It's sooo bad. I spent pretty much all my free time this past week playing Lego Batman on Wii. It all started when, before the holidays, Alex had an afternoon off and we rented Super Mario Bros. on Wii. I never played video games as a child and so, was never really good. And then never wanted to play because I sucked. It's a crappy cycle. Any way, with Super Mario Bros. there's an option where you get to be in a bubble. So technically, you're still in the game, but you're not dying all the time. I loved it! I was finally "playing" video games and since it's cooperative and not competitive, I was also enjoying it for the very first time.

When I was studying in the States, I won a $30 gift card to Best Buy playing golf (more so, being the worst at golf). The problem was the Best Buy in Canada doesn't accept the gift card. So this holiday season, we went outlet shopping in Seattle and stopped by a Best Buy on the way home. Have you ever tried shopping in a tech store with 30 bucks? It's hard! Everything is either $20 or $80. We ended up spending $40 buying the Lego Batman and rechargers for Wii remotes.

I love Lego Batman. You get to play the game from the different perspectives, the good guys and the bad guys. Also, I don't totally suck at it because it's not just fighting but puzzles too. So yes, my life has wasted away a little bit since I've been home. I definitely see why my parents never bought me this kind of stuff when I was little. I'm finally living my true childhood, none of this silly business of practicing piano and doing Kumon! =P

Yesterday Alex surprised me by asking me out to a movie after dinner. Actually, he started off with making dinner. His days have been ending earlier for this month's rotation so he's been great at already making a meal by the time I get home from work. Yesterday's noodle stir-fry was delish!! He's always good at making chinese food; I guess it's good that I can use recipes to make white food - creates a balance and I don't feel like I need to prove myself =P

Any way, we went and saw "2012" last night. As with any other end of the world movie, there were lots of computer graphics and people dying. It's kinda depressing if you think about it but they didn't focus on that fact of course. Plot line was so-so, they didn't really develop the before aspect of the story (although the little they did already made Alex bored and asking for explosions). Character development was a little better - I liked Woody Harrison, but everyone else was again not great. We were definitely entertained with the computer graphics so, all in all, not a bad way to go as tickets were $4.20/person.

So here's my rankings of world-ending/natural disaster movies:

1. Armageddon - loved how they did up Bruce Willis' character; plus great soundtrack
2. Twister - a machine called Dorothy, life chasing tornados, what's not to like?
3. Volcano - Tommy Lee Jones in the 90's; I like him as the unlikely hero
4. Deep Impact - decent attempt to develop several story lines at once
5. Day After Tomorrow/2012 (Tie) - entertaining but nothing new
6. Dante's Peak - awful.


I watched Mama Mia recently and realized how much I don't like Pierce Brosnan. He really can't sing, and acting is minimal. I was disappointed with that movie overall - the stage version is so much better!

Watched My Sister's Keeper with my mom while she visited. We both cried our eyes out. It a good story, albeit predictable. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a good cry.

We tend to rent movies from Movie Cube cuz it's conveniently located at at the corner Superstore. It's only $2.25 (tax incl) per movie so we save a lot compared to Blockbusters and going out all the time.

I guess that's all the reviews I have at the moment. Last day of work today - sooo excited. And then free lunch tomorrow! One of the receptionists just told me I smile a lot; what's there to not be smiling about? I love my job! (although some patients I could do without...)

We put up the Christmas tree last night, or rather, Alex put it up. I was against decorating this year because: 1) we had just moved in this year so I didn't want to spend money decorating the outside 2) we're not even going to be here over the holidays to enjoy our beautiful decorations 3) I'm too lazy and the effort to take out the tree and decorate it plus all the effort to clean up the fallen pines/tinsel was too much.

Alas, Alex finally did it himself. It was honestly quite adorable watching him - he's like a little kid sometimes where the simplest thing amuses him. In this case, it was twinkling lights on the tree. I have to say, it made our home even more homey last night although when I woke up this morning I stood in front on the tree and laughed a while. In the dark, everything is very pretty but in daylight, the tinsel and lights are all lopsided and the balls are all unevenly scattered. I love my husband, he brings a lot of laughter and joy into my life. Perhaps I will attempt to pretty things up a little tonight while he is on call. My mom's coming into town tomorrow for a wedding. Gotta make everything look "taken care of" so she won't worry and think I'm a child again.

