The Atonement Child

I just finished reading a book by Francine Rivers called The Atonement Child. What an interesting book! It is about a young Christian girl who has her life figured out, is engaged to a young man who plans on pursuing a career as a preacher, is in Bible college pursuing her own education. Then one night when she is walking home from work she is raped and becomes pregnant. Her whole life basically falls apart. Her fiance treats her like it was her fault and pressures her to have an abortion. She breaks up with him and goes home to her parents and they also try to pressure her to have an abortion. These are Christian people. Just something that I had never thought of before. I don't believe that abortion is ever okay, but wow, can you imagine getting pregnant under those circumstances. It was a great book if you are looking for something interesting to read!!!

Jay and I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire today. It was alright, not spectacular. I really enjoyed the book, and because the book is around 800 pages long the 2 and a half hour long movie did not really do the book justice. I found that because I knew the plot already, that it made sense to me. However, Jay, who had never read the book was left with an awful lot of unanswered questions. I think that the book was scarier. I guess that is the fun part of reading, using your imagination to picture the scenes and characters. At the end of the book, when Voldemort returns, I found that quite disturbing in the book, and only marginally scary in the movie. I am sure I will continue watching the subsequent Harry Potter movies but I think that they will all be disappointing as the last 2 have been. I was thinking about Lord of the Rings. And even though those are incredibly long and detailed books, I think they managed to make a coherent telling of those stories through the three movies. They did leave a lot out, but it all still made sense. Now I want to reread the Goblet of Fire again....and pick out all the discrepencies. Maybe I'll do that.

Phew

I've been without a computer for over 24 hours and I feel better to be up and running again. Our power supply conked out on us yesterday afternoon, so Jay and I took the computer in this morning to get a new one put in. Then Jay went to pick it up while I was at work and I just went down to the van and got the computer tower and brought it up and hooked it all up (done it 7 times now in the last couple of months if you include unhooking and rehooking it up), and it all seems to be working properly. I think I am a pro now. It is amazing how much we depend on this little black box for....*sigh* just like an old friend, it's good to have it back :)

Angie's blogger poll

Do you find the term "brain fart" offensive?

Our new tree topper and our Christmas tree

Getting ready for Christmas...

Yesterday Jason and I decorated for Christmas. We brought out everything, well maybe not EVERYTHING, because his mom and other relatives have kept him well stocked in Christmas decorations over the last few years since he moved out. Our tree looks just perfect, except we are in the market for a new tree topper this year. We plan to stop at Walmart after church today to check out their selection of tree toppers. We are hoping that we can find a nice one that lights up for a reasonable price.

On Friday Jason and I went shopping on my lunch break. We found a couple more gifts as well as a great pair of pants for Jay. Now that might not sound like a great feat, however pants are a tricky thing for Jay to find. I have seen him try on and scrap a few pairs of pants over the time that I have known him, but this is the first pair of pants that have totally worked for him. Yay :) I am pretty close to being done my Christmas shopping. I have a few small things to buy, then I will be done! Woohoo!

An update on my blog from November 4th, 2005. Everything worked out just fine. I still feel bad about what happened, but everything has worked out and I am okay :) Just thought I would mention that.

Today, I am thankful for a heated underground parking space at home so I don't have to scrape my windows or get into a cold car. Now only if I had such a luxury downtown....*sigh* Gotta go all the way downtown for probably only one appointment today. I am sure with the cold weather and the slippery streets there won't be too many people wanting to venture down for a massage. Tis the life of a massage therapist.

Christmas

I was watching TBS this evening and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas came on. I thought that it just doesn't seem like Christmas time yet. I know there have been piles of Christmas ads, music and products in stores, but just seems too early. I will even admit that I am about 75% done my Christmas shopping, but just felt too early to see The Grinch. I never liked the Grinch much anyways....my favorite Christmas movie as a kid was Mickey's Christmas Carol. The last couple of years I have watched the movie Elf, and that was a nice movie to get me in the Christmas mood. I think I might watch that in a couple of weeks. Just not yet...don't want to stretch it out too long because then it will seem like it's taking too long to get here. I love Christmas time though :)

Maybe not for the males who read my blog...

