Today I...August 31st

Today I...

...am not including a picture with my post because my pictures from last weekend are not uploaded yet and I'm pretty tired. I'll try and get that done tomorrow.

...am still feeling kind of lonely after coming home from my Sweetheart's, but we did have a wonderful time.

...had a great time at my first choir practice of the season last night, we have a slight problem though...there are only five sopranos, including me, and I'm the only 1st soprano. We're also lacking tenors, so hopefully we'll get a few more returning choristers or new recruits to help fill the void!

...had to buy groceries and do the laundry today because I was out of both food and clean clothes.

...am looking forward to a quiet evening after work tomorrow!

Today I...August 26th

Today I...

...am counting down the hours until I get to hop on the train to Toronto to visit my Sweetheart. I'm down to 14 hours and 23 minutes as I write this sentence and approximately 19 hours and five minutes until I actually get to see him, as long as the train is on time...it had darn well better be!!!

...left my place at 8:15 and punched in at work at 8:27. Yahoo, lucky me I got a bus right away and there was hardly any traffic, even though most of the schools started up again this morning! I could tell that school was back in again more on the way home though since my bus got stuck in traffic. I would have walked home as I usually do, but I was hoping to beat the rain I could see coming on my way out of work and make it to the pet supply store by taking the bus. That didn't work out, so I ended up going to buy my bag of cat food after dinner.

...had a crazy busy afternoon filled with an unexpected pilgrimage organizer coming in and wanting to book his pilgrimage for August 2011, an unexpected group coming in and wanting to say mass in one of our chapels, a phone that wouldn't stop ringing, schedules for tours in December to be made and data to be entered into our database. I got it all done by 4:30 on the nose and cleaned up my desk and felt like cartwheeling down the hill to the bus stop because I was so happy to be leaving...since it meant I was that much closer to going to Toronto to see my Sweetheart.

...still need to vacuum, have my shower, wash the dishes, feed my lovely ladies (my cats) and my fish and pack my suitcase before going to bed. Uh...bed before Midnight? Maybe...lol

...am sharing this link to a video of the King's College Boys' Choir singing Lux Arumque , another of the pieces I'm going to be singing at my Christmas Concert this year. The King's College Choir is one of my absolute favorites and they do a marvelous job of singing this piece, I hope you enjoy it :o)

...am signing off for the weekend, I'll be back on Monday or Tuesday, but my choir practices are starting up on Monday, so I can't guarantee that I'll be posting that night. I hope you all have a marvelous weekend!

Today I...August 25th

Today I...

...am sharing another picture of Magique with you. Here she is, lying in my basket full of clean laundry two weeks ago. Do I mind when she does this? Nah, not really. Magique hardly loses any hair at all, so I find this particular behavioral pattern of hers more cute than anything else :o)

...was very happy to see C come back to work looking rested and cheerful, she gave both D and I big hugs when she first saw us because she was so happy to see us.

...had a fairly quiet day work-wise, or may just have felt that way because I didn't have to do most of C's work anymore!

...spoke with my Sweetheart for a half-hour. We started telling one another what we would like to do together over the weekend and, as always, realized that there are way too many things we want to do together, especially since we would like to have a quiet weekend. Dear me...lol

Today I...August 24th

Today I...

...am sharing this Picture of Quinn and Magique, my mother and daughter pair of cats with you. I don't know if I had shown you guys this picture before, but if I did, it was a long time ago so I'm sharing it again. It's one of my favorite pictures of my lovely ladies because it shows how close they are and have always been, since Magique is the only one of her five babies that Quinn got to keep and she is still very much aware that Magique is her daughter. This photo is from when Magique was about five months old I'd say, because she was about mid-way through being full-grown.

...am feeling better than I was last night, much better actually.

...had loads of fun at lunch again, laughing away with X, K and L. K has the greatest laugh and when I hear her laugh, I just laugh right along with her and cannot stop.

