A Quick Pre-trip update

Brandon and I have an early morning ahead of us...but thought I'd get some things on here before I have a chance to procrastinate.

First off, we've been in Terrace for Christmas! We got in around 4ish on Christmas eve and have kept pretty busy. For the first time we were able to see a lot of people. Some people I hadn't seen since our wedding! Just goes to show, we really gotta come visit more often ^_^

Christmas was a nice, calm event. Florence, Bill, Brandon, Erica, and I did the pancake breakfast thing. This was followed by an afternoon of vegging before Florence and I started on dinner. This year's dinner was by far the best I'd had in a long time. It helps when the person cooking the turkey actually knows what they are doing (unlike my generally sad attempts) ^_^. For dinner we were joined by Grandma(on Brandon's side). Probably the greatest part was teaching her to play Ticket to Ride!

Then there was sledding with Matthew Taron, coffee and sugar cookies with Alex, Coffee/Tea/Dinner with Karlynne and Ashley(and briefly with Chris), dinner with Sarah and Justin, lunch with more relatives, a wonderful visit with my Dad, and probably more things that I can't think of anymore >.< Busy, but worth it!!

I miss people so much that I've decided on a New Year's "Resolution". I generally dislike resolutions, but mostly it's just a goal that happens to coincide with the time of year. Anyways, what it is is... KEEP IN TOUCH WITH PEOPLE! There's really no excuse as to why I've been out of thouch with a lot of people, so now I really want to put some effort into maintainting some relationships.

To those that I didn't get to see, hopefully next time!

To everyone, I hope your Christmas was great and have a wonderful New Year!

Christmas Cookie Exchanges, Secret Santa, and Packing

Today I’ll be going to work…but not to work, unfortunately. All the same, I’m looking forward to it because I’ll be leaving with a lot of christmas baking goodness! We decided to do a cookie exchange and then a few wanted to do a secret Santa, so some of us are doing that as well.

For the cookie exchange I made eggnog florentines. I got the recipe from the december2011 issue of Chatelaine. The original recipe called for dried cherries and almonds, which I would have loved to add, however both those things tend to run a little high as far as price goes(especially here in Tumbler), so I opted for eggnog instead of cream to make them a bit more festive.

For the secret Santa, I got one of the head housekeepers, Patsy. Our budget was $10.00, but if I have a small budget like that I generally opt to make something crafty. So I did a mixed media painting consisting of acrylic paint and construction paper. When I was done…I decided I’d rather keep it for myself. Luckily I have quite a few paintings from the last couple of years that I think will be much more appropriate as christmas gifts, as the mixed media one is much more on the dark side (not evil dark, just lots of black).

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In other news, we are officially locked in to buy our house! And because Brandon was so quick getting the realtor and mortgage broker everything they needed and scheduled the property inspection as early as he did, there’s a chance we’ll get to move in a bit early! As of right now, it’s still set for January 21st, but we’re slowly starting to pack now, just in case. Which of course means that our apartment is a disaster zone. We never really thought that we had much stuff, but now that we’re slowing getting it all into boxes, it’s astonishing how much we managed to fit into the apartment. And soon we’ll be in a house and find that we don’t have enough stuff. I plan on scouring kijiji for a few things. Hopefully we’ll snag a some wicked bargains!

And the GREAT news is...

WE'RE BUYING A HOUSE!!

Please let it snow a bit more.

**Note: Despite fish pictures, this is not a fish post. That is all.**

 

The Christmas season is upon us! Looking around the apartment, it's a little more difficult to see as we have absolutely no space to decorate, let alone put up the tree and christmas village. However, other houses have their lights in full swing and next week I'll have a freezer stuffed with cookies(doing a cookie exchange at work). Somehow, pretty lights and baked goods are two things that make be incredibly happy. And snow. I really wish it would snow a bunch more.

Another thing that makes me incredibly happy is knowing that in just over two weeks I'll be in Terrace, able to see family and friends that I haven't seen in far too long. And since this visit will last an entire week, I'll have time to see pretty well everyone! If by some unhappy accident I miss out on seeing you, well, you'll just have to come and see me in Tumbler Ridge!!

Things here in the Braam household were on the quiet side, but right now there's something VERY exciting that's going down. For the record, I'm not pregnant. I'm not going to say anything quite yet until it's 100% set in stone. Not telling is incredibly difficult for me. I hate surprises. So having one for someone else is quite uncomfortable, when all I want is to tell everyone.

Other than the news I can't say anything about yet, I'm working...sort of. I'm a housekeeper at the big hotel here. After working 3 weeks, things started to slow down to a crawl there, so me and three other of the low folk on the totem pole were told that we have the month of December off until things pick up again. This sucks. Especially right at Christmas time. So I'm hanging on to this job, for now. I've applied at a couple of places that are looking for an office/administrative assistant, and now I'm just waiting to hear back. I REALLY hope I hear back. While the housekeeping job is actually not bad, it's just not what I want to be doing.

Brandon is still at the fire department. I finally learned what his title is. Protective Services Assistant. Or something like that. Basically it's a cross between what the lady who worked there before did and firefighter duties. Mostly it's this way because there are some things that Angie did that Brandon can't do. So Chief is doing those things and Brandon will do some of the things that the Chief isn't able to do anymore. He did have to take a pay cut for this job, but he and I both agree that now is probably the first time since moving to Tumbler Ridge that we are both completely happy with where we are. I'd say that makes it totally worth it. Besides, with me working, (when I do work) I'm finally not going stir crazy from being alone! It's amazing what just seeing other people can do to perk me up.

And that's life in a nutshell right now. We're a quiet household. We watch Castle and go for walks.