Canada Day

It's the Canada Day long weekend, and clearly time for reflection.

Did you know that, in addition to Canada turning 140 youthful years of age, famous Canadians Pamela Anderson (the Big 4-0!) and Dan Aykroyd (turning 55 years old) are celebrating this weekend? True! Happy Birthday to all who celebrate this weekend, including my friend Darla.

As you can tell by my sporadic tendencies, blogging has become less of a priority for me these days. I'm busy with my guy, busy with a new job, busy with a charitable event I'm helping organize, busy with soccer, busy with slo-pitch. Busy busy busy. I'm not officially saying that I'm quitting blogging, but am just puttin' it out there. I'll post an entry when I feel like it, but refuse to feel guilty about not blogging regularly. There -- I've said it:

I refuse to feel guilty about not blogging on a regular basis!

So a quick recap on what's new -- cuz you may not get another recap for a while.....

• My guy is gone to Europe for three whole weeks. He left yesterday and doesn't get back 'til July 21 : (
• My soccer season has turned into a bit of a fiasco. After winning our fist two soccer games, we lost eight games in a row. Luckily, we had a great team and really had some fun. And I learned a lot more playing with my co-captains that I ever have in my three other years in the league. For July and August, they shuffle the teams, so who knows how the second half of the season will go?
• Slo-pitch has, similarly, been a travesty. Our record is a paltry 2-7, and we lost our last game by a score of 31-13. Ugh. Still, we have some fun folks on our team, and I've made some new friends. If only we didn't play like the Bad News Bears!!
• Still on the sports theme, I've had a groin injury for the past several weeks that's causing me grief. I hurt it playing slo-pitch, and darn if it hasn't healed yet!! I've had to miss a couple of slo-pitch games because of it, and it's a real thorn in my side leg. Hopefully at my doctor's appointment next week, I can get some advice on rehabbing it.
• Work rocks. I'm having fun and doiong (I think) a great job. I've received several compliments from a variety of people, and I feel like I'm really making it what I want. I know I'm doing a lot of things that my predecessor didn't, so I believe that adds value to my stakeholders, simply by providing additional services that weren't offered before. Things are great at the office!
• I booked time off to go home to Ottawa for Thanksgiving. It turns out that my 9-year-old nieces from Australia are going to be going to school in Ottawa and living at my grandparents' place from September through January. As a result, I figured I'd better get my butt over there for some quality niece time!
• And some other time off has been set aside for November, when my guy and I are heading to New York to finally use our free flight coupons (both of which we earned last year, independently of each other). We're flying on separate airlines, and his coupon had terms that meant we have to fly out of Seattle (did you know there there just aren't any direct flights to NYC out of Seattle?), but at least we're using them and getting value. We're very excited about seeing my friend Priscilla, and being in New York together for the first time.
• I'm heading to Seattle today to watch friends of mine play in a slo-pitch tournament, and for a chance to simply get out of town. With my guy gone, I wondered what to do for the long weekend, and then decided that Seattle is it. I head down this afternoon and come back on Monday, hopefully after I've done a wee bit of shopping!

That's it in a nutshell. You're up to date now, and I'm excused for feeling guilty about not posting very frequently. And that, my friends, is a great way to head into a long weekend!

Happy Canada Day to everyone out there!

Alive, kicking, and fantastic!!

Clearly being a workin' gal has cut into my blogging time. There's plenty of good things to blog about, but (like my last post) you'll just have to be content with the knowledge that things are great, things are busy, things are varied.

Life is good and I'm currently watching the smooth-as-glass water of English Bay on a bright, clear Tuesday morning. My guy came over last night with a huge bouquet of beautiful flowers, and then we went out for dinner to celebrate our four-month anniversary. And of course, we had to have a relationship review.

What's a relationship review? You know, it's like that frank talk that you have with your manager at work every quarter -- just to make sure that things are going well and there are no surprises lurking in the wings that may take you by surprise when it comes time for your annual performance evaluation. Just making sure that things are on course for the desired end result.

Well, the review went well, and we're happy to be on the same path with the same goals in mind. Pretty cool! Suffice to say, I'm alive, kicking, and fantastic!!

