tvordlj | Entries tagged with holidays

Had a song running through my brain all week. Or part of one. Why is it when you get an "earworm" you only get a few lines of it repeating over and over even when you know most of the words? This time, at least, it was a song that always makes me happy. Mr. Blue Sky by ELO. This version of a video is all sunny and filled with happy. It could have been so much worse! I shall keep playing that video to prevent any lesser and more annoying song from penetrating my brain!
( Just to add to your pleasure, here's the lyrics )
This weekend Canada celebrates Thanksgiving, earlier than the US one by about 5 or 6 weeks. According to some sources, the tradition of a Thanks-giving in Canada can possibly be traced back to the mid 16th century when explorer Martin Frobisher held a celebration to thank God for surving a perilous journey across the ocean. Days of Thanks were not just for harvests and the tradition goes back further than that even so when North America was settled, it was just a carry on of the tradition. We also know that Champlain had feasts in thanks for harvests and these celebrations started at the end of the harvest and continued on through winter, including some of the local native tribes. That would be when he founded Port Royal in Nova Scotia in 1605, predating the first loosely recorded Thanksgiving feast in the US by nearly 20 years. Those feasts were held by the early Pilgrim settlers in the New England area. The reason it's earlier in Canada is probably to do with our winters coming earlier.

It also means Monday is a holiday (at least for banks and governments, I think retail outlets are open but i may be wrong. They will, however, be open Sunday). We're having our family feast on Sunday though, because my sister works for a call center that keeps American holidays so she has to work on Monday.

Only because it *is* mid-morning here. I actually remembered the date today so made the efford to wear green as i don't usually remember. I have a green headband, a long green tunic with fancy embroidery on it, green socks with dancing sheep on (Yay!) and dangly pots of gold earrings. Probably the closest i'll ever get to the pot of gold! Mom gave them to me on the weekend and they are truly a marvel. I love kitchy earrings like that for occasions! I also have three scratch tickets out of the handful i got in a birthday card that each have a $2 win on it, $6 is nothing to sneeze at and i will use it to buy more i expect since they cost me nothing in the first place.

April 29 is getting closer. 45 or 44 sleeps, i can't remember off the top of my head. Once the Corrie event is over with at the end of the month, i'll post to try to arrange some meet-ups with UK London ppl. Hope to see some of you! We have a Friday and Saturday evening and some of Saturday afternoon though i do want to find some time to do either shopping or just stuff on Saturday as well. We're staying near the Angel tube station so pubs in that area would be useful but not strictly necessary.

Really looking forward to Amsterdam, Brussels and Bruges too.

I bought some larger tubs of yogurt (about 500ml) to use to make my own yogurt-and-granola rather than buying the individual pots that come with the granola to mix in. It's somewhat cheaper in the long run and also you have far more variety of the flavour of yogurt. One of the tubs was lemon but the first batch i scooped out yesterday didn't taste very lemony i noticed. When i went to put more in a bowl last night, to take to work today, i realized all the lemon was on the bottom and it all needed stirring up! doh. I guess when i open the cherry one i'll know to stir it first! I probably spent close to 10 dollars on the two 500 ml tubs and a box of granola cereal but the cereal will last quite awhile even though i'll need to keep replenishing the yogurt supply.

I have cookies, though not as many as i thought i'd have. Last year there were about 10 or 12 of us ladies in IT that participated in a cookie exchange. This year i thought there were about as many so i made 6 dozen cookies (we each give half a dozen). Only there were about 6 and only two of us actually showed up in the meeting room. One had worked all night so she was home in bed, another two were at meetings and another wasn't in work today either. The two that were in meetings came round with their offerings, but in the end i got cookies from three other people. Ah well. I brought all those cookies to work but i gave away some of them. I still have a dozen and a half gingersnaps. Cookies are always good though!

It snowed most of the afternoon and some of the morning and by 3:25 our supervisor sent round an email to say we could go home early as the driving was apparently getting bad. It wasn't great but it wasn't that bad. I got home a little early because of the connections but we weren't delayed much at all. Works for me. Tomorrow is my last day at work and every day, fewer and fewer people are in the office as they all go off on Christmas holidays. I"m off until Jan. 2 as well.

I've had loads of Christmas cards this year and i thank those of you that took the time to send one to me (us)! You know who you are! xo Got half of a photo order i put in online at the beginning of the month, but the rest of it hasn't shown up yet and also, Gramie's amazon gifts to me haven't arrived yet though they were "estimated" to get here early last week. I keep telling him that website estimates mean nothing when you are dealing with Christmas mail, customs and Canada Post. It is what it is and it'll get here when it does. I keep giving up a little prayer to the Postal Gods and Goddesses and even challenging them to produce as well as the Travel and Luggage Gods did this year. See if they will rise to the challenge! :)

wyndancyr are we still meeting after work? 4:15 on the corner spring Garden and South Park?

