One last final plea for votes....I know, I know I said that last time. But I swear this time it is true. The contest closes on September 2...so I need your votes TODAY!

VOTE HERE!!!

Don't forget you need to click on the link in the email MEC sends you or the vote doesn't count. Please pass along to all yours friends, relatives and co-workers. I'm about 50 votes shy of getting into the top 5. Apparently I only have 59 friends. I have 64 votes, but three of those are me, one is my parents and one is my friend Kim.

If you vote for me I'll write a super duper blog post about my weekend in Drumheller and why I want to move there.

Do you remember when Canadian Tire had a catalog? I know Sears still does but I don't think CTire does anymore. I loved the arrival of the summer catalog. I would flip through and figure out what I wanted to buy: side packs for my bike, the one person portable tent, sleeping bag, the portable stove...basically everything I would need for a biking/camping adventure. I priced out camp grounds and ferry rides and tried to figure out the best route for my trip. I WANTED to do the trip. I knew I could do the trip. It would be amazing. Each summer would end and I wouldn't have purchased any of the items for the trip and I wouldn't have gone on my bike trip.

I don't know why.

As the boyfriends in university came and went I hoped one of them would be up for the adventure, but never were. The very odd camping trip here and there but nothing like I dreamed about. Sigh.

This year is about doing things I want to do...so I'm going camping. The bike is not coming with me on this trip. It is not the ideal dream bike trip, but it is a camping trip. I always pictured myself on the road alone seeing new sites setting my own schedule. Last weekend while driving to Edson I decided I wanted to go camping. I was almost going to spend the night in Jasper...unplanned...spontaneous like. But realized I'd be more upset the next day when the battery on the camera would die and I wouldn't be able to take any photos. Instead of the night in Jasper I decided that a camping trip was in order. On the drive back I went to Walmart and bought myself a tent.

Mid-late August is not the best time to buy a tent. The selection at the stores is pretty much crap. I managed to find a 3 man tent that I should be able to set up by myself. It is smallish so that if I do another hiking/biking/camping trip it could be easily transported. Not as easily as the tents from the Canadian Tire catalogue or the MEC website (oh to win that contest) but definitely do able. I bought a couple of disposable bbq's and a small camp stove. Essentially a flat burner over some liquid fuel. No propane for me.

I spent the majority of Sunday evening surfing the internet for campgrounds in and around Alberta. There are two official weekends left in the summer and I intend to enjoy them. Finally today I booked my long weekend....I won't tell you where. I am still waiting to hear back from the campground that I selected for this weekend. When/if they get back to me I'll let you know.

Today at work I started my list of what I would need. For a one person two night trip there is a lot of stuff to pack.
ground sheet (tarp)
tent
sleeping bag
flannel sheet
pillow
towel
dish cloth/towel
pot
dishes/cutlery
bbq
lighter
mini-stove
fuel for mini-stove
food
water
knife
twine/rope
clothes
you get the picture...

I'm really excited. Even rain wouldn't dampen the trip. My back up plan for rain--find a hotel. The weather report for the weekend (at this moment) looks good. Sunny skies and hot temperatures. The camera will be ready and so will I. With any luck I will get to leave work early on Friday. I asked yesterday and was left with the impression that the whole office might get to close up a couple hours early. Lunch out followed by not returning to the office. Sounds good to me!

The weekends are going to be low-stress, meditative type weekends. Hermit weekends. One of the ladies at the office can't imagine camping on her own. I think it will be nice. Yes, I live alone and the only big difference might be a stiff back in the morning but to me it is a sort of fulfillment of a dream. Like Italy.

Yes, in all likelihood you will be reading tales of how I want to/am getting ready to go camping for the next few days.

I need some help. I am trying to win a contest on Mountain Equipment Co-op. I could really use some new equipment....so please vote to me...and ask all your friends to vote for me.

Once you click on the link it will send a message to your email account. You need to respond to the email before it actually counts your vote. Check your trash folder, just in case.

Please...vote. It may not be the best video (it was my first) but it is a Nunavut video!

I know some of you voted for me before...please send to a friend. Voting only happens for another couple of weeks. Vote for me!

