Not To Be Trusted With Knives

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Jun
6

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101 in 1001 Days Recap (A Wee Bit Late)

Category: 101 in 1001 Tags: Leave a Comment

So, I figured it was a good time to do a check in on my 101 things to do in 1001 days because that 1001 days is coming to an end very soon… or so I thought. I was sure that my list’s end date was in July, which meant I’d have about a month to try to knock a few more items off the list, but I just looked at it to see what specific date in July and found that it wasn’t any date in July – it ended on April 9! As in almost 2 months ago!! It started on July 12, 2014, which must be why I had July in my brain. I am an epic fail! So yes, let’s start with seeing how I did on my 101 list!

In total, I achieved 38/101 things. While that sounds pretty sad, it is better than I did on my second 101 list and one shy of the number that I achieved on my first 101 list. Let’s look at the breakdown:

Completed Items – A. Stuff I Did That I Figured I’d Be Likely To Do

7. Be written about in the New Westminster Record
13. Install screen doors on my balcony doors
16. Get a jewelry armoire
18. Get a strong structure on which to place my frog tank
20. Clean my new BBQ
21. Get rid of the fake trees my condo’s previous owner left on my balcony
22. Put felt pads on the bottom of all my furniture to protect my floors
23. Replace my mishmash of old dishes with a nice set of dishes
26. Unpack everything from my recent move
27. Update my address on every account I have by the time my mail forwarding ends
28. Update my budget to reflect my new financial situation
29. Get rack and pannier for my bike
32. See a show at Bard on the Beach
38. Write a will1
56. Visit Bowen Island
57. Participate in political campaign
58. Ski at Whistler
64. Go on a Paddle Wheeler cruise down the Fraser River
66. Take the Peak to Peak gondola in Whistler
69. Create a balcony herb garden
80. Have a picnic
83. Make a Christmas wreath to hang on my door
86. Decorate a cake in a creative and awesome way
89. Increase the amount of money I loan out via Kiva by 100%
91. Pain something worth hanging on my wall
92. Get a journal article published
99. Don’t get any university degrees (unless they are honorary degrees) during this 1001 day period

B. Stuff I Did That I Was Surprised I Managed To Accomplish

4. Create a computer simulation model
35. Go for a ride in a float plane
37. Present at a conference at an international location (not including the US)
43. Go to NYC
44. Go to Chicago
46. Go to Nova Scotia
47. Go to Newfoundland
78. Get a promotion or a new job
93. Get a book chapter published
95. Publish something with my sister
100. Fall in love

I listed all the travel-related ones as “surprising” because my travel locations tend to relate to opportunities that present themselves rather than my picking them.  Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and presenting at an international conference (Australia) were all places I went to because there happened to be conferences there and I went to Chicago on the way to a conference in Kansas City. I did pick NYC, but it was actually my sister’s idea of a place to take our Mom for her birthday.

C. Stuff That I Partially Accomplished

19. Hang all my diplomas and artwork in my new place – All my diplomas are hung in my office at the hospital and almost all of my artwork is hung (I just need to hand a photo of a cool iceberg that I got in Newfoundland, a painting of flowers that I got in Nice (which I did *finally* get framed), and the two paintings that I painted at Paint Night.

60. Participate in 10 research studies (as a research “subject”) – I participated in 5 studies. And I actually emailed two or three other studies that advertised they were looking for research participants but didn’t get a response back from them.

Incomplete Items

A. Abject Failures

These are all things that I totally could have done but just didn’t.

1. Fix my ruby ring (from which I lost a ruby!)
2. Stay in the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel
3. Stay in the Chateau Lake Louise
14. Paint a room
15. Get a linen tower for the bathroom
17. Get a litter box hiding piece of furniture
24. Mend all the clothes in my “to fix” box
31. Read “Lord of the Flies”
33. Watch salmon spawning
39.Buy a red suit
40. Run a triathlon
41. Go zipling
42. Go skydiving
61. Make homemade marshmallows
62. Go on a relaxing vacation in a tropical location2
63. Donate blood (despite my needle phobia!)
65. Go to the free Friday night dance class at Hyack Square3
68. Go horseback riding
70. Go to a New Westminster Salmon Bellies lacrosse game
71. Complete the 100 pushups challenge
72. Write a short story
74. Make a list of 100 things for which I’m grateful!4
75. Go waterskiing
76. Go scuba diving
79. Hike up a glacier
81. Make a key lime pie
82. Send out Christmas cards to all my friends and family
85. Make Eggs Benedict
87. Make homemade spruce beer
88. Go to Science World After Dark
90. Lose the weight I gained during my MBA program
94. Publish something with Dr. Dan5
96. Invent a cupcake recipe
97. Invent 5 new drinks
98. See a Cirque du Soleil show

