Plot Twist - July Chaos

Happy Canada Day!

So.  Three distinct areas of exciting stuff going on.  A good way to deal with this is to be well rested and eat healthy things.  I can't remember the last time I slept past 6am (those who know me will understand.... lol) and that's definitely not inspired by something as reasonable as "going to bed early".   And healthy...   Well - clearly I need the sugar boost to keep me going with the lack of sleep.  BUT.   Fun things.   Here we go, grab some popcorn and settle in - this is what's on the list for this month.    And keep in mind said lack of sleep - I do not guarantee coherence!

*Plan is definitely add a new puppy pic here later today - once we meet them*

Today is Canada Day; we are spending it by going to visit our New Puppy!!!!   Yes, you read that correctly, we're getting a puppy, will come home likely the last wknd of July.  Said puppy is a border collie (may the odds be ever in our favour!) that I hope will some day grow to be a star at agility (since I've never done agility beyond intro-to level, this is doubtful, but through no fault of said puppy!).  We think puppy's name will be Luxor, but we don't know yet which puppy will be ours as they're assigned by the breeder after they do personality testing.   I found the breeder because I met a dog while hiking up in Lions Head that I just adored and his owner told me about her.  The website is - questionable lol. Dog people and horse people are pretty generally in the same category there.  But what little info was there was good, and communicating with her was solid.   We went out to visit parent dogs and were happy with that so here we are...

Tomorrow, July 2, will be my last day of work at RBC.  The reasons I'm leaving my current role are nuanced, the reason I'm leaving RBC after 11.5 years is simple: return to office.  It takes me 2h-2h15min to commute in in the am, and between 2-3h to commute home in a lovely combo of train + stop&go traffic.   Neither C and I enjoy living in the city so would rather not move (not to mention he works out here!), and, well - work life balance is actually important (see above New Puppy! notification ;)).  They've allowed me to come in once/week for now, but only because there's not enough space in the office yet.  Once there's more space, the expectation is 4-5 days in office and, well, I'd rather not spend my life that way.   So I'm on a new adventure - almost exactly the same role, but for a health tech company.  Will be working w Imaging tech so very excited to learn that business cause, literally, life changing.  Role is fully remote with occasional "fly everyone together" type relationship building - I believe most of my team is in Vancouver.   Some huge green flags here that make me really think I've made the right decision, including that when my boss sent me some pre-read material (at my request), the org chart had already been updated to include me.  It's a little thing, but the little things matter.   

Not even kidding.

So tomorrow is my last day commuting to the office - at least for this chapter.  Then Friday we leave for our vacation to London and then Egypt!!!   Neither of us have been to either, so that'll be exciting.  London is so that C can have his 40th Bday wish of visiting the Black Prince -- or at least what little remains of him; it's also a convenient extended layover to address jet lag before Egypt.   Egypt is cause, well, Egypt!   lol Egypt in July is going to be a degree of hot I don't think C and I can even really fathom right now, but plus side, that brought ticket prices down as it's their offseason.   The same is not true in London ;) 

So when we get back from vacation it unwinds - get home, start new job, bring home puppy.   The only downside is I won't get to go to cottage week this year which is about my favourite week of the year, but not really reasonable 3 days after starting a new job and I'd like a weekend to get to know said puppy before having to manage him/her while working full time.  

So yeah - that's the current chaos.   All good chaos.  And given the heat wave, we're even getting in acclimatization for Egypt temps ;).  Three significant things in one month.  Anybody surprised by that?  Anybody? ;-P