I drove by our lot yesterday, just for fun and there was a sold sign on it! Kind of exciting :) We should be hearing back from Fraser any day now so we can go check out the plans that they have created for our house. I look forward to seeing their interpretation of our drawings.

On another not so exciting note. My favorite cereal is called Honey Almond Crisp. The only place I have ever seen it is at Costco, and I have eaten many boxes of it in the last months. Well the box that I opened just the other day, the blueberries seem to be rotten or something. There are dried blueberries in the cereal that when soaked in milk get soft and are like regular blueberries. There was one gross one yesterday but it was right at the end of the bowl so I wasn't turned off of it. But today it was in the 2nd bite I took and I just couldn't finish it. I sure hope I haven't been turned off of this cereal forever. I like it so much! I think we will return this box to Costco because it's like $8 for a box (twice as big as a regular box of cereal) and I know they are good about taking stuff back.

Chinese Barbecue Sauce

If anyone ever gives you a recipe that calls for Chinese barbecue sauce, it's MUCH different than our idea of barbecue sauce. It is made with dried fish powder and has a paste-like consistency. It is quite fishy smelling. It didn't taste too bad once it was mixed in with the other ingredients, but that fishy smell really kind of turned me off of it. Even though the finished product didn't taste too fishy.....I just warn you to BE CAREFUL. I know probably not too many people cook traditional Chinese cuisine, but we thought we would try the Garlic Shrimp and Broccoli recipe from my new Company's Coming Chinese food cook book (I got for Christmas). I will now be leary of recipes that include the Chinese barbecue sauce.

Oooh pretty!

Nothing like having your office broken into to make you feel violated :P This evening when I was treating a male client around 5:30pm I heard a loud CRACK out in the waiting room. I figured that since I was the only one there that I should go check it out. When I came out of my room, the door in the waiting room was just closing and I could hear someone running away from the door and up the stairs. It took a second to clue in that he had busted open the door, because we always lock the door after 5pm if we aren't expecting any more clients. I am VERY thankful that I did not come face to face with this person....so glad that my door opening scared him off. I am glad that I had a male client who was willing to wait with me until the maintenance guy came to fix the lock. I am not glad that I had to go through this, but I know that had I not been there, he would have cleaned out all of our cash, which would have been really crappy. *sigh* I did pretty well holding it together for a good hour while I finished up the massage and waited for the guy to come and fix the door, but I sure had a good cry once I got into my car and most of the way home, then a little more once I got home. I feel better now, and I will be okay. On a happier note I am having one of the busiest weeks I have had in MONTHS....if all 4 of my clients show up tomorrow I will have had 18 clients this week!!

Look what my hubby bought me for our 2nd anniversary! What a sweetheart!

Ice Fishing

This weekend was our big annual ice fishing weekend. Not that it only has to happen once a year, but that has been the trend in the last 2 years since we got married (can't believe Monday is already our 2nd anniversary!). It was a lovely day for ice fishing. When we got out there at 10am it was about -10C and it warmed up from there to about -3C. I was the lucky one to get my fishing rod given to me first, so before Jay or Dale even got their lines down the hole I had 6 or 7 fish that needed taking off my line (I prefer not to touch fish). They continued to bite quite hard for a while, but then really tapered off. I think I probably got about 30 or so fish today. Of course probably about 10 of them were 'keepers', though we probably kept a few more than that because we had planned to have a fish fry out on the ice for lunch. It was quite good, but lunch was late in being served for some reason.

I know in the last couple of years that I have done better fishing with the underwater camera to watch when the fish were going after my hook, but this year I felt much more confident in my abilities to feel the fish nibbling my hook. I maybe only caught 3 fish with the camera. I am becoming quite the fisherwoman. I even rebaited mine and Jason's hooks with cut up fish meat when the fish came and stole ours (when Dale was busy cleaning fish for lunch). I even took a few fish off of my own line by stepping on it and gently wiggling the hook out without touching the actual fish. I am sure it wasn't even too bad for the fish. Kind of like getting a lip ring taken out.....while having a giant step on you, on ice, while struggling to breathe out of water. Okay, maybe it wasn't very nice for the fish, but at least they don't scream or I don't think I could have handled it.

Our future home

We took the next step yesterday in building a house. We now have this lot secured and hopefully we will start building within a month or a month and a half. Yay :)

They have found an ethical, readily available source of stem cells. They were found in amniotic fluid, of all things! Stem cells (for those who don't know) are cells that can divide rapidly and form any type of tissue and are most commonly found in aborted embryos, as well as umbilical cord blood. Hopefully one day they can use them to regenerate spinal cord cells! How exciting! Check out the article here.