...was glad not to be the target of our full-moon crazy person feature for once. X and K got that honor. I'm sure it will be my turn to run into a 'special' person the next time the full moon comes along, the Oratory always gets one or two of them a week, but every once in a while the full moon seems to bring out the real special ones, ask anyone who works at the Oratory, they'll tell you a story or two...

...got a call from a man wanting to bring some pilgrims over from Montpellier, France for Brother Andre's canonization. It took me about a minute to be able to understand his accent!

...allowed myself the luxury of a soak in the bath followed by a facial when I got home from work. What a world of good it did me :o)

Today I...August 23rd

Today I...

...am sharing this picture of some lovely orchids that I saw on my way to the butterfly exhibit at the Botanical Gardens way back in February.

...had a heck of a time getting myself out of bed this morning. I was so tired and I couldn't figure out why and still can't. Oh well, hopefully I'll get over it if I manage to make it to bed at a decent hour tonight, but that's always a bit hard for me as I seem to be genetically engineered to be a semi-night owl. I'm meant to go to bed around Midnight, which does not work out well when I have to be up and at 'em at 7:00 A.M. to go to work.

...cooked something new for dinner! Linguini with cremini mushroom, cream and white wine sauce! I made it from scratch and it was soooooo yummy, even though it was meant to be made with Vodka, which I never have in my house, except for a party and then it's someone elses and it leaves with them because I never drink the stuff.

...had a semi-busy, semi-quiet day at work.

...had loads of fun laughing with my fellow tour guides L, X and K at lunch. They're all student summer guides though and X and K are finishing their season this week and L will only be around for a few days next week. I'm going to miss having them around every day, we have so much fun together.

...am feeling a bit off tonight and lonely. I'm thinking it's the full moon that's making me feel funny, it can do that to me sometimes.

...am so looking forward to locking myself in a bubble with my Sweetheart this coming weekend. My goal is to spend the whole weekend with just him. No Facebook, no blog and as little e-mail as possible, although I will have to contact my dad at some point to see if he can pick me up at the train station on Sunday night...because no matter how much I want to, I can never stay in my bubble with my Sweetheart. I always have to come back out and face reality. Oh dear, it's only Monday and I still have to make it to Friday before I get to leave to see my Sweetheart and I'm already thinking about how hard it will be to come home! Ugh...God, give me strength to make it to mid-March when he comes back to Montreal!

Today I...August 22nd

Today I...

...am sharing this sunny photo of Niagara Falls with you. It's been rainy and cool all day here today and it was so warm and sunny when I took this photo that it's warming me up just looking at it :o)

...went for a spa appointment and a small shopping spree.

...was most relieved when the sweater and sports pants that I bought ended up both being on sale. I got a 99$ sweater from Mexx on sale for 25$ taxes in and a 60$ pair of pants on sale for 50$ taxes in.

...spoke with my Sweetheart for about a half hour and we both agreed that we wanted to spend a quiet weekend together next weekend. I can't wait!!!

...ate the last of the chocolates that my Sweetheart left for me last week. We're gonna have to make more of those if we can, or maybe some of his chocolate mousse? Mmm...

Today I...August 21st

Today I...

...am sharing this picture of my cat Magique with you. Doesn't she look relaxed?

...spent my afternoon the way Magique must have been feeling when I took this picture of her. I had a nice, long nap and then an nice, long bath this evening, in between vacuuming and doing my laundry.

...went out to get cat food this morning, but ended up running home when I got a call from Videotron cable telling me that the techie who was only supposed to show up between noon and 8:00 P.M. was on his way to my place a bit after 11:00! These specialists! They're either at the late end of their obscenely long windows of opportunity to show up on your doorstep or obscenely early! Oh well, at least my cable box is working now.

...went out for brunch and then to get cat food and kitty litter with my brother. While he was there, I was just as well to take advantage of his manly strength and have him cart a bag of litter up to my apartment.

...found out, much to my relief, that I am most certainly not lactose intolerant. I guess my heart burn this week was from stress?

...am now going to go and wash my dishes and go watch a movie.

This week I...