Rock Star

It's been a great week, a great weekend, and I'm exhausted. Sorry, but that will have to suffice for now.

I am indeed alive and kicking. Just bloody tired after a very busy and social week. You'll have to take my word for it -- I partied like a 40-year-old man reliving his youth rock star.

The weekly sports wrap-up

It was a busy week on the sports front, starting Wednesday with a soccer game against the White team. Our goalie was on holidays, so it was one of those who-gets-stuck-playing-goal scenarios. Seeing as how I've been nursing a groin injury for freakin' ever a few weeks now, I volunteered to play net for the first half.

I did OK, and made a couple of stops, but did let in one dribbly little goal that I could have had a better play at. But our defence did a magnificent job of clearing the ball and keeping shots to a minimum. On the one that I did let in, our captain said it was his fault -- he's very good at taking ownership, even when it wasn't exactly all his fault -- and said I did a great job.

I played my usual forward position during the second half and very nearly had a picture-perfect header goal that would have tied the score at 1 goal apiece. Alas, their goalie just barely got a hand on it and punched it over the net to keep me off the score sheet. In the end, we lost 3-0. If we had our regular goalie, I'm pretty sure we would have won, but at least we gave it our all and kept it more competitive than the score would indicate. And my captain said he made a mistake in putting me in goal -- that my absence from the forward line was bad for the team, because I wasn't there to provide my normal spark and excitement. I love my coach ; )

Thursday was a slo-pitch game that ended in disaster. During the top of the first inning, we were fielding and had two outs. Things were looking good, when they got a few hits and had started a two-out rally. Then they got another hit, and one of their players was running from 2nd base to 3rd. Suddenly, he slowed down, began to stumble, and started falling to hit knees. He pitched forward, dropping face first onto the baserunning path, and started gasping for air, choking in dust, and convulsing. Our 3rd baseman turned him over so he could breathe, and then a few people jumped into action. They started first aid, eventually doing CPR for a very long time as we all waited for the ambulance to arrive.

I won't go into too much detail but, after what seemed to be forever, the ambulance finally arrived and he was taken to hospital. We have gotten a few updates on his condition, the lastest one being that he regained consciousness briefly, then struggled to breathe, and was sedated and hooked up to a ventilator. He's in critical condition and is certainly not out of the woods, but our entire league has him in our thoughts as we struggle with the whole thing. How could someone who's around my age, and seems fairly healthy and fit, have his heart simply stop working so suddenly and without warning?

Obviously, the game was postponed and will be rescheduled at some point in the future.

Today we had our first slo-pitch double-header on what turned out the be the hottest day of the year thus far. We soldiered on, despite the heat, and managed to split the games. We beat a good team in our first game, taking a squeaker by 6-5 on a last-inning clutch hit by our captain, Sindee. I batted terribly, fielded OK, and felt a bit disappointed overall. Still, we won the game and felt pretty good.

The second game was a whitewash. We lost 11-5 and were never in it, at one point trailing 9-0!! I batted terribly again (but at least got on base this game, unlike game #1) and was OK in the field. I know that I can't be perfect in the field all the time, and that I'll improve as I play more games, but the perfectionist in me wants to be perfect all the time : )

So that's the weekly wrap-up. Our soccer record stands at two wins and three losses (those three losses coming all in a row, after having started the season with those two win), while our slo-pitch record is now 2-4. We clearly need to ramp it up to notch up a few more wins!!

All good

The first week is over,

Yes, five days are done.

Full of laughter and visiting,

You'd think work was all fun!

I finished my first week of work yesterday, and it's been an absolutely awesome re-introduction to the life of a workin' gal. I had a nice, smooth transition into the job, and the people -- many of whom I already knew -- have been great. I've felt very much at home in my new surroundings, and feel like I'm really going to like it.

And what is this new job? Well, I'm working as an undercover agent Office Manager for my old company, but in their corporate office as opposed to the tech group. I worked in this office back from 1998 to 2000, and am familiar with the ins and outs of the company and the runnings of the office.

I won't go into too much detail on the job or the company, but suffice to say that it's all good.