Happy New Year...or at least welcome to another day in the life of me.

As long time readers know I'm not a big fan of NYE and all that. I prefer to stay home and have a quiet night by myself. Lately though there seems to be a bit too much myself time. I will need to try and fix that in up coming weeks, but at least for the moment it is what I need/want/crave more than anything else. Must just be the leftovers from the multitude of changes in my life during the past 5 months. Yeah, in five months I've moved essentially 3 times and changed jobs as many times as well...so I think it is just a bit of mental down time to think about and decompress from all the changes.

How many of you made New Year's Resolutions? I'm again not going to make any....but I am going to continue on with a couple things I've been doing the past couple years. Again I aimed for three new foods this past year. I came up with mushrooms (not new for many of you...but I gave them an honest go and still don't like them), okra (its ok, but not a regular on my list, and all kinds of different foods and spices from India. My fav from India would definitely have been the masala tea. Again in 2009 I am going to try three new foods. I'm also hoping to not need to move in 2009! But with my track record I guess it is a bit early in the year to be making that statement.

I don't see any big trips in 2009, but am hoping to make one in 2010. No word on that for a while...need to figure a few things out first.

Oh, and if I do move again I'm going somewhere that they have storm days...so I can occasionally have one! Edmonton doesn't get them and with friends across the country getting long weekends...it just doesn't seem fair. LOL Actually, I have no complaints about the weather here. It has remained around -20 - -25 almost every day for the past month. The sunny days it is great and it reminds me of living up North. On the cloudy grey days I just shrug my shoulders and head for inside.

Flowers from Christmas...aren't they pretty?

It would appear that the company I wanted isn't able to make it...but we will try for a long weekend soon instead. The company I'm not keen on is still scheduled to arrive. Oh well.

Here's a few pics from my holidays. They were as you know, pretty quiet. I realized yesterday that aside from a couple of quick trips to the garbage outside I hadn't left the house from the 24th - 29th.

Here's a pic of my kitchen as I prepare the feast! Art work supplied by my niece and nephew.



Crocuses that I am hoping will bloom before I head up North. Not sure when I am heading up...but it would be my luck they would bloom during my absence.



Jewelry that I made. Dollarama designs!


I've been working from home this week. It has been great. I got a ton done the past couple of days and hope to get another major chunk done before the weekend arrives. It has been great. Wearing my pj's, watching tv and not worrying about the phone ringing or interrupting my train of thought. My policy manual grew by about 16 pages in one day. Which I was very happy about. At the moment it is sitting at just under 60 pages. With formatting and editing I suspect it will come in around 100 pages. Ugh. It's been a long battle that isn't close to being finished yet. I will pass it in this coming week for vetting. At that point it will gain and lose sections and be edited by my colleagues. Then it will need to be formatted, given final approval and then I will create an employee manual based on it. So, by the end of February it might be done.

It is a small world...how small...too small. So I joined a popular online dating site. It sent me a match. A couple of weeks later he contacted me. We had a few back and forth question sessions and then were allowed to send/receive our own messages and not just answer the predetermined questions of the program. We start to chat. I tell him how impressed I am that he has been to all provinces/territories and ask him where in Nunavut he has been. He writes back that actually NU is the only one he hasn't been to and maybe he should revise. We discuss NU. He says he applied for a job with the government in NU and did I ever work for them. It turns out he applied for a job....and I was the one that turned down his resume. How's that for a small world. I wrote back this morning and told him that it was me...and oddly enough (NOT) I haven't heard back from him. I suspect that even the friendship that we had proposed is now out of the question. Ah well.

I cooked a turkey for myself for Christmas. Just because it is turkey for one doesn't mean I shouldn't have it. Why I wonder are so many people concerned about it? Oh, that's a lot of meat for one person. Why would you want to cook a turkey for yourself? Etc...etc...

I like turkey. It is traditional in my family to have turkey on Christmas Day. I am not stupid enough to eat a whole turkey in one sitting. And turkey for one is just as good as turkey for 20. I cooked the turkey, made the dressing, cooked all the veggies and had a great meal. Today I ate leftovers and then cut all the meat off the bird, boiled the bones and froze most of the meat. Tomorrow I will make the actual soup, put it into multiple freezer bags and freeze it. Nothing better in January when you don't feel like cooking than homemade soup. And if I am feeling ambitious I will make a turkey curry. MMMMM, curry.

Christmas day was delightful. I got up, opened my gifts, chatted with the folks in PEI and watched some tv before getting my dinner ready. Everyone had a great day and many wonderful gifts were exchanged.

I am trying to enjoy my 4 days off in a row to the fullest extent. Which means doing as little 'work' as possible. I have a friend who wants to visit and frankly...I'm not in the mood. I want the whole four days to myself. This guest would require constant attention and I'm not up to it. I'm tired and want to relax. Which means no entertaining. I'm trying to figure out how to postpone the visit.

Today I made a necklace and earrings from some beads I bought at Dollarama last week and made some alterations to a sewing box I purchased to use as a jewelry box. It wasn't work that needed to be done, it was just fun things to keep me busy.

The temperature is slowly climbing and by tomorrow they are expecting we will break -10. We have been hovering at -25 for a couple of weeks. Hasn't bothered me, but I may get out for a walk if the sun decides to shine and the air warms up some.

