I'm back! At least in moderation ;)

A little over a year after my last *amazing* jump school on Lexi, I am finally allowed to ride again.  Of course I no longer have a horse, or money to support a new horse, or any degree of fitness...   But that's mere details ;)   Fortunately I do still have some ability to ride, rusty though it may be, and there are generally horses who need to be ridden, so...

I hopped on the cutest little pony ;)   And by cutest little pony I mean GINORMOUS percheron.   Qwyn and Lexi lived together for a while -- and Qwyn made Lexi look small.   Those of you who have seen how Lexi made me look like a child, can imagine the picture I must've made on Qwyn ;)   hahaha  And keep in mind, Zel, at just under 16hh and super compact, was about the right size for me.

It wasn't an exciting ride, nor a dramatic ride.  Qwyn might actually be the calmest horse I've ridden since I was a child.  What it was, was calm and effective.  In about half an hour we had noticeable, quantifiable, improvement.    If you'd asked me what I missed about not riding, there was quite the list...   Sunset  hacks to de-stress after work; jumping that little bit higher; nailing the impossible turn; galloping XC; upgrading -- any level can be exciting if you haven't done it on that horse before; crazy-complex gymnastics; nailing that one perfect stride of self-carriage; the satisfaction that comes from increasing that stride to an entire dressage test; goofing around bareback; hanging out in the field while my horse grazes on clovers; the satisfaction derived from taking a completely filthy horse and turning it into something that could be seen in public; the nicker when you walk in the barn first thing in the morning; and the list goes on...   What I probably wouldn't have thought of and what became very clear today is how happy it made me and how much satisfaction I got from being able to get on a horse and create improvement.  Qwyn is not the most athletic horse, but she is one of the most willing I've sat on.  I teach two of her riders on a regular basis, so I have some idea of her background and the things they struggle with.   It was only a walk-trot ride, but by the end I had significantly more softness and connection than I'd had at the beginning, a better rhythm, and smooth transitions.  As well as a very good idea of what needs work ;)   I was pretty pleased with all that for one ride :)   I could feel she was starting to get tired so we went on a hack at that point.

I was also very impressed out hacking -- I remember when I started having her in lessons, she had a strong routing habit; I figured for sure she'd be a bit of a nightmare to hack through shoulder-high grass.  But clearly she's had some good hacking training because she was a complete lady out there.   So of course I dismounted before we got back and let her graze a bit in the yummy clovers ;)

And now I very much want to do it again with feeling ;)   Although since a fun bouncy little TB project is not in the budget any time soon, I think it'll be a case of improving my student's horses where they want help and catch riding from time to time.  But it's still way better than "thou shalt not ride".   And what a gorgeous day to start with.  Huge thanks to Kelly for lending me her lovely mare for my first ride in over a year!

We have now been officially welcomed

So it turns out the Welcome Wagon is an actual thing.  Who knew?   hahaha I definitely thought it was a phrase left-over from a fictional Leave-it-to-Beaver-ish time.  But no, I was out in the yard with the dogs and Chris came back with the oddest look on his face: "ummm the lady from the Welcome Wagon is here..."

Really?   Yup, really.  But unlike what I jokingly referred to as the welcome wagon (that'd be our awesome neighbour who brought us cookies ;) this one did not come with baked goods.  She came with a basket of flyers for local businesses, some discounts (free pizza!  Woohoo!), and some moderately useful items (bike trail map for one).

This particular ad amused me more than any;
Alas our lotto ticket failed :(

What also amused me was that it was clear that while she's lived here forever, she's not particularly happy with the changes in the neighbourhood after the last few years ('they turned all our shops into condos').   Nor did she seem particularly interested in being there; she was very pleasant, certainly knowledgeable and helpful, just didn't seem terribly enthused about her spiel -- maybe because she no longer believes in said neighbourhood? ;)   I don't know, just was somehow the opposite of what I would've envisioned as a welcome wagon had I thought such things actually existed.

