Gone Green

Original picture uploaded by Bad Bad

It's about time Waterloo went Green(er). Slowly but surely our region is introducing a residential green bin program which provides residents with bins for organic household materials (food, tissue etc). I was thrilled (no, it doesn't take much these days to excite me) to receive a pamphlet on our doorstep a month ago that explained how our neighbourhood was the next in line to receive the bins. We already recycle but community composting will definitely reduce the amount of trash we end up with on the curb. Our new bin has arrived and has been put to good use already.

Mike and I are also doing our part for the environment by becoming a one car family. Let's be honest, we are doing this to save money, but helping the environment is a definite perk. I handed the keys to Flea, my little Echo, over to the dealership on Tuesday. It was a bitter sweet moment. It's great knowing that I won't have to worry about gas, a monthly lease payment and insurance but I also lose some of my freedom. Mike and I are going to have to learn to share! Oh boy.

Tis the Season... to Shovel

It's only the third of December and I have already had two days off of work thanks to crummy road conditions. Our school is bus dependent so if the buses are cancelled we don't have to risk our lives to get to the school. There certainly are benefits to working at a country school: beautiful drive on good days, and no need to drive at all on the bad ones.

Poor mike spent half the day yesterday shoveling. We were dumped on very early Sunday morning. Our house is a corner lot which is great in some ways but not so good in others - we have a whole lot more sidewalk to deal with compared to our neighbours and the snowplow buries our driveway not once but twice, and sometimes three times, each time they clear our street on snowy days! They drag all of the snow from down the street by once, then they come around the side street and turn the corner burying us a second time. Yesterday the guy even backed up a third time to pick up some extra bits to add to our mountain of snow.

Lucky for me I was tucked away in my office working on my take-home exam while my fabulous husband cursed the snowplow driver; we have awesome neighbours and one from across the street felt sorry for him and came over to help dig out the base of the driveway for the third and final time.

It's going to be a loooong winter. Off to make some hot chocolate!

Spic & Span

I'm so happy I could burst! First of all I found a fabulous site that makes me smile. The picture above is from explodingdog.com and it is just one of a pile of funny, quirky drawings by sam.
I actually did an image search for 'cleaning' because of my original happy moment today hold on a sec and I'll share and this super cool pic popped up. It lead me to sam's site and made my day even brighter.

Now, the reason for my search. We hired a cleaning lady!! She is the answer to my insanity, or so I hope. I'm overwhelmed with work and school and life in general so my expectation is that Margarita will save the day. Well, at least part of the day. We're not total pigs but we aren't the cleanest people on the planet either and I'm just too freaking busy with work and school to do it all. I couldn't be happier! She starts next thursday! Hip Hip Hooray!

My other happy bits: Rebecca & Cara arrive on Friday! I have a whole evening with Rebecca - i have her all to myself! I miss her like crazy and I'm itching to see her. And then there's Cara Nina and her baby bump. I'm crunching up my shoulders in anticipation... I can't wait to touch that tummy. I hope the baby is moving already! maybe it's too soon?

Thanksgiving dinner is on Saturday and it's my first time hosting a turkey dinner! uh oh. I'll report on sunday and will hopefully have pics of a nice tanned bird to share. I'll simmer them in wine so they'll think it's fabulous even if it isn't. Happy Gobble Gobble everyone!

Time flies

I haven't posted since Thursday because I've been crazy busy. Happily it has been 'fun busy' & not 'school/work busy'. Here's a quick (ha -- that's unlikely) update on the life of Jaime.

The powder room is complete! It's hard to snap pics in such a tiny space so here's one to give you an idea of what the colour turned out to be. Jessy described the colour perfectly when she poked her head in thursday night: "it's like a raspberry". Yes! That's it, our bathroom is like sitting inside of a giant raspberry and I absolutely adore it. Raspberries happen to be one of my very favorite berries and they are pretty to look at too so if you have a screaming desire to know what it would be like to sit yourself inside of one of these fabulous berries you can park yourself in our powder room and get a taste. No pun intended. We need to add some bits to the walls to give your eyes something else to stare at besides the blaring red walls but I'm waiting to find that perfect something to complete our little room.

Thursday evening was fun! I went to the outdoor movie night at Waterloo park with some friends (mom included). I can't believe we waited until the last movie of the summer to hit this event--next year I want to try to hit all of the shows. It was like being at the drive-in but without the noise of engines starting sporadically to ensure cars are going to start at the end of the show.

We watched Casablanca while sitting in our lawn chairs curled up in blankets with a pile of other people. I should clarify, we weren't curled up with other people, there were lots of other people there watching the movie with us.

