Good Start To A Great Year

Over the holidays we had some trouble finding and switching our internet providers, so there were a lot of people who we had to wait to contact via Magic Jack. But I am happy to say that Doug got us up and running again.

Doug and I enjoyed our Christmas break, but it's back to work with us. Just like the Durham Region houses Ajax, Ontario on the edge of the GTA, our home in Sherwood Park is in Strathcona County, on the edge of Edmonton. Doug works at a refinery on the border of Edmonton and Strathcona County. You may remember that I work for the same company, but at their head office in Edmonton. Well, just before Christmas I started doing work for a project up in Fort Saskatchewan about 45 km away. We both have to be at work for the same time, so having only one car was a bit of an obstacle.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary to me!!!! I got a new car!
The 2010 Ford Focus has it all! A wicked sound system, heated leather seats and side mirrors, sunroof, Bluetooth, and a dash full of light up buttons for things!

Much as I have been enjoying the car, I have been feeling a little guilty that Doug has barely had a chance to use it. The Buick has a large engine, and even with gas prices bumping between 80 and 90 cents, it is just more cost efficient for me to use the Ford.

In home news, Mitsy and I had a small falling out, when she decided to pee on my white sheep skin rug! I have no idea what that was about, but I will be scouring Pintrest for a cleaning solution! 

I have been going to the gym after work. It has been fun and exciting so far, but I am looking forward to working out with Doug. He's a little concerned that I will try to kill him, so he's waiting until "the novelty wares off". It's a shame that none of my friends here live in Sherwood Park. Sometimes it would be nice to workout with someone other than the voices on my MP3 player!
One of the locations by my house has a Jacob's Ladder! I had never seen one before, but it is a conveyer style wooden rung ladder. It's my favourite toy there right now.

Speaking of the gym, I have a date.

Bye!

Sherwood Park, Alberta

We have had an interesting time out here so far. We went out to Candy Cane Lane and Maisie's House with some friends and their little girl. Doug is looking forward to a bachelor party in a Chalet in BC, and I am looking forward to a shopping trip to an outlet mall in Calgary with some friends. They have a Coach outlet and a Michael Kors Outlet there that we are excited to hit!

But lately all of our adventures and misadventures have been in the car. The snow here is intense! I used to work down to road at our head office, but now I have to drive up to Fort Saskatchewan every work day. The first few times I tried to find my way up there I was lost thanks to the snow caked over all of the road signs. Since then I have swerved off the road, fallen into snowy ditches, gotten locked out of my car, gotten frozen out of my car, run out of gas on a desolate highway... The list goes on and on. Doug and I have both been spoiled with company trucks a couple of times, and are now looking into getting one ourselves.

But much as the snow is a menace, it is beautiful!

~*~

 At the end of November Doug and I moved to Sherwood Park. Sherwood Park is a hamlet on the edge of Edmonton. Our new apartment is about 10 minutes down the road from our old one, but in a well kept building in a quiet neighbourhood. There is a plaza with a Homesense right behind me, as well as a Superstore, and a great gym walking distance from our patio. The Sherwood Park Mall is literally down the street and has a La Chateau outlet in it, that I have been enjoying. one of Doug's friends lives around the corner, so he has been enjoying some much needed guy time!

The apartment has a great deal of storage, thankfully, as we still have about 20 totes en-rout from Ontario.I miss my artwork. But I am looking forward to getting my easel and painting some new pictures for our poor white walls!

Doug was the first to be bitten by the Christmas bug this year! He reminds me of Scrooge on Christmas day sometimes!










I have two Christmas trees in the attic in Ajax, but none here. Douglas bought me a little guy to put all of the decorations that arrived on. Moo Moo has been helping me decorate in her own little way. She loves to snoop in the boxes of things, and play with whatever she can get her paws on. Today, as always, she "helped" me wrap a few gifts by pulling off the ribbon and chewing up the ends, and crumpling as much of the wrapping paper as she could. At least she leaves the tree alone, for the most part. She likes to sleep under it (I wonder if she remembers that she was a Christmas gift when she was a kitten.), and chew on the candy canes, but to my relief, she leaves all of the glass ornaments alone (one bonked her in the head once, and she's been holding a grudge), and only occasionally tail flicks the others.

Well, its time to bake cookies. I will write again soon.

Merry Christmas

This Is Why We Came Here

Most of you know about Doug's experience the first few weeks here. He has had more work than he knew what to do with! He's been ecstatic that, not only has he had to turn job offers down, but he has also gotten to choose what he wants to do here. Unlike Ontario's job market that held a thumb on his aspirations and played a part in breaking his spirit, Edmonton has done nothing but help him expand his horizons.

He is so happy! Not only was he able to land the job he wanted, but they bent over backward to have him! His training was paid for, his compensation is remarkable, and he is looking forward to every weekend off.

Edmonton has not only helped Douglas. I transferred from my Costco, in Ajax,  to one here for an easy transition. At first I was hoping to stay with Costco for a few months for some added stability, but the job was getting to me. I was bored, and agitated there. After two weeks it became clear that I would need to start looking to get back into an office. One week later, I had three job offers, one of which I accepted with gusto. It was everything I was hoping for! Challenging daily problems to solve, researching, invoicing and accounting, with plenty of multitasking, await me every weekday. Weekends were always free to live my life! But then, a day later, I was called back in to the company Doug is now working for. Apparently they had a sudden opening and I was the only person the lady in HR could think of who had had the experience to do it! Now I work at Head Office as Cost Control.

So here we are, working for the same company, making an exciting contribution to our future everyday, and looking forward to all of the quality time we will be able to spend together!

This all happened on October 1st, exactly 32 days after we arrived in Edmonton. After struggling for decades in Ontario's miserly job market, we have never felt so valued, or charmed or as grateful as we do now!