So apparently it's a Canadian thing, and available across the country -- you can sign yourself up or, as we discovered, be randomly signed up ;)   Their website suggests they do other things too (new baby, retirement, etc) but I don't know anybody who's experienced it.  Wikipedia says it was a US thing first (by two years), but they don't do home visits anymore.  So there is your educational moment of the evening.  You're welcome.

Spanish, Marriage, Sasha, and Killerboots -- might be one of my more eclectic posts

I've been using Duolingo in an attempt to learn some Spanish (for which "hola", "por favor", "gracias", and "cerveza" was the sum total of my vocabulary before starting).  And for the most part, I quite like it.  I'd like a little more (read any) explanation sometimes (esp for tense changes) but it is really helpful and I'm finding things are coming easier to me.  All good.  But did it ever present me with a HUGE demotivator the other day.   You see, I was on like an 84 day streak.  Pretty happy about that.  And any day that I hadn't done my practice, it'll remind me at 8:00 pm that I should go practice.  And to avoid breaking my streak, I did.   But then the other day, I noticed it said 4-day streak.  Wtf???    So I went to look, and it turns out on Monday I did half the practice.  But then never went back and did the other half.  So I guess since I had technically signed it, it didn't send the reminder :(  And so it no longer counted as a streak.   Motivation gone.  Yesterday was the first day since starting that I didn't sign in at all.

Monday's little half-circle did me in.  So unimpressed.

And yes, I realize the silly little tracker shouldn't be the only motivation to study, but really...  When I'm not just killing time on the train and it's unlikely I'll be anywhere where I need the language as a life skill any time soon, those little things help.  I also think they really should consider fit-bit-like badges.   They start out well with being able to purchase things with coins earned through practice (that's how my owl got his really cool suit ;) but the things you can buy are super-limited and after a week or two of practice you'll have earned everything there is to earn.   Doesn't seem to be much of anything after that.  Very interesting to me the impact that has though; I've read some of the studies on adult learning, but never really believed how strong a motivator (or de-motivator) it could be.  Sheesh.

In other news...

Yup.  As of next weekend, my parents will have reached 40 years together!  14,610 days. 350,640 hours. 21,038,400 minutes.  3 children. Countless moments. Together. Congratulations :)

If it's next weekend, why mention now?  Well their surprise party was last night and it went really well :) It was, in fact, a surprise and they seemed really happy with it.  Planning it was entertaining and started ages ago (have to get in people's calendars early!)   The first concern was the day after I started sending invites, when my inbox was full of emails that read "Bev and Al's 40th" and Mum walked in and was looking at the screen over my shoulder.   I couldn't even scroll cause they took up the whole screen!   hahahha quick distraction and window switch and good to go.  I was definitely worried I'd blown it from the beginning though.   Then there was a later concern when Dad told me he was going to Rouyn-Noranda that weekend.  Ummm but no...   Just waited and watched that one though as it seemed a good chance it'd fall through.   It did.  Phew ;)   And THEN, guess which weekend the surgeon's secretary originally suggested for my eye surgery.  "It's the first date he has available in May..."  "How about late April?"  "Oh sure, we can do the 29th."  Sold.    

This photo captured everyone except Jamie and Barb.
Jamie, because he was the photographer.
And Barb, because Jamie was the photographer ;)

On the day of everybody was there on time.  Chris and Melissa provided giant balloons -- they couldn't get any "40th" balloons, so got creative :)   It was kinda awesome.  I wish I'd thought to get a photo, you can kinda get the idea from the shot Jamie took :).  Linda and Jamie got my parents there on the premise of other friends had cancelled plans and they already had the reservation.   I had a quick chat with the hostess to arrange that "Holmes, party of 4" be brought to our room ;)   And all was good.  She thankfully ignored Dad's suggestion that "this booth by the window" would be just fine ;)  And before he could argue too much, Mum had realized what was going on.  The look on her face still makes me smile :)  So other than a lack of mint, it went really well.   Mum and Dad seemed super happy.  Thanks to all who came :)

