It's HOW cold?

Ahh, the joys of living in the North. Today, the temperature is -30, but the windchill factor puts us at -45. CELCIUS. I was supposed to sub this afternoon, but because buses aren't running, they canceled. I wasn't surprised. I DO think it's quite ridiculous that they keep the schools open. Talking to some of the teachers via Facebook, it seems that there is an average of about 5 students attending in each class....lessee...5 students * 2 classes of each grade....10 students in each grade * 10 grades (incl Kindergarten)...100 students attending...wait, there's only one kindergarten class...so, make that 95...I believe there are about 50 people on staff there. That makes a 1:2 staff to student ratio. That sounds good...except that with 5 students in their class, the teacher can't really teach any new material. Days like this turn into glorified babysitting. What was it they used to call days like this? Ah, yes...snow days. I don't think they have those anymore But anyways...that wasn't what I was going to talk about.

What WAS I going to talk about? I don't remember. It's too cold...my brain has to focus on keeping me warm. ;)

....Continued...

So, I'm assuming that the Holidays are old news now...to be brief, we got to see Crystal for a WHOLE day!!, spent a lot of time with our nephews, my sister and my parents and saw some good friends from a long time ago. Here's a few pictures, and then we'll move forward with our lives.

Nephew #1. He's 2 1/2.



Nephew #2. He's 14 months here.




Aaron and I at our church's Christmas banquet.


My little sister...Mommy to nephew #1 and #2.




Me and Anna...friends for over 17 years!!!



(I had pictures of my parents, my brother and my brother in law, but they're just too small...how do I fix that??)


Me and a group of girls from my high school grad class...Beth and I are going to borrow kids for next time. We felt left out... :)



And now, on with our lives.....























ok...so now, what?

Whoops!

I seem to have gotten caught up in the all the busyness of the new year....traveling home, getting caught up on laundry, cleaning, etc., getting sick, trying out a new diet, saying goodbye to some good friends (sniff, sniff). So, without further adieu, here's some pictures to go with my last post...in no particular order...


I like to call this one "Beauty and the Beast." What do you think?




Chris playing hockey...he coulda been a star... ;)




Steph tried, almost successfully, to avoid the camera...we were all playing Dutch Blitz.




Cleo spent a lot of time sitting in the snow....





dissecting Granny's DELICIOUS pirogies to trade fillings...




Joe, the star of Team Bertrand.




Joselle tried to look big and tough, but her team still lost.





Me 'n' Dawn




Acting crazy with Crystal...just like old times... :)

This has been possibly the BEST Christmas vacation of my adult life. It's been (so far) a week and a half of spending really great time with family, reconnecting with old friends and just relaxing.

We started out right away after school on the 21st, heading to Aaron's sister's place in Stony Plain. It was busy while we were there, Joe and Joselle were working and it was an extremely hectic time for Cam and Dawn with their trucking business. We spent lots of time driving, to get groceries, finish up Christmas shopping, running to the shop, etc., etc.. Woo. Even though it was busy, it was SO good to see everyone again. Aaron got to spend a lot of time with Cleo and I spent a lot of time with Dawn. We had our Christmas dinner on the 24th, Gran was up from Wetaskiwin and Aaron had picked up his brother Chris and his fiancee Stephanie from the city. Cam got home just in time to eat, and dinner was FANTASTIC! Aaron and Joselle disected their perogies (homemade by Gran) to find the fillings they wanted so they could trade and Joe and Aaron made a bet whether or not Joselle could eat everything she had put on her plate (she didn't quite make it...I think Aaron lost the bet). After dinner was mostly cleaned up, Aaron, myself, Joe, Joselle, Cleo and Chris and Steph all headed to a pond in Stony Plain to go skating and play hockey. It was a BLAST. Some people had no skates and some people had no sticks, but we played on anyways. We headed back to the house for some Dutch Blitz and dessert....I guess Dutch Blitz is becoming a family holiday tradition...:)

We left late, at about 11 (sorry, Gran) and headed toward Wetaskiwin to drop Gran off on our way to Olds. Our drive had a few moments of excitement and nervousness because we encountered a VERY inebriated driver. We ended up calling it in and he was pulled over just as we drove into Devon. Well, pulled over is a loose term. He actually drove into the ditch, but whatever. After dropping Gran off and getting some gas and coffee, we continued on to Olds and arrived at about 2am....

This is feeling too much like a bland news story, so I'll finish later... :S...and add pictures.

Sleepy, Dopey and GRUMPY

What do you do when you're just plain GRUMPY?? No real reason at all, not hormones, not lack of sleep, nothing that seems apparent...just grumpy? Does that only happen to me? If it happens to you, what do you do? If you live with a significant other, how does it affect your relationship? How do you deal with it differently than you would if you were by yourself? Does your significant other understand your unexplainable grumpiness? These are the important life issues I am grappling with at 12:54am on a Saturday morning.

BeeBeeBeep!

The dehumidifier in the basement is full...it's beeping...it's driving me CRAZY. Awhile ago, the alarm from a watch (hidden somewhere, I couldn't find it) was also going off.....more continuous than the dehumidifier, and a slightly higher pitch. They actually harmonized quite well...but still drove me crazy. I guess I could always go and empty the dehumidifier. That would help. :P

AUGHGHGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In anticipation of our trip to Jamaica in February, I decided to listen to what my body has been telling me for a few months now: "You are not being nice to me." I haven't been moving, let alone exercising, and I haven't been eating...and when I do eat, it's not what my body needs. I don't avoid eating for weight reasons, I just get busy and forget. I don't often FEEL hungry, probably because my brain is too busy with other things...so usually what happens is by the time I realize I need to eat, I also feel like I should eat something healthy. And then I get overwhelmed and confused about WHAT to eat....so I put it off...and then it's either too late, or I'm too tired to bother. Thus begins the body's starvation mode where it will CLING to every little ounce of food it can get.

I went to my gym (Curves) and got weighed and measured. From past experience, I had an idea of where I thought I was and a backup idea of what the very WORST might be. Yah. I'm 10lbs OVER my worst case scenario, my body fat is UP 5% from where it was at my previous high weight. It's up 8% from my most "fit" point back about a year and a half ago. At first I was really defeated, but now I'm mad. Which is good. Cuz now I'm motivated.

So here's the plan:

EAT 6 small meals a day
EXERCISE by going to CURVES 5-6 times per week (varying levels of intensity), going for FAST, long walks with Cathy and some other stuff at home (dvds....I'm waiting for a new belly dancing one to come...that should be fun)
SLEEP my 8 hours a night and
DRINK my 8 glasses of water a day.

Sounds simple, hey? HA. I'm not sure how I'm going to stay motivated yet. Any ideas or advice?