This week I...

...meant to post more often and share more photos than I did, but I felt like crap. No emotionally really, not past Tuesday anyhow, but physically. Holy heartburn, Batman!!! I had never had any before and then this week all of a sudden, whamo! It really sucked and I slept rather badly because of it and because of that I had very little energy or desire to post at night, so I apologize for that.

...was pretty darn busy at work since C was still on vacation. She's not coming back to the office until Wednesday and I hope she comes back in fine form.

...gave a tour and a few interviews to a camera crew from a Quebec-wide news agency with the rector of the Oratory yesterday. It was lots of fun and helped me get my mind off of the searing pain beneath my sternum.

...found out that Gaviscon really does work well. My heartburn has been slim to none since I started using it last night. Ah, blessed sleep, I was glad to encounter it again.

...told D that it was okay if he left work this morning when a family emergency came up, since it was a quiet day. Oops...it wasn't so busy anymore once the afternoon rolled around. I had to pull a tour guide who had just done double duty by heading down to our inn to help make the beds out of lunch and ask him to please eat in the information booth so that the tour guide there could go and do the 1:30 P.M. English tour. Good soldier that he is, he did it without too much complaint...especially after I told him that he would be paid an hour's worth of overtime for his troubles.

...bought part of my repertoire for my choir's Christmas concert off of iTunes and am thrilled to share this video of part of Morten Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna with you. I can't wait to wow our audience with it. What do you all think of the piece. I was hoping to find a video of a choir actually singing it, but none of the choirs I found videos of were quite up to this one, which is the Los Angeles Master Choir and exactly the recording I have.

Skywatch Friday

Every city's Skyline is unique, but Montreal's Skyline is dominated, from the West, by something that is usually only seen in Europe...a huge church, St.Joseph's Oratory. I often refer to the Oratory as the last of its kind, or in North America at least. They just don't build churches like this anymore!

To see more skies from around the world, you can head over the to Skywatch Friday Blog.

Have a great weekend!

Today I...August 17th

Today I...

...am sharing this picture of the Much Music building in Toronto with you. I'm pretty sure it was a library at some point, but yeah, it now houses the Much Music studios.

...was so very relieved and happy to finally talk with my Sweetheart. I was afraid, earlier this evening that he was avoiding me because he signed in to Skype as 'Away' so I knew he was doing it on purpose. I sent him a message on Skype and bluntly asked him to please stop doing it if that was what he was doing because it would end up making me sick eventually, literally. I told him I would beg if I had to, but it turned out that I didn't need to because he answered me almost right away and said that of course he wasn't avoiding me, he was just eating dinner, doing laundry and then going to get his groceries and that we could talk we he got back from the store, if I wanted to. Well, DUH!!! Of course I wanted to. He told me that he hadn't read my e-mails from the weekend and yesterday day yet though. Well, I wish I could say I was surprised about that, but I wasn't. He's notoriously slow at reading e-mails.

...found out that the incident that his sister wouldn't tell him about on the phone on Friday night was a flood in his condo. She hadn't wanted to tell him on the phone so she wouldn't spoil his evening and didn't want him to come home to find his place just like that. The flood came over from the neighbors' place and warped his floor and soaked the wall, so he had to spend all day Saturday pulling up part of his hallway floor and taking down part of the wall which was moldy...and now he's coughing because he couldn't find a mask to wear. I felt so bad for him when I found out about that because he and I and his brother and one of his friends spent hours and hours renovating his place when he bought it and he had just finished most of it before moving to Toronto.

...found out that a crazy barricaded himself in the basement unit of the apartment building across the street from mine this morning with his pregnant roommate and was threatening to set the place on fire. The finally talked him out of there this afternoon and the woman is fine, thank heavens. It's so strange when something like that happens in your neighborhood, especially if it's a quiet one like mine!

...felt extremely ill and nearly passed out when diesel fumes from the generator on the roof got into my office building's ventilation system. What kind of a fool puts a generator right next to an air vent on a building's roof? My Sweetheart just couldn't figure that out and said that that engineer must have graduated at the bottom of his class for darn sure.