I am sooo looking forward to the holidays. They overbooked patients by accident and I told them I was free to take an extra day that I already had off. I'm an idiot cuz I've been complaining about needing a break. But at the same time, I guess I like having a little extra cash flow cuz I find that I end up spending a lot more when I'm traveling. Especially when visiting ppl and such, I want to treat them cuz we don't see each other often enough. I'm excited to go to BC this year. I still haven't seen my parents' new place and I'm looking forward to a whole month off!

I'm sitting at work right now mind-numbingly bored. Clinic starts @ 8:30am and since it takes b/w 20mins - 1/2 hr to get to work, I usually leave the house around 8am. Today I had to wake up at 7am just cuz I usually wash my hair in the mornings rather than at night.

(As an aside, I notice that when I wash my hair at night and sleep on it, it gets greasier than when I wash it in the morning. It's still every other day so that doesn't make sense to me. Does anyone else notice this problem?)

Any way, the first patient had called to cancel so really, there was nothing for the students to do until 11am. Seriously. We were present and accounted for - for 2 1/2 hrs. As an attending, I guess my job should have been to teach them something but seriously, they're 4th years. This is their last day in my clinic. I could've told them practical aspects of optometry but that early in the morning, no one wants to be lectured to. And I especially don't want to lecture. We chatted for 10 mins and then I spent the rest of the morning working on my spreadsheets for home budgeting.

We've worked out this routine where we sit down once a month to go over our expenses and review our spending habits. We both agree that it's good and necessary, yet we both hate doing it. That's cuz to get us to the point of great communication and mutual understanding we must first always go through the process of being frustrated at each other cuz the other party doesn't get/agree with what we're saying. *laughs* His way is good too, I'm just more detail-oriented so his big-picture method doesn't answer my questions. And he thinks my method takes too long and is inefficient =P So we've each been doing separate budgets - exactly as we had when we were single. Hence the discussions. It's taken a year, but I finally got Alex to say that my way is better - Booyah! Although to be fair, I did make certain adjustments so as to not waste so much time.

Actually, I really shouldn't complain about being bored at work. i appreciate this down time where I can surf the net and catch up on my CE readings/reflections. Yesterday was super busy and I left work feeling emotionally and mentally drained. I had a 67 y/o patient tell me she thought her exam was a waste of time and couldn't understand why she had to come at all. It was particularly maddening because I had gone out of my way to speak directly to her referring doctor. Argh! I know I need to learn to let things roll off my back more, to have a tougher skin but this was one of those situations where, even looking back, everything was done correctly. Perhaps she just came with the wrong expectations.

So today's Gord's birthday and their house-closing day. Congrats on both counts and I'm super excited for you guys. I hope everything goes smoothly cuz I know unexpected things can pop up. *huggs*

I got to head out to Toronto twice this past weekend just cuz I'm that awesome. Not really. I had tons of fun but by the end of the weekend I tired. I think I'm getting too old for all this excitement! =P Any way, I intended to only head out for lunch with Simon b/c I never celebrated his birthday together in...what appears to be a long time since I can't remember. It was nice to chat and catch up with happenings. He invited me along with Irene and Herb for dinner since Alex was on call and I was in no rush to head home.

We tried out this bar called "The Double Deuce Saloon". Great food - I ordered this absolutely delicious sandwich with Prosciutto, cheese, baba ghanoush, eggplant and who knows what else. I also got to sample everyone else's orders - meat and cheese platters, tacos, chili and beef brisket sandwich. They were all great although I loved mine the best. Highly recommend ppl to check it out. The decor looked like a hole-in-the-wall. And we almost walked past it the first time around. But I had a wonderful time hanging out with everyone, just joking around and chatting. Kinda made me wish I was around T.O. more often and that I was single. But then I slept in with my hubby and realized that I like my lazy life as it is right now. Besides, I also realized I would end up spending a lot of money if I lived downtown; there's just too much to do!