B. Stuff I Thought Was a Long Shot Anyways

5. Use the computer simulation model that I created to run a sensitivity analysis.
6. See Celtic Thunder live
8. Cage dive with sharks
9. Ride an elephant
10. Ride a camel
11. Ride a zamboni
12. Go whitewater rafting
25. Make a quilt from all my old t-shirts from different events
34. Go for a ride in a helicopter
36. Climb an active volcano
45. Go to Paris
48. Go to the Yukon
49. Go to Nunavit
50. Go to Iceland
51. Go to Italy
52. Go to Hawaii6
53. Go to Japan
54. Go to the Galapagos
55. Go somewhere in South America
59. Skate on the Rideau Canal
67. Visit Alcatraz
73. Do an amateur stand up comedy night
77. Go for a ride in a hot air balloon
101. Publish 751 blog postings during these 1001 days7

C. Stuff I no longer even care about/couldn’t do because of outside forces.

30. Bike to work at least 10 times – Once I got my new job, biking to work became off the table as it would probably take me 2 hours each way (at least at the speed I bike). And you can’t take a bike on the Skytrain during rush hour, so it’s not like I can Skytrain part of the way and bike the rest of the way.

84. Decorate my balcony with Christmas lights – I decided I don’t really care about this one anymore, as my balcony faces the back of the building, so who is even really going to see them?

I feel like the stuff that I accomplished was most boring tasks – though I suppose that a fair number of task-y type things ended up on the list because I’d just moved into my new condo when I wrote that list. I did manage to get some cool travelling accomplished and I published two journal articles and a book chapter, so that’s something. But I really haven’t done anything epic like I did during my previous 1001 days (much of which wasn’t even in my list at the time!).

I guess it’s time to put together a new 101 list – my fourth one! I have a few items on my list already and I think I’ll import a few of my as-of-yet not done ones from this list. And then I need to think of some truly epic things to do (I do have one extremely epic thing I’m working on, so that’s going on the list!). If anyone has suggestions on what I should put on my next list, I’m all ears!

 

  1. Loophole on this one – I’ve written it, but not yet signed it, as you need two witnesses to sign it at the same time and I rarely have more than one person at my place unless I’m having a party and I feel like “who wants to witness the signing of my will is like the worst party game ever. At any rate, I’ve written my will and that’s all this item said, so I’m counting it! [↩]
  2. I can’t believe I didn’t go on a relaxing tropical vacation in 1001 days!! [↩]
  3. I don’t think they even have those classes anymore! [↩]
  4. I really should have done this. This is going on my next 101 list for sure! [↩]
  5. Definitely going on my next 101 list. We even having something that we are just starting to write up! [↩]
  6. I did have a plan for this one, but my stupid hip injury thwarted my plans! [↩]
  7. For the record, I only wrote 289 blog postings in this 1001 days. Yikes! [↩]

Dec
31

By

Items I Knocked Off My List of 101 Things To Do List

Category: 101 in 1001, awesomeness, goals, travel Tags: , , Leave a Comment

I set a goal to knock 16 items off my 101 things to do in 1001 days list during 2016 and while I failed spectacularly at doing that, most of the 5 things that I did were pretty awesome. In level of increasing awesomeness, they were:

21. Get rid of the fake trees my condo’s previous owner left on my balcony

This one wasn’t awesome, but I am glad to have it done. When I bought my place, the previous owner left these gaudy fake trees in extremely heavy pots on my balcony, claiming they were part of the condo because they were tied with twine to the balcony railing. They were ugly and they took up valuable room on my balcony, but the aforementioned extremely heavy pots stopped me from getting rid of them until I got a message from my strata that they would be power washing all the balconies and everything had to be taking off our balconies during that time.

35. Go for a ride in a float plane

I spent some time on Salt Spring Island this year and on one of the trips, I took the float plane back so that I could spend one extra night there and then just fly into Vancouver for work in the morning. Super fun.

47. Go to Newfoundland

Visiting my 10th of 10 Canadian provinces was a milestone this year. Not that many people can say that! Plus I went to an awesome conference and got to hang out with my sister!

43. Go to NYC

I <3 NY. We had such a good time and now I want to go there again!

37. Present at a conference at an international location (not including USA)

Definitely the highlight of the year was my trip to Australia! The conference was fantastic and I really enjoyed all the places that I went!

So while I didn’t knock a large quantity of items off my list, I’d say that the quality of the ones I did do were A++.

