Work, Veg, Sleep

I haven't really done much in Whitehorse, other than attend my course.

I come back to the hotel, do my homework, watch TV, and sleep. By the time I'm finished the course, it's all I can do to get the homework done. School is exhausting - now I remember why I slept so hard for four years.

All the homework assignments are building up to Saturday's presentation of a business plan for the CRIC. It's not necessarily the actual plan the CRIC will be following, since I'm the only one with input, but for the purposes of the course, it's the real deal.

Ugh, I will have to stand up in front of the class and present it...double ugh.

My goal is to have the presentation finished Friday before class ends, and then I am heading over to Bear's Paw Quilts for a little fabric therapy. I'm on the lookout for cheap flannel, northern batiks, and anything else that catches my eye. Oooh, maybe even some thread!*

Saturday evening will be shopping for non-perishables, and Sunday morning is perishable consumables. Then I'm on the road and back to Faro...and I probably won't be back to WH for another two months. I may have hit my WH limit for the year already ^_^


*Thread nerd ^_^

Updates from the Department of Yukon Life Lessons

3. Your garage is lower than your driveway, so make sure the snow is cleared down to the gravel.

My firewood guy is coming to drop off more wood today, and I really wanted him to just drop it in the garage so I could stack it indoors. I have to borrow a wheelbarrow, otherwise, and it is a great pain.

Unfortunately, I discovered that I can only open the garage doors a crack on either side, because there is a ... I don't know what to call it. A depression? An incline? Whatever it is called, I can't get the doors open because of the snow, even though I have cleared it as much as my crummy plastic shovel will allow. The snow that fell is kind of packed down, and it is going to take a lot of work to clear it. So even if Dan drops the firewood on the lawn, getting it into the garage is going to be a pain.

Too bad I have to go back to work in half an hour. This is going to take a while.

Lessons I have learned

1. Next year, buy at least 3 cords of firewood. Granted, if I had stayed with my teeny tiny woodstove, the cord I bought probably would have been sufficient, as I wouldn't be throwing whole logs in it. I also wouldn't be running it non-stop, as it was really small. Once the wood is gone, it's back to the furnace, which I hate.

2. Obtain a wheelbarrow. I borrowed an absentee-neighbour's to move my cord into the garage for stacking, but when I returned it, his tenant thought I had stolen it. I have a bunch of smaller wood stacked outside that was given to me by my across-the-street neighbours - it's now covered in snow, and I am wheelbarrow-less. Moving that stuff into the garage is going to be a pain.


That's all I've got for this morning. The part of me that wants to keep the woodstove running all winter long is competing with the part of me that has an upset stomach and just wants to lie on the sofa all day.

Strung Out

Thank Zappa I am going to WH tomorrow. The cumulative effects of the past six months without a full-time boss have finally taken their toll. If I were a person who had firearms training, I would probably be a danger to all around me (joking, joking!).

Tonight's mission? Get through the Special Meeting without bursting into tears, come home and pack up the truck with emergency gear, and work on one of the two projects I have going. Also, keep out of the Hallowe'en candy.

Go, go, Team Free Will!

Storytime

I'm back again. I took a little time off from blogging...mostly because I was approaching my 100th post, and I wanted it to be something meaningful. But it's hard to squeeze meaning out of hot dog lunches and looking after a friend's cats.

This past week was kind of rough, work-wise and personally. I can't talk about the work stuff (more's the pity, although I really don't need to keep hashing it over, so I guess it's more of a blessing), but the personal stuff...Yeesh.

Here goes...

Once upon a time, there was a girl who wanted to be an actress. She studied drama all through high school, and refused to even consider any other career. After high school, she auditioned for a couple of theatrical courses at a variety of colleges, and ended up in the Nation's Capital.

When she was there, she met a guy. He was older than she by a year, and he was the most interesting guy she had ever met. He lived one floor down in the same apartment building, and they hung out a lot. She was really, really into him. And although she longed to tell him, she was shy and hoped he would figure it out.

