So I've been one of those terrible, horrible people who don't update their blogs for months. I'm sorry. I have no good excuse except that my brain hasn't been here. Its been elsewhere.

This past weekend, D and I went the Kananaskis for our vacation. We'd planned 4 days of reading and relaxing surrounded by beautiful scenery, while staying in a lovely hotel. Things mostly turned out that way. We ended up driving down on Hwy 22 and ran into a rather impressive thunder storm between Drayton Valley and Rocky Mountain House. The rain was bad enough, but the hail 4 inches deep on the road and coming down so hard that even at 50 km/h we could barely see the hazard lights of the vehicle in front of us was downright scary. Thankfully it only lasted about 5 minutes and did quite a good job of washing the car.

The other really exciting thing that happened was that the hotel caught on fire. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration but the fire alarm did go off and we had to evacuate the building in the only rain the village has seen in weeks. Apparently there was a malfunction in one of the driers in the laundry room and it caught on fire. I am continually amazed by the collective idiocy of people. I ask you, when the fire alarms are going off in a building, you can smell smoke and you have been asked to leave, would you stand around the doors like morons because you were afraid to get wet? I hope not, dear reader. I can not say the same for my fellow guests at the hotel. After a few hours, they let us back into the slightly smoke smelling hotel. While D and I were waiting in the lobby of a neighbouring hotel, which had kindly allowed us to loiter, we ran into J. It was delightful to see her and we ended up going for a late supper together.

On the "as planned" side of the trip, I finished the final Harry Potter book. I liked it and thought it did a really good job of wrapping up the series. I think it will be really interesting to see what J.K. Rowling comes out with next.

I also ended up going for a hike with Other while we were gone. D and J were supposed to come with us but they weren't feeling up to it so we decided to go on our own. We walked about half way round Upper Kananaskis lake. We saw a couple of lovely waterfalls and lots of trees, mosquitoes and mountains. I had a wonderful time and am still slightly sore about the calves as I expect we walked further than I usually do in a week.

All in all it was a lovely holiday.

You Are An ESFP

The Performer You are a natural performer and happiest when you're entertaining others. A great friend, you are generous, fun-loving and optimistic. You love to laugh - and you like almost all people equally. You accept life as it is, and you do your best to make each day fantastic. In love, you are a smooth talker and incorrigible flirt. While you get into relationships easily, you don't tend to stick around when times get tough. At work, you do well in groups. You keep everyone laughing through difficult tasks. You would make a good actor, designer, or counselor. How you see yourself: Capable, fair, and efficient When other people don't get you, they see you as: Incompetent, stubborn, and silly

What's Your Personality Type?

Sewing Flowers

This afternoon after work I finally planted some flowers in to my flowerbed. I actually marked out the bed last summer but it was late in the season and I never got around to planting anything in it. This spring I planted some flower seeds in peat pots and they sprouted beautifully, for the most part, but I didn't really harden them off (more like put them outside and let them survive or not) and some of them didn't fair so well. Only the tomatoes, cosmos and lupins look like they might survive so today I went and bought some more plants. I got a peony, day lily, various petunias, marigolds, and some others than I'm not sure what they are but the pictures looked pretty and the plants looked hardy. I also have a columbine that survived being dumped from a pot into the flowerbed with out really being transplanted (yay for hardy old stock!). I would still like to get a rose bush to put along the back fence. Digging in the dirt reminds me of many a summer day in Grandma's garden. It makes me happy.

I'm also getting ready to sew a bunch of table runners for some friend's wedding (its in less than 2 weeks!). I can see what most of my free time is going to be filled with. At least they'll be easy to do (I'm just serging the edges) and I'm sure they'll make the bride happy.

Veggie

I don't really have a lot to say. I just mostly wanted to say that I'm a live and enjoying my new job for the most part. I'm finding that after sitting at the computer all day at work, I really don't want to do it at home. I'm also somewhat surprised how tired sitting and thinking all day makes me. I get home and all I want to do is veg. That's my excuse for the lollybloggery and I'm sticking to it.

The whirlwind trip with my mom and niece and nephew to Regina for Easter with my sister and her family was pretty good. We packed in bowling, colouring eggs, the museum, flying kites, staying up until 3 a.m., making candy and Easter dinner into 2 days. The other 2 were mostly spent driving.

Don't you love spring in Alberta. On Tuesday when I went to work it was snowing and cold and miserable. Today its beautiful and sunny with almost no snow (except where there were piles in the shade). Crazy.

2 days in

Today was my second day at my new job. So far its going pretty well. I'm not feeling completely overwhelmed and I seem to be fitting back in pretty well. I've also done very little real work. I've had a campus tour and had an orientation with the HR lady and had lunch with the HR lady and my boss. I've also tried to read cataloguing procedure manuals (I think watching paint dry might have been more exciting). But I've also actually learned to use some of the software and done some searching on the Books in Print website. Its going well so far. I'm happy.