My current 101 things to do in 1001 days is slated to end on April 9, 2017 and I’ve only achieved 34 (!). I should probably take a hard look at the remaining items to see which ones I can feasibly do in the next 3 months. Surely I can do better than 34/101!

Jul
20

By

Various Updates

Category: 101 in 1001, cats, goals, rampant narcissism, sports, Stupid Injuries, travel Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

Life seems to have gotten extra busy, so I’m resorting to writing this blog posting on my phone during my morning commute [and then posting it tonight, now that I’m home from my hockey game, with a few edits made and photos inserted!], despite just yesterday saying to my sister “I don’t know how you can write a journal article on your phone!” I stand by my sentiment that this is not the ideal way to type out a long piece of writing but (a) my evenings for the foreseeable future are booked up and (b) when I tried to turn on my ereader just now, the battery was dead so what else am I going to do on this Skytrain ride?

Foot Update

  • It’s been a month since I sprained my ankle. It’s not 100% healed, but it’s mostly there. Been sporting this awesome kin tape – I have no idea if it actually does anything, but figured it can’t hurt. I’ve gotten back to hockey (after 2 weeks off) and a running (after 3 weeks off), though on my runs on Saturday and Monday my left knee was bugging me, so I’m probably compensating for the ankle even though I don’t feel the ankle. I‘m going to get got it checked out today after work to see if it needs adjusting or strengthening or something [and I got some work done on it to work some of the edema out – because it was still a bit swollen today – among other things. Hopefully that will help me get to 100%.
  • As if having a sprained ankle wasn’t bad enough, last week I did this to my toe at hockey:
    Hockey injury But I didn’t do it *playing* hockey. I did it by stubbing my toe on my hockey bag after the game. It looked much worse than it felt, thank goodness!

Garden Update

  • For the most part, my garden is doing quite well, with the notable exception of my tomato plant, which died. When I was away in St. John’s I had to put my whole garden inside as my strata decided that that was the exact perfect time to power wash and paint my balcony and so I couldn’t have anything out there. The tomato plant did not survive that. I just bought a new tomato plant to replace it – hopefully there are no more unforeseen upheavals of my garden this summer.

    My new tomato plant

    This is the new tomato plant I bought. Wish me luck getting it to tomato!

  • When I put my garden inside my condo for a week, my jalapeño plant had two little jalapeños and many little buds. The buds never ended up blooming, but the jalapeños that has started kept going and now about a dozen more buds have budded. I can’t wait until the first ones are ready to eat.
    My first two jalapenos

    My first two jalapeños

    Jalapeno buds

    Jalapeño buds

  • Prior to the Great Upheaval of the garden being moved indoors, my cilantro plant had bolted. I didn’t even know that was a thing until it happened – my cilantro plant shot up to about 2 ft I’m height and the leaves went all feathery. Dr. Google explained to me that cilantro plants don’t like it when it is hot, so when the temperature gets too high they start to bud, then shoot up I’m height and go to seed – the idea being that the seeds will fall and the plant will regrow when conditions are better. If you catch the buds early enough you can cut them off and keep your plant going, but I knew nothing (Beth Snow) of this until it was too late. So I let it go to see and then harvested the seeds and have now planted them. And now we wait to see if they will grow.
    Coriander seeds that I harvested after my cilantro plant bolt4ed

    Freshly harvested coriander seeds

    I did manage to get this parsley to grow from seed1, but it was seed that I bought rather than seed that I harvested.

Goals Update:

I’ve tried out making quite a few new food items towards my goal of making 16 new food or drink items I’ve never made before.These include this grilled zucchini salad:

Country-style pork ribs:

Country style pork ribs

Garlic Scapes2 – I made them both sautéed and BBQ’d:

Garlic scape

Homemade Salsa:

My first batch of salsa

Smashed potatoes ((These are delicious. I’ve made them several times now because they are good!)):

Smashed potatoes

I’ve made a total of 11 so far and since it’s only just past halfway through the year, I’m ahead of schedule.

Another goal for this year is to knock 16 items off my 101 list and so far I’ve only done 3 in 2016, which means I’m way behind schedule on that one! The most recent of the 3 was to “go for a ride in a float plane”, which I did when I returned from Salt Spring Island to Vancouver last week. It was super cool!

