Tuesday.

There is just SO MUCH going on these days!

I’m still running, and we’re up to 55 minutes this week, heading into 75 next week. I find that pretty darn amazing considering when I started I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to run for 3 minutes a few times over. Incredible!

I’m also trying to make it out to bellydancing lessons on Wednesday nights, because it’s SO MUCH FUN and great exercise too. I’ll have to download some indian bellydancing music so I can practice at home – hee hee!

Kristen & I went out for a fancy dinner and a night of dancing last Saturday night, thanks to a lovely giftcard from bobnbev that I got as a valentine’s present! We went to Milestone’s and then Celebrities, the same places we went to for Kristen’s birthday back in January. I of course ordered the “special” bellini, the one that come with an extra shot of pineapple rum to pour on top. Kristen ordered one too and we had fun playing with the little plastic animals that come with the drinks…

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From work yesterday I took this photo, it’s part of the view from my cube, and I just LOVE the way my building and the marine building reflect in the building across the street on a sunny day.

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And here’s me pretending to be normal after goofing off (rarely captured in photos … honest) in the living room…

Tonight is “clean the house like maids on speed” night. We’re both looking forward to cleaning the heck out of the place and getting it to look normal again. Tomorrow is bellydancing, and life just continues to be busy after that … Kristen’s friend Kate is arriving on Friday for a crazy girls’ weekend, which just happens to coincide with St. Patty’s day, so this ought to be interesting! She’ll be here until next Tuesday, so I’m sure she’ll end up being featured in the next installment here as well.

Thankfully I only work at LD Saturday during the day again, and have Sunday off. Sweet! That’s been my schedule for the past few weeks and I love it – I’m hoping that will continue for a bit.

I still haven’t heard anything official about my term at EC, so I’ve still got my fingers crossed.

Bobnbev and gorhorr are already planning their flights out here this summer – WOOHOO!!! I managed to convince gorhorr to get her ass out here for a second year in a row, so it’ll be fantastic to have the whole family together here again for at least a couple of weeks.

That’s it for now … over and out!

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Thursday.

Today was a day off from LD, but last night I agreed to help a coworker, Laura, do some cleaning up of her garden up at her house in Squamish. So I packed up some stuff this morning and headed to Squamish for the day – and what a BEAUTIFUL day it was! Sunny and 15 degrees all day – niiiice!

Anyhoo, here are a few photos I took along the way home for your enjoyment …

First we start off with “The Chief”, which some of you may remember from the trip Dana & I took up to Whistler – The Chief is the most popular spot for outdoor rock climbing in the area, the other spot being Penticton, which I haven’t been to yet but I’m sure I’ll see sometime this summer …

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A nice mountain view from the side of the highway (yes I stopped!) …

Next are a few photos of the copper mine at Britannia Beach. This is a sad story of a mine that ended up becoming one of BC’s most contaminated sites, and the poor creek that runs through it is contaminated as well. A solution has been sought for decades now, but nothing solid has been settled on yet. Meanwhile the creek and land is contaminated, and a village of people live there. Sometime this summer I want to go up there and tour the mine museum and take some photos because I’ve heard there might be plans to tear it down.

(approaching Britannia mine)

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(Britannia mine sign at the scenic view point nearby)

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(the mine itself, now a museum)

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And of course it wouldn’t be the Sea to Sky Highway (or the [i]Scream and Die[/i] as some people like to call it) without [b]LOTS[/b] of road construction. This is going to be the main highway linking Vancouver to Whistler for the 2010 Olympics, so they are in the process of widening the [b]VERY[/b] twisty road …

Personally, I like the twistiness and the feeling of the mountain and trees looming over you as you drive. But I’m afraid that with the way highways are built these days, the mountain will be blasted back well away from the road, the trees will all be gone, and some of the twistiness will be straightened out. Sad really.

Anyway, Laura and I worked for about 3 hours cleaning all the cedar twigs and dead leaves out of her garden. She has a very nice house, loads of character, which is something I love in a house. I have to decide if I’m going to go back tomorrow and do a couple more hours of work on my own to finish it up or not. I think that as long as the weather stays nice I’ll go, and maybe stop by at Shannon Falls on the way back for some photo ops.

Oh, my newest idea is to start the Sun Run training program. It’s a scheduled program that lays out exactly what to do to go from a non-runner like me, to being able to run 10 km, over the course of 13 weeks. So I think I’m going to try it. I need to get off my duff, eat a better diet and get more excercise. I’ve been a bum for the last 8 months, and I’m finally feeling motivated enough to get healthy again.

So gimme all the support you got!!!

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Friday.

Happy Friday the 13th, good luck to you all!

Hello everyone, Mexico was a blast, Squamish was Squamish, 100 Mile House had a neat cafe, Williams Lake is bigger than I thought, and Jasper … Jasper was friggin amazing. And I now present you with absolutely none of those photos. I knew you’d be excited.

Here is a fine selection of pics my boss took of me when we were working in Squamish this spring. We took more recent photos on our trip to Squamish that I mentioned above, but I haven’t got my grubby little hands on them yet, so these will have to do.

Working at the Squamish site involves climbing the ladder up to the platform, hauling all our gear 10 metres up (after getting the ladder up, that’s a feat in itself!), climbing into the cable car and sailing out to the middle of the river, then rigging up and launching the infiltrex, hauling up water samples, waiting 3 hours for the infiltrex to do its thing, hauling it up out of the water, changing it’s filters, and doing it all again. We have to do it about 3 or 4 times before we have enough of a sample to call it quits.

So here I am, defying my fear of heights …

Life has been crazy busy lately, I haven’t stopped to smell the flowers in a month. But thankfully things are slowing down a bit (a bit!) now. Last night and the night before I actually had evenings to myself to call friends, catch up, and clean the house from top to bottom (it was … eeeeewwww).

I’m working at LD all this weekend, as well as a couple of evenings next week because of vacations and whatnot, so life is still pretty go, go, go, but at least I’m not living out of a suitcase anymore! Although truth be told, if someone offered me the opportunity, I’d be back in Mexico or Jasper in a flash.

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