We went back to Toronto on Saturday cuz it's was Drew's birthday/him & Adele's house-warming. Their condo was gorgeous. 17' ceilings in a loft style, plus they did a great job decorating it to look contemporary and chic. I loved it and felt so inadequate when trying to decorate our home. I'm totally not comparing since our homes' are completely different styles but I felt like their place was pulled together somehow and it's that "pulled-together" look that we're missing. They even had tall, fresh flowers in their living room - seriously, it looked like something out of a magazine. The boys ended up doing drinking games with flippy cups. Ridiculously childish and yet, I was quite entertained. What does that say about me? Sooo glad that I didn't end up going with them to the club and even Donna bailed. Poor Adele didn't have an excuse and was stuck taking care of 6 wasted men.

I finally got my H1N1 vaccine yesterday. I've been putting it off because I didn't want to wait in lines and fortunately, the clinic I was at yesterday had a nurse practitioner who wasn't busy. I fall into the high-risk group because I'm in health-care (not because I'm pregnant, as so many are quick to ask). She warned me that my arm was going to be sore not from the needle but the vaccine itself. Boy was she right!! I can't even lift my arm to shoulder height and it's all warm and swollen but not red. I don't think I'm having a reaction. Sleeping last night was awful though cuz I like to sleep on my left side so I would roll over and wake up from the discomfort of the arm and the odd position of my body would be in to compensate. I'm all groggy today and I finally grabbed a French Vanilla to perk me up. Except I just had a 4 year old scream in my ears for 20 mins because I was trying to literally poke her eye. This combination of sleep deprivation and screaming child has left me with a floating sensation where every sound is muted. Quite trippy. =D I'm probably not in the best state of mind to continue seeing patients...fortunately, they're follow-ups.

6. Boyz II Men

After we slept the whole day away recovering from our long session of board games., Alex and I went to Casino Rama in Orillia to watch Boyz II Men. Music is one area that we very rarely agree on. He grew up liking alternative rock and I, R&B/oldies. Boyz II Men is one of the few that we both admire for their talent. So when we heard they were going to be performing, we bought tickets back in August. It was sooo AWESOME!! I don't care if you think they're old skool or not, they were not only great performers but also great entertainers. They kept the crowd going so well and it's was great to watch these 40 year old men doing dances Motown-style. The audience ages varied from ppl in the 20's to some 50/60's. They were totally relaxed about people going up to the front and it felt like it was an intimate concert. A few couples were slow dancing by their seats or in the aisles. The best was when I saw people grab a few of the ushers to dance to one of the Motown numbers. Ever see random strangers dancing in casino uniforms? So good! They even handed out roses to a ton of women when they sang "I'll make love to you" - these guys are smoother than Usher! They also had audience members call their moms and personally serenaded them over the phone with "Song for Mama". It was by far, the most intimately entertaining concert I've ever been to. Totally recommend it when they come back next year. BTW, apparently Mike (the guy who sings with the deep voice), he had to retire early because of his scoliosis, he may be back to tour with the group next year as part of their 20th anniversary. Dude, we are so there if it happens!

7. Sunday Dinner

We went to dinner at Joseph and Emily's home on that Sunday (it was a jam-packed weekend). It was our first time hanging out with another couple (actually, I guess our second time cuz we've had lunch with some other ppl before) We just ate dinner at played Agricola (another board game). It was nice to do something in a foursome, although it really didn't seem all that different from hanging out with anyone else. I think the bigger idea was that we were getting to know people that didn't just know us individually (ie. my friends or his friends). Like I had previously posted, we don't actually have too many mutual friends that are close to both of us equally. Any way, I only mention this because I watched an episode of "How I Met Your Mother" recently where Lily and Marshal fail miserable at dating other couples. It was called the Sexless Innkeeper if you want to find it online.

8. Pre-Marriage Retreat

This past weekend, we joined a pre-marriage retreat. Weird I know, because we've been married over 2 years now. But we never did pre-marital counseling and we always said we wanted to. It was pretty good, $75/couple and it included 3 books, drinks, snacks and a lunch for one and half days. There were a lot of great things to take away from the course and I highly recommend people to do it regardless of relationship length or faith. If you can't do a course, at least pick up the book "Saving your Marriage before it starts". It also has 2 workbooks, one for the guys and one of the girls. Each exercise takes 5 mins to complete and then you spend 20-30 mins discussing your answers with each other. Maybe I'll spend another blog going into detail about different things the book brought up and how we're learning and working through our differences.

