Bad case of the Monday's

 It doesn't help that today is my first day back to classes after a week of doing literally nothing!
It also doesn't help that it's a blizzard outside!

I got up this morning and walked through snow/ice pellets to the bus, stood on the bus for the 20 minute ride downtown and went to the class I hadn't really done the homework for (that's my fault). After class I planned on working on an assignment due Wednesday in the computer lab on campus so I could  use a specific translation memory software. Needless to say, the computer wouldn't cooperate nor would the program! I restarted the computer and the program and still nothing worked properly!! I spent 2 hours fighting with this program to build a corpus just to make my life easier, but it in fact made it worse! So I decided to cut my losses and head home, where I can at least make a cup of tea (and maybe a shower cause I slept in this morning). Maybe after tea and a shower I can concentrate enough to get a good portion of this assignment done...

I feel better after having a shower but now all I want to do is nap!  I'm slowly working on my assignment with my hot chocolate nearby. Simon will be home in about half an hour, then he can distract me from my homework!! Oh and it stopped snowing halfway home from class. There's a lot out there though! Up to my ankles on the driveway! And just when I was thinking it was spring cause it hadn't snowed for awhile, and we were starting to see grass appear on the sides of the driveway... alas winter's still here.... what I would give for a heavy rain! Oh to fall asleep to the sound of rain on the roof... guess we should move back to the Fraser Valley!

This is how my granny square afghan is coming along.. I now have 4 rows of 6 squares joined together. I might start joining these rows to eachother soon. I still need to make about 20 more squares though.

Lazy Reading Break!

Hello from snowy Ontario!

It's snowing again today... so much for hoping it wouldn't snow anymore this year!

It's Thursday and I have done very close to NOTHING this week! I guess it's a weird week because of the holiday on Monday. Simon and I did so much this weekend I think I'm still recuperating! Tuesday and Wednesday I don't know where the days went! I feel like I did nothing. I watched a lot of TV and crocheted a bunch! Today I have been a bit productive... I looked at some homework and tidied up the living/dining rooms. I  made a list of things that need to be done last night so that I can consult that when I'm bored. I think I might try my hand at Nanaimo Bars this afternoon. Simon will like that.

 

This is what I've been working on. I've been doing one large square in about an hour. I've made 18 this week already, and the half one sitting there! I am going to make a bunch and then attach them all together for a blanket. I started out thinking of making a 4x5 square blanket, then decided on 6x5 and now I think its going to be 6x7 squares and then the edges etc.  Only 24 more to go!

So I have accomplished what I set out to do on reading break... nothing! But I have also crocheted, tidied, baked (soon) and finished one book! It was such a good book I was up until midnight reading! I would like to do some sewing today, but in order to do that I have to first clean the craft room, which I don't want to do! Maybe tomorrow! 

A plus tard!

Happy Family Day Weekend!

This weekend Simon and I spent lots of time together, hanging out! It was date-weekend! Since I am off from school this week I didn't have to spend the whole weekend doing homework! Yay!

On Saturday I did do about an hour or so of homework and Simon worked on some volunteer stuff he's doing. Then the rest of the day we watched movies... literally! We watched 'Just Married', ' Uptown Girls ' and'Nanny McPhee'. It was a good afternoon/evening! We also went out to watch Jeff's band play at 9:30 pm. We were out late! til about 12:30am!

Sunday we slept in :) Packed a picnic lunch and headed downtown! The city of Ottawa parking lots are free on weekends so we parked for free and went to the Bank of Canada Currency Museum, which also happens to be free! We ate our picnic lunch in their indoor tropical courtyard! After we walked to the canal to look at partially melted ice sculptures and skate! it seemed like everyone in Ottawa had the same idea! The canal was packed!! We came home to hot Borscht that I had put in the slow cooker in the morning (frozen Borscht from months ago!)

Today: Monday: Family Day! Simon made me breakfast in bed! What I like to call egg-bagel-wich (bagel with an egg and sausage or ham on it) I mainly got breaky in bed cause I'm lazy and didn't get up. We then took a nice drive alll the way to Carp (about half an hour west) to the Diefenbunker! "Canada's Cold War Museum" I was able to get a museum pass from the public library, it's a pass you take out of the library and it gets you into some museum's for free! It's great! It was free-date weekend! So we went on a 90-minute tour of the bunker- 100,000 sq feet, a total of 60ft below ground in 4 floors! I thought it would be creepy like the Moose Jaw tunnels, but it was surprisingly not creepy! The tour guide told us it was made to not make you feel like you're underground, cause if you're in there you're most likely freaked out cause we're in nuclear war! The ceilings were probably 9 ft! There were a lot of doors to go through though!

