On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me a panda in a Christmas tree.

When my family lived in China, they bought a whole bunch of enamel Christmas ornaments at one of the markets. Dad picked out a whole box of them shaped like pandas and insisted that they be put on the tree even though the rest of us thought they were really ugly. My sister Angie's solution to this every year was to put a few of them on the back of the tree where no one would see them, and it became a family joke. All of those pandas were lost in a move, but I have a little enamel ball with a panda on it and I stuck it on the back of my tiny tree tonight while Derek and I were decorating to fill my heart and keep home close even when everyone is far away.

Content

I've been looking forward to the weekend all week, and it's finally here. My house is tidy, my kitchen is clean, and I'm all set to enjoy a perfect weekend. I'm staying up a little later than usual because I can sleep in. Tomorrow I'll get to spend time with friends and then set up our tiny little Christmas tree and watch a movie for date night. And on Sunday, Derek and I are going over to Maryanne's to watch the Riders win the Grey Cup! I might even start some Christmas baking - we'll see what the weekend brings.

Feeling Groovy

I'm feeling happy today for the first time in a long time. It's nice. I'm sitting here and Chris and Maryanne's, watching the Riders and feeling content. It's about time I started feeling more like myself.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

Derek and I joined the Westshore Community Band today. I'd been thinking that I wanted to join a choir or band this fall, and then Derek decided it might be fun to pull out his old trombone, so we attended our first rehearsal this evening. Derek's in the low brass section, and I've just become the second percussionist for the band. I get to have fun playing mallet instruments, crash cymbals, triangle, and whatever other "toys" might be called for.

I'm really excited that Derek and I will get to do this together; it'll be this fall's equivalent of the dance class we took last winter. It's nice to be able to enjoy hobbies and grow in new skills together. And the band seems like a lot of fun - enjoyable repertoire and good personalities. It's going to be a good fall.

The trees are greener on the other side?

I just scared two deer out of my backyard. They were eating the leaves from our baby trees in the backyard. Knocking on the window only made them pause for a second before going back to grazing, so I stepped outside the door and made a step towards them, and they were gone. I never thought I'd have to chase deer off my yard. The silly things would rather eat from the 3 trees in the backyard here than from the forest just past the yard!

27 Hours Until Liftoff!

And only 14 or so more until we start travelling. We've been packing like mad tonight, getting everything ready so tomorrow isn't crazy. Derek is quite unimpressed with all of the travel regulations...it's really fun to watch him get grumpy every so often as he has to comply with nitpicky rules.

We take the ferry to Vancouver after school, and then spend time with a wonderful friend who is kind enough to drive us to the aiport at 3 am! And then we're off to Taiwan for the summer. I can't wait!

Everything's Coming Up Ari

I have had the best week:

My house is still pretty from my birthday party on Friday. I have flowers everywhere, and lanterns hanging from the ceiling, and it looks beautiful. We had the house full of people I like, which made it even better.

We found a fantastic restaurant on Saturday. Derek and I went out to Smoken Bones for my birthday dinner, and it's our new favourite restaurant here in town. Everything we had was delicious, and in sizes large enough that we enjoyed it again for lunch on Sunday. My favourite was the pulled pork. Mmmmm.

Tuesday was Awesome Mail Day and the last day of school. Derek got a package from his Dad, I got two birthday gifts, and we got a wedding gift (I love it when things are spaced out like that - it makes special occasions last longer)!

Our visas for Taiwan finally came through just under the wire on Wednesday, and we found a wii with several games on usedvictoria.com for an amazing price. Derek has wanted one since before we got married, so we decided to go for it as an early anniversary present. He's been floating for the past 2 days, shouting "wiiiii" every so often.

My camera was ready for pick-up today, and it's all ready for documenting the summer of Sunshine and Trouble in Taiwan.

And to top it all off, I bought a really pretty shirt yesterday. Life is beautiful.

Mennonite Guilt

Christopher has been bugging me about what he calls my "Mennonite Guilt". He teases me that if I don't feel like my meal is perfect, or if I have one thing out of place, or if I give fewer than three choices for dessert*, my MG kicks in and I rush around trying to fix it. Apparently I overdid it this time, though - we had friends over for dinner on Sunday and I accidentally tried to feed 15 people instead of 6. I had an ice cream pail's worth of pasta left over! I still don't quite know what I did to the recipe to end up with so much food, but I had pasta for lunch and dinner today, and the pattern will continue until we've used it all up! It doesn't help that Derek had a school camping trip this week and won't be contributing until tomorrow evening. I guess I'll just have to chalk this one up to experience and be careful with my kitchen enthusiasm next time!

*He tends to exaggerate on occasion. :)