Wow, two posts in one day!! I know -- crazy.  I go for weeks at at time with nothing and then all of the sudden there is a burst of activity.  Well, my dear readers, that is what an RSS feed is for...

Anyhow, I had the nicest, most relaxing morning.  It looked relatively nice outside, so N decided we should venture out for a long walk.  I agreed.  So, we ventured across the street to a walking trail...

... and we were off!  Before long, we encountered this sign at the top of a long flight of stairs (and I laughed thinking it was ridiculous that people don't have enough common sense to figure this out on their own... after all, this is Toronto -- found in the have-not province of Ontario -- like we have enough money to sand/salt walking trails):

We made it to the bottom without too much trouble and then encountered this path/skating rink:

So we carefully make our way down the ice hill.  N reminded me several times to be careful -- all the while sliding dangerously down the slope.

Oh and BTW, we live in a classy area (seriously, we do), complete with "classy" graffiti!  Anyhow, I am happy to report that both N and I made it down the hill safely.  So, now at the bottom of the hazardous path, we cross the street and I proceed to fall hard on my ass slipping on this...

Did I mention I fell H-A-R-D??  Did I mention that several people witnessed this fantastical display of airbourne klutziness! Clearly, I should not leave the house. 

Yikes!  Time flies.  I haven't posted in a while because I have been pretty busy.  I was expecting a very lax September and that was not in the cards for me.  The past few days I have been so sick... bleh... sinus cold.  I spent my entire weekend in complete and utter agony.  I restlessly slept through it.  Here we are, at the start of a new week, and I can't breathe.  My throat is dry and itchy.  And to top it off, the class I'm covering for the next few days will do nothing but ensure my throat gets more and more agitated.  School, kids, germs -- bleh.  

N's family is in town at the end of the week for the Thanksgiving weekend.  I guess this means I have to cook a turkey.  Anyone have any recipe suggestions?  

My newest nephew is in the hospital (ICU)... he gave everyone a bit of a scare but seems to be doing better from what I hear.  We are hoping that all is well and cannot wait to meet him when we head to Regina for Christmas. 

We were glad to see that the Riders managed to eek out a win last week (ok - I didn't actually see it -- being sick -- I feel asleep somewhere in the first quarter -- but I'm still happy they won).  N and I bought tickets to the game here in TO at the end of October so you'll have to watch for us on TV.  We'll be sporting the green and white. 

I saw this commercial on TV the other day and it made me smile.  Gotta love that Kerry Joseph.  Check it out:

Well, I don't know how cohesive this post is but it knocks something (albeit something not very important) off my to do list.  Why is it that the not very important things are always the easiest to complete??  

The last few days around here have been hot and humid.  TO humidity is like nothing I've experienced elsewhere (maybe it's the lethal combination of humidity and smog) -- it is disgusting.  Sweat pours forth from your body and it is hard to breathe -- all you can do is try and get used to it and that leaves you feeling lethargic.   Thank god for AC -- though my brothers are convinced mine doesn't make our place cold enough.  In this heat, I took them through Kensington market, down Queen Street West (so they could embrace their inner nerd at Silver Snail) and to a couple of big malls (Yorkdale and Vaughn Mills).  Over my 2 years here, I am still unsure that I jive with Toronto -- it is too big and too ugly -- still, the shopping here is FANTASTIC.  There is nothing you cannot find here and that makes it at least sort of awesome in my book.

Today we venture out to Ottawa to partake in the big Canada Day festivities on Parliament Hill.  Watch for us on TV!! I believe the CBC will be broadcasting the events!!!  We will be decked out in the red and white... Tim and Joey are apparently going to dress like GuyTerrifico... something about wearing underwear over their pants and Canadian Flags as capes??? I'm scared so the rest of the country should be as well! 

Have a great and safe long weekend and have a Happy...

It's been a busy month. It's well into spring and though I've brought out the summer clothes there's hardly been a day worthy of wearing them. I don't need the 40+ with humidex weather but would it hurt the sun to come out for a few hours every day. Sheesh.

I bought myself a new computer. It's a laptop. I cheaped out and decided against going Mac (much to my brother's stern disapproval). Naturally, I needed to find some fun new software so I set out to find some cool new things I could find for free on the net. This led to me infecting my laptop with a few trojan horses and viruses, then infecting my external hard drive and my old desktop all in one big 'ol fun time... not! Luckily, I had a long weekend to reformat my laptop so at least that is back up. Neil's going to try and fix the desktop sometime soon, I think. Neil was out of town for the long weekend and kept getting crazy panicked texts from me like, "No internet. Please Help." So I'm sure his attempted break from me was thwarted by my incessant neediness.

So that I didn't go too stir crazy, I ventured out to my aunt and uncles in cottage country (Bradford is not really in cottage country -- but they are apparently going to buy a hot tub and that will make their place N & I's weekend get-a-way north of the city). The plan was to go out to some greenhouses to buy plants for my planters. I also planned to make a little herb garden on my patio. I got my planters made up and my herbs potted, then I spent the day landscaping my aunt and uncles front yard. It was a nice break from fretting over destroying my laptop after owning it for all of three days.... Got my plants home and they are on the floor in my living room as it was raining on Sunday and Monday and I had wanted to get out there and wash the patio floors/furniture before I filled up the space with other stuff -- add to that the fact that it was May 20th and too cold for my damn plants to be outside anyway. Arg! Hopefully next weekend I can get out there and get everything cleaned up and out so we can start hanging out on the patio and partaking in an after work drink or enjoying our famous and fabulous (well at least to us) weekend brunches outside.

I'm also deep into planning my summer. My brothers are coming out here at the end of June and we've booked rooms in Ottawa for Canada Day. I am very excited about this as it should be really fun! Ottawa is one of my favourite places in this country as it is really quite beautiful and being there for Canada Day just seems like an event to experience at least once in your lifetime! Being a freak, I'm also excited because I have convinced the boys that we have to go to Medieval Times while they are here in TO. Come on, don't roll your eyes... it will be awesome!

I'm driving back to Regina with the boys (yay, Canadian Shield/Great Lakes Adventure!!) early in July and plan to stay about 3 weeks in Regina visiting my niece and nephew and my pregnant sister (whoops... did I let that slip? It's old news now anyway) -- and the parentals, etc. My sister's friend Linda is getting married and I'm excited for that too -- she is having a traditional Indian/Hindu ceremony and the girls are going to be wearing saris. She's having a traditional catholic service afterwards too so it will be a big day with lots of costumes changes... my sister is the maid of honour so it's going to be interesting to see her all sari-ed up.

Sometime at the start of August, I'll start driving back home. Should be fun. August is still very unplanned... for now.

Other than that, nothing much to report. Work, eat, sleep. Repeat. So my life goes.

K

I played a little social experiment with my family these past few weeks.  I decided about a month ago to fly home for my mom's birthday.  I told pretty much everyone in my family except my mom and dad and was (I'll admit) curious whether or not the secret could be kept from them....I am happy to report, that when so inclined, my family IS capable of keeping secrets as proven by the shocked expression on my mom's face when I showed up on the doorstep yesterday.