9. Football in HD

I've stated it before but I love football. This is the first year where I've started to follow it starting in the pre-season and although I don't know all the storylines or stats, it's still an exciting game to watch and I get really into it. Maybe one day I'll get good enough to to join a fantasy football league. Is that what they're called? Any way, since we don't have cable, we've been watching the streaming online, which really is not bad at all. Although I'm sure once we get to the Superbowl, the time will lag quite a bit. But this Sunday, we watched the Vikings vs. Packers game at Alex's parents place. Now, my dad-in-law bought this huge flat screen last year with all the bells and whistles but we never discovered the HD aspect until this year. And only this week did he buy the right cable so that when we watched HD, the faces were not all streched out funny. Football on his screen is amazingly clear now. I have a feeling we're going to be heading over to their place for dinners on Sunday a lot more often - at least until the beginning of February! =P Alex has tried to convince me to get a nice entertainment system purely for sports and when it's Football season, I'm almost inclined to agree with him. But now that we have his parents, who needs it. Plus we get to see them more often too...so who says you can't have your cake and eat it?

10. Books

I'm currently reading the "Left Behind" series. It's about the end of the world and I think was suppose to be for teenagers, although as I read it, I feel as though perhaps it was meant for ppl in the 20's. I've always heard other people talking about it but I've never actually read it myself. I'm only in book 5 (had to skip book 4 cuz it wasn't available) but so far the storyline's pretty interesting because it follows what the Bible says about the end of times. It's follows 7 years of bad things, from earthquakes to meteor strikes, to drought and famine, and plagues. The only I don't like so far is that there are too many characters to follow. I guess it's probably cuz they need to keep killing them off with the different disasters. I like how they portrayed the Anti-christ, how he was able to fool everyone in the beginning with his talks about peace and unity. It sounds good and it makes me wonder if I would fall for it myself. And whether or not I would still be around for the end or whether I would be taken to heaven before it all starts. So guess this series has caused me to reflect more on where my walk is with God but doesn't really challenge me to do more than that. We'll see if that changes...

So I got an e-mail reminder that I haven't posted since Sept 9th. Thanks to the little birdie for reminding that there are procrastinating workers who look forward to reading my blog to waste time! I guess I'll be chronological:

!. Gardening

We ended up hiring this lady to help out with fall clean up of our yard since we've never had any experience. She was awesome. Not professional but willing to teach us what we needed to do while doing herself as well. If you were looking for landscaping advice, etc it would not be her. She's just a woman who's looking to make some extra cash doing something she enjoys. We found her off of Kijiji for $15/hr. We originally wanted her to come back and help us transplant a few more trees and cover the garden with rocks so we wouldn't have to weed but then we got busy/lazy and never called back. Now that it's getting cold, I'm even more lazy and will probably push this project off until Spring comes =P

2. Anniversary

We decided to stick around town for our 2 year anniversary this year just cuz we got back from our trip not too long ago (which btw, I still haven't posted the pictures to the other half of the trip). Both sets of mom forgot which date we got married. Alex's mom called us on 9/11 to congradulate us and my mom called on 9/20. Granted, our wedding date is not the easiest to remember and I'll be the first to admit that I've forgotten it myself several times already. Should've copied Ray and Deb and just done something like 08/08/08 *laughs* Any way, we took the weekend to be just us, no other ppl or distractions and had a lovely time. Saturday was my day, so Alex drove me to Toronto to get my hair done, walk around Yonge St shopping, eat at Grazie and have facial. Sunday was Alex's day so I went with him to the golf course to play 18 holes and then we went to Montana's for ribs and watched football. Nothing extremely fancy or expensive (my day consisted of gift cards and his was a last minute deal) but it was great in the sense that we each got our loved to spend time with us doing what we enjoyed. I highly recommend it if you want to save some cash and still have a "getaway" that you wanted.

