roast swan, that's amusing. you'll get that one later
I think I'm still recovering from last night's food hangover. Brad and I did our Thanksgiving dinner yesterday; we always do it on the Sunday even though Monday is technically the holiday, because I can't imagine doing all that work and eating such a big meal and then having to get up and go to work the next day. No thank you! So we had our turkey and cranberry sauce and stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy and squash and biscuits and green beans, plus pumpkin cake and strawberry shortbread/cake-y thing with whipped cream for dessert yesterday and omg. I swear I had a food baby all last night. I ate very slowly so that I'd be able to eat it all, and I did clear my plate except for like two bites of mashed potatoes, because everything was just SO freaking good. The mashed potatoes were actually phenomenal - Brad put cream cheese and a splash of heavy cream and some grated cheese in them, and they were mouth-watering, which is definitely saying something because I usually find mashed potatoes to be a sort of meh side dish. Not last night, that's for sure. I think my stuffing came out well, which is good considering I didn't measure a single ingredient I put in it, and cranberry sauce always makes me happy because it's so damn easy to make but tastes so good. Oh god, and the turkey was just perfect. Moist and tender and just falling off the bone, mmmmmm.
Clearly I could just go on and on about how delicious our meal was, but I'm glad everything was so great, especially since it ended up just being the two of us this year. All of the Americans I invited had various reasons for not being able to make it, and Brad's parents have been having issues with their car so they couldn't come down either. I'd asked Kim if she and her husband wanted to join us since they don't have family around here either, but they had other plans, and so Brad and I just hung out. It was very low stress but we still got all of the tasty food, and now there are about a billion leftovers, so we don't have to worry about meals for the week either! I call that a win.
Work's finally started to get busy, but not necessarily in the way I would've liked. I feel like I've just had a ton of meetings and stuff, which makes it hard to get time in to do any testing, now that I've finally got a couple of consents in. This week is a short week, plus meetings Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so that'll make it interesting in terms of time management for sure. Hopefully things will start to settle into a more regular schedule soon. On the plus side, I'm going to be an in-school mentor this year! I don't think I've mentioned anything about that here yet, but my school board has a partnership with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, where certain schools can refer kids for an in-school mentor, someone who comes and spends an hour a week with the child doing fun activities, building positive relationships, and maybe helping the kid with things like social skills or anger management or whatever. As well, board employees are allowed to have that hour a week to serve as a mentor if they're interested, without it coming out of your pay or anything. It's something I've been interested in doing for awhile, so in the spring I filled out the application, went for training and sent off the police record check request, which came back over the summer and I was then approved to be a mentor. I got matched with a student (my mentee, which I still think is a funny word) and we had our initial match meeting last week, so starting on Wednesday, I'll be seeing him weekly. I think it'll be a good opportunity for me to get more meaningful one-on-one interaction with a student, and hopefully be able to do more good in a kid's life. It should be fun, even if it is one more thing to factor into my schedule. My mentee is a grade 5 boy, who likes sports and baking, so I'm sure we'll find some interesting things to do!
Starting next weekend, my social life starts to get pretty busy as well! Lynn's wedding is on Saturday, though thankfully it's local and right near a subway station, so I can just take transit instead of having to drive. Then Sunday, I think I'm going to Ajax with some of the girls to celebrate Joanna's birthday (she's in our knitting group but not there regularly because Ajax is kind of far away and it'd be hard for her to get downtown weekly). So there goes most of next weekend. Then the following one, I'm FINALLY taking my car in to get it serviced on the Saturday, because it's been embarrassingly long since it's had an oil change, plus it desperately needs new wiper blades. And that Sunday, I'm going to a yarn tasting at Knit-o-matic in the afternoon, which should obviously be fun, but just, you know, keeps me busy. But THEN. The weekend that I have seriously been looking forward to for pretty much a year: OUR KNITTING RETREAT!! First weekend of November, we've rented the same cottage we had last year, and it's going to be another glorious weekend of food, fun, friends, and of course LOTS and LOTS of knitting. I am so damn psyched, I can't even tell you. We have an epic planning spreadsheet going strong in google drive, and I think all of us have booked off or are taking sick/vacation days on the Friday so that we can go up earlier and have more time at the cottage. It's going to be amazing, and last year's retreat was seriously one of the best weekends I have ever had, which is why I've been SO much looking forward to this one. Also why I want the cardigan finished by then, so that I can a) wear it all weekend, and b) start other projects while I'm there! :D
Needless to say, my presence may be kind of limited on lj for the next while . . . not like I've been posting super often anyway, so really, what's the difference, right? :p I do read all of your entries, though, even when I'm not posting my own. I just don't always have things to talk about, but I'm sure with all my upcoming plans, I'll have some fun things to write about soon. Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadians, and happy three-day weekend to my Americans!