Anyways there's a snapshot of our free date weekend! Now to relax on the couch and veg for a bit, I probably should do some more homework today..., I do have an assignment due on Wednesday!

Tropical Ottawa & Deeelish Dinner!

Hi!
I said I'd be back!

Two topics for discussion today...

1. WOW is it warm out here today! +7 when I woke up and +11 by the time I left for class at noon! I wore my winter jacket cause it felt weird not to, but I had it unzipped and got hot by the time I made it to the bus stop! It's pretty windy too, I almost got blown away, and the breeze feels really nice, like I'm somewhere warm and breezy! When I got home this afternoon I opened up most of the windows in the house! It does make it a bit chilly in here, but the fresh air is wonderful!

2. I made the BEST most Deeeelish-ous-est dinner last night and Simon took the best pictures of them! I made Baked "Fried" Chicken drumsticks with baked potatoes and fresh veggies. The chicken is skinless drumsticks dipped in ranch dressing and bread crumbs then baked in the oven on a cooling rack on top a cookie sheet (I learnt that from Rachael Ray).

 

The Jelly Roll I made earlier in the afternoon. MMmmmmm! I had a craving for it. I remember making it with my dad when I was young. This was my first attempt at making it by myself! I used an entire jar of homemade raspberry jam! Mmm! Maybe I should have another slice....

 

Now to start thinking about supper for tonight!

I'm still here!

Hello!

I am still around! I have been neglecting to post, even though I had a few things planned to post! It has just been so crazy with school lately, but now I am almost home-free! One more 1.5hr class tomorrow then a week of nothing (aka reading break)!! And that will also mark the beginning of an easier semester for me! I had a very top-heavy semester this time around. For 3/5 of my classes I had a presentation to do, and I did 2 of them this past week, and one a couple weeks before. I believe after reading break I'll only have... 5 assignments, 2 midterms and then finals in April! woo!

For reading break I plan on...

• Reading! but for pleasure. I had 3 books from the library that I had to return without even reading!! Now I am on a wait list for them again! 
• Crocheting! I have wanted to make the crochet stars shown on Miranda's blog since December! I also would like to try out some Granny squares, they look neat!
• Scrapbooking! If I can fit it in :p
• Sewing! I have wanted to sew lately, its been very hard to study with my sewing/scrapbooking room calling for me!
• Cleaning! Although I don't really want to do this, it should get done. 
• Cooking/Baking! I have two night classes and lots of studying to do normally so I don't get to make a lot of nice suppers. We have almost depleted our supply of pre-made (by me) frozen dinners, so I will need to restock!

This will be the first reading break in years that I don't have to work! I don't think I will get all of that done, but maybe some! I do have 2 assignments and some catching up that I need to do as well, so it won't be a week completely free of school. I'll just get to sleep in and not go to class... and maybe not feel guilty for doing something I enjoy!

More to come in the next week!

Spotlight on...: Snow!

Helloooo from the middle of a blizzard!

I woke up this morning, already not happy since it was 7am, and Simon texted me to tell me 1 to wake up and 2 that it was really snowy and windy out! I didn't really believe him.. How bad could it be?? 

Well I was shocked when I went into the bathroom and looked out the window! It really was blizzardy!! Needless to say, this did not help my mood any. I checked the university website before I left for class to make sure that I still had to go! As of about 7:30 this morning I don't think any schools in Ottawa were closed, but the school buses weren't running. I made it to my bus (shucks) and made it to class, although the bus did slip/slide a couple times. It was worse on the way home though, it seemed that every time the bus slowed to stop it slid a bit! I think the worst part was walking from the bus to home. It's not that cold out (-13) but the windchill makes it -25 and the snow yuck! Just blowing everywhere! My scarf was covered in snow (as in the picture below).

My boots as I walked up our driveway (on my way home)... there were no traces of my foot prints from earlier this morning! 

 My scarf as I was waiting for the bus! The snow hasn't been this blowy yet this year! 

This was the scene as I was waiting for the bus... You can see a faint building in the background... well just to the left of that you can normally see the peace tower at the Parliament buildings... but not today! I was kind of disappointed that you can't really see the amount of snow falling in my pictures, but you can see how white it is everywhere! As I waited for the bus it also  hit me how quiet snow is. If this was rain it would be just pounding down and you would definitely know its raining before you woke up! But with snow it just falls quietly! 

I shoveled the sidewalk and stairs in front of the house about an hour ago, so I'll keep you updated as to how much snow has accumulated since then! (I only shoveled so I could do this, not cause I like shoveling, plus what's the point of shoveling the stairs and sidewalk and not the driveway??)