...am wondering if I'm gradually becoming lactose intolerant. I have been getting heartburn for about two weeks now and never have before. Very strange indeed.

Today I...August 16th

Today I...

...am sharing this close-up picture of a fountain in Toronto with you.

...am wishing I could get on a train and go to Toronto to see my Sweetheart, because I miss him. I'm dying to talk with him since I'm feeling so much better today, but he was 'away' on Skype when I got there at about 8:00 P.M. and he didn't come back, just went offline at about 9:45 P.M.. I knew this might happen because he often gets home from Montreal absolutely worn out and if his weekend was as rough as mine, he's probably exhausted, like me. I didn't sleep very well again last night, so since I did everything I needed to do to get ready for bed while waiting to see if he was going to come back online, all I have to do is have my shower and go to bed...and hopefully not get too upset over not talking to my Sweetheart tonight. I'm still kind of fragile, but this is not abnormal, I often don't get to talk to him right when he gets back. I'll just try again tomorrow, is all.

...had a fairly busy day at work. I was all alone in the office and there were lots and lots of people around in the afternoon because a lot of pilgrims were coming through on their way back from Cap-de-la-Madeleine since it was the Assumption yesterday.

...ended up doing fifteen minutes of overtime because I was about to leave when the phone rang, then rang again and again. Gonna have to make sure D knows about that tomorrow.

Today I...August 15th

Today I...

...am sharing this picture of a dog that my Sweetheart, a friend of his and I came across on a beach in Kelowna a few years back.

...am feeling a bit better. I don't feel like a little ghost wandering around among the living today.

...was feeling more angry about the events of Friday evening and night than anything else.

...just want to talk to my Sweetheart to iron this whole thing out.

...think that my Sweetheart owes an apology, a big hug and some flowers. The flowers and big hug thing would be kind of hard though seeing as he leaves so darn far.

...went grocery shopping when I motivated myself to get out of my apartment.

...did a lot of lying down on my bed and thinking, I even had a short nap.

...was able to eat without my stomach getting upset for the first time since Friday night when I had dinner.

...found myself wondering why being in love has to be so crappy sometimes. It should feel nothing but nice and warm and fuzzy all the time. I count myself fortunate that it feels that way for me most of the time, but when it sucks, boy, does it suck. I think it's worth going through a few rough spots in exchange for all the good times though.

Today I...August 14th

Today I...

...was feeling like complete and utter crap when I woke up...and not because of a hangover.

...am trying to get over my disappointment over the way my party turned out last night.It started out quite well, I was being a good hostess, helping everyone get settled, setting out food. But then I got the impression that something was being planned, but I wasn't too sure what. Then I heard that one of my friends was talking about going to see the Perseid meteors up north somewhere, but we had to wait until my Sweetheart got to my place as well as one of my other friends, G, who was running late because she is a veterinarian and had an emergency at her clinic.

...was thrilled when my friend and my Sweetheart got to my place, only to be very upset when my Sweetheart told me that he couldn't stay because his sister was waiting for him at his condo, which she is renting while he's on contract in TO.

...was even less impressed when all my friends started getting up to head up North to see the meteor shower without asking me if that was what I wanted to do, seeing how this was supposed to be my housewarming party after all.

...lost it when my Sweetheart said he was going to head home as everyone was getting ready to leave. There I was at my own party watching my guests leave while trying to keep my Sweetheart over a bit longer because he had only gotten there about 20 minutes earlier. I was a hormone induced mess (hello, PMS, thank you for making a crappy situation even crappier).

...was thankful that one of my girlfriends, L, came into the living room where my Sweetheart was sitting with me, looking incredulous and handing me a glass of water to try to get me to calm down and explained to him exactly why his leaving so soon was so upsetting to me. She told him everything I wanted to but couldn't because I was such a mess.

