I am so happy that Barack Obama is the new President. I kind of feel like Canada has a new President! Our countries are so close...and yet so different. Is it safe to say that Obama reminds me of a Canadian? Hope I didn't offend anybody out there..but he just seems so....nice.

Things have been good around here. I am car-pooling with awesome Audrey...it was her idea to get me to work on time. That part is working, but poor Aud has to wait for me to pick her up and I am having a bit of trouble getting out of work on time. Thankfully, she is the patient sort who doesn't mind waiting a few extra minutes.

I have been very productive at work these past few days, and have been the chair of a few committees which is something new for me. I've decided to recruit various nurses in my areas into these committees to make them accountable for some of the changes and challenges that are going on. I figure that if they are in on the team decisions, that it might cut down on the complaints. It's a new way of doing things, but I'm hoping it will attract people's attention. I am going to ask different nurses for each new initiative. So far, so good.

My mom and brother went to Mexico last week. I was going to blog about it, but at the time I was so pissed that I'm not sure that it would have made sense. My brother basically came by on the Sunday night with his two cats, and said he and mom were going to Mexico the next day. I basically lost my nut, had a few too many glasses of wine (and SHRIEK!!!!) even smoked a couple of cigarettes with Aud. Anyway, I got over that. My mom offered to take me on a vacation next month, but I told her that I wouldn't feel comfortable going without Greg, because he needs a vacation too.
Two-Four spent the weekend with us last weekend. She's nuts.
Little SIL was accepted into a private college for Dental Hygiene Assistant. Little SIL is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but honestly, she's never been given a chance because 2-4 has always told her that she's disabled and "can't do that." The whole Freakin' weekend 2-4 talked about how she was worried that Little SIL wouldn't be able to do the course until finally we couldn't take it anymore. Everybody was yelling...I went to bed.
Some things, I really don't want to get involved with.

My mom called me at work today which is strange because she never calls me, and especially not at work. Turns out that her 88 year old friend was in the ICU at my hospital and she was wondering if I could find out what was going on. I have connections, so of course I was able to talk to his nurse. Poor man had already passed on by the time I arrived, but I was able to go and say goodbye to him on behalf of my mom. Now my mom is all depressed thinking that he was only 17 years older and her time is coming to an end. All I could think of to say was " you've got good genes...your mother lived to see 94. Don't worry...you'll be around to torture me for a long time!" Thankfully, I made her laugh.

Shhhh....I'm at work...and I'm blogging!

I've closed my door, turned on the radio, just finished my Swiss Chalet lunch and decided that I was in the mood to blog.

Some NY Resolutions I'm still managing. My upstairs is not too bad, I can clean up within half an hour.

Audrey and Darrell have been over a few nights for dinner as they are in the process of doing some DIY Reno's to their kitchen. They have the exact same house as ours, but the layout is opposite. Strangely, I can never figure out exactly where I'd be in my house when I'm in hers because of all the Reno's done to both homes over the last 60 years. Anyway.

Audrey has this great idea of how to get me to work on time in the morning. Anyone who knows me, know that I am not a morning person. I snooze for at least a half an hour and then Greg has to sic the dogs on me. I am given a bath of kisses every morning by 2 dogs and a cat. Dutchess is a licker in the morning when she is hungry. So today we tried Audrey's great idea: I drive her to work in the morning. Her place of employment is on my way (pretty much) but despite leaving 15 minutes earlier than I normally would have, I STILL arrived late! The roads were bad this morning so I'm sure that had something to do with it, but we might have to leave a bit earlier. It's a little strange carpooling, especially in the morning. I like listening to the radio: the news, the song of the day, and the ticket-blitz contest. Audrey likes to talk. I missed it all! And since I was trying to listen to the radio, I'm not 100% of all of her conversation, either! I am going to either have to turn u0p the radio, or ask her not to talk. Either way...I'm wondering how long the car-pooling is going to last. Audrey is an early bird, up at 5:15, out with her dogs, and then leaves for work at 7am to hang out at Wallymart for an hour and then arrives at work at 8:20. There is no way in hell that I'll be doing any of that nonsense! She is desperately trying to get me into the habit of walking the dogs really early in the morning, she even got me a snood for Christmas so I would be nice and warm.

Here is my dog-walking get-up (please keep in mind that it is minus 20 degrees Celsius, which has got to be close to zero Fahrenheit)

I wore this to work today, minus the snood. I'm secretly hoping that someone will contact What Not To Wear and nominate me. Nonetheless, I was warm on my way to work, and walking the puppies.

People who know me from a former life, would never recognize me.

Happy New Year!

So far, so good.

I believe that I have kept 2 resolutions.

I am not only starting to clean my house room by room...but I am keeping the rooms clean!

We are really tight on $ right now, so we have been making do with whatever is in our cupboards, fridge and freezer. I've even found sample pet food and have discovered that The Duchess likes puppy food. Who knew?? At 16, she can eat what she wants!

I've been journaling my WW, even though I'm not attending meetings. I figure I can save myself $600...god knows I could probably teach the classes, I've attended so many.

I have kept my wine consumption under control this week, and have probably saved myself three bottles of wine so far. Not saying that I've quit...just saying I'm keeping tabs.

I've decided that I want to start work at 9:00am, and so that is my aim. I leave at 6pm no matter what time I go in and get paid for 7.5 hours. I figure that while I'm at work, I'm going to work hard, but since I'm not getting paid any extra time, I am more than happy getting to work at a time that works for me. I will make exceptions for meetings or whatever, but I am not going to be made to feel bad for coming in to work last every morning. (This was something that was making me feel bad...) As far as I'm concerned, my job requires flex hours to be available for evening shift workers, as needed.



Enough about work.

The holidays were good. My cousin Roland is my only 1st cousin. He, and his 16 year old daughter, Johanna, came to visit for two weeks. They stayed with my mom but I spent a lot of time with them. I have to admit, I really, really liked Johanna. I think that she is similar to the kind of girl I wish I had been at 16. She's very confident with who she is. She likes being different from everybody else, without being totally weird. She's not afraid to speak up, and yet she knows how not to be rude about it. She is who she is, and she seems like such a non-neurotic teenager. Which is pretty amazing considering that her step-mother is also her aunt and has been since she was a fetus at 5 months (I'll let you figure that one out!)

Anyway, it was fun hanging out with a cool 16 yr old girl who likes shopping in thrift stores. See where I'm going here? The girl came all the way to Canada to go shopping in THRIFT stores! We had THE BEST shopping day ever, and I discovered great new places to shop!

I'm ending here, and fully intend to continue where I left off, tomorrow.