Doug told me yesterday, "Every day, when I wake up, I feel like I'm on the first day of a vacation! You know that anticipation you can hardly contain? The other days are great, but nothing beats the anticipation of that first day!"

A Stunned Silence

Please excuse us while we experience our stunned silence. 

I am sure there will be much to say when reality returnes and we are numbed by the pinching.

Thank you

Our New Place

I have been getting pestered to tell you more about the new apartment so here goes...

We are close to two shopping malls and the Old Strathcona area which is where I can find all of my specialty butcher shops, markets, antiques and boutiques.  The coolest thing about Old Strathcona, though, is that it has the old train station, the public library and centers for the preforming arts. Although downtown has the big theaters and attractions, Old Strathcona is where you can find the stuff that is not yet mainstream. In fact, we had just missed The Fringe Festival when we arrived. Old Strathcona Hosts the oldest and largest Fringe Theater Festival in North America.

Obviously, we don't have a car yet.  Until we do, we have to use Edmonton's Transit System that takes me past several great places to shop on my way to and from work. I also pass through the down town core via train and bus. I do think that I would miss the spectacular views from the river valley at first light and dusk if we were to get a car. 

Our new apartment is in an older neighbourhood with mature trees, although most places in Edmonton have streets full of trees to be honest. Although Doug and I have only enjoyed a few evening walks together, I am sure it will become a common thing for us again, as it used to be.

Old School Heat

Our new apartment is small and vintage. Although, I was counting on small, the vintage part was a fun surprise during viewings. Unfortunately, they did do a minor reno on it before we moved in, so my ancient bird wallpaper is gone, but then again, so is the carpet!! Hardwood and tile makes this place easier for my cat and my allergies to get along.

Furnishing the new place is going to be a fun process, but I expect it will also take some time. There are a few antique markets near by that I want to go to to get a nice mix of old with the new stuff. Unfortunately I had to work through one of the biggest antique sales of the year, but I'm sure I can sniff out some deals regardless.

Our closet is a little small, so I will need to have more bedroom furniture than I had originally planned on. Not that I mind shopping, but I like an empty room to dream in.

 Each room has a large east-facing window that the cat has been enjoying.
We have been enjoying bright and sunny days and dark nights.

The Creeper!

We also have, what I call, a water closet! Oddly enough, the bathroom is a tub and shower with a sink, a generous window, and a tall rad that sits just below the towel rack to warm and dry the draped towels. The toilet is in a separate, windowless room that vents out to the bathroom. Unfortunately, just like the house, Moo moo must always be a part of what you're doing in there!

Although the building is still being renovated, I am liking it quite a bit. It is in such an ideal spot that I doubt we will move far from this area, if and when we do move.

I will have to end here, as I have a run to do. Today I think I will pick a new path. Any suggestions?

Our New Area

So, when we arrived in Edmonton we had expected to find an aparent in three days. Three days would have been enough time had we come after the civic holiday, but as we forgot about it, we ended up having to wait out the long weekend before we could even begin viewings. That ended up working to our favour, as we got to explore different areas of our beautiful new city and aquatint ourselves with them. My favourite area was Southgate, for the awesome upscale mall and pretty houses and condos. Unfortunately, out of the 20 apartments available to us, none of them were cat friendly. Although a friend tells me she knows people with cats who live in Southgate, school just started and a lot of the apartments recently available we're taken by the students who lost their homes when a local boarding school closed its doors.

 Old Strathcona was an exciting urben oasis, full of little boutiques, dellicitessons, patisiaries, theaters and pubs. Much as I enjoyed two days there, I think that the atmosphere was a little too young and happening for us to live in. I will be back to visit the awesome vegan markets and boutiques though.

Downtown was just far too big and busy to live in! The buildings towering and business people dominating the sidewalks and streets gave my head a buzz just driving through it! But the areas just on the outskirts were lovely, surrounded by the lush river valley and backdropped with the beautiful Edmonton skyline.
 We ended up taking an unlikely apartment in the beautiful older neighbourhoods of Forest Heights. This area boasts safety, being south of the river, and was close to a lot of stores I felt were essential.

 Even more important is that the river valley trail is a five minute walk from my house, making my morning run a scenic one. Older trees tower over the streets here, and the down town core is close enough to access when I need to. Below are some pictures of the trail, and the bridge that takes me to the downtown core. 

 

Our apartment is not ready yet, so we are staying in the two bedroom managers suite for ten days while the floors are being redone. We got a one bedroom apartment with carpet only in the bedroom, which was a must for us that was hard to find. The kitchen area is retro, but in a sweet way, the bedroom has a rather unique built in that I thought was artistic, I'm just hoping they don't paint over the retro bird wall paper that would be so in right now!

As for right now, we have the bare necessities, a new bed (on order), new dishes and a few things to put in them. Mitsy Moo-Moo hid in some open vents, in the managers suite, on day one, then woke Doug up that night fighting to get a ziplock bag off her face! She had tried to steel treats in the night again!!! She's been having a harder transition here. 

Tim Hortons Where Are You?

Edmonton is very different from the G.T.A. If you look at how we lived in Ajax, which ran into Pickering, which ran into Scarborough, which ran into..... you get my drift. The G.T.A. is very concentrated. Edmonton is very spacious. Each area is spread out with green spaces giving people room to breath. Much as I love and appreciate this, poor Douglas has a small problem with it. He is constantly asking, "So... where's Tim Hortons?"

There are 26 Tim Hortons in Edmonton which is the same amount as Toronto's core. But since Edmonton is 42.88 sq km larger and most of the Tim Hortons are downtown or north, here in the south end they are few and far between.

So for any of you "Tim's" addicts out there who plan on visiting us... be prepared to make your coffees at home.