Eyeball twitch

Chris and I had a good visit with friends and my family in Edmonton. We saw Avatar in the IMAX theatre. It was entertaining and imaginative. Besides that, we sat around eating, drinking,watching T.V. and chatting. It’s been a good trip so far, without any mishaps. Surprisingly it’s not entirely stress free. I think the “not having an income”, and perhaps the “not having a home” takes some getting use to on the stress cells. My left eyeball has a very irritating twitch, something that only happened to me at work when I was stressed out. Um? I primarily attribute my eye twitch to the stress of money management. On the plus side, I paid off my credit card! However that leaves us with a lot less funds for everything else. This is a challenging exercise, but when we’re full into our trip, I’m sure I’ll pick-up the ways and…Continue Reading

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Ahhhh, Edmonton in the wintertime. Luckily we had some good friends and family to soften the blow of -30 degree temperatures. Yup. Seems like we covered most of our bases in Alberta’s capital city. We’re now about 5 hours north, in a place I tend to think of as the other armpit of Alberta (second only to Ft. McMurray): Grande Prairie! Our Greyhound ride was mostly uneventful, with only one drunk redneck getting out of hand. Luckily she waited until the last hour of the ride to start being obnoxious. GP has been on record during the past two weeks as the coldest city in the province, with daytime highs of -32 celsius (that’s -25F for our American friends). Of course, Laura and I are bringing the warmth with us, and things are supposedly going to get back around the 0 mark soon. Woo-hoo for zero! We’ll have some more…Continue Reading

Photo Update!

It’s been a long week since Christmas. We are both pretty much dead tired, but at least our move is over. Our cat Zappa is in his new home, and we are heading north on the Red Arrow bus to Edmonton. This actually marks us finally leaving Calgary behind. On the morning of New Years’ Eve, we woke up and loaded our 16′ rental truck before heading over the Rocky Mountains at noon. The drive was grueling, with blowing snow, oncoming darkness, and three delays due to road accidents, but we made it in time to celebrate New Years with my folks. Unfortunately, we spent New Years Day doing pretty much the same thing all over again, except this time it involved unloading the truck and driving east across the mountains to return it. The weather was actually worse on the way back, but we made it okay. Today we…Continue Reading

What a girl wants, what a girl needs…

I like pretty dresses, with matching purses and shoes. I like to blow dry my hair every morning and sometime give it curls. Fresh ground coffee beans are a great way to start the day or perhaps a home made espresso on the stove, brewing away. In the winter time, colour coordinated scarves, mittens and toques are a must. I like matching pillows and curtains and a house decked out with plants. To pass the time, I knit, sew, play the piano or simply cozy up on the couch to watch a movie on a 46″ flat screen T.V. Laura’s Closet I used to cry when I lost a ring, or broke a glass or plate. I use to get upset if I ruined a piece of clothing,expensive or cheap. But over the past five years I have grown away from the materialism of my childhood. Sure, I still like nice things, like pretty…Continue Reading
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Packing up our life (and our bags)

Laura and I are up to our eyes in boxes and tubs, ruthlessly reducing our belongings through online sales and the ever-growing Goodwill pile. Our house is in shambles, Zappa (our cat) is freaked out, but we’re making progress. We’ll be out of here in a  couple of days, and officially homeless. We’re already officially jobless, and that feels pretty good, so I’m sure the whole homeless thing will too. As part of this work, I also had my first chance to try to pile everything I plan to bring into my bag. You can see a pic of that below. Click here to see one with notes itemizing everything. Back to the slog…  

One bag, one world. Or something…

Business travelers are no strangers to the idea of bringing everything they need in a carry-on, and I have been privileged to interact with a lot of die hard business travelers in my current (but outgoing) job. These people are all about efficiency , and they know that it is asking for trouble to trust your financial and emotional livelihood (wardrobe, work, and personal life) to an airline. That’s why they rely so much on those wheelie-rollie suitcases, that technically count as carry-ons, while affording the utmost luggage space possible. Don’t get me wrong. These things are well-designed for their purpose. They pack  a lot of stuff in a U.S.-airline-sized carry-on that you can wheel on the well-paved areas between your cab rides. They also hold all the things business travelers like to have on the road: things like laptops, multiple changes of clothes, cameras, iPods, papers, books and the like. But…Continue Reading