So, yesterday I put my passport in a Fed-ex envelope bound for the Egyptian embassy in Ottawa....via Milwaukee. Yeah, not the most direct route, but it has to go to the company's immigration lawyers first to join the rest of the visa application. It made me feel kind of sick sending it off, but the paralegals assure me that this is done all the time and they've yet to lose one ....well I don't want mine to be the first, thank you very much! Apparently once it reaches Ottawa, the embassy will keep it for 2-3 days and decide if I deserve a visa, then fed-ex it back to Victoria (hopefully with a visa stuck inside!).
Apart from visa stuff, things are coming together, the car is @ the body shop getting painted in preparation for sale (my neighbour "kissed" my bumper in the parkade and rubbed a little spot of paint off...nothing major, but still needs to be fixed before I sell it). Next on the list is a plane ticket and a hard case to ship my bike. Oh yeah........and Christmas shopping! I have friday off so hopefully I can make a dent in that, then on Saturday, I'm heading to Van for a night with some girlfriends. Okay, off to bed...I'm trying to stop a cold.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
blink...
Um, so apparently I blinked and an entire week went by! The last few days have been absolutely nuts! I haven't run in almost a week and skipped swim practice tonight....so bad! Here's a re-cap of what's kept me busy lately....Friday night I went to the Butchart Gardens with Erin to see the Magic of Christmas, it was um...magical! As usual there was a (teeny) skating rink, as well as carolers and a brass band playing christmas music. We laughed our heads off at one of the male carolers who would sing sections of scat once in a while...our favourite was "a-humba-humba-humba..."it sounded hilarious in his baritone voice; so for the rest of the night one of us would randomly throw it into a conversation and the other would dissolve into fits of giggles {try it, you'll see!}. My favourite thing is the lights that look like water- not sure how they do that, but it's very cool!
Saturday night was a concert by mum's choir. Everyone was great, but a young woman called Sydney Needham absolutel
y stole she show, she's only 17 but has a phenomenal voice...I have a feeling we'll be hearing lots more from her in the next while (she's a finalist in Victoria Idol!).a-humba-humba-humba...
The rest of the weekend was mostly work-related Christmas stuff, including our kids' xmas party- this year we changed the venue to a bigger room and added a bouncy castle...there was tons of food, gifts, and Santa made an appearance, so the kids had a blast as usual, and the bigger room helped cut down on the volume of the screaming (a little!) which the adults seemed grateful for;)
a-humba-humba-humba...
Immediately following the kids' party was the Mustard Seed Christmas dinner... we were short of volunteers so I dragged my parents along to help- we were 'dishers' and worked assembly-line style with about 10 others, assembling dinners so the servers could take them to the guests (I was in charge of the cranberry sauce!). The quality of the food was great and the servers all tried really hard to make it seem like a restaurant (as opposed to a cafeteria or a soup kitchen), taking time to individually serve and chat to each guest. I've helped for about 5 years running because it is a really worthwhile event, but as with every year, I was shocked at the number of families and kids that were there. So sad. If you want to donate online or give to the food bank, click here.
I finally got some news today about my visa... I'd been dealing with the company's immigration lawyers who are in the US and seem a little clueless about certain things....up until this morning there was still a possibility that I might have to "stop by" the Egyptian embassy in Ottawa to sort the paperwork out....um okay, sure, let me just hop on a plane for 6 hours and I'll be right there.... Thankfully they were able to get a hold of the embassy today and it sounds like I can mail the info in...I was really relieved until I heard I have to mail them my passport...no not a copy, the original passport!!!! But apparently once they receive it, the paperwork only takes 2-3 days to process... so cross your fingers for me (for the visa and the safe return of my passport!)
Besides that, I just need to sell my car...anyone want to buy a 2004 matrix??
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Monday, December 3, 2007
Swimming, Guitar Hero....... and snow??!!
So, remember how a few posts ago I was saying how you can exercise outside all year round in Victoria because the weather is soooo great.....wellllll, about once a year, it snows here and it seems that this was the weekend it happened. Now people were saying that there might be snow over the weekend, which was a little concerning, since we were heading to Nanaimo for a swim meet on Saturday. When I got up that morning there was a bit of wind, but nothing to worry about... but by the time I had finished breakfast and packing some snacks for the day, there was a thin layer of snow blanketing the ground and lots more falling from the sky. Not good! If it's snowy in Victoria, it's definitely snowy up island...and it WAS! It kept snowing allll day, and by the time we left the pool there 
was about 15cm on the ground and it wasn't letting up- the drive home was pretty scary- the roads weren't great and there was snow blowing towards the windshield, {like when they go warp speed in Star trek..} and we could barely see 5 feet in front of the car. Thankfully, we all made it home in one piece largely due to Jon's careful and confident driving and, to a lesser extent, the Jeep's 4 wheel drive.