Completely unrelated -- I am finally teaching Sasha to walk on a leash.  As a barn puppy all I cared about was getting her obedient and responsive off-leash.  Sadly, that's not terribly useful where we are now.  But man is she ever a super-smart puppy.  It's fun to see her brain work.  Using the very simple, if slow, method of any time she pulls we stop.  In order to go anywhere she has to make the leash loose.  And we're getting longer and longer distances before she hits the end of the leash now (honestly, it was like 2 steps when we started this game on Fri.  By sat we were up to about half a block.  Which doesn't sound like much, but it's pretty extreme improvement; especially as she hasn't been to the park to burn off steam since Friday).

Back to work tomorrow.  I'm still not managing to be fully functional for an entire day yet, so slightly concerned about this idea.   Doctor's note says off till end of May, so thinking I may go the safe route and start with half days.  Wish me luck!

And just because it made me laugh -- this was the after photo from a dog groomer I'm thinking about taking Sasha to.   The name is just so perfect.  Enjoy!

I've gotten so good at sleeping I can do it with my eyes closed!

I writing this post sitting at my desk in my home office.  Normally, this would not be a noteworthy statement, but as some of you may know, my life is rarely normal ;)

So we moved recently.  Step one was to rid ourselves of the horrifying pink that coated all the walls.

Why women live longer than men...

I would like it noted that the impressive horrificness that was that shade of pink is not done justice by my iphone camera.  Anyways, once that was accomplished (injury free, I might add ;) we could start unpacking and organizing and other such normal moving things.  Our bedroom was the first room I focused on, with my office being a close second.  But I didn't actually have a desk, so it was less effective than it could be.  We do live all of five minutes from Ikea (who we've also learned has an amazing return policy -- but that's another story).

Pre-desk.  My office-mate is horrible about hogging both the chair and the printer.

However, before I could get to that, I had to have more eye surgery.  I was more anxious about this one than I had been the others.  A combination of factors: the last surgery was the first that actually resulted in permanent vision lost for me; a rather brutal reality check.  And dealing with the fact that the prognosis was not terribly promising.  Suffice to say I was *very* relieved when I woke up to discover that it had gone well, there were no new holes in my retina, and most importantly, I did not have to hold any particular position for any length of time.  There is no way I can convey the relief I felt at that.  My shoulder still hurts from the last time.   In fact, there were very few restrictions beyond take it easy and don't do anything excessive.  Ummm, right.   AND, I was feeling well.  Woohoo!

So Mum, knowing me better than the doctor, set more definite rules: "Pick one, one-hour job each day and make it take five hours."   No using the recovery week to be productive.  Seems reasonable -- I really don't want to go through this again.   But what I didn't realize was that my body would not agree.  One hour would be way too much to ask *sigh*.

Surgery day is all pretty much a blur.  I was staying at my parents cause Chris had to work, so Mum was taking me for a follow up appointment.   I was feeling fine, able to eat dinner, and Chris came over for a while that evening.  All good.   Follow up appointment was slightly scary in that when the surgeon took the eye patch off I couldn't see anything.  Not even light and shadows.  But after a few minutes I could see (at least from the bottom half of my eye) when he waved his hand in front of me.  To put in perspective, said hand was close enough I could feel the air move on my face.  Interestingly, repeating the process now, I can almost see as much with my eye closed as I could see with it open that day.  (Try it, close your eyes gently in a bright room and move your hand around in front of your face -- the light and shadows move.  That's how much vision I had on day 1.)

Feeling good so Mum and I went to Fran's for breakfast before going home.  I was going to play with the dogs for a bit while they ran some errands.  They weren't gone long, but by the time they got back I felt so sick.  Nauseous, with a pounding headache.  So not fun.   Mum took me home and I curled up into bed.  For hours.   Got up, feeling slightly better, late afternoon.  Stayed awake long enough to go grab some dinner and come back -- all in, less than 2h.  And went back to bed.  I'm pretty sure I slept all the next day.  Basically woke up, got dressed, had something to eat, and went back to bed.  Would wake up for a little bit mid afternoon, then have another nap.  Then I'd be good for a couple hours that evening.  And out all night.