Renewed Excitement

A couple of days ago Jason got a call from one of his old rugby buddies, wondering if he could come over and take a look at Jason's van because he was thinking about buying a very similar one. Jason agreed, but asked if we could go over to their house to check it out (they built it about 10 years ago). Paul agreed, so last night we ventured over. It was a very nice looking house, that is fully accessible to wheelchairs. His lift was quite impressive for a home made lift. I think the first time I heard Jason talk of a home made lift I was concerned about the safety of it. However after looking at 2 different home made lifts last night (Paul's neighbour has the exact same house plan because the wife is also a quadriplegic, and has a slightly different home made lift) I feel much more secure. The lift that Jason's parents have in their house cost a LOT of money and is VERY slow. These ones cost less than a quarter of Jason's parents lift AND are much much faster.

Looking at these houses really renewed my excitement for building a house. Not that I wasn't excited, but just to see a house that is newer that has been built to Paul's needs and specifications was really cool. And also they had a super cute little dog (shih tzu crossed with a havanese) and she sat on my lap for the better part of the evening and that really made me want a puppy. We had planned to go talk to Fraser last Thursday, but had to cancel the appointment due to the blizzard, but we plan to reschedule for this week. The ball should get rolling very soon :) Yay for a house and a puppy!

BRIT

I have seen and heard a bit on the radio and tv about BRIT this year. For those who are not familiar with BRIT it stands for Bedford Road Invitational Tournament and it is a basketball tournament that has been going on for 39 years now. I went to Bedford for my high school years and there was always a lot of excitement surrounding this weekend. Whether you were a teenage girl and excited to have 10 or 11 teams of young boys at your school (I fit into that category) or if you were a genuine high school basketball enthusiast it was a good time. It always seemed that the weekend of BRIT (the first weekend in January after getting back from Christmas holidays) was always super cold out and this year has not disappointed in that area. I heard on the radio that this year there is a team from Australia. Haha, I bet you they are wishing they would have stayed because it's summer there, instead of coming here 2 days after the worst blizzard Saskatoon has seen in over 50 years!!!

While listening to the talk about BRIT I was taken back to my experiences. I remember having an incredibly sore bum after 2 days of sitting on those very hard wooden bleachers. I remember making up cheers with my friends and cheering our hearts out from the stands. I remember enjoying the cheerleading competition (which is always held at noon on Saturday, between games). I remember being chosen as a BRIT team hostess and being absolutely thrilled (even though it seemed it was usually left to the popular girls, and I was anything but popular in high school). I remember getting up in front of the WHOLE school to introduce my team, the BJM Saints. What an exciting time! Can't believe it's been 9 years since I was in grade 12.....

Jason and I watched the movie 'Walk the Line' last night. I thought it was quite good and was very amazed at how much Joaquin Phoenix's voice sounded like Johnny Cash's. That movie made me feel like listening to Johnny Cash music. Strange....though he does have some good songs :) My dad would be proud!

Our Driveway

*sigh*

I don't know if I have ever seen them forecast a blizzard before. It doesn't just say snow, or blowing snow, or winter storm warning. It says blizzard. It kind of scares me. I have to go to work tomorrow. Well maybe if I don't want to go to work, none of my 4 clients will want to come either :P I think I might get Jason to drive me to work in the morning, but we'll see. I will drive in this if I need to, and it doesn't even scare me THAT much. My major concern is parking downtown and getting stuck or drifted in. Where I usually park, probably won't be plowed out for a good week or so, and I imagine that if this is going to be as bad as they are saying that the underground parking at the Midtown will be full. I suppose we will see what news we wake up to tomorrow. Too bad it's not April 1st and this isn't just a joke.

Sears Catalogue

I got the new Sears catalogue in the mail last week. I have spent some time looking through it and may order some dress pants out of there. However I noticed when looking through the clothing section that it seems to me that they are trying to sell the women's lingerie to men. Even some of the models in the clothing are posed in pretty revealing sexy positions. I don't understand. Seeing a skinny woman with big boobs bursting out doesn't increase my desire to own those clothes, I don't have big boobs and I know that it wouldn't look the same on me as it does on her :P Then as I was perusing the men's clothing section I came across the men's underwear, and just for comparison purposes I looked. And to my surprise there were no models. They were just pictures of mens underwear. I just wondered why they do that....I would think that more women than men would be likely to check out the Sears catalogue. But maybe there are more creepy men out there that like to oogle the women in the Sears catalogue than I know.

Today I ventured out to Costco to return a Christmas gift and to buy a few groceries. With the money I got from the return I bought the new U2 cd. It is called 18 Singles. It is kind of like a greatest hits album. It basically has 16 of their best songs, then two new ones. I was pretty happy with it because it basically has every U2 song that I like. If you like U2, I would check it out :) I have already ripped it and added it to my MP3 player. I am sure enjoying that thing! I just wish I had more time to listen to it in the car. I guess I need to plan a road trip or something!

Today is my birthday

Not that it matters much. I think as you get older you realize that birthdays, Christmas, etc are just days of the year. It is nice to feel special, but some days, like today are just meant for working (I had 5 appointments today) then coming home and watching tv and feeling tired. I am not trying to have a pity party for myself, as I did have a wonderful supper with my family on Monday night and had a lovely supper out with my sweetheart last night. I guess it's just part of getting older, I am TWENTY-SIX after all ;)