Tangent: While on Salt Spring, we played a fair bit of tennis. I tracked it with my GPS watch to see how far I ran – here’s a map of one of our matches:

Tennis, as tracked by my GPS watch

We also saw some goats and chickens at Salt Spring Island Cheese:

Goats at Salt Spring Island Cheese

Chickens at Salt Spring Island Cheese

Cat Update

My cats are still the most awesome cats who have ever catted. Even despite the fact that Watson is kind of a jerk who never lets his sister on the cat tree. You know the giant cat tree that I bought them that is big enough for like 10 cats? Watson seems to think it’s not big enough for more than 1 cat. And if the 1 cat is not him, then it’s not even big enough for 1. If Crick tries to go to there, he chases her off. Sometimes he doesn’t even stay on the tree – he just doesn’t want her on there. Like I said, he’s kind of a jerk. But I still love him.

Watson won't let Crick onto the cat tree

Poor Crick is relegated to siting on the fireplace mantle, since Watson will not share the cat tree.

Lord Commander Watson Snow, the Watcher on the Wall

Lord Commander Watson Snow is the Watcher on the Wall

Crick gets him back by eating his food. I always put their food in two dishes and usually, Watson will have a few bites and then wander away to clean himself. Meanwhile, Crick eats her entire dish and then starts in on his. She’s a little piglet. And I love her.

Crick is hiding under the open dishwasher

Crick is hiding from her brother

Watson

Watson is keeping up with the news

Crick thinks she's a shoe

Crisk is disguising herself as a shoe

It's too bright in here!

It’s too bright in here!

  1. All my other herbs have been from seedlings. [↩]
  2. Why has no one ever told me about garlic scapes before? I got them at the New West Farmer’s Market, w It’s the top part of the garlic, is only available for a short period each year, and is like a mild garlic taste without the bite. Very cool! [↩]

Dec
31

By

All the Things I Completed From My 101 List in 2015

Category: 101 in 1001 Tags: , , 1 Comment

Here’s a summary, by month, of the items that I completed from my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days, during 2015:

Month Items Completed
Jan 58. Ski at Whistler
66. Take the Peak to Peak gondola in Whistler
Feb 27. Update my address on every account I have by the time my mail forwarding ends
Mar 28. Update my budget to reflect my new financial situation
Apr 64. Go on a Paddle Wheeler cruise down the Fraser River
May 89. Increase the amount of money I loan out via Kiva by 100%
93. Get a book chapter published
46. Go to Nova Scotia
Jun 56. Go to Bowen Island
69. Create a balcony herb garden
86 Decorate a cake in a creative and awesome way
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct 91. Paint something worth hanging on my wall
Nov
Dec 4. Create a computer simulation model.
92. Get a journal article published
38. Write a will

Jul
19

By

101 in 1001 mid-2015 check in

Category: 101 in 1001 Tags: Leave a Comment

So I’m 372 days into the 1001 days of my latest “101 things to do in 1001 days” list (a.k.a., one year and one week or 37% of the way through) and at my latest count, I’ve achieved 25 of the 101 items (i.e., 24.75%). So while I’m a little bit behind, I have been making decent progress. I set a goal of knocking 15 items off of my list in 2015 and so far have done 11. Those 11 are:

58. Ski at Whistler
66. Take the Peak to Peak gondola in Whistler

Daniel got me lift tickets for Whistler for my Christmas present, which allowed me to knock the two aforementioned items off my list. We had a fantastic time!

On the Peak-to-Peak Gondola

Daniel and I on the Peak-to-Peak Gondola going from Blackcomb to Whistler – thereby achieving two things from my 101 list that day!

27. Update my address on every account I have by the time my mail forwarding ends
28. Update my budget to reflect my new financial situation

A couple of boring ones, but important!

64. Go on a Paddlewheeler cruise down the Fraser River

The Paddlewheeler is a paddle wheel-powered boat that travels up the Fraser River doubling as a pub on the weekends. There was a Groupon deal for tickets, so Daniel and I did this back in April and it was pretty fun!

89. Increase the amount of money I loan out via Kiva by 100%

Kiva is a microfinance organization where you can loan money to people in need, primarily in developing countries. It’s a fantastic way to support people who can’t get access to traditional financing to build their businesses, get an education, and build their communities. Typically the loans are about $25 per loaner, with a group of people loaning the total amount the loan recipient needs. I was originally introduced to Kiva by my friends Sarah and Dave, who gave me a gift card of money to loan through Kiva. As the loan recipients pay back their loan, I then loan that money out to other people. Every once  I add more money to the pot – usually when someone is offering to match any new funds that are loaned during a given period of time, and I decided that in my 1001 days I wanted to double the amount I was loaning out, from $76 to $151. I’m currently at $200 being loaned out, so I’ve more than met this goal.