Now, on to the meet itself....4 of us went together- one other swimmer from my team, plus my former coach and his wife, who swim with another team in town. The weather kept a lot of people away, so the field was smaller than usual, but since it was the first meet of the year for us, and we all went into it with the intent only to have fun, it was nice to have a little less competition! I swam 4 individual races- 50 fly, 50 breast, 100 free and 100IM-- the results don't seem to be posted online yet, so I don't have my time for the IM , but I know my fly was slower than last year (43ish) and
my free (1:19.71) and breast (48.57) were faster... I even placed in my age-group in two events...no matter how old I get, I still love getting ribbons;) We also entered a couple of relays which were fun...I nearly got us DQ'd in the 200IM relay by coming very close to not finishing on my back: I was swimming back, and concentrating so hard on the turn that totally forgot about the finish and flipped to my front about 2m before the wall! I managed to somehow flip over again just before I touched...oops :| This is why I don't race backstroke usually! But again, the aim was just to have fun, which we all did, so all in all, the day was a success. Some pics....
After we finally got back into town, the evening was spent with some friends, watching FIDO...Canadian-made zombie comedy- (definitely worth renting if you're in the mood for some laughs).... and playing a little Guitar Hero-- I suck, but I am totally addicted.
was about 15cm on the ground and it wasn't letting up- the drive home was pretty scary- the roads weren't great and there was snow blowing towards the windshield, {like when they go warp speed in Star trek..} and we could barely see 5 feet in front of the car. Thankfully, we all made it home in one piece largely due to Jon's careful and confident driving and, to a lesser extent, the Jeep's 4 wheel drive.
Now, on to the meet itself....4 of us went together- one other swimmer from my team, plus my former coach and his wife, who swim with another team in town. The weather kept a lot of people away, so the field was smaller than usual, but since it was the first meet of the year for us, and we all went into it with the intent only to have fun, it was nice to have a little less competition! I swam 4 individual races- 50 fly, 50 breast, 100 free and 100IM-- the results don't seem to be posted online yet, so I don't have my time for the IM , but I know my fly was slower than last year (43ish) and
my free (1:19.71) and breast (48.57) were faster... I even placed in my age-group in two events...no matter how old I get, I still love getting ribbons;) We also entered a couple of relays which were fun...I nearly got us DQ'd in the 200IM relay by coming very close to not finishing on my back: I was swimming back, and concentrating so hard on the turn that totally forgot about the finish and flipped to my front about 2m before the wall! I managed to somehow flip over again just before I touched...oops :| This is why I don't race backstroke usually! But again, the aim was just to have fun, which we all did, so all in all, the day was a success. Some pics....After we finally got back into town, the evening was spent with some friends, watching FIDO...Canadian-made zombie comedy- (definitely worth renting if you're in the mood for some laughs).... and playing a little Guitar Hero-- I suck, but I am totally addicted.
Saturday, December 1, 2007
TGIF!!!
TGIF indeed...it's been a loooong week! Tomorrow is the Nanaimo Ebbtides swim meet- only myself and one other swimmer from our team are going, but I wanted to compete at least once this season and this is the only meet before I leave- so it was this one or nothing! I've been slacking off a little in the pool lately, so I wimped out and signed up for some short races: 50 fly, 50 breast, 100 free and 100 IM- we are going to join with my ex-coach and his wife who swim at JDF for some relays- since we're not from the same team we have to go in the exhibition category or something....oh well, it will be fun just to race and see how it goes. Besides the Thetis open waster race for MS in August, I haven't raced done any swim races since the Vic Masters meet last March! I'm charging up my camera batteries, so hopefully I'll have some pics to post tomorrow.
For the marmot bake sale, I also made these cookies, which I highly recommend, especially if you like your cookies chewy..mmmm...not exactly low fat, but just go for a run or something after eating them
For the marmot bake sale, I also made these cookies, which I highly recommend, especially if you like your cookies chewy..mmmm...not exactly low fat, but just go for a run or something after eating them
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