Silence

First Star I See Tonight, originally uploaded by Blue I'x.

I have been quiet here. Not quiet all around, but here - on this front. I have thought about closing this blog, thinking "I have other interests, other priorities, I don't want a blog". But then I think about the things it COULD be, if only I really wanted it to be...

Nonsense? Usually.

I think about turning it back into a dedicated dream blog. Sometimes I want it to be a journal. Sometimes I want to force myself back into fictional writing, and perhaps this would give me a place to do that... I don't know... For now, some really brief updates on the past year or so...

Brian and Spaces (his kitty) live with me now. We are working on home renovations when we can find moments to do it.

I am focusing my creative energy on photography, although I feel I'm at a wall in a sense - I want to do more with it, but feel like I don't have the knowledge required to take it much further... I am working on the "52 Weeks" project - a self portrait every week for a year. The photo posted here was from the same photoshoot as my "Week 15" shot. It's an interesting project sometimes.

Work is work. Always busy, stressful, but rewarding in the end.

Brian and I went on little mini weekend-trips every month last year until August. In August we went to Burningman. It was a pretty awesome trip. We rented a truck and camper, and lived in it for 2 weeks on our way to and from Burningman. Brian had never been, and it was exciting to introduce him to Black Rock City.

We won't be attending Burningman this year. The theme this year is "The American Dream", which pisses me off more than I care to get into right now... Perhaps a rant for another day.

But even if it weren't for the theme, I don't know if I need to go back. This year was my third. It was still the amazing, surreal, unimaginable place it's always been, but I also would really like to do some other travel. I want to see other places and meet other people and experience other things that I never have before. And when I only have 2-3 weeks per year to travel, I can pretty much only do one "big" trip a year.

This fall was full of everything. Too busy for anything. Brian gave up his apartment in October, and "officially" moved in.

We've both been trying to focus on our health - better eating habits, more excercise. I've been going to the gym on most of my lunch hours. 4 times a week, on average I'd say. I'm hoping to add some yoga back into the mix again - Brian and I are going to take a class together on Monday and Thursday nights starting in March.

I went to Mexico in January with my sisters, my aunt, and her best friend. It was an amazing experience as well - having never been anywhere outside of Canada and the U.S. Mexico was so incredible, and I want to go back with Brian and my camera.

Brian and I are not eating meat until the end of February (Brian started January 1, I started when I got back from Mexico, on January 12). We are trying it out to see if we feel any differently, health-wise. I think Brian has noticed more of an effect than I have - He's lost 17 pounds. I still feel tired as usual, but I think that's just something I'll always have to deal with. This diet has forced me to eat more vegetables, which is awesome. Plus it's got me trying out a lot of new recipes. We are undecided whether or not we'll go back to meat at the end of it - Currently we're thinking maybe just seafood - we miss sushi. If I do start eating fish again, though, I'll make a point to only eat sustainable ones.

We've been making a big effort to be more "green" in general. We're composting everything we can, and have installed a programmable thermostat in my house - and just got a more energy-efficient refrigerator... Babysteps.

Okay, having been out of the blogging world for quite some time, I don't have much energy for it... But thought I'd give it a shot and see how it feels...

Dream - Plane Crash

Over There, originally uploaded by Blue I'x.

I was in my front yard, and I saw a plane flying REALLY low over my house. It flew sharply upwards, around, and then crashed in front of my dad's house. It was a small plane. Long and skinny, but only room for about 3 people up front. The pilot ran away.

When I looked through the windows to see if anyone else was hurt, I saw a father and two children, badly burnt. Barely human anymore. There was a little girl and a little boy, and they had been sitting on their father's lap.

Much of this dream was just sadness, and shock. The scene of those burnt bodies was really brutal. I rarely dream such gruesome things. I don't know what makes it happen.

I think later in the dream my dad was taking the plane apart and trying to put it back together, but the overwhelming part of the dream was that little family, dead.

I woke up with a feeling that things aren't okay. People who don't deserve it are hurting and suffering. I felt a little afraid at the brutality of reality. Too delicate for it.

Due to a current thyroid imbalance, my emotions are heightened, and my control over them is weakened. My theory is that these dreams are coming from that, but then I wake up feeling so disturbed by the dreams, that I start each day upset, worried, afraid, wanting to run away and hide. I'm working on getting it all balanced out. One of these days.

Dream - Dad's Haunted House

Onion House, originally uploaded by Blue I'x.