...ended up getting in a car with G and my Sweetheart and two other friends and hauled up North even though I really didn't feel like it. I would have rather stayed home with my Sweetheart and talked things out with him, but I had never seen a shooting start before and he wanted me to so he called his sister and told her he would be late so he could go and therefore I would follow.

...was relieved when my carload of friends decided that they had had enough of hunting for the perfect spot to see the meteor shower from, stopped on the side of the country road we were on just long enough for me to see a shooting star and then called our second carload of friends which we had lost sight of to tell them that we had had it and were heading back to Montreal.

...got to bed far too late after G my Sweetheart and I cleaned up my apartment and G left with my Sweetheart to drive him home.

...hardly slept because I was so upset.

...don't want you to think badly of my friends, they are wonderful 99.9% of the time and had no clue that they were doing anything to upset me last night.

...don't want you to think badly of my Sweetheart either. He didn't know he was doing anything wrong until I told him so and felt awful for getting me so upset. I hardly ever get upset at him so he was quite shocked by the whole thing. But guys will be guys. They wouldn't be guys if they didn't do something dumb to upset us every once in a while. Sorry fellas, but that's just a universal fact agreed upon by women. We love you anyhow though, don't worry.

...am not having another party at my place for a very, very long time.

Skywatch Friday

This week's Skywatch feature is this beautiful flowering bush which was growing next to a home in Charleston, South Carolina with a beautiful, sunny sky as a backdrop. I've been wanting to share this photo with you for a while, but never got around to it for some reason.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, you can get it off on the right foot by going to see more lovely Skywatch photos on the Skywatch Friday blog.

Today I...August 11th

Today I...

...chose a picture at random for this post and it turned out to be this lovely little house in Charleston's French Quarter. It's right next to a large cemetery that I've shared pictures of with you before.

...had a quieter day at work than yesterday, which is just fine with me since tomorrow is going to be busy, D actually called an extra summer guide in since we're missing C who, as I mentioned earlier this week, is on vacation.

...spent quite a bit of time in the information booth.

...am tearing through my second reading of Audrey Niffenegger's 'The Time Traveler's Wife'. If you haven't read it yet, you should. It's a brilliantly written story.

...am waiting for my Sweetheart to call me back. I came to call him just as he was going to get dinner, I assume. If not, then he's probably making the chocolate truffles for my housewarming party and I certainly wouldn't want him to mess those up because I'm distracting him!

...am still tired, but not quite as much as last night, at least not yet.

Today I...August 10th

Today I...

...am having a pictureless post because I'm pretty tired tonight and didn't feel like hunting through my thousands of pictures to find the perfect one for this post.

...had a very busy day at work. C is on vacation for two weeks so I have to do her work and mine and that definitely keeps me busy!

...am getting more and more eager for Friday! I'm having my housewarming party that day so will be having a bunch of friends over and best of all, my Sweetheart will be coming too!

...was quite miffed when I got a call from the spa I go to to find out that my appointment, which I thought was tomorrow at 5:15 P.M. was actually today. I only ever go on Wednesdays or Thursdays or very occasionally on Fridays and no one called to confirm my appointment, so I didn't remember it was today. Grr!!! Now I have to wait until Friday next week to go, I was not amused!

...am happy that the weather has cooled off tonight and that the humidity is gone, it will make sleeping much more comfortable.

Today I...August 9th

Today I...

...am sharing this picture of the statue of Brother Andre in the Oratory's Basilica with you, it being his 165th birthday and all. We celebrated his birthday today at the Oratory as we do every year with a mass at 2:00 P.M. in the Basilica paying special attention to the ill and the handicapped who are given a special blessing during the service. They also had a candlelight procession to the original Oratory after the 7:30 P.M. mass. This is the original Oratory here:

There's a statue of Brother Andre out there, too, as you can see. That picture of the Chapel doesn't quite do it justice as its a shot from the side. There wasn't always a wooden staircase outside the original Oratory, the added it after sealing off the inside staircase to Brother Andre's room under the steeple because the steps were too narrow.

Today I...