Unfortunately, he was really, really into a girl he had known for years, and so nothing really came of the infatuation. Our heroine, though, had suffered a tragedy - she now compared every man she met to the guy from college.

This had a negative impact on her relationship life. A few years later, she dated a guy for a few months, but after they broke up (because he was in love with a girl he had known for years) she never dated again. Not that she didn't want to, but circumstances just didn't work in her favour.

Flash forward to Monday, July 5th.

Our heroine was watching a great Canadian comedy show, and who should she spot as an extra in most of the scenes but the guy from college. In addition to all her "oh, why didn't I tell him how I felt" angst, there was a great big dollop of "why was I such a coward that I let people talk me out of following my dream?" woe. That was enough to cue a low-level funk.

Work interefered with her attempts to feel better. And then, on Facebook, she saw photos of the guy from college with his girlfriend...and her pregnant belly. They, naturally, were thrilled about their soon-to-be-born progeny. And our heroine felt sad, because she was alone and had two incredibly noisy cats instead of babies. She felt bad because her first reaction to their happy news had been to be miserable. She was happy for them - she was just a lot more unhappy for herself, because it felt like her life was going downhill.

So, Friday, after a shitty week, she went to a neighbour's house for coffee, and after that she came home to drink vodka coolers and eat shrimp noodles. And she feels a bit better for having shared her tale with the Internet. Where anyone and everyone can read it. Because, honestly, her life isn't over just because she isn't doing what she originally planned. It's just different.

In the words of Marcus Aurelius, "Everything that happens happens as it should, and if you observe carefully, you will find this to be so." You just have to get over the feeling sad part.

Happy 100th Post!

Tagged

I got distracted yesterday before I could finish the Tale of Saturday, but I'll get back to it eventually.

In the meantime, Kara tagged me in a mini-interview. Since talking about myself is one of my favourite things, this seemed like a natural fit ^_^

1. Where would you like to live once you retire?

Somewhere that was a mixture of rustic and urban. Since I've been in Faro, I've become much more rustic than I ever was before, but there are times that I miss the city. I'd like to live somewhere where I didn't have to socialize with anyone, but I wouldn't have to look too far if I did want to. (*realizes this is not a definitive answer, but [hopefully] has many years to think about it)


2. What causes you to worry the most?

The thought of dying alone. (Or the fear that I'm somehow going to destroy every place I live.)


3. What was your favorite toy as a child?

Well, there was that My Little Pony that I loved and some jerk girl stole from me in second grade, but I think I have to go with Sheepie - a stuffed sheep given to me when I was born. He's travelled the globe with me, and he's sitting on my bedroom windowsill at the moment.

4. Do you make decisions quickly and easily or do you fret over them for long periods of time?

Both. I think and think and think, and then I shut my eyes and jump in, and then after I've jumped I think and think and think and regret and wonder why I can't be a normal girl who makes decisions rationally.

5. What hobby would you pursue if money wasn't an issue?

I would become a full-time quilter. I'd have a quilting room set up with sewing machines, a frame so I didn't have to have the quilt on my lap in summer, a TV so I could watch endless hours of forensics shows while I worked, and a crazy big stash of fabric.

Either that or move back to Japan and study bellydance all the time.


I hope you've enjoyed this little trip inside my brain. It was fun for me. I'm tagging Erica S, because I don't think I can do a touch-back on Kara. (If I can, Kara, consider yourself re-tagged.)

1. What inspires you?
2. What is your favourite fairy tale/folk tale?
3. Which historical figure (real or fictional) would you like to have dinner with?
4. Which of your personality traits is your favourite?
5. If you were about to be exiled and could only take one memento from home with you, what would you take?

Not good with planning

I've never really been a person who's good at planning - particularly when it comes to meals. Other people seem to have the knack of plotting out plans for a week or a month at a time, and they stick to them. Me, I can decide at 4:00 to make salmon for dinner, and by the time I get home at 4:30, I've changed my mind in favour of a burger or soup.

I'm really trying, though. I made an inventory tonight of everything that's in my freezer, and everything in my pantry.