Photos taken on my Saturday afternoon drive to Edson. Don't ask. I have no idea why I drove to Edson. I decided to go for a drive and I decided on West. Edson took me about 2 hours. I figured that was far enough for one day and came home. Note to self, always download and clear memory card on camera prior to embarking on photo taking trip. Always make sure camera battery is fully charged.

I was trying out my new monopod. I wanted to call it a unipod, but the stores all call it mono. What's the difference? Tricycle, Unicycle. Unicorn. Oh well. Enjoy the photos.

As of Tuesday I needed to take a new route to work. I don't know for how long. I saw a few signs saying that the road would be closed from X street to X street. Right in the middle of my commute. So I'm back to taking the Yellowhead. It's a mini-freeway. Sorta. It has a ton of stop lights and three lanes of traffic moving (or not moving) in each direction. I think my evening commute is definitely shorter, but the morning one seems longer and slightly more frustrating. Or maybe after three months of walking 10-15 minutes to work and only having to occasionally wait for a car to go by has spoiled me. I will take a drive down on the weekend and see if I can go back to my usual route next week.

I headed to the West Edmonton Mall (WEM) on Tuesday afternoon to catch a movie and walk around. I have my usual parking area. I figure the more I park there the less likely I am to not lose my truck. Cause lets face it...that is a lot of parking lot to cover. And if my mother and I can misplace our car at the Charlottetown Mall parking lot I can certainly do it at WEM. Unfortunately or fortunately most of the stores I go to are at the opposite end of the mall. It just means more window shopping and I guess a bit of exercise.

What I noticed at the mall was that there are a lot of "Coming Soon" signs around the mall. I never noticed before how many empty stores there were but I wonder if perhaps there are more stores that have closed in the past 6 months than in the past year. Is it the recession? Is it that I just happened to notice the signs? Is it just lease turn over time? I'm curious. Thoughts? Has anyone else seen businesses closing around them?

Work ended on a high note today. Maybe it was just because I left almost on time. Maybe it was because I got taken out for lunch (unofficial meeting). Maybe it was the weather. It is pretty rare I get out before 5:30, or even 6:00pm. The thrill when I turned into the parking lot at my building and noted it was 5:32pm was pretty awesome.

I should do some additional work on my necklace...mmm, maybe tomorrow night.

My friend K is making me feel lazy. On her two days off all summer she spends one day hiking. Every week she picks a new place to hike. She is a real inspiration. Keep up the awesome work K.

I need to do some more cooking. My butter chicken from the weekend is gone. I gotta say it is soooo much easier to have a big pot of food to serve myself from every day for lunch or supper. I might...try baked beans. I have lots of beans, I can cook them in the slow cooker. Hmmm. I just might. Ok...off to search for good baked bean recipe. Good thing I don't share an office at the moment. :)

Almost forgot. I had a call from Canada Post today...apologizing. Yep, they admitted they screwed up! I had my mail temporarily forwarded for three months this summer. The mail was being forwarded to the office here in Edmonton. They would put it in the regular parcels to Cambridge Bay. No problem. In mid-July it ran out. I was expecting a few (ok, more than a few) pieces of mail upon my return. Oddly enough the box was empty. Figuring I was just un-popular I wasn't overly concerned until I listened to my messages. My insurance company had called to see if I had moved. My renewal had been returned. I still didn't really worry about it until the following week I went to the bank and it was on my record that my mail had been returned. I promptly called Canada Post and asked what was going on.

Oh, no worries maam we will make sure your mail is no longer returned and will start having it delivered again. It will take up to 5 days. A week goes by and still no mail. I called again today. We went through the whole thing....again. Then about 2 hours later I got a call from Canada Post apologizing. The regional supervisor heard about my issue and felt terrible. He had been on vacation when the first call came in and now that I logged a second one he took on the case and personally contacted my mail carrier...who he assured me was one of the best. I told him thanks, he said don't thank me. And he apologized again.

By this time I was concerned about my mail...my visa had fraud charges, Shaw had called regarding the equipment of theirs I have and my returned mail. My new visa card has not arrived, my insurance renewal has not arrived...it all worries me a bit. The visa really worries me. I will call them again tomorrow and check on it.

At least I feel safe in knowing that I will soon be getting my mail again...I hope.

