Weekly check in!

My favorite lantern display from this year's Chinese lantern show at the Botanical Gardens

So, I've had quite the busy week! I spent quite a bit of time with my Sweetheart, naturally. He stayed over at my place on Wednesday, then on Friday we went out to the movies since he wanted to see Skyfall, the new James Bond movie. It was my first time ever seeing a James Bond movie and I really liked it. Sweetheart says I now have to see all of them, but luckily for me he only has one on his computer at home. I may have liked Skyfall, but I'm not sure how I feel about an all-out James Bond marathon! I'll be seeing my Sweetheart again later on today since he'll be coming to my choir's concert and then I'm hoping we'll head back to his place together for a nice quiet end of the day and evening!

I was also at the movie yesterday with my friend V. We went out to lunch at Boccacino's and then she proposed that we go and see Twilight: Breaking Dawn part 2. As I've mentioned before, I've always vetoed going to see the Twilight movies in the theaters because I want to avoid the die-hard Twihards, but I figured that since the movie had been out for a week and it was a middle of the afternoon showing, it would be okay to risk it. Luckily it was fine and the movie really was quite good! I'll be buying the DVD when it come out so I can watch it with my Sweetheart. He will of course be satisfied before there is a 'Jacob shirtless' scene. A Twilight movie would not be a Twilight movie if Jacob did not take of his shirt and show off his six pack at least once :oJ

Aside from that things have been pretty quiet. My father is doing well right now. He's signed himself up with a personal trainer in order to help him get some of his strength and muscle tone back, but is taking his time filling out all the forms he needs for his first appointment. He's been getting out more though, which is nice to hear and he might even come to my concert later on today. He's flipped back and forth twice so far on whether he is going to coming or not though, so I'm not putting any money on it and neither is my Grandma G who would really like to come and is counting on my father for a ride. I'll let you know how that turns out, but Grandma G and I are both crossing our fingers!

Well, I had better get a move on since I do have quite a bit to do before leaving for my concert, namely figuring out what to do with my hair!

I hope you're all enjoying your weekend :o)

Today I...July 28th

Dalvay-By-The-Sea Hotel, Dalvay, PEI

Today...

...came home after staying at my Sweetheart's last night.

...washed the dishes that had been sitting in my sink since yesterday morning.

...watched the last hour of 'The Patriot'.

...went out for a jog.

...ordered sushi from the sushi bar a few blocks from my place, then walked up to get it.

...watched the part of 'The Patriot' that I missed earlier while eating my dinner.

...am glad I had a rather laid back day, it felt nice :o)

I hope you're all having a nice weekend! 

Today I...April 21st

(picture I took of some tulips that grew in front of an apartment building beside the Oratory a few years back)

Today I...

...had a quiet day at home.

...got up late, as I always do on weekends.

...watched 'Pleasantville' on TV. I had never seen it and found it to be a good movie, although maybe a bit predictable at times.

...spent the afternoon after the movie was over right up until 7:30 P.M. writing a letter to my Sweetheart. It's a Word document, not an e-mail so I'll see if I send it to him or not. It's full of all sorts of things that I've been wanting us to talk about lately that we haven't been able to because of his work overload. It's not a negative letter by any means, just a some things that I'd like us to be able to work out. We went out on a date last night, something that we haven't done in ages and while I was able to get his mind of of his work and all the stress that it's causing him for short periods of time, it kept coming back. He's trying so hard to balance things and spend time with me, but I still get home right after seeing him and feel like I'm missing him already. I'm worried about him too, I haven't seen him this stressed out since he was trying to finish his Master's thesis while working a 'real' job at the same time. He's paler than I've seen him in a good year and he's lost weight (probably all muscle tone because he hasn't been to the gym since February) and just looks so worried all the time. I don't know what to do, I feel so powerless to help him and at the same time I feel as though I'm adding to his stress by being all needy and insecure. I've come to notice that when someone close to me becomes unbalanced in their work habits for more than a week or two, I start to flip out. My Sweetheart has been working like a demon since January, so that should give you an idea of my state of mind right now. It ain't pretty. When I do see him, I just want to stick to him like Velcro and God bless him, he puts of with it...as long as we're at home. Anyhow, that's another reason why I've been a bit sporadic about my posts recently, I'm trying to deal with my fear that my Sweetheart is going to turn into a clinical workaholic. Logically, I know that's highly unlikely because he is miserable right now and would like nothing better than to be able to stop working. He is not working because he feels it give him any sort of emotional high or because he feels that the status of his job or the social status it brings him are what people love him for, he is working because if he doesn't deliver the goods on time for the building projects he's working on right now, his business is toast. He just ended up with way more on his plate than he ever planned on having. Hopefully he'll be able to clear of his plate soon though, because I can only logic away this illogical fear of mine for so long. Right now he is feeling rather pessimistic and doesn't think all this stuff will clear up until after he gets back from Angola, which is looking like July. I wonder what the expiry date on my stock of logic is?