Monday -- having now slept for essentially 3 days, I had a little more energy when I woke up.   So I decided I needed to get my desk (remember the desk?).  Because, of course, I'd be working from home the next week so really -- this could be Monday's one hour job.   Yeah, I can still hear that mocking bastard Hindsight laughing.

Lesson 1 -- I am *not* okay with driving with the air bubble in my eye.  Not even the five minutes to Ikea.  I did it, and I was smart enough when I got there to find drive-through parking (turns out Ikea is all kinds of empty at random times in the day), but it's not something I want to repeat any time soon.  Now I knew what desk I wanted so was just a matter of going and getting it.  No weight restrictions, so should be fine.  Right.  Except my body didn't seem to get that memo at all.   With some creative solutioning I managed to get the boxes (yes two, why would I get a desk that all came in one piece) onto the cart, checked out, and got everything loaded into the car with only minor assistance from a lovely couple passing by.   Got home, got the light box upstairs, decided there was no way I could move the other one, so opened it to take the pieces out.  Nope -- turns out it was all one piece *sigh*.  Executive decision that that could wait till Chris got home from work to help me.  Went back in to decide what to do with the rest of my hour.

Sleep.  Sleep was what to do with the rest of the hour.  And the next several as well.  Woke up long enough to a (potentially earned) lecture and help with the other box, find some food, and back to sleep.  Sadly, not even exaggerating.

Tuesday the fence guys were coming to fence off the 15' of yard that's not fenced so our dogs could come home :)   I was still drugged enough that I managed to sleep through much of their building.  And when I wasn't asleep I was doing literally nothing.   Like sit on the couch and stare into space.  Actually quite disturbing, esp as I wasn't bored with this situation.  The thought of moving or even turning on the tv was just entirely too much.   But the puppies came home Tues night!  Woohoo!  Chris and I went for dinner with my parents and I played with the dogs for a bit before bed.

I'm actually really happy with how this turned out

By Wednesday I was starting to be able to be up for a couple hours in the morning, sleep most of the afternoon, and up a reasonable amount of time in the evening.  All of this time was spent with the dogs -- nothing productive happened.

They were okay with nap time too :)

So on Thursday the time came to build my desk.   I have built more than my fair share of Ikea furniture so I wasn't too concerned about this.  The first challenge was the lack of depth perception.  Now for those who have never experienced it, it's very odd.  For me at least, it's not as though the world is suddenly 2D.  Everything looks normal -- you can see what's near and what's far for the most part.  But when you reach for something it's never quite where it should be.  Now, I haven't had any depth perception since the last surgery, so you'd think I'd be used to it.  And indeed my brain had sorted that out -- I was comfortable driving and shy of somebody expecting me to catch something, I had acclimatized and could function.  But yeah, whatever's different this time had undone that.  And made it way worse.  So why does this matter for furniture?   Well -- just try putting the screwdriver head into the slit in the screw when it's not where your brain is telling you it is.   Hammering was done in the most tentative of manner.  Everything that should've taken one try took at least three.  It was not a fun game.   

And eventually I hit one I couldn't solve.  For the life of me didn't get why one piece didn't work.  Decided future Lauren could deal with that and went and...  You guessed it.  Had a nap.  A long one.  Chris figured out in about 30 seconds later that I had put the piece in backwards -- label's might've been nice ;)   Admittedly I'd already figured that'd be the next thing to try, but was not up to getting said pieces out to reverse them.

