After having a nice hot shower and snuggling up on the couch after work last night I realized that I needed something. Thai food. I tried a place near us called "Simply Thai" and it was simply wonderful. I ordered take out so I wouldn't miss Friends and Survivor... yes... I've become a Thursday night TV slave. Ah well.. it's fun.

I had chicken in yellow curry with potatoes... I braved the spice and got "medium".. trust me, for little ol' white girl me, this is brave. And it was PERFECT. Delicious yellow curry with coconut mik, just-cooked potatoes and tender bite-sized pieces of chicken. Add just the right amount of lip tinglies afterwards and you have one Happy Heather. If any of you are ever in town and you like Thai.. that's where we should go. =) I insist. YUM!

Got a flat tire on the way in to work this morning. It was a moderately fast leak... I can always tell when it's going flat that way because as I'm riding along I can begin to feel my normally solid bike begin to get bouncy and springy with each stroke of the pedal. I don't have shocks. This is a dead giveaway that my rear tire has gone flat. Before I started riding my bike to work every day I had only had probably one flat tire in my whole life... and that was from the rubber of my tube degenerating due to lack of use!! So far, in about 4 or 5 months of riding I've had 3 flat tires. One I wasn't prepared for and had to be rescued from... (thanks DieharD and Cherry Poppins big brother the Talon) Next day I went to MEC and got a spare tube and some tire levers. Life savers.

Now to find an easier way to get the tire back on the rim... those last few centimetres are painful.

The weekend is here. Mmmmmmmmm..... Tomorrow I'm going to go and learn how to do the copper foil method of stained glass. I've always been interested in stained glass, but the price of some of the ugly ones you can buy out there is horrific. Don't even get me started on the price of good quality stained glass. This way I'll be able to make whatever I want to make, too. If it goes well... I may even make some personalized gifts. Wish I had a workshop. :-/ After the glass class DieharD and I are going to head out to a movie with McCow and BabyBlade and then go get some sushi.. at least I think that's the plan. I'll let him work out the nitty gritty while I break glass and make it into something cool and colourful.


Sunday will be a sleep in day. Sleep. In. Next week I don't have to leave the house until 8:00 in the morning! OMG!

Rain. Wet. Road-grit. Mud. Blind drivers. Cold. Tired muscles. Water dripping from my nose and chin.

Warm cozy home with a fuzzy warm loving wiggly dog bundle and a sweet sexy loving affectionate man.

The second truly outweighs the first. Hands down.

Hope it stops raining tomorrow.... but I think today was the first of a continuous string of rainy days until April. Only one week until Doug n' Ali love. =D

Work-a-day world. Work's not so bad, really. I actually love my job.. so it's easy to go in the morning and so hard to leave at night... okay maybe not that hard. ;-) I'm back to riding my bike in to work each day... I think I started about five months ago... missed a few weeks here and there, but overall I've reshaped the lower part of my body and lost some of my 'baby fat' look in the face. Weight hasn't come off like I thought it would, but perhaps that has something to do with me eating too much and not doing anything but the cardio that the riding to work gives me. That or it's the thighs of steel I've managed to build.

The ride is about 12.5 km each way and takes me about 40 minutes to do. That's One hour and 20 minutes of exercise and fresh air each day. Some days fresher than others. Stinky traffic. Roads are for bikes! ;-) I have all kinds of gear. A bike computer that tells me a lot of things about my ride.. how long it took me, my max speed and average speed and that I've ridden over 1400 km since I bought it about 2 months into my riding. A really good lighting set from Nite Hawk (made in Canada!) - I wish the battery would last a bit longer with the super bright bulb... but I just use that one for emergencies... on dark roads or when approaching a busy intersection to make sure the cars actually see me. I have a 3 layer Gore Tex jacket from Mountain Equipment Co-op as well as some of their rain pants and neoprene booties to keep my feet dry and toasty on those wet West Coast days. Two Serratus panniers to carry my lunch and a change of clothes with me and a spare tube, set of tire levers and a multi tool in case of emergencies.