Clearly I could just go on and on about how delicious our meal was, but I'm glad everything was so great, especially since it ended up just being the two of us this year. All of the Americans I invited had various reasons for not being able to make it, and Brad's parents have been having issues with their car so they couldn't come down either. I'd asked Kim if she and her husband wanted to join us since they don't have family around here either, but they had other plans, and so Brad and I just hung out. It was very low stress but we still got all of the tasty food, and now there are about a billion leftovers, so we don't have to worry about meals for the week either! I call that a win.
Work's finally started to get busy, but not necessarily in the way I would've liked. I feel like I've just had a ton of meetings and stuff, which makes it hard to get time in to do any testing, now that I've finally got a couple of consents in. This week is a short week, plus meetings Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so that'll make it interesting in terms of time management for sure. Hopefully things will start to settle into a more regular schedule soon. On the plus side, I'm going to be an in-school mentor this year! I don't think I've mentioned anything about that here yet, but my school board has a partnership with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, where certain schools can refer kids for an in-school mentor, someone who comes and spends an hour a week with the child doing fun activities, building positive relationships, and maybe helping the kid with things like social skills or anger management or whatever. As well, board employees are allowed to have that hour a week to serve as a mentor if they're interested, without it coming out of your pay or anything. It's something I've been interested in doing for awhile, so in the spring I filled out the application, went for training and sent off the police record check request, which came back over the summer and I was then approved to be a mentor. I got matched with a student (my mentee, which I still think is a funny word) and we had our initial match meeting last week, so starting on Wednesday, I'll be seeing him weekly. I think it'll be a good opportunity for me to get more meaningful one-on-one interaction with a student, and hopefully be able to do more good in a kid's life. It should be fun, even if it is one more thing to factor into my schedule. My mentee is a grade 5 boy, who likes sports and baking, so I'm sure we'll find some interesting things to do!
Starting next weekend, my social life starts to get pretty busy as well! Lynn's wedding is on Saturday, though thankfully it's local and right near a subway station, so I can just take transit instead of having to drive. Then Sunday, I think I'm going to Ajax with some of the girls to celebrate Joanna's birthday (she's in our knitting group but not there regularly because Ajax is kind of far away and it'd be hard for her to get downtown weekly). So there goes most of next weekend. Then the following one, I'm FINALLY taking my car in to get it serviced on the Saturday, because it's been embarrassingly long since it's had an oil change, plus it desperately needs new wiper blades. And that Sunday, I'm going to a yarn tasting at Knit-o-matic in the afternoon, which should obviously be fun, but just, you know, keeps me busy. But THEN. The weekend that I have seriously been looking forward to for pretty much a year: OUR KNITTING RETREAT!! First weekend of November, we've rented the same cottage we had last year, and it's going to be another glorious weekend of food, fun, friends, and of course LOTS and LOTS of knitting. I am so damn psyched, I can't even tell you. We have an epic planning spreadsheet going strong in google drive, and I think all of us have booked off or are taking sick/vacation days on the Friday so that we can go up earlier and have more time at the cottage. It's going to be amazing, and last year's retreat was seriously one of the best weekends I have ever had, which is why I've been SO much looking forward to this one. Also why I want the cardigan finished by then, so that I can a) wear it all weekend, and b) start other projects while I'm there! :D
Needless to say, my presence may be kind of limited on lj for the next while . . . not like I've been posting super often anyway, so really, what's the difference, right? :p I do read all of your entries, though, even when I'm not posting my own. I just don't always have things to talk about, but I'm sure with all my upcoming plans, I'll have some fun things to write about soon. Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadians, and happy three-day weekend to my Americans!