Suffice to say by Friday I had a functional desk ;)   The job that should've taken an hour, took me five days.  I still wasn't up to being awake all day, but was at least down to one nap a day.  Still stunned at how much this last one knocked me out.   It is now the next Friday, but we had Mother's Day in there and then this week I started back at work (working from home, using said desk).   Monday I way overdid it *sigh*  And spent the rest of the week paying for it.  By Thursday I was pretty useless -- wicked headache and nausea again.   Did one meeting that was really important and skipped all the others, mostly curled in a ball.  Feeling better today, but again only worked about an hour.  At least made it through today without a nap.  As this is the first day of that, I'm not holding my breath for an entirely successful first week back at work, but we shall see.   I'm lucky that they're super supportive -- that helps.   And doctor's note technically says to start back May 30, which seems a little excessive, but helps me not feel guilty if I have to leave early a couple days.

I'll tell ya -- two weeks passes really fast when you're sleeping 12-18 hours / day ;)   But here's hoping in the end I'll be able to see stuff.  And now, it's time to sleep.  Night!

Happy Mother's Day to my closest friend :)

To the woman who climbed mountains with me...

Happy Mother's Day!!!

To my all-round amazing mom, for whom my vocabulary is insufficient to express what she means to me.   Let's just consider shall we, this past year.  She's supported me through not one, not two, but four eye surgeries -- rearranging her schedule to take me to appointments or play chauffeur when I couldn't drive, helping run errands, and generally doing anything she could to make the experience slightly less miserable.  Now keep in mind, I've been an adult for quite some time now, and am a married one at that, so this is all stuff she could easily have stepped back from.  But no, because she is the incredible person she is, anything I needed, or anything that would help, she was there for me.

Then there was her and my Dad's joint awesomeness of letting their adult daughter live with them, and one step above that, always making me feel welcome there.  That made a frustrating situation significantly more bearable.

And then, not only did they let me live with them, but when we were trying to sell our house and move, they took both Sasha AND Tucker -- for months!  And took amazing care of them even after we moved while we got the new house puppy ready :)

Then there was the move itself, when they came out in the ice storm to help us relocate from Paris to Burlington.

Yup, I won the parent lottery for sure.  And my bond with my mum is extra special.  I love the days we manage to align schedules and commute home together -- it's those little day to day things that mean so much to me.  You know, to the job she helped me get the interview for ;)

Love you Mum!

That moment when you realize it's Friday...

So usually after I get off the train, my walk commute to work is short, under construction, and completely boring.  Today, however, I wasn't going to work but rather up to St. Mike's.  And it was cold, which meant an indoor walk instead.  This provided more entertainment than I had anticipated.

First was the alarms going off in Union Station.  I assumed they were first level fire alarms that were to be ignored like most first level fire alarms.  Which was all good till I heard a seemingly harmless announcement that lead to all the security guards booking it.  Even the info dude was on his walkie talkie and left his station.   Alas I had insufficient time to play lost tourist so I just left the building and whatever was going on is a story I shall never know.

So because I didn't wander down to the old section (where the alarms were) I was forced to go outside to cross the street.  Horror of horrors - it's cold out there!  That one block was just long enough to confirm it should be an indoor walk today.  However it was also long enough to walk past the best sight.  A well dressed older man, envision movie style grandfather mafia, smoking a cigar, leaning on the golden lion statue.  I really wish I'd stopped to ask if I could take his photo :).

Sadly, I did not, and instead ducked indoors to the sounds of a polka band playing in the subway.  It was way too early for that!  Although really, I'm not convinced there is a good time for polka.

Decided I wanted breakfast and just kept walking till I found a breakfast place w a moderate line instead of a huge one.  Have also decided mini muffins are awesome!  Cheap and just the right size :).  And pina colada flavoured ones are just fun.

So eventually made it where I was going and was deemed healthy enough for surgery.  Ummm woohoo?   And then back to work.  But as I have a few very important meetings this aft, I had to dress like a grown up.   Not wearing casual clothes on Friday makes it feel like it's not Friday, which then makes the realization that it is, in fact, Friday, fairly wonderful :)

Happy Weekend!