What a fabulous movie! So many of those classic lines I've heard a million times and said myself: "Play it again Sam", "Here's looking at you kid", "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship" - I had no idea they came from that movie. What a great flick! It's made me want to start watching old movies.

Mike was stunned to learn that I'd never seen
Breakfast at Tiffany's. He thinks every girl has
seen the movie! I'm a freak in my husband's eyes. Well I was but no longer am (at least I'm no longer a freak for not having seen Breakfast at Tiffany's but no doubt he thinks I'm a freak for other reasons most days) because Jessy & I watched it on Saturday night! Loved it! I can't believe I have never seen the movie before. Audrey Hepburn is too cute for words and I loved her as Holly Golightly! Such a flighty bird, can't help but love her.

Jess & I got a kick out of the gear being worn in the flick. We spent Saturday shopping and so many of the clothes in the movie have crept back into style today!

Saturday was a superb day overall. Found a new movie to add to my list of favs and a new store as well! H&M opened in Cambridge on friday and the clothes are sweet! Cheap but cute. Bought a pile of new things for work and play--hello 2007 (welcome back 1985).

Friday was fabulous as well! Visited the Children's Museum downtown with my parents and my niece. Neve is hilarious and giggled her little bean off when we played with the giant plastic pin thingo (you push your hand, head, body, whateva against the pins and the outline can be seen on the opposite side of the wall). Eventually she braved the pins herself and thought that her own outline was absolutely hilarious. too funny. kid giggles... what could be better? wish we had brought a camera to the museum, oh well, next time.

Dinner at Shannon & Paul's in Burlington on Friday evening. Yum! Amazing dessert and yummy salad! I love seeing those girls and boys. Good times and lotsa laughs! and Shannon's little people are too freaking cute. Can't wait for Lisa's wedding next month. Seeing Shannon, Amber and Lisa twice in a month?! Lucky me!

This has turned into a novel so I'm going to sign off for now. Heading to, well I'm not actually sure where it is, Tina's cottage tomorrow morning with Jess & Colin for a few days. Sadly Mike has to work so he'll be on his own for a few days. I'll miss you baby! Be back on Wednesday with an update on the trouble caused at Tina's cottage!

So little time

Oh how I wish I could live off of 4 hours sleep. There is so much I want to do but not enough hours in the day for me to to do it all. I have three weeks of freedom (actually 2.5 after today) before work begins and then another week and I'm back at school. grr. I'm luckier than most because I have had a good long break from work but unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it I suppose, I have been working like a dawg on schoolwork so it hasn't felt like a break. The wonderful thing is that I'm down to 4 courses and will then be finished my degree! 4 courses is less than I took this summer so I can actually see the finish line. Now that I'm free of school and those dreadful exams I can focus on ME. The problem is deciding how I want to fill my free hours.

Every year for the past few years I have done the same thing: promised 8 zillion people that I would visit/hang out/eat out/play "once I'm finished this term". Stupid stupid girl. There are not enough days or hours to actually see everyone and believe it or not I do have a million other things I would like to get done during my 'free time' as well.

This term I have been a bit better about making promises. I haven't made as many which means I have more time than usual for moi. So what to do with my time?

I've painted the powder room and although I'm a little nervous to see how the orange tinted cupboards look against the Strawberry Daiquiri walls, it feels fabulous to finally have that room painted. I think one more coat is all that it needs and then it will be complete! I cannnot wait to see the finished product. Fresh and clean and pink, er I mean red. Yes Mike it's red, not pink! I promise. *Gulp

This afternoon I'm going on a cleaning frenzy and this evening I think I'm going to go shopping! Time to enter the 21st century Jaime. I bought skinny jeans and ballet style flats the other day, it's funny how jumping into the 2000's is actually much like warping back to the 80's. Apparently high topped pants are coming back in and deck shoes too. ick. I solemnly swear that I will not be seen in a pair of high-waist jeans. I think I said the same about skinny jeans but I didn't write it down so you can't hold me to it. Mike hates them (my new skinny jeans) but he is being kind and pretending he doesn't totally detest them, he'll get used to them and may actually learn to love them. They hug my bum and my chicken legs too so they'll give him an opportunity to check out his wifes sticks more often. He says that he's staying in the 90's and there's no way I'm dragging him out. I'll post pics of his new deck shoes when he breaks down and buys them. ha! Can you imagine? Mike in deck shoes, that's a funny picture.

Enough procrastinating already, time to clean. Ta ta for now.