Today I...April 8th

Today I...

...am popping in quickly to wish you all a Happy Easter, if you celebrate it. If don't, happy Sunday and I hope you have had a lovely weekend.

...am letting you all know that I just finished watching War Horse and loved it. It is a very, very touching film and displays perfectly how important and powerful the friendship between people and animals is. It is a friendship that bridges all gaps, even those caused by wars and this film expresses that perfectly. I highly recommend it, but I also recommend keeping a box of tissues nearby while you watch the movie, because you more than likely will not get through it dry eyed :o)

...have to run off and get ready for my Easter supper with my family. I'll be back soon though, probably tomorrow :o)

Today I...

...am sharing this photo of my Earth Hour candle with all of you. I've been participating in Earth Hour since it first began five years ago in 2007. The idea is that every year on March 31st, you turn out all of your lights between 8:30 and 9:30 P.M. as a show of solidarity between millions of people who want to make a difference in our planet's future. To learn more about Earth Hour, you can visit their website here.

...had a pretty laid back day.

...slept in until a bit after 10:00 A.M.

...got my cleaning done.

...went to renew my monthly transit pass and then made a quick stop by the grocery store.

...came home and crashed on the couch for a few hours and watched episode two of the Napoleon miniseries I finally found on DVD two years ago after hunting around for it for a eight years.

...trimmed my cats' claws. That's ten claws in all (I only do their front paws) and I am so very happy that it is so much easier than it used to be. I used to wish for chain mail every time I did it, but it's been about a year now that I have trained them into behaving when I trim their claws, because if they're good they each get two treats afterwards. It usually works :o)

Today I...March 10th

Today I...

...am sharing this short film, which was created by Pixar, with all of you. It is one of my all time favorite films, short or long :o)

...am posting this from my Sweetheart's place while spaghetti sauce I am making simmers. My Sweetheart isn't here, he's gone out to dinner with a buddy of his for the buddy's birthday. He had originally asked me over for after dinner, but my fuse has been kind of short lately and I could just see what would happen if his evening ran late and he decided it was too late for me to come over by the time he got home. It wouldn't have been pretty, so I asked him if I could come over before he left and he said that was fine. The best way to avoid a conflict is to not put yourself in a situation where a conflict might arise!

...went out to the West Island for a spa appointment. I hadn't been in a while and boy, did it ever feel nice to get pampered!

...got my groceries done.

...got my vacuuming and my dishes done. Phew! No more cleaning this weekend, unless you count the fact that I need to do my cyclical partial water change in my fish tank. No biggie there though, it's not a particularly long or difficult job. Fish are easy to please :o)

...am looking forward to having my dinner, but it's going to be a while. The sauce is going to have to simmer for at least another hour and twenty minutes. It sure does smell good though!

...am asking you to be indulgent with any typos or spelling errors in this post. I'm using my Sweetheart's mini PC with an apropriately tiny keyboard and is also speaks French, so spell checking is a no go. I read through and saw no errors, but I'm not infallible and may have missed one or two :o)

Today I...October 5th

Today I...

...am watching the first half of the second film in the Anne of Green Gables series :o)

...got a lovely surprise and found an e-mail from my Sweetheart in my inbox earlier! He must have found some Internet access in the boonies, either that or he has 3G cell phone service so he can get his e-mails on his phone! We did get to talk on Sunday by the way, we spent nearly 40 minutes on Skype and it was lovely :o)

...am feeling better today now that I have gotten rid of nearly all the tension out of my neck and shoulders thanks to my heating pad. I've been quite stressed lately and it caught up with me and I'd had a nearly constant headache since Monday night.

...am looking forward to a three day weekend. It's Thanksgiving up here in Canada on Monday, a holiday that I've always been fond of !

Today I...October 1st

Today I...

...had a very quiet, ordinary kind of day. I did the laundry and vacuumed and practiced my music for choir.

...found it a bit chilly for my liking as the heat is not turned on in my building yet.

...am watching Anne of Green Gables. It is one of my favorite comfort movies and perfect for a day like today :o)

Today I...August 21st

Today I...

