carved pumpkins. They made a fence with a cat on it and a moon up in the corner, very cute. Brad and I carved a very cute and scary spider.

It was lots of fun, I haven't enjoyed carving for a while, I guess it's all about the company
L

New Toys

Today was empty the camera memory card day so I'm going to post a couple picture posts.

I've been asked to lead a class in our Ward's Super Saturday (which I'm totally unqualified to do), the class I came up with is making Christmas stockings. Something I wanted to do anyway and we have a lot of young married couple's in the ward so I thought it was something that others would enjoy.

I did some Internet searching and found some designs I liked and thought I could duplicate.

This process required the use of two fun new toys. One, the brand new hot glue gun I bought for the occasion, works like a charm. The second is much more fun, my brother gave me a sewing machine that his co-worker was getting rid of. This is the first time I've found a use for it and I was excited. I'm not super experienced when it comes to sewing machines but I figured I'd be able to load the bobbin and thread the machine no problem. I was part right, I got it loaded but it took two phone calls to Mom and one Internet search. The above is a picture of my threaded machine.

After the initial difficulty the stockings turned out so well, I'm so excited with how they look, the tree is Brad's the snowmen is mine and the Santa is an extra, if you want to learn to make one come see me on December 1st :)
L