Apparently three days is long enough for a weekend. It's almost 9:30pm on Sunday night and I'm a bit bored. It's my own fault really. I didn't do enough today to really stimulate myself. In the morning I was in the 'this weekend is not long enough' kind of mood so I decided to slow it down and try to not do too much. My plan worked perfectly. I did so little that I know feel like a sloth. I could do a few things now, but am thinking I should invest in a couple of additional lamps for my living room before I do that. The lighting is ok for watching tv and working on the computer, but reading well...I should have a better light. I wonder why that didn't bother me before? I really am getting old.

I have taken it upon myself to really get into phase 2 of the Jennifer make over. Phase one was Spring of 2008 when I learned how to wear make up and decided to start using purses and trying to act more like a feminine female. Phase 2 is more of a inner focus. I have a few books that will hopefully help with figuring out a few things in my life. I may have opened pandoras box on one of them earlier today. While I do feel sexy at my present size and fully endorse plus size women as fabulous I would personally like to be a different size. Not a 2 or a 4 or a 6. Heck I'd settle for a 12 at this point. And I am focusing on why I became this size in the first place.

I know what the initial reason was...bad medicine. But the hows and the whys about maintaining this size come from somewhere else. I hope to find out why.

Another book/audio book actually that I am listening to is Deepak Chopra's book on synchrodestiny. It basically says that there are no such things as coincidence and that all those such occurrences actually happen for a reason, you just may not know why at the time. My plan was to listen to the book on my way to/from the office. I figured that if I listened to the radio every morning it wouldn't be that hard to listen to a book. And I think if it was a novel that theory would hold. This book requires me to think and absorb. I have over come this issue by listening to the first cd a number of times. I think it is going to work. I'm onto the second cd tomorrow.

On a very positive note...I won a prize recently. I will fill you in on the details and how you can win when I get my prize. I will announce a contest so that one of my faithful readers may also win a prize. And now...to try and make myself sleepy...so I can get up and make it to the office on time tomorrow.

Edmonton update...
Not much new. LOL. Work continues to be interesting. Busy and the constant feeling of being behind. But at least for now it is the place for me. I took Friday off and made a list of things that needed to be done. I started my day off with the post office, hit Ikea, the bead store and a ton of places in between. It was a good day. Today, Saturday I headed to the laundromat again with a movie, sub from subway, oh yeah, and my dirty laundry. I love how quickly I can manage to get it all done. I think it costs more than at my building but my time is well worth the money. Tonight I went for a short walk around my neighbourhood and took a few shots for you. Oh, I have signed up for a photography class. It isn't until October...the September classes were full. Two nights and hopefully I will pick up a few tips on how to better use my camera.














One of my stops on Friday was at a couple of travel agencies. The Italy planning is under way. I was a tad disappointed with the choices of tours. There were a couple that hit all the right places, but something just isn't sitting right. I am going to look into the possibility of planning most of the trip on our own and then grabbing the odd day tour. I will look into pricing it out and letting my travel companion know what the trip could be. I think she has some hesitations....don't blame her, but this might be do able.

Jennifer finally takes the plunge....polar bear swim.

Finally...more photos.


Yes folks...musk oxen. They were close and yet far. It was a site to see intotal about 5 or 6 of them close by.
Mt Pelly. Major tourist attraction in Cambridge Bay. About 17km out of town.

More musk ox (musk oxen--plural)
View on the drive.
All the vehicles on route to Mt Pelly for our staff picnic.
Back of a sail boat that had been left behind by a priest.
One of the guests at the picnic. Poor baby had mosquitos all over him.
Staff bbq/picnic. A good time was had by all.
Flowers!
Arctic Hare on the move.
Cambridge Bay from over across the bay.
Nice isn't it?
Left over from rock houses. See next picture for description.
Description....


And more pictures. Todays entry is photos from July 14 - . I'm almost caught up in sharing all the pics with you....yeah.

A couple of people anxious to go boating. They are pushing the boat over the ice to get to open water. It may look like water with ice, but at this point it was ice with water on top.

Float plane landing area.
More cemetery photos. Hard to see in this picture but on the right hand side you can see the rays of sun coming through the clouds.
Single grave marker.
Very interesting wooden markers. Not sad. Peaceful.
Yellow poppies.
Popular spot for fishing. Just outside of town by the bridge next to the cemetery.

Little house on the tundra.