...am apologizing for not posting last night, but I was grumpy. Like really, really grumpy, so bad that even after talking with my Sweetheart for nearly 20 minutes, I was still not feeling all that much better. That's the first time that ever happens, he can usually always fix a case of the grumps for me, but no such luck last night. Therefore, instead of posting, I went to bed to put myself out of misery.

...started really feeling better after lunch. Thank Heavens for that, I hate being grumpy, especially when I don't know why I'm grumpy. At least when I have PMS I can declare temporary hormonal insanity, but that was not the case with this bout of grumpiness.

...sang 'Cher Frère André, C'est à ton Tour' with the rest of the congregation at the 2:00 P.M. mass with a smile on my face. It was the first time in eight years, that I can recall at least, that the Father leading mass had us sing a birthday song for Brother Andre. But hey, at 165, the fella deserves it!

...was happy when no one flipped out over being barred from access to the Basilica during the organ factors' conference's private organ concert this afternoon. I'm used to having to guard church doors at the Oratory and am equally used to verbal abuse from people who want to go into the churches despite my informing they cannot (because of a recording, funeral, graduation, mass, private concert, filming, it's just too darn full already etc...). It usually goes along the lines of 'This is church, you can't stop people from going in, you should be ashamed of yourself!' But that didn't happen this afternoon, people just stood back patiently and listened to the concert from outside the doors and then went in. I love tourists and pilgrims who are Zen :o)

...spoke with my Sweetheart for 45 minutes and laughed and smiled as did he. Ah...that's much more like it :o)

Today I...August 7th

Today I...

...am sharing this picture of a house in the Kensington Market neighborhood of Toronto with you.

...keep getting flashes of the Michael Buble concert I went to with my mother and my brother with last night. It was a great show. I was skeptical about whether I would I enjoy it or not as I kind of got Michael Bubled out while living with my mom since she would put his CDs on in a loop, but he's gotten some new repertoire since I moved out into my own place and he is much better in person than on a CD. He really puts on a great show and has a hilarious sense of humor.

...am wondering where all the people who used to read my blog have gone? I used to get way more hits in a day than I do now, but things have been dead for about a month. Am I boring or is it just because it's summer. I'll admit that not getting very many readers isn't really encouraging when it comes time to write a post. Anyhow, I'm hoping that it's just because it's summer and people are on vacation or enjoying time outside. Maybe I should join a photo blog community?

...spent 70$ and small change on groceries. Seemed like I was out of just about everything...and it felt like it too when I had to haul the bags up to my apartment!

...Couldn't get the cold water in my shower to turn off when I was done washing, the janitor is in here to fix it now, hopefully he'll be able to do it!

...am going to a friend's wedding reception. She and her husband get married in Korea last month and they're having a party here tonight for all of their friends who couldn't make it to their actual wedding ceremony.

Skywatch Friday

This week's Skywatch Friday feature is a shot of the Niagara river thundering towards the US side of Niagara Falls against a backdrop of leafy green trees and a blue late-Spring sky.

To see more Skywatch photos from around the world, head over to the Skywatch Friday blog

Have a great weekend and I hope you stop by again soon :o)

Today I...August 4th

Today I...

...am sharing this picture from between the inner and outer domes of the Oratory with you. Every once in a while, employees are allowed the privilege of climbing up the 90 meters that separate the Basilica's floor from the observatory that sits on top of the outer dome. It's quite the climb, it takes a half-hour to get up there and let me tell you, it is not for the faint of heart of those who are afraid of heights. I only have a very mild fear of heights and I do okay going up there, but coming down is a whole other ball game. In a few years, depending on how quickly the donations come in, we will be able to open this area to the public as well as the observatory. The view from up there is stunning, so it will be well worth the wait in line and the few dollars it will cost visitors to go up there.

...felt bad for C. She's going on vacation next week and wants to go home to Haiti for the duration, but she's waited too long to buy her ticket and there are very few affordable ones left, especially since she doesn't want to have to change planes and would have to take a bus to make it to the states to leave from there. I've been helping her look for a ticket since Monday and told her that at this point, her best bet would probably be to go to a travel agency, that way if she sees something she likes, she can buy it on the spot.

