Happy Birthday Matt!

I wish I had gotten you this cake. Anyway, I love you and hope you have a wonderful birthday. Now let's party it up with some seniors! (No, literally- it's the Eldercare Christmas party tonight and we're going.)


Oh, and people, I did it! I blogged every day in November. Man am I stubborn!

Make a Joyful Noise!

Being an adult when my parents divorced was tough but it has been great being old enough to see them meet and remarry new partners. Mom remarried a few years ago and Dad has been with Sharron forever but they just decided to take the plunge. It was a lovely, personal ceremony. Congratulations you two, I love you! Here are some of my favorite pictures.

Our Adorable House

When I last left this blog there were a lot of big things happening. I got a new job, we moved, someone rear ended me (and thus caused me to have to write off my car and buy a new one. Frick.), lovely Leah decided to return to BC. Big things.

I had great intentions and took a bunch of pictures of our new abode and then did nothing with them. Well, I put together a crappy slideshow so those of you who do not live near us can see where we hang our hats.

I have to say, I am in love with this place. I will be incredibly sad when we leave it. It's quirky, unusual, spacious and is just 'home'. We haven't lived here for very long but it was meant to be, as cliche and cheesy as that might sound. Our landlady is so precious, the price is right, the location is fabulous. It just makes me all warm fuzzy thinking about it. This house feels like happy. There is an issue that the downstairs tenants smoke inside but they seem to have stopped that since we moved in and asked them to stop. The real test is coming though, since it's getting colder outside. I am really, really crossing my fingers and pleading to the Universe that they continue to smoke outside because I don't want to move and the smoke (besides being gross and ruining our furniture, clothing and other belongings) really affects Matt's health.

We welcome visitors and like I mentioned, have a spare room. I haven't invited over scads of people but if I like you you can come over. My home is my sanctuary. I hadn't pictured my sanctuary to have such hideous curtains, but I guess it is my fault since I have been too lazy to replace them. I seriously can't wait until I can put up our Christmas tree in front of that bay window. Nesting much? Haha...

Unwinding

With all this rage and stress it's comforting to know that I have my beautiful sister best friend to de-stress with. What would I do without her? (And what would I do without martinis?)

Murder of a Very Fine Gentleman

For Matt's 30th birthday party we hosted a murder mystery dinner party at our apartment. Matt wrote the mystery himself and spent a really long time making up cards and games. He sent out character sketches to everyone invited and even made up a fake newspaper! We invited 10 of our nearest and dearest to participate and everyone really got into their roles. The costumes were fabulous! Steph was pretty silly- hopefully no one is offended by her "black face". It was in good fun- she put cocoa powder in her foundation and smelled delicious all night!

We spent the whole morning cooking. We decided to take a very organized approach and chop and measure everything out and label it before it was time to cook. Sort of like a birthday cooking show. This worked out pretty well since it's tricky to have everything ready at the same time. Here's the menu:

Beverages:
Lassi
Chai Tea

Victuals:
Naan
Nariyal Chawal
Garden Salad

Butter Chicken
Aloo Gobi
Sambaar
Palak Kofta
Palak Paneer

It all turned out great (except the sambaar) and everything was made from scratch except the naan and the palak paneer. Oh, we also didn't make the butter chicken sauce from scratch, but we did pretty good!

The story goes, Mr. Pagels was an extremely wealthy man, but loathed by many. He came into his money through marrying his poor Indian wife (me). I have to take care of his blind sister (Alisse) and my only friend is the maid (Laurie). I am tied to the kitchen- this was not fun. Also invited were the Madame (Bryn) from the local brothel, Mr. Pagels' war hero brother (Sev), a Nun (Leah) from an orphanage Pagels plans to bulldoze to make into a bar, a gangster interested in becoming a bar partner (Steph), an unwed mother (Kasia) who claims the child is Pagels, a fortune teller (Tia), a gambler (Dylan) and a doctor (Steve). It was so much fun!

After the dinner party we met up with some more friends at a local pub and helped Matt forget he's turned 30. He decided to stay in costume and ended up looking like a Hutterite! Haha. We stumbled over to Steve's to play Rock Band and have some birthday pie and then it was time to call it a night. If you want to see all the pictures (in a non-slide show format) click here.

Review: The Door

Margaret Atwood is my favorite. I've written about her before and one of the things I must do before I die is meet her. Well, at least see her in person. Heck, I'd even settle for the LongPen (she's such a genius- is there anything she doesn't do?).

I'm not a huge poetry reader. I find that most poetry is too muddled and pretentious or possibly I am just too thick and lazy to appreciate it. I love Atwood's poetry though. The Door strikes me as being one of her most personal poetry collections. It's also quite political, however, that isn't surprising since Atwood tends to be fairly political. Here's one of my favorite poems:

Nobody Cares Who Wins

Nobody cares who wins wars.
They care at the moment:
they like the parades, the cheering;
but after that, winning diminishes.
A silver cup on the mantle
engraved with some year or other;
a hoard of buttons cut from corpses
as souvenirs; a shameful thing
you did in white-hot anger shoved
back out of sight.
Bad dreams, a bit of loot.
There's not much to say about it.