I am trying to follow the advice of a woman who feeds her family of 6 on $190US a month. Granted, some of her options are not available to me - food up here is always going to be more expensive - but I have to try. I've already spent $100 this month on crap from Mel's - stuff I really didn't need to buy, but couldn't stop myself. I knew there as a reason I stopped going there for a month!

I get really tired of recipes that tell me to double the recipe up and freeze it. This is a problem for me because:
A) I am only cooking for one person anyway, doubling it up would make enough for 8 servings;
B) I don't have a really big freezer;
C) I don't have a microwave, so reheating food is just as much a pain as cooking it the first time was, and;
D) I tend to forget about things in the freezer, and eventually end up throwing them out.

Whew.

Anywhooo, to wit, I am trying to plan ahead, so that my next grocery trip will be an organized, list-following extravaganza.

Time-delay

So, it was brough to my attention last night that, while I relayed the tale of last Sunday's adventure on my Facebook, I did not blog about it over here. That is true. Part of the reason was my going over my internet limit part-way through the week, and the other part was sheer laziness. That's not good.

So to recap - last Saturday I got myself all morosed up over some stupid comment a girl I used to know made, and then I chopped wood to make myself feel better. You had to be there, I guess.

So, the next morning, I decided to chop more wood. I really like my axe - it makes splitting logs a breeze. I split a whole bunch, and then stacked them at the back of the garage. I was impressed with the end result of my work, and I decided I needed to take a photo to prove to the people back home that I am becoming a tough and independent wilderness woman. (Because there is some doubt about my transformation.)

So I went upstairs (changing out of my shoes and into my slippers), grabbed my camera, and went back downstairs. I took pictures of the stacked firewood (with bonus pictures of the kindling pile), sighed with smug contentment, and went back upstairs to the couch to bask in the warmth of the fire I had started before my wood chopping.

Well, that is, I intended to to go back upstairs to do that stuff. Unfortunately, I couldn't open the door into the house. The door had closed behind me, locking me in the garage. You see, it turns out that the door had always been locked, but it had opened and closed many times - I figured it was one of those things where the house had shifted (kind of like my back door that doesn't open).

So, I was locked in the garage. In my slippers. Luckily, a few weeks earlier I had figured out the bizarre contraption that opened the outside garage door, so I was not completely trapped, but I spent several claustrophobic minutes trying to open the door into the house. There was no joy there, so I opened the outer door and tried to work out my options.

There was no way I could see to get back in. The front door was locked, as it always is, and there was no way to get the back door open. My only hope was that my next door neighbour Pat was home, and that she still had a key to the house (she looks after my landlord's properties in town). But that meant I had to walk down my driveway, up the street, and up Pat's driveway (all of which were incredibly muddy) in my black satin grandma slippers.

The long and short of it is...I got back in the house, nothing burned down, and I have learned an important lesson about checking the door between the house and the garage carefully before letting it close behind me.



Here is the picture of my firewood pile that got me locked in a garage.

Important Lessons I Have Learned

In much the same way as my (entire) time in Japan, my first few months in the north have been filled with Learning Experiences^TM.

I've learned that as much as I hate dress pants, I can't wear skirts to work if I am walking from the Upper Bench to the office and the temperature is below -10^o. Also, I've been informed that people are going to look at me funny if I do wear skirts to work.

No matter how expensive food from the hardware store is, I will buy it because I have impulse control issues.

When you buy half a cord of firewood cut to fireplace length, so you can enjoy evening fires in your fireplace, make sure you also have an axe to chop the logs in half, otherwise you've just paid a bunch of money for something you can't really use yet. (Good job!)

Make non-work friends in addition to your work-friends. (This one can be hard if you're socially awkward like me, but try.) Work can suck the life out of you, and it's nice to talk to people who aren't connected to work at all.

Make more quilts. You never know when the temperature, which has been hovering around the 0^o mark for the past few days, will suddenly plummet, leaving you shivering in bed at midnight, unwilling to go make a hot water bottle. Quilts are always handy.