Last night I dreamt that my dad bought an old abandoned house. The house was well-known as being haunted, and had been abandoned for decades. He fixed up the outside really nicely - a deck, a hot tub, etc. And put his lawfirm on the main floor.

But upstairs, it was falling apart at the seams. Pieces of the wall fell randomly, and dust shook down from the ceiling everytime someone walked. I could see through the floorboards to the main floor, and was worried for my dad's safety. I told him this, and he was not worried. He said, "Well obviously if I step on a floorboard that breaks, I just won't step there anymore."

My dad is very scientific, and does not even come close to believing in the supernatural. So I joked to him, that some people think his house is haunted, just because it's been abandoned for a while. He answered that yes, it is VERY haunted. I was amazed that he'd been convinced of the supernatural. I knew it MUST be haunted if he believed it. He said the ghosts bang on the walls and the ceiling. I heard some loud banging on the front porch, and he told me that was the ghosts. I was still skeptical, and went to investigate. I thought it must just be the cats. I looked around the corner, down the hall, and saw Spaces (Brian's cat). Then I felt a cat brush my leg, and that was Spaces also. I thought, "How can Spaces be in two places at once?" and then I looked around and found 3 more Spaces. That was my proof that the house was haunted. How could cats multiply if the house wasn't haunted???

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mostly this dream was less stressful than the one the night before, but there was still tension, over my worry for my dad. Brian thinks that this dream is referring to my actual concern that my dad is making bad decisions - but I don't really know if it's his decisions I worry about. I can't really think of any bad decisions he's made that have really bothered me, but I DO know I worry about him a lot in general - his health, his safety, etc... That's probably where this came from.

And I've been dreaming about haunted houses a LOT lately. About a month ago I dreamt that Brian wanted us to buy a haunted house, and I kept trying to get used to it, but I kept getting scared and needing to escape. Hrm...

~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, that's my dream-post for today.

Dreaming...

Purple Pigeons, originally uploaded by Blue I'x.

At one point I intended to use this blog as a dream journal. I didn't stick to that for long, but today I find myself wanting to get last night's dream out of my head. And here I shall attempt to do so...

There was a guy - I don't know him in real life - who was upset. Sad, raging, hopeless. Somebody - a male authority to him, possibly a father, a mentor, or a boss - told him that nobody realized that he was "purple". This seemed to relate to some sort of emotion-ranking-system. Like, an emotion-scale or something. Purple was the most extremely dark/hopeless/suicidal color on the scale. No one realized he was there, but he was. And somehow, even after they figured out that he was "purple", they couldn't (or didn't, anyway) do anything about it.

I realized it was up to me to save him, to stop him from committing suicide. At some points I was PHYSICALLY fighting to keep him from throwing himself out the window, and sometimes I was just sitting on a couch with him, talking to him, trying to help him realize that he deserved to live.

At some point, I noticed the time - 1:22am. I realized that it was late, and I was going to be USELESS at work the next day, and worried I would get fired if I didn't get some sleep. But knew that this guy's life was more important than my getting sleep - and hoped my bosses would see it that way.

His family decided they didn't like me meddling in their business, and made it clear that they meant to harm me. A portion of my dream was spent trying to run from that family, but trying to protect the guy at the same time. Lots of hiding, running through hallways and doorways in a buildings I don't recognize.

Another portion of my dream (perhaps relating to my worry about being fired if I was too exhausted), I had like 3 bosses. One of them was my boss from when I worked at Stantec, and she was on the scary/intense side. In my dream, she told me that my job was going to require me to endure a rather invasive surgery. The surgery itself would take a couple days to complete. I don't know what the surgery was for, but my chance of survival was less than half. I called my dad about it, and he said "if that's what your company requires of you, then that's what you have to do. End of story." So I agreed to go through with it, but was terrified I wouldn't survive.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then I woke up, a little later than I should have, and felt intensely stressed-out.

I don't know who "guy" was - He was dark-haired, and possibly Italian or something. I don't think we were "involved" in any way in my dream, he was just someone I had to help. He wore sweatpants (navy blue) and no shirt.

The dream took place in a building that was dark, in shades of black/blue/green. I think at some point it was the family's home, but at some point it was an apartment building, where he lived, but his family didn't.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been having really stressful dreams again lately, and so I thought that perhaps if I get conscious of them again, remember them, record them, etc, maybe I can see some patterns and work the bad ones out of my head. Maybe?

We'll see.