When the wall paper really doesn't want to come down

Pro tip of the day - when removing wall paper, try using fabric softener before resorting to scoring it.  I was definitely losing the battle with the wall paper (not the paste, the actual paper) and the paint store lady suggested mixing fabric softener with the hot water.   I didn't have much faith, but it worked brilliantly!   I am pleased to announce we are now wallpaper free.  In a related note - I need to buy more fabric softener ;)

It's been officially two weeks now and have to say it's kinda nice being able to live with my husband :).  Novel concept eh?   I am finding the commute brutal - more so coming home than going in.  But I expect I'll acclimatize soon enough.    We're in, and while there's obviously still a ton to do, I'm pleased with how quickly we're getting stuff done.  I am looking forward to the after pictures ;)

On my way now to the pre-surgery test.  As in am I healthy enough for surgery.  Now in my case there sb no issue, but I do wonder what happens if you fail.  It's not as though said surgery is elective.  Or what if it's even more critical - your appendix burst, but I'm sorry you're not healthy enough for surgery.   Anyways - so be it.   My odds for the next surgery being a success aren't as high as I'd like, so cross your fingers for me!

Still playing with duolingo (need something to do on the train!) but I'm at the point now where I'm finding it insufficient as a primary learning tool.  Suspect it'd be a great support to something else, but on its own, no.  I find I have random questions and it doesn't offer solutions.   Found a FB group that answered the only one I cared enough to actually ask, but I think it's time to actually open the book I bought weeks ago *g*.  Oh come on, you had to know I'd buy one.   Alternately may take an actual course - but not doing that till after surgery.

Off for now!

PS - have to say, new ap I found for writing on my phone is way better!  No way to get around thumb typing, but other than that, all good now :).  Cut and paste into Blogger and done.

Midnight Musings

My husband is snoring and my mind is spinning.  There's not too much I can do about the first issue, but writing generally helps calm the hamster, so here goes :)

Consider yourself forewarned - I  downloaded a blogger ap and am thumb typing this on my phone; I guarantee nothing.

I haven't quite figured out why it's exponentially more difficult to move two people than one, but it most definitely is.  I had tentatively booked the week off work, fully planning to actually work both Thursday and Friday.  Yeah.  That's not happening.

However, we are in the Burlington house.  Woohoo!  We did the final walk through of the Paris house this afternoon; the new buyer gets it tomorrow.      It's been a busy week, but overall all good.  I'm typing this lying on the couch in front of our fireplace -- all kinds of civilized.  

So the day we got the house had an ice storm. Who's surprised by this?  I thought not; you're not new here.

One day I will move during nice weather;
Today is not that day.

What it did highlight for me though was how very unfit I am compared to when I had the school *sigh*.  This move was way more exhausting than that one, with significantly less effort required.  Booo.  Next surgery end of April so having a hard time getting motivated for fitness now that it'll have to end in a month, but after that...  Game on :)

Anyways - have spent the last few days unpacking, organizing, and problem solving.  Which, except for the first step, is pretty much just like going to work ;)

I feel like I actually moved into Ikea though.  Have been spending entirely too much time there and at Walmart.  Here's hoping the next house we're in a financial position not to need to visit either ;)

The kitchen is a fraction the size of our last one -- you know, proportionate to the size of the house ;).  This has made for some interesting unpacking challenges, but fortunately we do have a number of cabinets and I managed to find home for everything.  Well, everything except the food!  I suggested to Chris that we needed somewhere to put groceries before we bought them and through his kijiji powers, we had an armoire by dinner time.  And thanks to Walmart combined with my extensive assembling-cheap-furniture skills, we had shelves and a workable pantry the next day.  That made a huge difference to the usability of the house.