...had a nice 'girls' night out' with my friend V. We went to our favorite sushi joint in Monkland Village, Mikado.

...was disappointed, along with V, when we were told that the chocolate souffles we wanted for dessert were not available. We gave up on dessert and went home, I had pumpkin chocolate chip cookies that my Grandma G brought me on Monday to eat here anyhow :o)

Today I...August 3rd

Today I...

...am sharing these two pictures of Kensington Market's Community Vehicular Reclamation Project. It's a pretty neat idea, but I don't think I'd want one in front of my apartment building :oJ

...had a pretty laid back day at work after being busy on the phone for the first hour and a half.

...wondered, along with one of the summer tour guides, where the heck her tour group was??? They never showed up and when we called their parish, there was no answer! Hopefully we'll hear from them so they can explain what happened.

...got my feet soaked by a downpour on the way home from work just waiting for the bus, hopefully my sandals will be dry by the time I head out to work again tomorrow!

Today I...August 2nd

Today I...

...am sharing another streetcar picture with you guys! Yippee, streetcar!!!

...had a pretty busy day at work with all sorts of odds and ends.

...walked home and it felt great.

...am glad that my upstairs neighbors are quieter tonight. They have the home cinema going, but that's nothing out of the ordinary. They kept their animated discussion going until 12:30 A.M. last night. I wasn't able to take a broomstick to the ceiling though...It turns out that I'm too short to reach my ceiling and I didn't dare stand on a table or chair in case I fell off.

...spoke with my Sweetheart for over a half hour again and he checked to see if he's going to have free wi-fi in his hotel room in Niagara, which he will. I'm so relieved that we'll be able to talk while he's away this time!

Today I...August 1st

Today I...

...am sharing this picture of a rack of multicolored skirts that were on display outside a store in Kensington village in Toronto when I was there a bit over a week ago.

...was feeling kind of down in the mouth for the better part of the day. My friend G, whom I was supposed to go to the fireworks on the South Shore with last night left me high and dry and I therefore wasted my evening waiting for her to call me on top of being left with nothing to do and having too much time to think. I therefore ended up feeling what I've been trying to avoid feeling for a week: feeling lonely for my Sweetheart. It lasted into this morning and part of this afternoon until I gave myself a swift kick in the butt and made it out the door of my apartment.

...went for a long walk walk through Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery so I could find my four paternal great-grandparents' graves. I didn't even know they were in there until a few weeks ago when my grandma mentioned it to me. It took me hours to find the two graves because the cemetery's 'address' code is pretty messed up. Example: my grandfather's father's tomb is number 06060 in his section, but I finally had to resort to using the shape of the piece of land his plot is on to find him on the map I brought along. His grave (and my great-grandmother's and one of his daughters in law's) is in a section with a marker that said graves number 485-587 were there! Hmm...I think they need to fix their signage!

...spoke to my Sweetheart for over a half-hour. Oh, what bliss! I missed him so much and we're both feeling so much better than we were on Friday, so we were able to have a nice, long chat. I'm going to make sure that I get to talk to him again tomorrow since he's leaving for a conference in Niagara Falls for the week on Tuesday and I don't know if he's going to bring his little laptop with him. I want to stock up on my 'time with him' so I won't end up feeling too lonely for him again.

...have decided that I'm going to have a very noisy housewarming party in two weeks to get back at my very noisy upstairs neighbors. The couple who got into loud arguments every once in a while moved out and a whole bunch of folks about my age (from the sound of them, at least) moved in there. They have their home cinema on late every night and have been having a very loud and animated discussion up there for at least two hours now. If they haven't shut up by the time I go to bed, I'm going to use the old taking a broomstick to the ceiling trick. And yeah, loud party in two weeks, very loud party, but I'll close my windows at 11:30 P.M. so as not to disturb anyone passed that point.