Any thoughts on possible symbolism/ideas/etc, is always much appreciated!

Cynthia

Cynthia, originally uploaded by Blue I'x.

A couple of years ago, there was a big creepy black spider living behind my side view mirror. It creeped me out for a few days, and I tried to lose him by driving fast. But when the wind picked up, he'd just crawl back behind the mirror, and be safe until I parked. Then he could come back out and work on his web a little more. Eventually I decided I had to stop letting him give me the creeps. So I named him. His name was Jack. I spoke to him, and started to even like him there - like my little car mascot or something. Mission accomplished. Eventually he went away, and I actually missed him. A few months later another little spider took his place, and her name was Suzie.

On our little Southern Alberta adventure a few weeks ago, Brian and I returned to the car at one point, to find this creature hanging out, admiring her reflection. She didn't stick around for long, but she did hang on long enough for us to take a few photos of her. I decided to name her Cynthia.

So much online...

So, now that I have my beautiful new 20" iMac at home, I've been spending quite a bit more time online. However, you may have noticed I haven't been spending any more time on this-here blog. Partly, that's because I've been spending time running around the internet, reading about things, exploring for things, etc. Partly, I've been spending much of my time on Flickr. And... in the past few days, apparently now Facebook too. Which I keep calling Spacebook. I think my mind is still lumping it in with My Space, even though I haven't been there in months, can't even remember my password.

So, I just wanted to write a bitty-little-blurby-update...

I am SO happy this week is over, it was a REALLY long one, work-wise. A TON of stuff came up that I'm still not entirely sure how to go about taking care-of, and I'm going out to Swan Hills next week to try to figure out some other huge issues - there's just a lot going on. Also, my assistant EIT's contract is up at the end of this month which is sad. I'm getting a couple of summer students in her place, but she's amazing, and I'm not sure the two of them will be anywhere near as effective as she has been ... But I'll just have to wait and see. It really depends on the luck of the draw. Some interns are awesome - some of them are useless. My fingers are crossed.

Tomorrow Brian is going to BC on business - it'll be the first time in almost 4 months that we will have been apart for more than about 24 hours... And he won't be back until Wednesday!!! I'm sure we'll both survive it, really. We've obviously existed without each other before. But it'll still suck.

Katherine and I are going snowboarding tomorrow (she'll ski, I'll snowboard), or hiking if it's too warm and slushy. After that, I imagine I'll sleep for about 18 hours, because I've been EXHAUSTED for like a week now...

Then Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm out in Swan Hills (as previously mentioned). Brian and I both return home Wednesday night (our flights arrive in Calgary an inconvenient 2.5 hours apart). I imagine at that point, there will be much snuggling and cuteness and... etc...

Mmm, that's all. It's now a quarter past midnight, and I need to brush my teeth and go to bed. Goodnight!

I still exist...

I keep meaning to update this, but I don't. All day I think "when I get home tonight, I'm going to update my blog". But then in the evening, it just seems like the least important thing in the whole world.

So now I'm on my lunchhour, not really hungry, and not motivated enough to work.

Don't really have anything to say, though. Been playing with cameras lots - www.flickr.com/photos/blueix ...

Been embarking on random mini-adventures.

Easter was... Easter. It's never really been a big holiday for me, not being of the Christian persuasion and all... Brian and I did have brunch at Smuggler's though, which was nice. My family often has an Easter dinner, but not this year. Dunno why. No one cared enough to organize, I guess. Which is fine by me, I get more and more antisocial the older I get.

I'm excited that spring seems to be JUST barely around the corner... I'm enjoying the rain, even though it's really COLD rain, interrupted by moments of snow. Brian and I went walking in the rain, down in Fish Creek Park the evening before last. That was fun. We brought our cameras, and possibly got some good shots. I won't know for a while, because I was using my Rebel G - which is a film camera, not one of those new-fangled digital things...

Not much else to report right now, and I am not even motivated enough to add a picture to this. If you want a picture, go to my flickr page.

Ciao for now.

Updates, updates...

Hrm... Updates? 'Kay:

It's been an interesting week.

On Saturday night, Brian and I got all dressed up and went out for dinner at the revolving restaurant at the top of the Calgary Tower. I hadn't been there in probably 15 years, so it was a new experience for me. They've renovated recently, and they have these horseshoe-shaped booths facing outwards... Really private and beautiful - you just sit there and watch the city slide past... The food was fantastic, from beginning to end - perfect atmosphere, all of it. Also, my little sister and her boyfriend had reservations there for the same night, so it was cool to see her and chat for a bit. They didn't get a wicked booth like Brian and I did, but they didn't really seem to care.