93. Get a book chapter published

This one I added to the list knowing that I’d have a very good chance of achieving it because I was already working on the chapter! If memory serves, we didn’t have a publisher secured at that time, but the book editors were working on it and they had experience publishing several academic books like this one, so I was confident that we’d get the book published. It doesn’t appear that I’ve blogged about the book – oops! Anyway, it’s called Transforming Addiction: Gender, Trauma, Transdisciplinarity and I co-wrote chapter 2 “Fostering transdisciplinarity in addiction research training” based on my experiences as the Program Director of a transdisciplinary addictions research training program, which was my first job post-PhD. You can buy the book on Amazon or Chapters if you are so inclined.

46. Go to Nova Scotia

Untitled

I’m in Halifax and have now been to 9 out of 10 Canadian provinces (and 10 out of 14 provinces + territories)

Nova Scotia was one of the two remaining provinces that I needed to go to in order to have been to all 10 provinces. The last one is Newfoundland and I’m hoping to go there for a conference that I really want to go to next year. Then I have to conquer the remaining territories – I’ve been to the Northwest Territories, but I have yet to get to Yukon or Nunavut.

56. Go to Bowen Island

Untitled

Waiting for the ferry to return home from Bowen Island

This one is a little closer to home than Nova Scotia, but for some reason, I haven’t been to any of the islands around here, other than Vancouver Island. Bowen is a small and easy-to-get to island and I’d heard that it was quaint, so I put it on my list of 101 things to do. I ended up going there when my mom and sister were visiting. I’d been told there were cute little shops and restaurants there and that was true, though there were far fewer of them than I’d expected. But we did some shopping and had a delicious lunch and I got to knock this item off my list!

69. Create a balcony herb garden

This is another one that I achieved while my mom and sister were visiting. We went to Granville Island and I found a lovely herb garden in a box that contains parsley, sage, chives, marjoram, and peppermint and it only cost $13. So I bought it and put it on my balcony and now I have a balcony herb garden!

86 Decorate a cake in a creative and awesome way

Logic Model cake

A logic model cake

I had a colleague who has been working with me since last August and we have spent several months building logic models. Logic models, for the uninitiated, is a tool that is commonly used in program evaluation and it depicts the relationships between inputs, activities, outputs and outcomes (basically, it shows the “if.. then” logic where “if you have input w, then you can do activity x and if you do activity x, then you will get output y, and if you get output y, then you will get outcome z.” These logic models typically are represented by a bunch of boxes linked by arrows. Anyway, this colleague finished up on our project recently as she is moving and at her last team meeting with us, I made her a logic model-themed cake.

I’m pretty happy with having achieved 11 out of my goal of 15 things, and I’m hopeful that I’ll achieve another two very soon:

92. Get a journal article published. I’ve had a journal article accepted and am just waiting to find out what issue it is going to be published in!

91. Paint something worth hanging on my wall. My friend Cath and I are going to a Paint Nite event, where you go to a bar or restaurant and an artist teaches you how to paint something. So I will paint something tomorrow but whether or not it meets the criterion of “worth hanging on my wall” remains to be seen!

Jul
15

By

Goals 2015 – Mid-Year Check-in

Category: 101 in 1001, books, goals, meta-blogging Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

So it’s just past the halfway point in the year and I figure that means it’s a good time to do a check-in on my goals for the year!

Of my 15 goals, 4 goals are completed:

  • Organize all my closets
  • Set up a new investment plan
  • Pay off 7.5% of my mortgage principal – I’ve actually paid off 9% of the principal I had owing at the start of the year – and counting!
  • Make 15 new food or drink items that I’ve never made before – this one warrants its own blog posting!

6 goals are on track:

  • Run two half marathons – having done the BMO half, I’m 50% complete on this goal and I’m registered for the Montreal half as my second half of the year.
  • Run a sub-2 hour half marathon – being less than 3 minutes off of hitting this goal in May and into my training for Montreal in September, I think there’s a reasonable chance I could get this one done.
  • Run 800 km – I’ve run 500.3 km so far this year, which puts me at 62% complete. I’ve got another 9 weeks of training left for Montreal, and then I’m running a 10 km in October, so I’ll be motivated to do some more runs after Montreal… so I’m really hoping I can complete this goal this.
  • Add 5 new medals to my collection – I’ve got two so far – BMO half marathon and the Florida virtual half (which I just realize that I have failed to blog about!) and am registered for three more races (Montreal half, PNE Donut 5 km (also warrants a blog posting), and the Vancouver Rock’n’Roll 10 km – so as long as I do all those races, I’ll have 5 shiny new medals in my collection…. plus, since Montreal & Vancouver are both Rock’n’Roll events, I will also get the “double beat” medal for running two R’n’R events in one calendar year – so I’ll actually add 6 new medals!
  • Bring lunch to work more often than I buy lunch at work. I have a spreadsheet to track this one (because spreadsheet) and I currently sit at 49% of my lunches having been brought from home so far this year, so I really should make a more concerted effort to bring this number up to give myself some breathing room!
  • Complete 15 items from my 101 list. I’ve completed nine items (looks like that’s another blog posting I need to write!) and have booked something for next Monday which will, if all turns out well, allow me to knock item number 91 off my list.

