What kind of things do my friends do on the weekend? Well, not everyone has seen the Star Wars movies so Steve is hosting a marathon. I'm not even a huge fan but I do like popcorn. Oh, and my friends. I think we're only doing the original ones- I can't handle Pinocchio's, I mean, Hayden Christenson's, acting. So wooden and unnatural, if you didn't get that.
Listening to Margaret Atwood speak, not once but twice, was thrilling! She's exactly as I imagined her- pint sized, well spoken and feisty! I was too chicken to ask a question but Matt prepared and asked one. She was gracious enough to take a picture with me! I tried to take pictures while she was speaking but I will spare you all from looking at those- they are all either blurry, grainy or there is a microphone blocking half her face.
November is crazy. It's going by in about 4 seconds. I am constantly exhausted, I have been eating terrible, sleeping terrible and barely exercising. What is going on? Maybe I'm booking too many fun events in? Nah, that can't be it! I haven't cleaned my house properly in ages. Things just seem to be sliding. I need to give my head a shake and get things back on track. I think I need to cut out my computer time and force myself to do other things. It's tough when you're tired though. It's so easy to just zone out and look at the screen.
Not a lot, unfortunately. I did a lot of playing on the computer. Some standing in line to buy shoes (hey! There was an exciting outlet sale!). We ate Indian food with a friend, went bowling (I won) and played video games until my brain started oozing out of my ear. I also baked some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and did so by improvising my own recipe after screwing up the recipes I looked at online. They still taste good.
Sometimes It's Sunday
Anyway, Sundays seem to be our most relaxed day. Usually filled with housework, grocery shopping and a home cooked meal. Yesterday was no exception and I was feeling ambitious so I tried a new recipe for supper. (Off of Smitten Kitchen, no less!) Behold my mushroom bourguignon! I feel like Julia Child or something! It was pretty easy to make (except for those annoying pearl onions- thanks Steph for doing my dirty work!) and really delicious. It's even vegetarian! (Side note- I wish I was able to take better pictures or learn how to edit better so that my food pictures actually looked appetizing.)
After supper I watched the Amazing Race and Matty decided to bake up a storm for the bake sale fundraiser at school. Weird. But it did make our house smell heavenly! So how was your Sunday?
Friday was a long, busy, fantastic day. I worked from 7-3 and got a lot accomplished. Then I immediately went shopping and bought some things I really needed (like pants since it is getting pretty cold). I went home and picked up Bryn on the way. We hung out while Matt cooked us an epic Indian feast from scratch (Steph ended up over and had some too). With the kitchen in shambles we rushed out to the Princess Theatre and caught the late showing of the Invention of Lying (Hilarious! Love!) and then came home, cleaned up and fell fast asleep.
Saturday we got the burnt out headlight fixed on the Kiester before heading over to the Farmer's Market to meet up with Carole and Severin. I can't even remember the last time I saw Carole. She's doing fabulous and I really missed her. I loved all of the fall colors and foods at the market. We bought some amazing spanakopita, butter tarts, blackberries, gimchi and kettlecorn. There was a craft show going on so we explored that and I picked up a pretty, new necklace. We checked out an open house for a new wellness clinic and enjoyed some free juice and snacks. Finally we had a bite to eat at the Artisan's Resto-cafe. Excellent!
After saying goodbye to Carole, I decided to bake some peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Donna came by for a visit and offered some moral support. The cookie dough was insanely amazing but the cookies ended up burnt, despite all my efforts. I have a few theories as to why this happened- I used natural peanut butter (which is a lot more oily), the temperature/time instructions for the recipe may have been off or maybe my oven is insanely hot? I don't know. The last couple pans were less burnt so I did try to fix the problem. I seriously baked one pan of them for 5 minutes! Insanity!!!
The movie was okay and gave us something to talk about since we've both read the book. We get home and the person is STILL parked in our spot and the note hasn't been touched. At this point they have been parked there for at least 6 hours (probably longer though since we were gone all day). We park on the street again and go up to our apartment. The water is still off. We go out and purchase bottled water so I can wash my face and brush my teeth. It's an interesting exercise in water usage. Hmmm...
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!
Before I went to Korea I was struggling at a job that didn't make me happy. In fact, most of the time it made me pretty miserable. One of the few things I loved about that job was getting to work with my friend Diane. It's been too long since I've seen her but we finally managed to meet up. It was so refreshing to hang out with someone who understands my sense of humor and holds so many of the same interests as I do.
Hope everyone is having a good Labour Day weekend. I wish I had tomorrow off but I am working. It's okay though since I will get paid overtime and get a day off in lieu (that hopefully I can use to get this Friday off since it's my Dad's birthday). Last night Matt and I hung out at Steph's house and played some fun games with her and a couple of her friends. It was a good time. Matt drank too much Grog (literally, he was drinking something called Grog) and ended up falling asleep at 11pm. Classy! Steph, Bryn and I went out though (Justin also wasn't feeling up to it) and had a nice time chatting away at O'Byrne's Pub.