3. Hosting

We had 2 big parties at our place in October. One being my elementary/Haig friends and the other being Alex's high school friends. It was so much fun to cook and entertain and be able to fit everyone around our dining room table. Thanks to everyone for making the trip or spending the holidays together. We appreciated being able to share our home with you. On a more practical note, we also realized that most ppl ended up hanging around our living room area instead of the family room (where all the couches were). For some strange reason, eveyone wants to lie on our floor when chatting. Maybe the carpet really is that comfortable. We had originally planned to fill that space with a side table but seeing how ppl seem comfortable with this arrangement, we will save the money instead.

4. Haunted Farm

Alex and I went to check out this "scary" farm in the middle of nowhere a couple of weekends ago. It sounded scary and we got ourselves all worked up on way there. It's literally in the middle of nowhere and as you're driving to the entrance there's all these old, dilapidated barns lining the road. To make it scarier, it was raining that night. Unfortunately because of the rain Steph and Gord didn't make it out and the hayride portion also got cancelled. They did only charge us 8 bucks instead of 16 and we got to repeat our entrances as much as we wanted. I think Alex and I were both disappointed with the final result simply because everything was set up to be very scary and yet I felt they didn't pull through. For example, the corn maze was pretty creepy walking through as it was but it totally could've been to the next level if they had scarecrows or dummies of some sort hidden all around. Or even better yet, have ppl jump out between the corn or chase after you. It was literally a maze in the dark, nothing else. For the haunted barn, the decorations were amazing. So detailed and seriously creepy. But they didn't have enough staff members to roam around the barn itself. I think there were 3 total and they kind clumped towards the end. It would've been better if some of the decorations were actually people or had more movement/sudden jerks. A large part of the barn felt as if you were just walking through the different scenes observing instead of actually being in the horror itself. Still...I was jumpy enough to refuse another entry but I made Alex go back a second time just to get our money's worth.

5. Puerto Rico

After the farm, we had Allan and Kyle back to our place to play board games. Puerto Rico is developed by the same makers of Settlers of Cataan except it's infinitely better in that there's almost no element of chance. Everything is based on strategy. Alex bought me this game for my 27th birthday and we got the other guys hooked onto it as well. That friday, we played for a full NINE HOURS - from 10pm to 7am in the morning! It was crazy. At first it was only Kyle, Alex and I but by the time 3am rolled around, Allan finished work and he came by for another 2 games. It sounds so nerdy when you stop to think about it but I had fun and it's nice to have things in common with Alex that I can enjoy with his friends as well.

Super-old blog that somehow never got posted until now.

Owning a home is hard work. Not only do you have to clean more rooms than ever before, the sucky part is that majority of the space you don't even use! Other than cleaning, there's the outside: Alex has been good with mowing the lawn but we've failed a watering the grass/plants and our poor garden has fallen by the wayside since the previous owners left.

Another thing that we've been trying to do is accomplish the list of things that our home inspector pointed out to us. We've already scheduled our roof to be done, although it's been delayed because of the rain. It was suppose to start this past Monday but when I left the house this morning, all the materials were lying around and not a worker was seen. I sincerely hope they will be done before everyone comes to visit this weekend. Another thing on the list was to replace our bathroom fans.

Now this doesn't sound that complicated. We picked up a new fan "easy to install in just 3 steps". Yeah...we kind of rean into some problems. Since our home is older, the fan that was originally there happens to be in dimensions that are no longer made. We ended up with a smaller fan - which we figured was fine as long as the grill covered the ugliness. We didn't take into the fact that the insulation from the attic would be falling down from the excess space nor could we figure out how to adhere the fan so that it would not fall through the hole. After 2 labour-intensive days, we gave up and hired a handyman. The poor guy spent 2 hours installing the fan and only got paid 50 bucks for all his hard work.

As with all lessons, it doesn't matter how often ppl tell you, you have to experience them yourself to really learn. In this case, Gord & Steph once told me that throwing money at problems will make things go away. It took us two very frustrating days before we were willing to submit to the fact that we will no longer attempt to fix things up on our own and simply hire ppl's expertise.






Oh and btw, we're having a lady come help with our garden this saturday.

My mom left Waterloo yesterday after staying for a week. It was great to have her come - hopefully she felt at home since everything inside was essentially hers. I accomplished more in the few days that she was here than my entire 2 months. Of course, I also spent a lot more too.