4 goals have been neglected so far:

  • Complete the 100 push up challenge.
  • Lose those last 5 lbs that I gained during my MBA. I
  • Write a will.
  • Apply for at least one research grant.

And then there’s this one:

  • Write 115 blog postings. So far in 2015, I’ve written a mere 37 blog postings. Which means I need to write 14 blog postings per month – or 3.25 blog postings per week – for the remainder of the year to hit this target. Challenge accepted!

As a bonus goal, I decided the other day to set a goal of reading 15 books in 2015, mostly because Goodreads kept harassing me to set a goal every time I logged into the app. I’ve currently read 10 books this year (and am in the middle of a few others), so I’m on track for that one too.

Jun
27

By

Here and Gone

Category: family, food, friends, New Westminster, Vancouver Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

So remember that time I told you about how all the houseguests were on their way to my place? Not only did that trip whizz by in the blink of an eye, but it’s been a week since they left and I’m only just now blogging about it!

In no particular order, our adventures included1:

  • went to Bowen Island 2, where we had some amazingly delicious food at the Old Orchard Grill3
  • delicious dinner at Forage– I’ve been there a couple of times before, but omg, is their food ever fantastic. And their wait staff is amazing!
  • delicious breakfast at Angelina’s
  • went to my hockey game – well, my mom did. My sister was busy at her conference that day.
  • went to Daniel’s hockey game
  • went to Granville Island, where we did some shopping4 and enjoyed some Lee’s Donuts 5 and some drinks at Liberty Distillery. I also bought myself an herb garden to put on my balcony 6 – it contains parsley, sage, chives, marjoram, and peppermint and it only cost $13!
  • my sister and Dan got to meet my kitties! My mom had already met them on her last trip, but was happy to see her grandkitties again!

Pursuing my phone, I realized that I was a delinquent in taking photos, so I have no proof that anyone actually visited me. But I did take this photo of me stopped in front of a “no stopping anytime” sign on Bowen Island, in my ongoing project to chronicle people disobeying signs.

Untitled

So there’s that.

  1. “Making a delicious meal on my BBQ” didn’t end up happening and “trying my delicious home-brewed beer” happened for Dr. Dan, but not my sister (my mom and Dan’s student don’t drink beer, so I wasn’t expecting them to). [↩]
  2. which just so happens to be on my list of 101 things to do [↩]
  3. Best. French fries. EVER! [↩]
  4. I bought a new dress and got FOUR compliments on it the first day that I wore it! [↩]
  5. Dan and his student agreed with me that Lee’s Donuts kick the butt of Cartem’s Donuts! [↩]
  6. which just so happens to be on my list of 101 things to do. [↩]

Apr
22

By

National Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Week

Category: 101 in 1001, health Tags: , , , , 1 Comment

Did you know?

  • In Canada, you are 5-6 times more likely to need a donated organ than be eligible to donate one.
  • An organ donor can save up to 8 lives!
  • 230 Canadians die while waiting for an organ donation every year.
  • Although 91% of Canadians say they support organ donation, but only 44% have signed up to be a donor.

It is National Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Week, so I urge you to consider signing up to be an organ donor. When you die, you can’t take your organs with you, but you can prevent up to 8 people from joining you in death by the simple act of registering your intent to be an organ donor.

If I or one of my loved ones ever finds myself in need an organ transplant, I’ll be hoping that other people have made their desire to be an organ donor known. So it only seemed fair that I sign up to be an organ donor myself, in case I end up in the situation where I’m eligible to donate and my organs could save someone’s life.

I have two reasons why I feel personally compelled to spread the word about organ donation. First, when I played in the Longest Game of Hockey for CF, I learned a lot about cystic fibrosis, a disease that often results in the need for organ donation. And I met people who were only alive because someone had donated a set of lungs and I met people who knew that, at some point, they too would need an organ donation to keep them alive. These were all amazing individuals who deserve a chance to live their lives.