That was a fine time, you think.
I've never felt more alive.
Nonetheless, victory puzzles you.
Some days you forget where you've put it,
though younger men make speeches about it
as if they had been there too.

Of course it's better to win
than not. Who wouldn't prefer it?

Losing, though. That's different.
Defeat grows like a mutant vegetable,
swelling with the unsaid.
It's always with you, spreading underground,
feeding on what's gone missing:
your son, your sister, your father's house,
the life you should have had.
It's never in the past, defeat.
It soaks into the present,
it stains even the morning sun
the colour of burnt earth.

At last it breaks the surface.
It bursts. It bursts into song.
Long songs, you understand.
They go on and on.

If you've never checked out her poetry before I suggest you do it!

Jacqueline's Visit

It might come to a surprise that I have another sister. I spend a lot of time with Steph since she lives nearby but I do have a sister that lives far away. Well, she came to visit us. This was excellent because we went out to eat at a lot of yummy places (oh and it was nice to spend time with her too! Haha!). My heart is through my stomach.

Dad and Sharron brought Venus along to visit and we brought her up to the apartment. It's a no pets apartment but I figured that having her there for an hour wouldn't kill anyone. She loved the carpet! They have hardwood in their place so she hasn't really experienced carpet before. I really miss having dogs around.

We went to Olive Garden with Dad and Sharron the first night and then to Chili's with Mom the next night. Delicious! I did have to work on Remembrance Day but managed to hang out with Jac a lot afterward. We had some amazing sushi (in a HUGE boat) and then saw The Box (which was disappointing). I was pleased to learn that my non-reading sister has been reading a little because she has a lot of time on her hands at work these days. I immediately lent her three books in hopes that she will continue with this and become hooked on reading. I was able to do it with Steph in the summer and as a result she finished 10 books! I gave Jac a few "sure things"- The Lovely Bones, Midwives and Helpless so hopefully the reading bug will bite her too!

Sometimes all you need...

...is some good company and all your stress just melts away. I love these girls! I am also ridiculously excited that it's the hockey pre-season. I can't wait to cheer for the Oilers this season!

Now and Then: 10 Years of Us

I could make this really mushy but that's not really my style. It was our ten year anniversary this weekend and we had a nice day. Nothing really monumental happened but I suppose you should be recognizing the important relationships in your life every day, right?

We went out and saw the Time Traveler's Wife (you can read Matt's review of it over here) and then bought ourselves a present.

I've always wanted to have nice things. That may sound really materialistic but let's face it, we need stuff to run a household and I am sick of owning a bunch of crap that is falling apart. We spent a ridiculous amount of money on new pots and pans and they are just gorgeous! Now that I'm staying in one place I want to make my living space as comfortable as I can. My parents have already helped me in the right direction with the fabulous living room furniture and TV and so now my goal is to keep that up and invest in quality things that I will love for a long time. You can see what we were cooking with before and our beautiful new cookware in the second picture. What do you think?

I think the next thing we need to save for and invest in will be a new table and chairs. What are you saving for? Have you made any big purchases lately?

Anyway, to get back on topic- Happy Anniversary Matt! And thank you to everyone that recognized our special day!

I Love My Dogs

I wish I could see them more often! I hope that Zeus stays healthy. I was teasing Dad about Venus gaining weight. I wish I had a house so I could have a pet. Aren't they adorable?

A Weekend Filled with Celebration

I was able to get Friday off of work so I could go to my Dad's house and celebrate his 56th birthday with him. It was a fabulous meal (as always) of BBQ chicken, pork chops, salad, roasted potatoes and fresh buns. We also had the traditional DQ ice cream cake which Sharron added even more Reese Peanut Butter Cups to. Like it wasn't fattening enough already. It was delicious and we all stuffed ourselves. After supper we played Balderdash (which we call Bangladesh after Sharron slipped up and called it that years ago) and it was really hilarious. Some highlights included Foumart (An unsuccessful chain of grocery stores run by Mr. T) and Fingers (A movie about a gang of fingerless pirates who are unable to cut open their lemons and ultimately die of scurvy). Jules won for the first time too so that was nice for him. In case you're not familiar with the rules of Balderdash, they give you a word, movie title, name, etc and you have to make up a fake definition and then hope people choose yours as the correct definition. If you look closely at the picture you will see that we are all idiots and accidentally played from finish to start. Oops!

The next morning we had a fabulous breakfast and spent some more time visiting before heading off to see my Mom. Her birthday is on the 15th and so we wanted to see her and enjoy her fantastic cooking. She made ham, scalloped potatoes, fresh garden beets and carrots with rhubarb pie and ice cream for dessert. Basically that was the end of eating for the day. Haha!

We returned back to Edmonton and Matt and I spent the rest of the weekend together. Why? Well, it was our anniversary. September is busy! I will blog a bit more about our anniversary soon. I can't believe it's been ten years! Oh and if you want to see all the pictures from Dad's birthday you can go over here.