gone fishing

Yesterday I went ice fishing for the first time in my life. And I even caught a fish. My dad often goes fishing with his cousin and her husband and yesterday when they went I got to go too. Between the 4 of us we caught 28 fish. Not great numbers but it was fun none the less. And we got to have a nice fish dinner for supper.

The Christmas Haul

Okay obviously Christmas isn't about the gifts you get. For the more religious amongst us it's about the birth of Jesus. For me it's about getting my family all together in one place. This year that place was my parent's farm. Everyone gathered there on the 27th except OB1's girlfriend who was supposed to have the day off but ended up being scheduled to work. We had a lovely turkey and ham dinner. It was really great to see my family.

But there were also gifts. I got pretty much everything I wanted this year. My brother's all went together to purchase me a sony ebook reader. It's the touch screen one. It's pretty sweet. My parents bought me a Tassimo, just like I asked for. I also got some socks and some jewelry from my folks. OB2's girlfriend bought me a pack of 3 DVD games, "family feud", "who wants to be a millionaire" and "deal or no deal". And my younger brother bought me a wireless router for when I get my internet hooked up in Guelph. Oh and I got a book from my parents and a little book with quotes about courage from my dad's cousin.

There is still one mystery gift to be had. It's coming by post, it was supposed to be at my parent's waiting for me when I got home but alas it did not arrive. So now they're going to have to ship it too me in Guelph when it does get out to the farm.

Christmas Christmas Christmas!

I'm flying home tonight! I'm so excited! I can't wait to sleep in my own bed again. And see my family of course. I just want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season. Merry Christmas to all!

Want of the Week

I want an e-book reader. I was thinking about a kindle. But with all the upcoming flying and what not I'd love to have it now. However I'm waiting until after Christmas, just in case anyone actually paid attention to my Christmas list this year.

So as soon as Christmas is over I will be getting myself a Kobo.

More Things are Falling Into Place

Wowie. The last couple of months have been everything that I could have asked for. New job when I was just barely looking, place to stay while I looked for an apartment, an amazing guy in my life who is planning a visit in just over a month, and now I have an apartment to call my own.

Well technically I don't get possession until the 7th but still it's pretty much everything I had hoped for. Close to work? check. Walking distance to shopping? Check. Allows pets? Check. Also it has air conditioning, a balcony, an indoor pool, a weight room and laundry facilities in the building.

It's a little pricier than I had originally intended. But I can live without a car for a while. And since heat and electricity are included I only really have to worry about TV & internet and food of course. Now to furnish it.

Living on coffee and carbs

Since I've moved I've not been eating healthy at all. Part of this is that I'm lazy and I don't want to pack a proper lunch for myself in the morning and part of it is that I'm not living in my own place so I don't feel comfortable making a mess of the kitchen. I'm not one for particularly healthy eating to begin with. I LOVE fast food. These factors taken together present a bit of a challenge for my overall nutritional health.

Lets start with lunch. I like to sleep for as long as I can in the mornings. Particularly when I've stayed up late making phone calls to people 2 times zones away (you know who you are!).Not that I'm complaining about the phone schedule. I manage to survive that but it does mean that I don't want to have to deal with making something for lunch everyday. So usually I just grab something out of the cupboard, which usually means I'm eating a cup of noodles for lunch. Today I went with Uncle Ben's Bistro Express rice.

And supper is usually a matter of trying to eat something quickly so that the lady I'm living with doesn't try to tell me her life story. She's about 75 so she's had a long time to come up with these stories. So usually that doesn't leave a lot of time for proper balanced meal making. Usually it's whatever I pull out of the freezer and heat up.

And then there's the coffee.  My work place offers free coffee, so I've gone from my usual pre-work double tall caramel machiatto to about 4 cups of regular joe throughout the day. Some days I feel like it's the only things that gets me through the day.

First week review

Well I've been in my new city, at my new job for a week now and I thought I'd better let all of you know how I'm doing.

First of all I'll talk about the place I'm staying. For an apartment it's HUGE. Very nice and only a 15 minute walk from work. It's also right behind the mall, which has the only Starbucks in the entire city. Yes I have already been thrice! There is also another Cafe not far away that I went to study in today.

I've looked at a few apartments. I plan to look at a few more early this week and then put in a few applications. The only thing is I'm not sure how long I'll be staying, since I've got 3 months probation.

Things at work aren't going that well to be honest. The people are really nice. One of them even invited me to have dinner with her and her family next week. But I'm just not sure that I'm the right person for the job. I guess I have high expectations of myself and thought I could just fit right in, but I guess there is a bit of a learning curve as I get used to what they're looking for from me.

So that's the first week! I'll try to update more frequently now that I'm a little more settled.

500th Post

Well here it is people, my 500th blog post. Although I have a lot to update you about what with the move and the new job and all I'm going to leave this post for you, the reader.

Please help me make my blog better. Let me know in the comments what you want to see, what you like or don't like about my blog. Is there anything that I've said that you'd like more follow up on? Should I open it up to guest blogger? Give me a shout and let me know what you want to see!

And don't forget there is a giveaway going on, so you could be rewarded handsomely for your efforts.

Thanks for stopping by, stay tuned for more!

I'm here

Well I made it to my new temporary home. Tomorrow I start work at 9. I've very nervous. But it will be a good change for me. I'm excited to be going back to work. It's been a very long hiatus and a whole lot of stuff has happened since then. Hopefully this is the beginning of a whole new chapter for me.

Also a plus, the apartment building where I'm staying for December is right beside/behind the mall, which has a Chapters and a Starbucks.

Giveaway

Hey commenters,

In honor of my upcoming 500th post (have a seriously had enough to say to write 500 posts?) I will be doing a giveaway. I've never done this before so you'll have to bare with me a bit. But the idea is that one of my commenters will get an Amazon.ca (or .com if you're American) gift card. I haven't settled on a value yet probably $25.

Essentially if you comment between now and the end of December I'll put your name in a draw for the card and then announce the winner. Thanks to the new commenting features on blogger I'm able to figure out when comments were made. I'll also be announcing this on 20 something bloggers once I've done my 500th post.

The only thing is you're going to want to put in some identifier so that I'm able to tell who commented since I can't really send a gift card to anonymous. So using a nickname that I'll be able to identify or using a blogger ID would be helpful. If you're not sure that I'll know who you are you can e-mail me at j_sweetl@yahoo.com with your name and e-mail.

Good luck and thanks for dropping by.

-Janalee

Need a new car

So I've talked about the move a little bit and that's going to happen. Besides finding a place to live the most important item on my list of things to do (other than go to work and make money) is to buy a new car, since my current car wouldn't even make it to southern Ontario. So I've been pricing things a bit. Oddly enough the Ford Focus, the Chevy Cobalt and the Honda Civic all work out to about the same price so assuming I would get the same financing regardless of what I choose (which I realize isn't exactly realistic because companies offer different financing at different times of the year) I have no idea what to get.

I haven't test driven any of them, so that's the next obvious step. But does anyone have any comments on these vehicles or any advice on other things I should consider? This will be the first car I've bought so it's kind of a big deal.