Never Too Busy

Elyssa hasn't been feeling well for this past week or so, she's on the

 mend thankfully but wasn't quite up to going out to her dayhome 

yet so I went and spent the day with her and we had fun! 

Elyssa surprised me, she put this puzzle together by herself, what was 

so surprising was that this is a two in one puzzle, if you turn it over it's 

a photo of Santa Clause but she knew what she was doing so I watched.  

We did plenty of fun stuff, it was a wonderful day and I think

that Elyssa will be back to her dayhome tomorrow. 

After Elyssa's Mommy came home I stopped off at my place,

picked up my nephew who is visiting for a while, then we

went and I picked up Austin's Mom, my niece. We went out shopping

for things she needed, for things I didn't need and I finally made it

home by about 11:30 last night. 

While I was waiting at the hospital for my niece I spent 
a bit of time enjoying the lights.  

I can never be too busy to appreciate the finer things in

life; children's laughter, Christmas lights, quality time with

family, and the warm weather we're experiencing. It was only 

-6c last night... darn near summer weather here! 

Spa Day

I belong to an organization called the Aboriginal Women's Professional Association (AWPA) and each year they host a day known as Spadacious Day. There's services for women which range from nails, hair, reflexology, card reading, and a few other things which aren't coming to mind right at this moment. I shot tons of photos from this event and will share a few of my favorite.  Right there were vendors there as well, some were crafters and I so wanted to bring these gloves home with me, but I behaved and resisted.

There was a ladies handbag which was raffled off and I had one of the

 ladies model the bag for me, I'm very pleased with this photo!

It was a fantastic day, I got to spend time with ladies I haven't

 seen in quite some time,I got fed, and enjoyed a few of the services; 

right and I also got to spend my day doing what I love... taking photos!

This is me on the right and a good friend on the left. I trusted one of the

 reflexologists with my camera for two shots... that was enough of that! lol

Galaxyland

This morning I was up at 3:30am and to work by 5. I helped my friend 
cater a children's Christmas party, this is the 3rd consecutive year we've
 done this. The company we catered for rents Galaxyland for 3 hours, 
this is a huge indoor carnival with rides for children of all ages. 

Today there was approximately 800 people we fed, there were
 tons of children, grandparents, parents, bosses, office and 
there was one special guest...

The Jolly Old Fella himself...

Yup, it's been a very long day and tomorrow morning I'm up with the... hmmm was going to say birds, but all the birds are smarter than I am, they've all flown south!  I have an all day photo shoot which I'm looking forward to. From catering, to shooting photos, a far cry from what I'm now educated to do, but what the heck, I'm having fun! 

Amazing Awesome Austin

Austin is progressing in leaps and bounds, he no longer uses a wheelchair and goes for walks, he's in physio, he's now attending 'school' in the hospital, he goes to the 'beach', plays bingo with the other children and today Austin told me he even skyped with Santa! It's surreal to think that Austin had major heart surgery on November 17th, they installed a device known as VAD which is like a pump which keeps his heart beating. Amazing Awesome Austin will need a heart transplant and is on the list, but for now it's amazing to see how he's progressing and how fast he's coming around. 

This is our little Iron Man, Austin Auntie loves you and thinks you are an amazing young man! 

For The Record

Every now and again I like to post gas prices, why you might wonder... 

well pull up a seat, make yourself at home and I'll tell you. 

I'm curious what the price of gas will be in about 10, 20, maybe 
even 30 years, this way I'll have a way to compare the prices

 and when my grand-children's children think I'm off my rocker and 
don't believe what the price of gas was in 2012 I can show them. 
I might also need this photo in the future so I can remember! 

Today gas was at $103.9/l. The temperature tonight is

-17c and it's going down, it'll probably hit at least -20c but not to 

worry, I have my car plugged in and I'm not wasting power, I even 

hooked up a timer!

And More Snow

This morning my walks were clear, well as clear as they could get with all this snow we've been having. When the mail arrived at my door at about 11am it wasn't even snowing, but within a matter of about 2 hours we got at least 5" of snow, if not more. It was crazy the amount of snow we received in such a short period of time. 

My sidewalk, somewhere under all the snow!

It looks pretty but what a mess to drive in!

Reading (And Iron Man Update)

I haven't had much time to enjoy reading lately, once the holidays pass I'm going to get off the computer a bit more and spend time savoring books. Not all educational books but ones I've started and put aside because a paper had to be written, a test had to be studied for, or there was always something going on. I want to have a mellow month in January, I'd love to spend at least 2 hours a day reading, and at least 3 hours a day writing. Today I was in an awesome second hand book store, I've been here once before, but today I took a really good look around and there's tons of books I'd love to read...

I behaved today and only bought two more books, not bad at all I'd say. 

Here's the latest update on Austin's condition, my niece, his mother,

posted this on the site she started for Austin on fb...

"Austin had a really busy day getting swabbed, x-rayed, poked, going to 

physio, etc. His doctor was very strict and wanted him to walk all over the hospital

for his appointments but when he got really shaky going to X-ray his

nurse ran and found the nearest wheelchair which happened to be a double

wide for him to ride in a bit. By 8pm he couldn't keep his eyes open any longer.

Austin is IV free today! He still has his feeding tube, PICC line, EKG and O2 monitors

and his drive line  when he's in bed but when he leaves the unit he will have

only his drive line connected to the VAD battery pack..."

Austin is doing quite well considering he underwent major heart surgery

16 days ago, he's an amazing young man and is healing in leaps and bounds. 

There's been setbacks from time to time, but overall his doctors and nurses

are extremely impressed with how well our little Iron Man is doing! He even went to
school in the hospital for a brief period of time today and got his books. 

Way to go Austin! Auntie will continue to pray for you. 

Don't Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Last night it'd snowed a lot, so much so that I had to get out and shovel. 

This morning I woke up to yet more snow... enough snow already! 

A break from shovelling would be welcome right about now. 

On the upside, shovelling gets me out of the house, 

I get some exercise, breathe in the fresh crisp air

and we're getting the moisture we need...

right and how can I forget, there's now enough snow

 to get out there and have some fun skidooing, 

when I can make it out to the farm that is. 

Tis The Season

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! 

This one looks like it could be an ad for Timmy's...

And with Elyssa helping we got the tree done!

Yup, tis the season to be jolly,

fa la la la la la la la la

(you bet I had to count the la la la's!)

Firsts

Tonight Elyssa is spending the night, and what a fun night it's been!  
We were working on some crafts earlier and Elyssa made me a tree
 decoration, it's the first of many to come I'm hoping... 
that's how much I love it!