The second reason I feel compelled to promote organ donation was because of the comfort it gave to my family when we were able to donate my dad’s eyes after his death. Though my father died in the type of circumstance where he would have been eligible to donate organs (in hospital as a result of Neurological Determination of Death)1 and he had made his desire to be an organ donor know, he was unable to donate any organ other than his eyes because he had metastatic cancer and the risk was too great that the cancer could have spread to his organs.)). But he was eligible to donate his eyes and when we received the phone call from the Trillium Gift of Life Network asking for the donation, it brought us great comfort in a very sad time to know that my dad’s generosity would give three people the ability to see who would otherwise be blind.

In addition to the need for organ donors, there’s a need for blood donors. This is something that I struggle with because while I’m healthy and eligible to give blood, I’m a big baby when it comes to someone putting a needle into my arm and taking my blood. It’s not that I’m afraid of it hurting – I know that it doesn’t actually hurt that much at all. It’s just that as soon as the needle comes near me and I start to think about blood pumping through my veins I get seriously queasy. Like ready-to-vomit, curl-and-in-a-ball queasiness. And I get that even for a routine blood test where they are going to take just a tiny vial. The idea of sitting for an extended period of time while my blood pumps out of me long enough to fill up a giant bag… it really freaks me out. But on the other hand, people need blood! Donating blood is actually on my list of 101 things do do and Daniel has offered to go with me and donate too. National Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Week has reminded me that I really should get on that!

Sources of data cited in this posting:

  1. Apparently, only 1% of people actually die in the circumstances required to be able to donate. [↩]

Apr
16

By

Doing All The Things!

Category: arts, Canada, cats, family, friends, me, Nerdery, New Westminster, rampant narcissism, sports, travel Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

So apparently I’ve decided to do all the things, which means that I have eleventy billion things to blog about and no time in which to write said blog posting1, which can only mean one thing. It’s time for a bullet list! List all the bullets!

  • Both my teams’ winter hockey seasons have come to an end. My Burnaby team got knocked out of the playoffs yesterday, but we made a decent showing in both of our playoff games and besides, this was a rebuilding year. My Coquitlam team made it all the way to the finals and lost a heartbreaker in OT.
  • Speaking of hockey, remember the beginning of the NHL season when I joined a fantasy hockey league? As it turns out, I abandoned all gimmicks after week one and actually changed my picks each week (it’s the kind of pool where you get to pick new players each week) and would you believe that actually putting effort into it, rather than being goofy, resulted in me winning the pool? Now I am the proud owner of all the bragging rights!
  • Also, speaking of hockey, I’m taking another set of hockey lessons. I signed up for a class called “Shoot to Score” and based on this description: “The Shoot to Score program is designed for adults wanting to exclusively improve their scoring ability. The program will incorporate skating, passing and puck control but a major emphasis will be placed on developing a players wrist shot, snapshot, back hander, slap shot, one-timer and shooting while in motion“, I made the silly mistake of thinking that I’d be learning to shoot the puck. Instead, the class is being taught as “forward” class, with the other half of the rink being “defenceman” class and then at the end of the lesson they put the two groups together and run drills against each other. I’m a bit disappointed, because I really wanted to work on my shot, which is terrible, but I am learning a bunch of stuff that I think will improve my game, so I’m still going2.
  • Speaking of lessons, our salsa dance instructors told me that I’m good enough to move on to level “Intermediate 2”3! We are just at the start of our third set of “Intermediate 1”, so I think that’s pretty good, as they actually have 4 different sets of “Intermediate 1” classes that people can go through. The problem, however, is that our instructors don’t offer “Intermediate 2” on a night that we are available, so we have to hope that in the next set of lessons, they switch up the nights or we may need to find a new dance studio.
  • Speaking of working on stuff, I’m just 17 days away from my next half marathon4! Since my usual running partner, Alicia, isn’t running this race with me, I decided to sign up for a Sunday morning running clinic that was set up to train for the BMO half, so I’d have people to run with, as the long runs start to get a bit boring by the end of the training if you don’t have company. The group is run out of Fit First in Burnaby (the same place I did my running study) and I’ve enjoyed having company to run with5.

    Here’s a photo of my running clinic group – aren’t we a good looking group?

    I have more to say about my training, but I think that I’ve got a whole blog posting on that (spoiler: there’s a spreadsheet involved!), if only I can find the time to write it. I will say that my ambitious goal, which I’m not sure I will be able to achieve, is to run a sub-2 hr half marathon, which has been on my “to do” list since forever and is currently sitting my list of goals for 2015.