...am sharing the trailer from the 2011 remake of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre with you. I rented it off of Illico on Demand (Videotron's digital cable movie rental program, Videotron is the largest cable provider in Quebec) last night, watched it and loved it so much that I watched it again this afternoon. I'll probably end up buying the DVD now :o)

...had a most productive day, at least music-wise. I cleaned up my iTunes music library and then hunted down nearly all the album art that I was missing. You often end up with missing album covers on iTunes when you burn your CDs into your iTunes library, which is really annoying because instead of nice album covers, you end up with grey music notes on your screen. Thanks to a YouTube tutorial, I learned how to get album art off of the Internet and copy into iTunes and got nearly all my covers done when iTunes stopped cooperating. My laptop is getting rather old though, so I'm happy it even cooperated as long as it did!

...enjoyed and am still enjoying listening to the rain fall outside. I don't mind rain when I don't have to go out with it and when it doesn't last for days on end :o)

...am impressed with how quiet my cats have been, but I guess they're just following my lead!

Today I...August 16th

Today I...

...am sharing this compilation of clips from one of my favorite movies, 'Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain' (English version: Amelie) with you. The music is from the film Score and is by Yann Tiersen. Even if you've never seen the film, you should get the soundtrack off of iTunes or at your local musci store, it is so very much worth it. I got turned onto the movie by my Sweetheart who played this piece and another from the score for me on the piano and I ran out to get the film and CD right away when I got back from his place (this happened while he was still living in Toronto)

...had a rather special day at work. First off my PC wasn't working this morning and it took an hour to get it going again. Then, we got invaded by two groups of pilgrims with horrible 'table' manner who were eating outside and leaving bits of food and garbage lying around after them, so we had to herd all 120 of them into the downstairs dining room out of sight and where it would be easier for us to clean up after them. Then, one of our tour organizers who come twice a year showed up with her group, but she was having a relapse of a severe bacterial infection in her lungs that she picked up while in India and was therefore confined to a wheel chair. I found myself helping the bus driver for their group take care of a bunch of things for here, all the while trying to remember if bacterial infections are contagious. Luckily, they're not. THEN the fire alarm went off just after I made it back to the office and we ended up having to evacuated the office building for about 20 minutes until they made sure that it was indeed the fellow from the alarm and sprinkler system company who made a mistake and set off the alarm and that there was not a fire somewhere in the building. At least it was the alarm he set off and not the sprinkler system as I would have gotten a nice shower if he had, I have a sprinkler right over my head!

...am absolutely thrilled about the effect that my nightly walks are having on me. I have been going out for a brisk half hour walk every night somewhere between 8:30 and 9:00 P.M. since Sunday and let me tell you, it has been miraculous for my sleep cycle! Proof: I am about 2-3 days from getting my period and should normally be sleeping like complete and utter crap by now and I have not had an issue. I get to bed around 11:30, fall asleep within 15 minuted and am out like a light until my alarm goes off at 7:00 P.M. Tah dah! So if any of you have trouble sleeping, try walking for a half hour before going beginning your nightly before bed routine, you just might get a very pleasant surprise :o)

Today I...August 7th

Today I...

...am sharing these two views of the tapestries inside Our Lady of Angels Cathedral (Catholic) in Los Angeles with you.

...had a much more laid back day than yesterday.

...went out to Indigo Books and purchased Water for Elephants, which so far looks quite fascinating! I'll have to watch the movie after finishing the book, which will probably take me somewhere between 2-3 weeks.

...watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding on CBC. It was a good movie, I just wish there hadn't been so many commercials to break it up and they were always the same ones, too!!! God bless the mute button!

Today I...February 27th

Today I...

...am sharing this different view of one of Montreal's most famous sculpture. It can be found in front of the Banque Laurentienne-BNP Paribas building on McGill College Avenue.

...did a bit of Spring cleaning. I washed the sheets and duvet cover for my bed as well as my towels. I also washed my kitchen floor and did a lot of dusting.

...watched 'Le Roi Danse (The King is Dancing)', a film about Louis IV and his music master Jean-Baptiste Lully after I was done cleaning.

...am now watching the Oscars to see how 'The King's Speech' does and to watch the musical numbers and admire all the lovely gowns the actresses are wearing. I was also hoping that the Canadian (from Quebec!!!) candidate for best foreign film, Denis Villeneuve's 'Incendies' would win, but it lost out to a fill from Denmark. Oh well, better luck next time!

Today I...December 19th

Today I...

...am sharing this picture I took of McGill College Avenue with its Christmas Decorations lit yesterday afternoon with you. Despite the wetness of the road, it was note raining. The water is from snow that had fallen earlier and melted and the snow already on the ground melting a bit as well.