Someone remarked to me yesterday that i should get a job in Quality Control for Microsoft because i seem to have an inherent talent for finding bugs in applications (or, it's more likely, they find me!) and some really weird-ass shit too! Just finished wrestling with a Crystal report that was doing bizarre things, even with the help of the expert, neither one of us could figure out what to do with the report other than bring in the exorcist. Solved the problem by rebuilding the offending bit from scratch (which i'm sure i had done before but there were other things that i didn't have right with it at the time that i added in this morning.)

The City gave the top job out yesterday to the man that was the Deputy CAO. I figure they wanted to give it to him all along but had to be seen to open the job up to anyone who wanted to apply. They posted the job in the national newspapers, too and ended up giving it to the guy that was doing the job as "Acting CAO" for the past 2 months. *hrmph* politics... and don't get me started on that subject.

Then there's the "Holiday Tree" that Nova Scotia sends to the city of Boston every year. Well that's what it is this year, but before that it was the Christmas Tree. Halifax sends it in thanks to the city of Boston for the help they sent immediately after the Halifax Explosion in 1917. The grower of the tree is highly annoyed that Boston is referring it to the politically correct Holiday Tree and says if you're going to call it that, you might as well put it up for Easter! I happen to agree with him.

Christmas is becoming generified, politically correct to include everyone. Well, then, i think Hannakuh, Kwanzaa, Ramadan and Eid should be renamed as well to include everyone. But they won't, will they? And as for this "holiday" business... well you wouldn't have all this holiday and celebrations and closing of all businesses on December 25 if there wasn't Christmas in the first place. The parades still have Santa Clause at the end and that's the man that is another version of ... Father Christmas...NOT Father Holiday!!! Christmas Carols that are religious are shunned for the more generic Winter Seasonal songs like Let It Snow and Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire (which, btw, i really like along with Silver Bells and i feel a poll coming on).

I repeat, if there wasn't Christmas and centuries of celebrating it, there wouldn't be all this giving and hooha in the first place. If you're going to make it a generic winter holiday, nobody gets to buy presents, nobody gets to have a big dinner on Dec. 25, nobody gets to sing songs and go to parades and nobody gets a day off. Nobody. This and most western countries are still predominantly Christian even though lots of other cultures are increasing due to immigration and more power to them i say. But if i moved to a Muslim country i bet i wouldn't get Christmas Day off. I bet businesses are still open. I bet they wouldn't be renaming their important festivals and celebrations to include everyone. No they would not.

End of rant. Back to your regularly scheduled program.

Especially when you're cooking potatoes for salad. I swear one of these days the bottom is going to fall right out of my pot, i've burned it that many times boiling things that i've forgotten about. At least the smoke detector gets a regular workout. I should thank my ex mother in law i suppose, for buying me such good quality cookware. (something from Sears though i don't know what brand it was, this was back in the 80's. she got it in the bargain center at an employee discount). So the nice new potatatoes got burned. I actually managed to salvage about half of each one and though they are a bit overcooked, since they were "new" potatoes, they were firm enough to withstand the extra cooking time without going to mush. Nothing i hate worse than mushy potato salad. I had two large baking potatos so i cooked them as well though in the end, they were *under* cooked a bit in the middle. I used the timer on the stove this time. I think i should get to know my timer better lol Anyway, it's done, the eggs got boiled, and the potato salad is made and c hilling.

My favourite kind of potato salad is the basic classic kind. Potatoes, onion, chopped egg, mayo (Hellman's light, these days). Nothing else. If i want colour, i'll sprinkle a little paprika on it. While i was telling

gramie_dee about it i remembered how i used to like it, with a bit of that orange French dressing poured over it. Haven't thought of that in years. That used to be one of the standard salad dressings in our house along with Italian and Thousand Island (which is nice on hamburgers btw). In summer we'd have a cold supper of potato salad, green salad, sliced ham, coleslaw, maybe some cold chicken as well. There was always French Dressing and i remember having it on my potato salad as well as the garden salad greens. I now have a craving for it but i don't want to buy a bottle of it so what i'm going to do is buy a couple of those little restaurant sized packets tomorrow that will give me a taste. Ounce for ounce of course a bottle is cheaper but not if it's just going to sit there a year until i throw it out.

Next weekend is a long weekend with a holiday Monday. Most places in Canada have that civic "bank" holiday on the first Monday in August. Here in HRM it's known as "Natal Day" and it's in celebration of the founding of the cities. Used to be one each for Halifax and Dartmouth but it's been all one for quite a few years now. There's lots of stuff going on around the city and i like to try to take in some of it. There's always a bridgewalk where they close off the bridge for a couple of hours so you can walk across it on the roadway and this year it's going to be in the evening instead of the afternoon and you might get to watch the fireworks from the bridge. Dunno if i want to though as they're going to have some pyrotechnics right on the bridge so i can't see how they're advertising that you can watch from the bridge. I think i'll go back on land thanks.

Anyway if any of you locals are doing something and want company, let me know.

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