  • Speaking of my “to do” list, I’ve completed yet another item off my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days: #64: Go on a Paddle Wheeler cruise down the Fraser River). Daniel and I went on this cruise last Friday and we had a really good time. We tried to take a selfie that I could put in this posting, but could not get anything even halfway decent (at least in part because I didn’t think to take a photo until after we’d gone out on the ship’s deck in the rain and my hair becomes a complete rat’s nest at the slightest sign of a drop of water). Also, by sheer coincidence, a woman from our salsa dancing class was there with a bunch of her friends, and while there was no salsa music, we all had lots of fun hitting the dance to some old school tunes mixed with some current hits.
  • And speaking about my 101 list, I’ve also knocked #7 – “Be written about in the New Westminster Record” off the list, with this article about the Arts Council of New West, where I happen to be on the board of directors. I really like the photo we had taken:

    For the record, I didn’t know everyone else was going to be wearing black, grey or blue when I chose a red shirt!

  • And also speaking of my 101 list, I have just booked a trip to Halifax in May, which will knock #46 – “Go to Nova Scotia” off that list and will leave me just one province short of having been to all the provinces in Canada6. I’m going to a conference in Halifax to present some of my research, which will be fun. I’ll also get to stop by Toronto on my way home to visit the fam for a few days, which will be awesome. And, as it so happens, I’ll be there for my nephew’s birthday party, which will be doubly awesome!
  • Speaking of trips, Daniel and I have registered for the Montreal full and demi-marathon, respectively, in Montreal in September. So I’ll get to see some family then too, as I have family who live there and my mom plans to go there while we are there too.
  • And speaking of seeing my family, my sister is coming to present at a conference in Vancouver in June and my mom is going to join her for the trip. The kitties are very excited to see their grandmother again and to meet their Aunt Nancy!
  • And finally, speaking of people visiting, I get to see Sarah on Sunday, as she is going to be in Seattle, so I’m going to drive down there to hang out! So excited!

So, as you can see, I am clearly doing all the things and I haven’t even talked about, you know, work, teaching, and various other gadding about that I do. I also hear there’s this cool thing called “getting enough sleep” that I’d totally love to check out someday, if I can only find the time!

  1. As a microcosm of my doing all the things, while writing this blog posting, I’m also doing laundry, doing dishes, baking cherry squares for the bake sale that my office is having tomorrow, watching the Winnipeg Jets v. Anaheim Ducks playoff game and being kneaded on by Crick. Oh, now I’m being climbed all over by Crick. Crick is really turning into quite the lap cat, especially when I’m trying to type something. [↩]
  2. Incidentally, if anyone knows of any good classes where I can actually learn to shoot the puck, let me know! [↩]
  3. Daniel’s done Intermediate Level 2 before, so it’s just been me that needed to develop my skills a bit more so we could move on [↩]
  4. The BMO Vancouver [↩]
  5. Though to be totally honest, I really miss running with Alicia! [↩]
  6. Newfoundland, I will conquer you one day! [↩]

Dec
23

By

101 List Calendar Year End Check-In

Category: 101 in 1001, goals Tags: , Leave a Comment

Seeing as the end of the year is fast approaching, I’m starting to work on my typical year-end blog postings. And in doing so, I’m looking at my goals for 2014, which I haven’t looked at in quite a while, to see how well (or how poorly!) I’ve done on those goals. While there will be an upcoming positing summarizing all the goals, I thought I’d first do a preliminary one where I look at how many items I’ve knocked off my lists of 101 things to do in 1001 days, compared to my goal of 28. I say “lists”, plural, as my second 1001 day list ended on July 8, 2014 and my third one started on July 12, 2014, so I completed some goals from each of those two lists this calendar year. So let’s see how I’ve done, shall we?

From List #2, I completed the following 3 items in 2014:

5. get a cat
9. own property
43. make homemade pasta

From List #3, I have so far completed the following 13 items in 2014:

13. Install screen doors on my balcony doors
16. Get a jewelry armoire
18. Get a strong structure on which to place my frog tank
20. Clean my new BBQ
23. Replace my mishmash of old dishes with a nice set of dishes
26. Unpack everything from my recent move
29. Get a rack and pannier for my bike
32. See a show at Bard on the Beach
44. Go to Chicago
57. Participate in a political campaign
78. Get a promotion or a new job
80. Have a picnic
83. Make a Christmas wreath to hang on my door

So that’s 16 items total – far shy of the 28 I’d hoped for1. A quick perusal of the list shows me a few that I could probably complete by 11:59 pm on Dec 31 if I tried, but not 12! Oh well, at least I did manage to accomplish a bunch – and I’ve made progress on some of the other items on the list as well, so I’m reasonably content. But I have to think seriously about what I’ll set as my number of items to complete as a 2015 goal…

  1. I’d picked 28 items for 2014 because I thought 14 would be too easy, so I doubled it. As they say, pride goeth before the fall! [↩]
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