Posts

March

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So I guess I am falling into a once-a-month routine with writing here. I think I’ll just embrace it. 🙂  So here are the updates for March!

Earlier this month, we got back from a week-long trip down to Florida (my first time visiting that particular state)!  Trevor’s parents were renting a house down there for the month, and invited us to come stay for a bit. It was a nice trip.

Wesley is not nearly as easy to manage on a plane as he was the last time we flew.  He was only 4 months old then, and he was awesome, mostly slept.  He did okay, but now he’s a big strong writhing ball of kiddo, and it’s harder to keep him happy in our laps for any length of time.  Next time we fly, even if he’s not 2 yet, we’re getting him his own seat for sure.

Southwest Florida is nice, but if the weather isn’t super hot (it was warm, but not beach-going-hot most of the time we were there) there’s not a lot to do. We did some shopping and did visit the beach, but mostly we stayed at the house. This was actually a good thing, though, because it was nice to be able to just sit and read as much as we did.  Going outside without coats on was a huge plus as well (and spring would do well to arrive here anytime now!)

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Work has gotten nice and busy the past few weeks!  Lots of exciting projects on the go.   That, combined with singing holy week services for choir means I’m looking at a pretty busy upcoming week, but it should be good.  I’m looking forward to the long weekend from work though. Also in the work category, a presentation that a co-worker and I proposed for a conference got accepted, so we’ll be doing a presentation in May! Should be good.

I got in touch with Family and Children’s Services about volunteering, and went for an interview there recently.  It’s a really amazing organization, and I’m kind of fascinated with their programs. I have to do some paperwork and training before I can be a proper volunteer, but I’m pretty excited.  I also got to see a presentation about another awesome local organization called Strong Start, and I’m really blown away by their programs as well, and hopefully will be able to help them out in some way. So many cool things happening here, if only I had unlimited time to volunteer!

Speaking of volunteering, I’ve been asked to be the costumer for a show that’s going up next year, so I’m pretty stoked about that. Hooray for costuming, my biggest theatre love! I might have to get a tuneup on my sewing machine- it’s been running pretty clunkily for a bit. It’s a really sweet workhorse of a machine- one of the older Singer school machines that have decent speed and are more heavy duty than what is produced now.

TedX is next week as well (falling during my busy week of busyness)! I’m really stoked about going, especially since I went last year and I know a little better what to expect. I hope that the talks are super inspiring!

December

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December started with a pretty big bang this past weekend! First, there was the Santa Pur-suit- a 5k race that’s done all in Santa suits. I signed up for it a while ago and it was a total blast. The weather was cooooold, but there was a little bit of snow, all stuck to the trees which made everything beautiful. The motorists who were waiting for the horde of Santas to pass didn’t even seem put out- they were just bemused at what was probably one of the more surreal events of their day. Everyone was a bit disheveled by the end but it was so much fun.

Later in the evening, Trevor took me to see The Nutcracker in Mississauga! It was a touring company that was performing it, and it was fun. The Living Arts Centre is a really nice venue, convenient to lots of restaurants and shopping, so we were able to wander around and amuse ourselves pretty easily waiting for the house to open.

Then, on Sunday, the Advent Carol service at church, which was really nice. It was super warm though, I was sweating buckets, but I really liked the music we did this year. Super pretty stuff.

Despite all the Christmas season kick-off stuff over the weekend, I haven’t gotten any decorations up yet. Hopefully I’ll get to that soon. 🙂

October updates

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I can’t believe it’s already October! The leaves are all changed on the trees, the weather has cooled off and is beautiful, and we’re firmly in the season of pumpkin-flavoured-everything. The summer was nice, hot and fun but not too eventful for once. Here’s some updates about what has been going on over the past little while.

Photographer: Angela Clayfield

Theatre

The Horribly Horrifying Fun House of Death has closed, and it went super well! I was totally hands-off once the show opened, so I don’t know all the details, but everything I heard was that the show went awesome. It was so nice to be able to work on a show without basically giving up my whole life for 2 months, especially since I have a little dude and other obligations to take care of. I didn’t want to just stop doing theatre altogether, especially when it meant working with people who are super awesome.

And don’t they all look so nice in their costumes, and the set was awesome as well! Thanks to Ange for the lovely photo- I wanted to make sure I had a shot of everyone in costume. 🙂

Choir

I went to the Grand Philharmonic Choir’s Sing-in on September 29th, and it was pretty fun. They’re doing the Mozart Requiem this fall, which I haven’t done in quite a while, actually- so it was really fun to sing some bits from it again. It was fun to see all my GPC friends again as well! Their concert is October 20, and will no doubt be awesome.

Church choir has started up again, and that has been nice. We had our first Evensong service last week, and are already hurtling madly toward Advent.

Traveling

No, we’re not planning a big trip or anything, though we are going to the states in a couple weeks, because Wesley needs to have his NEXUS interview! Trevor and I both have NEXUS cards, because we cross the border enough that it was a good idea, but if we want to bring Wesley along, he needs to have one too. Next time we take a trip to or through the US (we often fly from there as it’s much cheaper), our border crossing will be faster!

So we’re planning to take him for his interview then, and do a little cross-border shopping as well (a good time to get Christmas shopping done!) I’m looking forward to it!

Running

I signed up for yet another 5k race- this one is called the Santa Pur-suit, and requires that runners wear SANTA SUITS. This is AWESOME, and I am totally excited about it. It’s December 1st, so a little while away yet, but I can hardly wait. The race is close to my neighborhood, and requires dorkiness, so it’s like it was created just for me. 😀

Virtual Choir 3

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I mentioned a while back that I recorded a track for Virtual Choir 3, a project run by Eric Whitacre where huge numbers of people record tracks of themselves singing a part of one of his choral pieces, and they’re all mixed together to make this huge choral recording. It’s awesome. Anyway, I missed out on Virtual Choirs 1 and 2, but managed to make a recording for the 3rd by the skin of my teeth (they extended the deadline and I got my recording in that day)!

The actual video/recording is going to be released on April 2nd, but today they released a huge photo of all the members of the choir, and I found myself! Click on the picture to see everyone. I’m in the 4th row from the bottom, 25th from the left.

Movies, weather, music, and running

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I finally saw The King’s Speech this past week, and it was awesome! And not just because of Colin Firth. 🙂 The costumes were really quite splendid as well, the screenplay was good, the acting was superb. I really enjoyed it.

This week also brought some very welcome above-freezing weather. Up to 7 or 8 degrees a couple days in a row! A lot of the snow melted, and everyone got a taste of that mental and physical perking-up that spring brings. It was awesome. I went out without my snow boots on! There’s something really awesome about the first day you can go without snow boots or a coat. Even if it is in February and the winter weather is still going to come back again before spring arrives properly.

Was back at the gym this week after a few weeks of not going, as well. I did lose a bit of speed in those couple of weeks, but I managed to get through one long-ish run last night (just over 6 miles) so that was good. I needed it.

Starting to work on the St. John Passion in choir. I never thought I’d say this (being a long-time anti-Bach type) but it’s nice to come back to Bach. I think I’m just now starting to realize why the big Bach fans feel the way they do. It’s a different challenge from the 20th century stuff we’ve just finished, and there’s something very comfortable about baroque tonality, even if the actual singing can be quite difficult sometimes.