Tire Levers. Don't leave home without them.

More later... I have to get ready for dinner at La Terazza!

Back to work tomorrow. Heather 1 - Illness 0.

I bought a new computer chair today. I wasn't planning on it. I didn't set out to do it. We went in to Staples to buy a World Map so my sweetie can track his travels.. We were over at Tusker and Roomie Guy's place last week and he saw Tusker's World Map with places she's been marked off with pins. He didin't get the map, but I got a chair just like my sweetie's only in blue. $200 with the taxes.. not bad. And if he hasn't been able to break his in 2 years... mine will last forever!

Microsoft has released a new optical mouse with 2x faster sampling than its' previous generation. a|citizen has one. DieharD had mouse envy, but not any more! We had to go to four different stores and finally found it at London Drugs. Amazing. Not Future Shop not A&B Sound, not Compusmart. LD kicks ass. A&B Sound did have Sennheiser headphones, though.. so George bought a pair - and he even got a discount. Last pair in the store. His old pair is getting really, really, really ratty.

Got a birthday present for him at the mall.. he was there. He wanted a One Nighter Ski Pass for Cypress Mountain -- so I got him one. =) They're under new ownership and just put in 2 new quad chairs this year (one is a high speed detatchable). Not too shabby for a local mountain. I got a ski card, cuz I don't go as often as he does, but I like to save money when I do.

Now I'm tired, even though I slept all day... I have tons of leftover turkey, but the thought of turkey today isn't all that appealing, so I think I'll just have pasta. I have to get up early again tomorrow to work at 6:30 -- so it's time for something simple, quick and easy. I'll eat turkey tomrrow for lunch. =).

Whew! I survived... and all went well. My parents loved my sweetie's parents. I think they liked mine, too. Cool. Everyone's gone, now and there's tons of Turkey and pie left! Meals for the next week. ;-) I am so tired and my feet are aching, but I feel good. It really makes this place feel homey to have your family around you. My sweetie's grandma came, too - she speaks very little english, but she loved the place and the food and was very happy to listen to us all laughing and talking... my sweetie and his parents translated for her from time to time, too... and I love the sound of Russian. =)

We left Rainy upstairs while we went to take the parking pass down to my parents' car... and she ate a whole whack of the crackers that I had put out on the coffee table! I didn't notice until my dad had eaten some and I went to put more out. I thought he had eaten them all!! Rotten dog. Can't really blame her when we leave it right at nose level...\

I made Chai yesterday. From scratch. It's GOOD. I gave my Dad my last cup of it tonight.. I'll have to make some more tomorrow... Now to fight the illness that's been taking everyone out at work. I think I'm going down... but Chai will speed my recovery. =)

My recipe for Chai (Oregon style)

3 darjeeling tea bags
2 cups boiling water
1 3" cinnamon stick
1 Tbsp. sugar
1/4 cup honey
6 green cardamom pods
3 slices of fresh ginger (use a veggie peeler)
1/4 tsp vanilla

simmer for 5 minutes. All the recipes I found online said you should add the milk and cook it, too... but I like to froth mine up before I put it in, so I just refridgerate the unused portion of chai and heat up 1/2 cup of it in the microwave and add my frothed milk after that.

YUM. I'm addicted. The guy at Booster Juice gave me a free sample of thier Oregon Chai trying to get me to buy some. It tasted GOOD... but I was in a smoothie mood. I almost bought some but then thought I could make my own so I checked my glorious Google and found a whole whack of recipes. Chai to me is like hot pumpkin pie in a cup. The only hot drink I have ever tried that I can actually drink a whole cup of and want more. Neat! I'm an adult, now. Heheh.

It's so time for bed. G'nite y0.

One more thing... I'm so happy for DeeAy - she's working her sexy butt off and getting fit and healthy! She and Trillian are my inspiration. They are simply amazing.

Okay. I'm up. I'm ready to bake. Better start NOW.