On Sunday, Brian and I went wandering around taking pictures. He rented a Nikon D200 for the weekend again, so I was able to use his Nikon D70. We decided there might be some interesting stuff in the East Village, because they're tearing so much of it down - it's in this state of transition...

So, as we were taking some shots of the outside of the recently shut-down St. Louis, a guy in a truck drove up and asked what we were up to. We explained that we were just taking photos. He said he was the guy who takes care of the building - then, to our surprise, he asked if we'd like to look around inside. We were both a little stunned, but were able eventually to enthusiastically respond - "Would we! Could we? Awesome!!!" so he drove around front and opened it up for us - Turned on the lights, and wandered around with us for about 3 hours. We got to see every room in the building, top to bottom. It was breathtaking, in so many different ways. It was so heart-wrenching, such a different world than I'm in from day-to-day. The filth, the dark - This sense of hopelessness. Abandon hope, all ye who enter here... If those walls could talk, you probably wouldn't want to hear half of what they said. Every corner of the building seemed to whisper secrets, stories, dark and sad memories. We got lots of photos, of course - and you can see mine here.

On Monday, I received some potentially scary health news. It's one of those "nothing to worry about... yet" things. I just have to watch and wait and see what test results say in 6 weeks. In all honesty it's probably nothing, but Monday was hard on me. Not a good start to the week. I felt ill (probably a combination of nerves, phantom pain, and PMS cramps) and so I left work around lunch time. That evening, the fabulous Cara came over to my place and we ate chocolate fondue and she did a fantastic job of cheering me up and calming me down. She's gone through the EXACT same thing, and so it felt good to talk to someone who knew first-hand what she was talking about.

On Tuesday night, Brian and Nathan and a bunch of their friends shot a Big Rock commercial for the Eddies. They've had the idea floating around for a few years apparently, but just managed to make it work this year. The Rose and Crown was nice enough to block the upstairs off for them. I got to be an extra - I sat in the background and drank beer. It was really interesting to be witness to the process, though. Editing is still being done on it, but I'm really excited to see the finished product. I hope it does well - they deserve it. I don't know what the competition is like, but it'll have to be REALLY tough, for these guys not to nail it.

Yesterday afternoon, as I was getting into my car after work, I noticed that my glove compartment was open, and everything that had been in it was pulled out all over the passenger seat. I froze, I looked around, tried to figure out what could have happened. Could it have just popped-open on its own? But then everything wouldn't be strewn ALL over. Could someone have broken in? But none of my windows are broken... Did I lock my car? I'm SURE I would have... What on Earth? Then I saw my little change bin - empty, pulled out of it's pocket. I had $20 or $30 in there... Totally empty now... I must have been broken into. What? How can that be? I got out of my car, I checked my trunk - some snowboarding gear, a couple blankets, yoga stuff - check, check, it's all still there. Tried to think of anything else of value I may have had in there... My CDs didn't seem to have been touched... Insurance, check. Cheque book, check. So - nothing's missing but $20 or $30? Okay - good. No, NOT good. You FUCKERS! How DARE you intrude on MY space? This is MY car!!! What makes you think you have ANY right... I kinda went into shock. It's not that I care so much about my random change. It's the invasion. It's the thought that nothing is safe. What about my house? If someone will break into my car, they'll break into my house. They'll take whatever they want. It makes me feel so vulnerable. So - victimized. YOU ASSHOLE. My dad always said "don't be a victim". He taught me that victims allow themselves to be victims. So I'm trying to figure out what I did to allow this. But I know that's not what he means - it's more like, how I react to it. If I become afraid, then I'm the victim. But I AM afraid. Fear and anger alternated. They still are, but to a lesser extent. As opposed to yesterday, today I had no urge to randomly drive into anyone who MAY have broken into my car. Part of the awe of it was - if I go into shock to this extent over this, what the Hell would happen to my psyche if someone did break into my house? Or actually steal the whole damn car? After I called Brian, and sorted out my brain enough to drive, I pulled out of the parking lot and saw a police van about half a block down. I pulled up by them, and told them what had happened, just as an "FYI", incase it was useful background info for anything else in the area. One of the cops said, "Actually, a car was stolen out of this lot today. A Mazda 3." What the Hell??? On my way to Brian's place, in my side-view mirror, I noticed a dent in my door. Brian figures it looks like they Jimmied my lock. Fuckers. When I bought my car, I was told that it wouldn't start without this computer chip in the key. Brian figures whoever it was had a key programmed to work on some Mazda 3s - so basically he would have broken into random Mazda 3s until he found one that had a code in it matching the chip in the fake key. So - it seems that someone likely broke into my car, couldn't start it, stole what money he/she could find, and moved onto the next Mazda 3 in the lot. So - I suppose it could be said that I was really lucky - because the fucker didn't get my whole goddamn car. I did some searching on the internet to try to see if Mazda 3s are a big target for car thieves right now, and found nothing to that effect - Hondas and Toyotas still seem to be at the top of the list. But I did find a few articles from the last few months, detailing how apparently Mazda 3s can be easily broken into by hitting the passenger-side door in just the right spot. Unsettling - though it doesn't look like that was how mine was done... Bah. Getting too pissed off to keep typing about it. And I think y'all get the gist.