...went out to lunch with my mother and my brother for my brother's birthday. Unfortunately the food was nothing too amazing, but at least we had a good time!

...bought two movies for 20$ from the video rental store near my place, Twilight and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I saw Benjamin Button with my Sweetheart in the theater last Christmas and watched Twilight for the first time afternoon and really liked it!

...should have vacuumed and cleaned the bathroom, but watched Twilight instead. Dear me, aren't I a rebel? Oh well, at least I washed the dishes!

Today I...November 9th

Today I...

...am sharing another clip from 'Love Actually' with all of you. If any of you like Hugh Grant, this is classic :o)

...am feeling better, hopefully my cold will be pretty much gone by tomorrow.

...brought some of the pilaf I made on Friday to J. He loves rice and has some in his lunch pretty much every day, so I figured I would try some of mine out on him. If he likes it, I'll bring him ore because I have so much of the stuff it would take me at least two weeks to eat all of it!

...spent an hour talking on Skype with my Sweetheart. Me? giddy after speaking with him for so long? Nah... :o)

...am hoping you get a giggle out of this film clip, I'll try and have those dog show photos on my PC tomorrow so I can share a few with you. I meant to do it tonight, but then I spent an hour on Skype, so it didn't happen. I'm sorry...and yet I'm not :oJ

Today I...November 3rd

Today I...

...figured I would share the video you will find at the bottom of this post with you instead of a picture. It's a scene from 'Love Actually', one of my favorite movies, featuring Rowan Atkinson, aka: M. Bean. The movie is full of funny moments, but this one is one of the best I find :o)

...was supposed to give a tour, but ended up not giving it since the group were a bit fewer than planned and they had already set things up to divide into three and not four. I must say I wasn't overly disappointed since I was feeling tired and therefore not really in 'giving a tour to a bunch of 15-16 year olds' mode.

...went to the grocery store since my fridge and pantry were both alarmingly bare and spent quite a while there hunting down the ingredients for my next crock-pot creation: creamy wild rice pilaf. I found everything but the wild rice, the closest I got a blend of different rices that included wild rice, so I went for that. I spent about a half hour in the store when grocery shopping usually takes me all of 10-15 minutes and just as I was getting off the bus realized that I had forgotten to buy the sour cream. Isn't that always the way of it? Oh well, I'll just buy some tomorrow.

...am very much looking forward to seeing my Sweetheart tomorrow or Friday! He ended up not heading back to Toronto on Sunday after all since the thought of trekking all the way back there only to have to turn around and come back to Montreal tonight was not at all appealing and I got an e-mail from him this morning asking me if I wanted to go out for coffee and dessert tomorrow night. Eep...slight problem, I'm supposed to go to dinner in the monastery with C and D tomorrow night because our boss and our former interim boss want to thank us for all our work when we were without a department head for eight months when our last boss up and dropped us right before Christmas last year. We've already put it off once because I had a choir practice and C was sick and we nearly put it off again this time because C isn't well again, but it was too late to call it off now that the cooks in the monastery have already set up the menu and bought the groceries and then my Sweetheart just had to pick tomorrow night at the last minute. Oh well, I offered up Friday instead seeing as I have the day off and will be making a delectable dinner of which there will be more than enough for two, so hopefully he'll be willing to switch to Friday as long as he is still free. We shall see, but really, I don't mind as long as I see him, I can always skitter out of the monastery a bit early :o)

...am hoping you enjoy today's Feature Presentation :o)

The Time Traveler's Wife

I went to see 'The Time Traveler's Wife' with a friend of mine today and this in spite of reading this absolutely vile review this morning. It was so extreme that it lost all its credibility and made me want to see the movie even more, if that's even possible. I read Audrey Niffenegger's novel on which the movie is based just after Christmas and absolutely adored it and had been impatiently waiting for the movie ever since then. Let me tell you, that I was not disappointed in the least. 'The Time Traveller's Wife' lived up to all of my expectations and is quite possibly one of the best movie adaptations of a novel I have ever seen. It is beautifully filmed, the actors have amazing chemistry and the soundtrack fits the film like a glove.

My recommendation: go see the film, but it will help if you read the book first. If you don't read the book first, do go with an open mind, otherwise you may end up like the vile movie reviewer, although I don't think anyone else could ever be that extreme. I seriously don't know what she had put in her coffee before writing that review, but she needs to never do it again...

Oh, and one more suggestion: bring tissues, ladies, you will need them. I had none and regretted it :op