Firsts & Lasts
Taken from facebook...
FIRST REAL BEST FRIEND: Sarah Steeves
FIRST SCHOOL: West Riverview Elementary
FIRST PET: cocker spaniel Jody
FIRST BIG TRIP: Grade 6 trip to Virginia...but I was in Grade 5...apparently there were some seats available.
FIRST FIGHT: 2 yrs old...my cousin took my tricyle so I bit him in the back
FIRST CELEBRITY CRUSH: Michael J. Fox
FIRST TIME OUT OF THE COUNTRY?: Virginia, summer '88
FIRST JOB: Money counting & deposit prep for vending company, then Wendy's
FIRST FACEBOOK FRIEND: Matthew Rose
LAST PERSON YOU HUGGED:
KRISTI BENSON (my bad, K-Dog.)LAST CAR RIDE: Tonight coming home from Fairmont
LAST TIME YOU CRIED?: Sunday night
LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED: Empire Falls
LAST FOOD YOU ATE: Pizza
LAST ITEM BOUGHT: Tim Horton's coffee
LAST SHIRT WORN: Black cotton shirt w/ white & beige stripes
LAST PHONE CALL: Aunt Dale
LAST THING YOU TOUCHED: Black cotton shirt w/ white & beige stripes
LAST FUNERAL: Grandad's
LAST TIME AT THE MALL: December 22
LAST TIME YOU WERE EXCITED FOR SOMETHING: today, excited for teens going to Ukraine & NYC
LAST PERSON YOU SAW: Supervisor Kim
LAST THING YOU DRANK: Tim Horton's decaf
LAST PERSON THAT BROKE YOUR HEART: skipping this one
LAST TIME YOU WERE REALLY HONESTLY HAPPY?: today
I Heart Jo
It's been over two years since I've seen Joanna in person. I had the opportunity to spend several hours with her this weekend and it was fantastic! Good conversation, many laughs, yummy food...and more than a couple stops at Tim Hortons. May it not be another two years before I get to enjoy the company of my fav Iowan.
Mexipino Night
It's been a very busy month, with not much to blog about. Sleep (when i'm fortunate), work, eat, work, and repeat. That sums it up. But it's been good. It's busy at FHR and there's always interesting people that, although often exasperating in the moment, make for a good laugh afterwards. It's busy at the church too as another season of Tuesday night outreach gets underway and as we prepare for 3 missions trips within the next 3 months. I'm loving it.
My schedule doesn't allow for an extensive social calendar, but Thursday night I was able to have three of my favourite young ladies to my place for dinner and it was heaps of fun.
Andrea...
Drew...
and Ashley...
The menu was a bit of a Mexican/Filipino theme. We had nacho dip as an appetizer. The main course consisted of Pancit (a noodle dish with beans, carrots, garlic, chicken, and soya sauce) and Lumpia (kinda like a spring roll, but different). Making these dishes made think of Ruth with much fondness.
So here they are learning how to wrap Lumpia. They were kinda weirded out by the use of egg whites as an adhesive.
In the end, some of the Lumpia filling was overcooked, but otherwise it seemed to turn out. For dessert, we returned to Mexican with a banana/marshmallow/chocolate enchilada-type structure. For some reason, most of the pictures were devoted to dessert.
Carruthers Christmas 2006
Our Christmas this year was like no other. It's funny how the holidays seem to punctuate major transitions in life with a big exclamation mark. Our family has seen so much change over the last two years, and nothing reiterates that like Christmas. Having lost two significant loved ones in 2005, we still feel the loss more deeply at times when we know we would have been together. But while other changes are good ones, they still require adjustments and new ways of doing things. My brother is now married. My parents now live in NS 80% of the time. I live somewhere different. My brother and sister-in-law would be spending the 24th-26th with her family. I had to work the 24th, 25th and 26th. My parents didn't get home in December at all until the 23rd, and so there was no time for decorating the house or setting up a tree there. Given these various factors, we planned to do our Christmas at my place on the 27th.
I was out shopping with Dad on the 23rd when he told me that there was a snag. Tim & Aneke had to work on the 27th and couldn't get out of it. Dad absolutely had to be back in NS for work on the 28th...he was pushing it to take the 27th off. Right there, in Mark's Work Warehouse, I could have cried. "So we'll plan to eat our turkey dinner early in the evening on the 27th and then open gifts afterwards...?" He says. I think to myself, what other option do we have?
I'll be honest. I was having quite the pity party on the morning of Christmas Eve. I was missing Carter & Grandad. I was angry that I had to work. Mom & Dad were planning to go to Fredericton the next day to visit with Grammy & Grampy but I couldn't go because of my schedule. My adopted family upstairs was heading out of town so I was going to be in a quiet house for 3 days. And the only time that my family could possibly carve out to spend all together was a few hours in the evening, two days after Christmas.
Then, suddenly, another family crossed my mind. A family who suffered a tragic loss this year. They likely had all kinds of time to spend together, but how difficult it would be, missing the one who was now gone, so unexpectedly. My tears of self-pity were replaced by tears of empathy. I offered a prayer of solace for this family, and a prayer of gratitude for my own.
So the following days were different, but good. When I wasn't working, I was spending time with Mom & Dad, at their place and mine. They didn't end up going to F'ton on the 25th. We visited back and forth with the north end Carruthers (aka Jenn & parents). It was quite nice. Usually, there's so much busy-ness and stress leading up to the date, and then you're tired and a little strung out and everything is over before you know it. We had a couple days after the hectic preparations but before the festivities where we had not much to do but relax together when I wasn't at work.
The 27th was nice. It snowed, so no one else in the area had a White Christmas, but we did! While the turkey was cooking, we dug out home videos of Christmases 3-4 years ago, which we'd never watched before. Seeing Carter & Grandad on video, we so missed them but yet enjoyed the memories and it almost made it feel like we spent this Christmas with them. We had our turkey, opened our gifts, and laughed so much...I don't know when was the last time I'd laughed so hard.
I would never have planned it to be that way, but if I could go back, I wouldn't change a thing. (Well, I might have had us start a couple hours earlier so that we would have had time for dessert after the gifts.) It was perfect.