Today I had my chimney swept - hadn't done it since I moved in a couple years ago, so figured it was a good idea - plus, I've been getting birds in my fireplace, and wanted to deal with that. In the past, I've gotten a bird in there every few months, but in the past couple of weeks I got like 8 of them. He cleared a nest from RIGHT above my fireplace, and another one closer to the top. Swept the whole thing, and put up screens so no more birds can get in. So that's good.

Hrm... I've been typing for a long time. I have other things I need to do tonight... So off I go. I'll be back at some point, with more stories from the life of Brandi...

I'm baaaaack, with my new iMaaaaaac!!!

So, I know this took longer than I said it would, but... You'll forgive me, I know it. So what's gone down since last I was here? Plenty. Lots of adventure, as well as plenty of same-old-same-old...

The weekend after my last post, Brian DID indeed rent a camera and lense for himself to play with, so I was able to play around with his. And it was awesome.

On Saturday morning, we decided we wanted to head out to Banff. We phoned up CAA, and got them to book a hotel room for us. We stayed at Brewster Mountain Lodge, and it was awesome. We wandered around the Banff Springs Hotel taking photos, and then went to the hot springs. On Sunday we went to the Cave and Basin, and did some other random wandering around with our cameras. We each took hundreds of photos - which may make their way online one day, if we ever find the time to go through them all.

The following week, I think (going by my rather poor memory), was a typical run-of-the-mill week for us.

On Saturday the 10th, we went curling with Brian's company and had a blast. Again, many more photos were taken - and again, they may make it online one day.

On Sunday we attended the March flickrmeet, which was held this time in an actual professional photography studio. It was an opportunity for some of the photographers to try their hand with studio lighting, etc. Some of us (like me) are not really at the point where a studio makes any difference. I have to get FAR more comfortable with my SLR before any of that happens.

However, Brian and I did volunteer to model for a shoot Thorinside has had running around in his head for almost a year...



It was a lot of fun - I've never really felt so much like an ACTUAL model before. It was insane. The studio, the lights, and there were quite a few photographers there. Since it was Thorinside's vision, we took our direction from him, and he reserved the right to post his photo first, but there were quite a few other photographers there - So there are quite a few different variations on that photo. If you're interested, search "calgary flickrmeet" on flickr, and flip back through a few pages, and you'll see most of them. Pretty fun. I showed my little sister, and she was like "Yay, you're famous!" - I laughed and was like, "yeah, me and all the other millions of people on flickr" and she replied "whatever - I'm telling all my friends you're famous."

This past weekend, as we were trying to decide what to do on Saturday, one of Brian's friends (who's a photographer for a city paper) called him up to ask if he would model for a shoot he needed. I don't know how much detail I'm allowed to give out about this, considering the photo hasn't been published yet, but will be... I'll find out what I can say, and give some details when I can. It was pretty fun, though. You'll see.

And this week, my beautiful new iMac arrived:
2 gigs of memory
500 gig harddrive
2.5 ghz dual core processor
20" Monitor
*insert Tim Allen-esque 'grunt' here*

It's been so long since I've had my own home computer, and I've never really had my own NICE computer. So this is huge. So much fun. I just got it home last night, and so I'm still figuring it all out, but it can only add up to WAY too much fun...