I also had a moment of d'oh today. I awoke at 6:30am and decided I should get up and make myself cozy on the couch to watch Coronation Street. I was lucky in Iqaluit cause it came on at the reasonable hour of 9:30am. Here in Edmonton it comes on at 7:30am...on a Sunday. So I often miss the first hour of it. But today...today I was going to watch it all. I turned on the tv and decided that I would suffer through CBC cartoons for an hour while I waited. Apparently I fell asleep. I awoke at 8:15am and wondered why it wasn't on...what was going on? I checked the tv guide and then it dawned on me...today was not Sunday. My body/mind are so programed to day off followed by Sunday that having yesterday off meant today was Sunday. I am happy to report I have two more days off.

I hope everyone reading this had a wonderful holiday and that Santa came to visit.

I'm playing with the look of the blog a bit the next little while. Comments appreciated.

And now some more Christmas pictures. After the trip to the Telus Science Centre the other day (I'm such a geek!) I asked the lady at the gate where I should go to see some Christmas lights...and she suggested the house just up the road from mine and Candy Cane Lane. So allow me to present to you, Candy Cane Lane here in Edmonton. I walked, everyone else was driving. I had the better time!





I loved this sign. Yes, the house it is in front of 'sings'. The lights go off and on in time to the music. I like that they needed to tell you that on a sing...I mean sign.




I know that there is just a malfunction of some sort going on with the air pump for this poor snowman. But I think the expression on the penguins face is fantastic. It's kinda like he's shocked that the snowman is dead or something like that and he's screaming "Why? Why did he have to melt?" Just me?

I've been doing some thinking...and I realized that I haven't been doing any 'stuff'. I haven't been exploring. I was using excuses like I'm tired, the crowds will be nuts, etc and decided I need to stop with the excuses and just get out there and do it. I tried to take advantage of all the things going on up North...why shouldn't I do that in Edmonton?

I tackled the West Edmonton Mall on the Saturday before Christmas and lived to tell about it! I even managed to come home with some nice new boots, a pair of shoes and some great smelling body wash. All in all a success.

But something that I have been thinking of doing since I first started work is what I tackled today-Sunday. I headed out to the Telus Science Centre. I'd seen the ads for the Grand Canyon Imax and a new exhibit "The Art of the Brick" and finally I can say I've been. I must admit the brick exhibit had me a bit confused. I thought it was literally the history of bricks, how they are made, and how they are used around the world. It wasn't. Ok, maybe not thrilling to most, but I would have enjoyed it.

Instead, I saw an exhibit of wonderful works of art made out of Lego. Yes, I am a fan of Lego...so I wasn't totally disappointed. The Grand Canyon movie was interesting, but I think I would have liked the one on Ancient Egypt better...next time.

The science centre is really more for kids than say,someone in their mid-30's, but I had fun anyway. Here's some photos from today.

This one is for my mom. She likes giraffes. It's made out of lego.


A lego person making themselves...or making bigger biceps!


The front of the Telus Science Center.


Excellent question. What did happen here? This sign is inside one of the exhibits. It's kind of a CSI type exhibit. You solve the crime and they give you clues and discuss the science of who done it.


At the entrance to the body exhibit.


Yep, lavalamps. I can't remember what sciencey thing they were for...


Shocking!


I'm walking on the moon! Just wish the guy that took the photo had of told me my shoulder was showing.


There is an exhibit where you can be on tv. They have a 'green' screen and it works just like the weather reports on tv. I was trying to get a pic of myself doing the weather...hard to make out, but that's me in the bottom tv.


Christmas tree at the science center, very nice and very tall.


Me hanging out with my new Lego buddies.

It's Saturday morning. My week is over. Phew. This past week went by really quickly at work actually and I found myself getting a lot done. Guess I'm starting to see the downward slope of the learning curve, at least on this current project.

We had pizza and wine at work on Friday. It was going to be a chance for all our staff to be together, new and old. It didn't quite work out, our newest staff member couldn't make it, she doesn't start until January and her current pt job called and asked her to come in. Can't blame her, shows good work ethic as far as I was concerned. And she said she'd try to stop by Monday or Tuesday with cupcakes!

I've been working on a policy and procedures manual for work. Not my first, in fact this will make 3 that I've had to create in the past few years. This one though is a little larger and a little more important that the others. The first one I created was for the fisheries school in Iqaluit and with only 3 employees it didn't take a lot to complete the basics required to say we had 'rules'. Show up for work, if you don't, call. If you don't call or show up I will put you on probation. The one I did in Calgary was almost identical to the first one...with only two employees again, it didn't require a lot of work.

But now, now I need to create a manual for 40-200+ employees. And there are many more variables that need to be considered. The most basic is that we have employees working in two different areas--Alberta and Nunavut. Different labour laws. The hours of work for each area is different and we have employees who work at remote camps who are under different rules again. It's been a real challenge to make sure I have all the other areas covered. It seems like every day I think of another section I could/should add. I hope the folks that review it understand that it is a work in progress and can be added to at a later date. I'm hoping to have it completed by the end of December.

Today I'm making a list and checking it twice. I'm coming up with a list of goodies that I'd like to have over the Christmas season. Food and movies. Any suggestions?