We also bought an oven.  Why?  Well because the house didn't come with one.  So random.  It's here now and actually got used today.  How civilized!   We've also ordered new counter tops because Chris is already missing his granite.  He really did lose a stunning kitchen in the move.   Exciting though -- I get an instant hot water faucet with the new counters.  Woohoo!   Okay, apologies to those who've been reading the blog since it's inception as the definition of "exciting" may have deteriorated somewhat.  Or at very least changes from day to day ;).   Still saving for our trip to Africa -- that'll redefine the word again for the better :)

Let's see, what else...  I discovered today that our official translation of our marriage license (complete with stamps!) is insufficient; I have to get an Ontario translator to translate it.  Can you hear my eyes roll?  Even *my* Spanish (we're talking approximately a month of Duolingo here) is almost sufficient to read it.  Sheesh.  So that was a good waste of a morning.  I will remain with the ambiguousness of two last names for a while yet it seems.  Will likely try again in that 'allowed off the couch but not at work' recovery period after surgery.

Said surgery has a 60% chance of success -- with success being loosely defined as me not needing any more surgery *sigh*.  No commitment or even suggestion as to what, if any, vision I might have at the end of this.  But fingers crossed.  If the other 40% comes to play, it'll mean at least one more cycle of surgery :(

So I'm more awake now than I was when I started typing, but at least the hamster has chilled out a bit.  I feel like switching to some mindlessness on my Kobo for a bit might do the trick.   Tomorrow is all about sitting on hold w various agencies - gas, hydro, town, etc.   Not really how childhood me envisioned adult me spending vacation time but such is reality right?   Hey maybe when I can't sleep tomorrow night I'll actually write a flash :). Ummm don't hold your breath on that one ;-P 

Okay off now.  For real this time.   Sweet dreams.

*edited to add: so the ap selected the wrong photo from my phone, but it worked equally well.  Uploading was a PITA though so methinks I'll go back to the old fashioned way of typing at least for a while...*

Ding, dong, the house is gone...

It's been what one might consider an interesting week...

Let's see.  Friday night we made arrangements to go see seven houses on Saturday morning.  By Saturday morning only four were left.  Of the four, we quite liked two.  One had only just come on the market, and we were pretty sure it'd have a bidding war putting it out of our price range (it did -- ended I think about $50K above asking), the other (which we actually liked better) we decided to put an offer in.

So we met our agent Saturday afternoon to sign off on that, then drove out to meet Kerri and Steve for dinner for Kerri's bday.  Yeah :)   Super good to see them cause, well, that doesn't happen nearly often enough!

Sunday daytime I've already pretty much forgotten, so I feel like we didn't do a ton ;)   We did, however, go for an absolutely lovely dinner with Chris' family for his birthday.  So. Much. Yummy. Food.   Ugh.   Came home in a food coma and did nothing till sleep time.  Sometimes those are actually the best days.

I stayed in Paris on Sunday night because Monday was my brother-in-law's wedding.  Yup, Ted and Hillary got married on leap day :)  Was a really nice ceremony; Hillary was gorgeous and the kids were so excited.  This was followed by - yup - more food.  hahaha  Just seemed to be the weekend for it.   Now all the guys were impressed with the idea that Ted would only have to celebrate an anniversary every four years (why is it a have to for men but a want to for women?   That's a divide I've yet to understand).   But really, you know it's going to be a mini-anniversary on the normal years and a big anniversary on the leap years.   Which  means every four years, he has a big anniversary.  Every four.  Most couples celebrate a big anniversary every five after the first one.  One, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, etc...  But no, now Ted's going to have every four AND likely all the big ones.  And that's when we found out leap day was Hillary's suggestion.  Well played ;)    hahaha and know that I am just teasing -- I actually think that's a very cool date to get married on; I love it when people pick days that have a significance beyond "random Saturday".