Today is Ostara/Vernal Equinox/Spring Equinox - Happy spring everyone! Those of us who live in Calgary got a little bit of all four seasons today. Early this morning, it was so foggy it was eerie. Around 10 this morning, it was blizzarding. Blowing snow so thick I could barely see the other skyscrapers from my office. At lunchtime, I was walking around outside without a coat on, and didn't feel cold at all. Although I didn't SEE it, Brian says it rained this afternoon, and this evening it was windy, windy, windy! One of the many reasons I love this glorious city of mine.

What else is new? Oh - I finally bought myself a fancy gym membership. I've been going to the gym each weekday either at lunch or (once) after work. I've mostly been using the cardio machines - for some reason I've been craving cardio like mad lately. But when my muscles get too sore for that, then I'll swim lengths for a day or two - still getting a workout, but somehow remaining gentle on my muscles. It's awesome. I'd also forgotten how therapeutic swimming can be. It is calming, so relaxing, so cleansing. I always come out of the pool in a fabulous mood.

Okay, I have some stuff I'm going to go play with and explore on this new beautiful techno-toy of mine. I still don't have Firefox, and I think I agree with everyone else, that it's far better than Safari. Besides, it reminds me of Foxfire, which is the movie that made me discover the Goddess Angelina waaaay back in 1996. Good times. Ahahaha. What else - Oh, I'm going to download the free trial of Aperture, to see how I like it. Brian uses Adobe lightroom for his photos, but I'd like to compare it to Aperture. Can't hurt, right?

*sigh" okay, I think that's all the rambling I can do for now... I'm too distracted by all the other wonderful little bits on this machine... But I think I'll manage to update more often again, now that I have a home computer, and don't have to feel like a bad employee everytime I want to say something here. Ya know?

Hrm... One other thing I may play with - Other blogging software. Blogger looks quite different now than it did before, and I'm not sure I like it... I could do better. And I think perhaps I shall. Stay tuned...

BRB...

This is one of my favorite photos of Brian's. It's best if you can see it bigger than this, but as I've mentioned before - Blogger has its limits. For optimal viewing, go here. You'll notice the "I LOVE" scratched into the wall... It intruiges me to no end. Was it an interrupted procclamation of love to someone? What was the interruption? How come it never got finished? Or was that all? Was it simply that statement - "I love." So many questions in this picture. Beautiful, haunting. And of course, blue.

It is my lunch hour, and I've been mostly working through them lately (apart from my yoga classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which I have actually been faithfully attending for a few weeks now). I am about to get a beautiful new computer at home, so I feel like I should do no blogging until then.

And this is my post to say "I'll be back when I can blog from home!".

I suppose I can give some little updates though -

- My birthday was on Sunday. I had a really great 'birthday weekend', largely thanks to the amazing Brian. I was really impressed when he came home with a Dairy Queen cake for me, but little did I know that was the least of what I had waiting. He gave me a card, which led me to the back of his car - where I found the kitchen table I've had my eye on for some time. Tucked between the boxes was another card, leading me upstairs to my spare bedroom where I found a pair of Lululemon pants and waterbottle. And again, there was yet a 3rd card (good things happen in threes, he says), which indicated 3 months of fine cheese delivery from Janice Beaton. :) I'm thrilled. Apparently some people find that 3rd one to be a little odd, but I am really impressed - so I suppose that means we're a good match. :) We spent 2 and a half hours putting the table together, and JUST as we were moving the complete table into position, Cara and her husband and friend showed up - complete with beer and munchie food. Sweeeeet. We had fun, the 5 of us - chatted, played some Wii, etc, etc... On Sunday I had dinner with my family, which was good too. I tend to be horribly nervous and uncomfortable around my older sister, but I felt really brave and calm. Brian finally got to meet the rest of my Calgary relatives (he'd previously only met my dad) except for my Grandma, who doesn't really do the 'restaurant' thing. We went to Open Sesame - which is always a good time.

- This weekend the weather is supposed to be nice, and so I think Brian and I are going to take our cameras out on some sort of adventure. He's been thinking of buying a new camera lately, so he's considering renting one this weekend, to try it out before making the decision. If he does that, then I can use his current camera, and continue to work on getting more comfortable with the DSLR thing. I am actually at a point where I'm excited to make the switch from film to digital - I resisted for so long, but as with many other things, Brian's managed to show me the light.

- Work's still crazy and awesome. This afternoon my boss is interviewing someone for a 3-month-contract under me, and I'll be sitting in on that - It's exciting, the first job interview where I've been on the OTHER side of the table. Woo!

Aaaaand... Now it's four minutes past one, and so I need to get back to work, like a good little employee.

Ciao!