This evening I stopped in at Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up some feminine supplies. I went down the aisle and grabbed a couple of packages of different products. I then walked up to the til to pay and noticed that they had the Max 5 chocolate bar which I had been wanting to try for a while. I decided to buy one, and not wanting Jay to feel neglected I picked one up for him too. So there I was up at the til paying for a whack load of feminine products and two chocolate bars. I don't think the lady working the til thought anything of it, but I think the guy in front of me in line kind of gave me a funny look. Mmmm PMS...

Oh yeah, I have been meaning to tell you about the family of rabbits that live in my parking lot in the middle of downtown Saskatoon. There are 2 and possibly a 3rd one. I have only ever seen 2 of them together at once, but I thought there may be a 3rd one. I just thot it was exceedingly odd that there are rabbits living in a parking lot. They only seem to come out later in the day when I am leaving work, and now that it's getting colder they are starting to turn white. Weird eh?

A neat opportunity

Today when I was at work, the elevator stopped working in the building that I work in. It has happened many a time before, however today, there happened to be a gentleman in a wheelchair who had just happened to decide to come downstairs for coffee before the elevator gave out. So him and his friend poked their heads in the door of my office and asked if I had time to squeeze him in because he really had nothing better to do until the elevator people fixed the elevator (they estimated it would be at least an hour). It just happened that I had a half hour slot open at that time, so I squeezed him in. While he was filling out his case history form, the building manager called and said that if I could squeeze him in, that they would pay for him to have a massage. So it worked out pretty well for all of us. I treated him and we chatted a little. I asked him about why he was in a wheelchair, and he told me his story. I told him a bit about Jay's accident and it turned out that they both have very similar levels of injury and function. I thought it was a neat opportunity because I am sure that if I had never met Jay that I probably would have been quite nervous about treating this man, but because of what I know first hand about quadriplegia I was as comfortable as could be.

Did you ever do something, and you don't know why you did it, but after you did it you feel like crap? Like sick to your stomach and just want to cry for a few hours? I had an evening like that last night. I am not going to go into details, but I am doing my best to rectify the situation and I will be dropping an apology note in the mail this morning. I hope that this just blows by and does not balloon into anything bigger. *sigh*

Mmmmm filet mignon and fried shrimp from The Cave.

Perogies and Carrots

A couple of weeks ago, I had a client at work who is an 82 year old Ukranian lady. She was telling me about how she was going to make perogies for her neighbour as a gift and this is the conversation that ensued:

Angie - ooh, that's nice of you, I like perogies.
Ukranian Lady - would you like me to make you some perogies?
Angie - Oh you don't have to do that.
Ukranian Lady - No, it's no problem, how many do you want, 3 or 4 dozen potato and bacon?
Angie - Well, I suppose.
Ukranian Lady - And I got some beautiful carrots out of my garden this year, would you like some of those too?
Angie - Sure.

I figured that she would probably forget about this and I wasn't holding my breath for it, but last Friday she called me at work and told me that the perogies were ready. I told her I wouldn't be able to make it to get them until Monday and she said that was just fine. I went over to pick them up yesterday and she was waiting on the front step for me, and this is what was said:

Ukranian Lady - Hi Angela
Angie - Hi
Ukranian Lady - Here are your perogies and carrots.
Angie - Thank you.
Ukranian Lady - That'll be $3/dozen for the perogies and $1 for the bag of carrots.

Now in my mind I wasn't sure if I had heard her right, so I just kinda stood there probably looking surprised for a minute and finally said:

Angie - So I owe you $13 then.
Ukranian Lady - Yes.

Maybe I should have expected it, but it just totally caught me off guard. I just thought she was a sweet old lady offering me a gift, but on closer inspection I think she is just kind of lonely and depressed and nutty. As I walked out the door she told me that she loved me and asked if I could stay for coffee. I feel bad for her, and I do hope that the perogies are good. I am hopeful that they will be, cause if they aren't I will have to lie to the lady and tell her that they were good.