Now in the middle of all this, shortly after the deadline (which occurred during the ceremony), we received word the sale of our house had been finalized!   Woohoo!  Not to take away from the wedding, but that news was also pretty exciting - at least for us :)  

Because I figured that might run late, I made arrangements to work from home on Tues as well and stayed in Paris on Monday night.   This ended up being a good thing as the only time we could make work to go see the mortgage person was Tuesday late afternoon.  Getting approval was no problem; deciding the most efficient way of handling our finances, best balance of money to put toward the down payment and not being extraordinarily broke after, and horrifyingly adult decisions about such fun things as insurance -- all of that was what took the time.

So much time that by the time we left, there was a rather impressive blizzard going on.  As such, I decided to stay Tues night as well and work from home on Wed.  Just as well because on Wed our house offer was accepted!   Woohoo!   So after Chris got home from work we signed the small mountain of paper work and it's done.  We now own (or are about to own) a house in Burlington.  Woohoo!  Sadly it's still going to be an hour and a half commute one way *sigh* and the house has a tiny yard (sorry Sash!) -- but other than that I'm super stoked about it.  Will be nice to settle a little, and, well, actually living with my husband is something I've been looking forward to for a while :)

After signing paperwork, I raced home to change into barn gear and then off to teach, where Kennedy and Callie were just so much fun to teach jumping.  Both totally on the ball tonight.  Awesome.  Cold night though.  Brrrrr.   And man do I ever miss riding :(

Now the challenge for tomorrow is to figure out how to write a cheque on a chequing account for which I never actually got any cheques ;)   Seriously, who writes cheques anymore?   But I need to, so that's tomorrow's challenge before meeting up with our Burlington agent to provide said cheque as a deposit for the new house.  Fortunately there is, in fact, a branch in my office building and I feel like they'll be able to resolve that for me at lunch time tomorrow.

Friday I once again relocate back to Paris (3 or 4 weekends left and then no more!!!) so that Saturday we can go back to Burlington to do the house inspection.  Assuming it passes, we'll be good to go.  Close on the new house Easter weekend, and have to be out of ours end of March.

SO excited!  

Intelligence is like a four-wheel drive. It allows you to get stuck in more remote places.

So I've been playing on Duolingo lately and am quite enjoying it.  Some of the completely random sentences amuse me to no end although the vast majority are ones I'd never actually use in real life.   I understand we're working with a completely limited vocabulary, but really -- the odds that I ever need to say "my black cat sleeps on the large monkey" are pretty slim ;)  I kinda roll my eyes and go along with it.

But sometimes, sometimes they get it just right:

Yup, I'm really missing riding these days.  Duolingo and various other random new hobbies mostly just to combat that -- well that, and to increase fitness since the barn has previously *been* my form of fitness.

Ah well -- first world problems right?   ;)

As for Duolingo, there are several things I like about it.   I'm doing a language I've no experience with and it's very intuitive when starting from zero.  Lots of quick wins, and well paced learning.  I love that for the "type what they speak" exercise, it plays at a normal speaking rate, but also has an option of slowing it down to individual words.  Think. Of. Speech. Like. This.   When I understand it on fast, I'm all kinds of proud of myself.  But on slow sometimes I can get it even when I don't really know what's being said -- so that's fun :)

The written exercises -- word matching and text translation are quite good.  When you're wrong, the feedback is useful.  

The speech exercise amuses me -- I have no idea how that engine works and I kinda question it.  For those who haven't played this game, it says a phrase and you repeat the phrase into the microphone.  It then determines whether or not you're close.  But there've been times I didn't even have a clue what they were saying and it was right, and other times I was reasonably confident and it politely suggested I should try it again ;)   I don't do this one nearly as often as I'm usually on the train when I'm playing this game and so I don't want to be talking at my phone.

One thing I'd like to see would be an improved review engine.  It's good at inserting things into short term memory, but the reviewing methodology seems far less developed.  Mosa Linga, which I've also played with, was far better at that.   Sadly though it failed in comparison with everything else.  If Duolingo could just pick up that piece...   It does allow for review though, so there are options -- I just don't know that it's as effective as it could be.    

Anyways -- if you're on, feel free to add me: lhfall -- always looking for motivation :)