May 24th, 2010

May Long Weekend in Alberta

Yesterday, it snowed. Okay, it melted when it hit the ground, but still – IT SNOWED. For quite a bit of the morning. Yuck!! Of course, I don’t actually expect great weather for the May long weekend – this is Alberta after all! We went to a bbq on Saturday and in the mid-afternoon you could see your breath when you were standing outside.

Weather be damned though, I’m still hoping to get ready to plant my garden this week. Good thing half of it is started inside and waiting just to be transplanted or it would never have enough time to grow before summer is over. We’re planting tomatoes, herbs, potatoes, peas, cucumbers, carrots and a few other things. I love having garden produce, plus it makes me actually spend a little time outside weeding most days, instead of constantly being stuck to my lovely laptop.

Anyway, back to the long weekend. Today is a holiday in Canada, it’s Victoria Day. My kids asked me what the holiday was about and all I could say was that as Canadians we celebrate the Queen’s birthday. Mostly, we’re just happy for a day off! But I don’t really take the day off. Many of my clients aren’t even Canadian and since it’s not a particularly important holiday, I don’t mind doing a couple of small projects on it.

I do find it funny though how often Canadian holidays seem just slightly off of holidays in the US. Of course some are similar, even if they don’t celebrate it, most people I work with seem to slow down over the Christmas/New Year break. In May we take the 3rd Monday as a holiday for Victoria Day, but in the US the May holiday is the 4th Monday (Memorial Day). In July, each of our countries observes a patriotic celebration, but ours is July 1 for Canada Day while the US has Independence Day on July 4. Each just enough off to be worthy of mentioning if it will pose a conflict for cross-border working relationships. The most noticeable difference though is at Thanksgiving which we celebrate on a Monday in October, but the US celebrates on a Thursday in November!

Well, it is officially a holiday here and my boys are busily playing the new Super Mario Galaxy 2 beside me, so I better get those projects done so I can have my turn at the game. With the lovely weather (ahem!) it was a nice of DH to pick the game up first thing yesterday so we could enjoy some family time together indoors!

December 14th, 2009

Deep Freeze

Ugh. It is so super cold where I live. No, I mean REALLY, REALLY freakin cold. It was -41 degrees Celsius when I woke up this morning and now it’s even colder at -42. If you live in the States or somewhere where you only know Fahrenheit – well, it’s not actually that different when it gets this cold. It’s apparently around -43 F. Crazy right? And yet, I live here, so what can I do?! My oldest didn’t even have to go to school today as the buses were all canceled. We don’t really have snow days here, snow is so normal, but once or twice a year we get weather like this and the buses shut down. School is technically open but I am so not going out in this just to take him to school to play (only maybe a quarter of kids actually show up in this weather).

So, yep, cold. I spent all day yesterday baking, nice way to keep the house toasty while the world outside is frozen. I think I may do some more baking today, as my first attempt at butter tarts was kind of a mess. The shells dissolved upon baking. Oops. I did get shortbread cookies and chocolate crinkles made that were super yummy. And I have gingerbread dough waiting to be rolled out, cut and baked later today. Fun, fun!

In the midst of all this, I still am working on client work, December seems to actually be a bit busy, though I suspect it will be very quiet starting next week. I also did a pretty good spreadsheet with my own financial info for Halo Secretarial put together, so I can see how the business is progressing and what I should have as goals for 2010. I think it will be a great year – it’ll be the second full year in business for me, and I’m feeling really good about it.

I also am working on some goals for this blog for the coming year-but that’s another post!

December 21st, 2008

Holiday Happiness

I know I talked recently about having a plan for working when your children are on break. I have to say though, that right now I’m really, really glad for the school break!! It is brutally cold here in the Edmonton region (temperatures in the -25 to -30 range pretty much the last week and well into this week). Yes that’s in celsius since I’m Canadian but I know I’ve done the conversions before and at this level the numbers in Fahreheit and Celsius aren’t that different.

So I don’t have to drag myself out to the bus stop twice a day in this weather – I can stay in where it is nice and warm and not feel bad about letting the kids watch a little bit of tv while I work. It truly isn’t outside activity time anyway! They do spend most of their day in free, very creative play though, not just watching tv, I promise!! They drive boats (aka the laundry baskets), build forts, put their babies (aka teddies) to bed and basically have a great time. Thank goodness for the ingenuity of young minds!

I do have to venture out to the library for a research project tomorrow. Plus some last minute grocery shopping before the holidays (what would a turkey be without stuffing after all – and I have no bread crumbs!!) But we’ll be fine – the crowds won’t be as bad in this weather – people really stay home when it is this cold, even those of us who are born and bred Albertans who like to believe we’re tough, we really don’t love this weather!

Take care!