Filling a home is expensive! We bought a papasan chair for, what I think, was an obscene amount. Simply because it's totally not practical - cushion will get flat from use and I keep worrying that it'll break under my weight. Plus the fact that it's an odd piece to have in the living room because of it's so casual (aren't living rooms meant to be for formal sitting?). With all that being said, I love it. I love curling up in it to read by our window. It's just comfy, I almost feel like I'm in a crib! =P I've been keeping an eye out for used ones cuz we have 30 days to return. For some odd reason, they're very popular in London but I haven't seen anything that looks like ours yet.

I've spent so much time going back and forth between the different Home Sense locations I feel like I know their entire inventory. Plus, I forgot that I got a gift card for it from our wedding so I had to go back. They have this really stupid policy where you can't just bring your receipt. I had to bring back all my merchandise, refund it and then re-purchase it with the gift card. Have you ever tried carrying 10 pillows? Ridiculous!

Of course, it's my own fault. I'm not a designer. I can't just see things in my head. So, being an idiot I buy everything and then return things that don't work. Which ends up creating more work for myself - not to mention gas. I was so exhausted by the time my mom's vacation ended, I felt like I needed another vacation! But it was definitely great girl time. Alex was smart enough to schedule 2 on-calls back to back so he was never home. Otherwise, I think it would've been too much estrogen for him.

Now, we're back to our regular routine. I start working 3x/week starting next Monday. Excited and nervous at the same time because the specialties will be something completely different from what I'm doing right now. And I was just starting to get comfortable with where I'm at. We'll see...!

I'm in PEI right now, having a wonderful time. Here's a quick summary of our trip so far:

We left home on Friday morning stopping first in Montreal for the night. Our hotel was right in the heart of downtown which was perfect since we walked Prince Arthur Street and had dinner there while a street performer serenaded us. Then we went to the casino where I tripled my money at the slots (won $16.45!!) but we also lost 10 bucks playing the horse tracks and the fortune wheel. We went to Schwartz's for some smoked meat for lunch to go with our bread and brought it to Mont Royal. It was a great idea since the park was just around the corner and it was a nice, impromptu picnic overlooking eastern Montreal.

We drove to Quebec City next and spent the evening walking along Rue Petit-Champlain looking at little shops, checking out Chateau Frontenac and eating dinner at Spag&tini. The line up was long so we tought it was good but turns out it was more for the price than the quality. Service was good though and our waitress had me practice my french with her. Oh yeah, we also did a detour to Chutes de la Chaudiere. Alex managed to walk right to the Falls.

We didn't end up staying another night in Quebec because our main trip was suppose to be the Maritimes so we drove for another 3 hours after dinner and spent the night in Edmunston, New Brunswick at a very sketchy motel. I've never actually been to a motel like this (I know, I've been spoiled) but other than the washroom, it actually didn't look that bad in the morning. At least the bedsheets were clean and the bed was comfortable.

We drove another 6 hours to get to PEI. We did another detour to the longest covered bridge in the world (really wasn't that exciting...) but I guess that the fun thing about road trips - the hits and the misses. We also stopped by Magnetic Hill - which is a "reverse hill". You put your car into neutral and somehow roll UP the hill. We were actually quite amused by this and tried different materials like water bottles to try and figure it out.

Since then, we've been staying at a B&B on PEI. It's my first time at a B&B and I kinda it. Every morning we eat breakfast with the other guests at chat with them about where we've been and where to go next. Since everyone does something different, it really opens up for conversation and new places to explore.

We had arrived late the first night so ate dinner at their famous "lobster suppers". Basically, for a fixed price you get unlimited bread, seafood chowder, salad, mussels and dessert. You also get a lobster, price depends on size. We ordered a 3lb to share and snuck out back to see what they looked like alive. Some of them are huge!! If you look at the picture, the lobster runs from past the fingertips to the elbow. I was quite impressed with their dinner and I highly recommend everyone to go to New Glasgow. Their lemon meringue is the absolute BEST I've ever had. Usually they're either too sweet or too tangy (or both) but this was perfect. I ate 2 huge slices. My belly has expanded quite a bit since being on the island.