whose counting?

Really enjoyed my day at home. Watched the movie 'In Bruges'. Quite good. Watched some TLC (managed not to call and cancel cable today). Did some laundry. Drank vitamin water. Peeled grapefruits. All in all it was success. Barking cough is still there but I no longer feel feverish and exhausted. One more day of rest and I think I will have beat pneumonia.

Back to work Friday and Saturday but Sunday will be off. Going to watch the gold medal ice sledge hockey game at UBC with Ritchy. Should be fun.

Day 10 or 14: Something is terribly wrong...and now I know what it is

Pneumonia! Damn bug is apparently the cause of my 8 days of fevered work, labored breathing while walking up the stairs and panicked texts to Rachel that I think I might not make it.

Have made executive decision to take a full day off tomorrow and half day off Thursday. Have unloaded an 11 hour shift and 9 hour shift on to other staff. I just used the p word and everyone backed away in fear and told me to stay the hell away from them. It is really effective. Almost like telling people I have the plague.

This ends my 14 days straight of working. Getting sick on day 3 really put me over the edge. Going to sleep and watch movies for all of tomorrow. Have tons of fruit and veggies here to provide me with nutritious meals on the road to wellness.

Relieved I have not gotten around to cancelling cable yet. A little Oprah tomorrow will be just what the doctor ordered.

Day 9 of 14: Too much and too little

Wandering around in a complete fog with this cold. Really need it to end. Have doctor's appointment tomorrow. I was feeling bad for myself until someone from another department complained to me today that they haven't had a day off since January 4th. Now, you may ask what will I do next year at this time? This time next year we have a 17 day event, break and then another event. Not three months continuous of events and trying to do our day jobs.


Making fish and green beans for dinner. Hope healthy eating will help me kick this thing.

5 days to go until my day off!

When are we going to see photos of the new addition? I keep refreshing the blog to see if brother Dave has posted an update. Or maybe he will post to facebook. Still confused on what the name is but hoping mum will bring back clarification and photos when she visits later this week.

Day 5 of 14: failure

We've been yelling 'failure' at one another quite a bit at work lately. It seems harsh but has us laughing more than anything else. For instance; when I was working at the sliding centre the ceremonies team failed to meet their time standard for getting the medal ceremony started. We walked away saying 'Too bad the whole event failed because of the ceremonies team.'

Well today I 'failed' to make it to the office. The cold is sitting on me like a parked truck with ebrake on and does not look like it will be moving anytime soon. Feel like hell. I did work from home; firing off emails and taking phone calls. Have managed to infect others in my team and they too are at home cursing an open work environment that spreads germs like a day care full of snot nosed toddlers.

My friend Sarah sent me this ecard and told me to give to my coworkers. I laughed out loud and proceeded to print it out so that I can give it to the one person on my team that plays baseball.

Back to vitamin water and spicy foods.

Day 3 of 14: rock the Kasbah

Today I officially submitted my vacation request for April. Maybe it was the fact that I have woken up with a cold, maybe it was the fact that tomorrow is a suit day, but I needed to firm things up for my vacation in April.

I then came home and put the deposit down on my trip, entitled 'Morocco Kasbahs and Desert', described as;

'Compact and independent, this adventure gives you the best of Morocco with maximum flexibility. Experience a 4x4 excursion of the dunes of the Sahara, climb high-walled kasbahs, cross the High Atlas mountains, and wander the rabit-warren alleys of Fez and Marrakech - Do it your way.'

Over 8 days I visit; Casablanca, Rabat, Roman ruins of Volubilis, Meknès, Fez, Merzouga, 4x4 desert sand dune excursion, Todhga, Ouarzazate, Ben Haddou, Marrakech, Djemma El Fna Square.

At the end of this I will meet up with Chris and Rachel for some sightseeing in Marrakech before we head to Tangiers to catch the ferry to Spain for a week of relaxing in the sun.

The thought of this trip is really keeping me going.

Must go sort out my dry clean only clothing for tomorrow.

Day 2 of 14

Today is day 2 of 14 days straight of work. March 1st will be my next day off.

So far I am feeling good and still fitting in a workout a day. The true test will be to see if I can still eat well, keep my apartment tidy and not run out of clean clothing.

I have a mix of very formal events for work (suits) and working out of a venue (fleece vest, jeans and running shoes) this week.

There will be a mix of double or triple (Swiss) cheek kisses for my European counterparts and long hours at an indoor, but extremely cold, venue.

Managing expectations, volunteers and time.

Communicating via cell phone, email and radio.

Working at HQ, HIL and the Westin.

Off to get a good night sleep in preparation for Day 3.

Tricks and Sun at Cypress

Just to one up Rachel I am uploading a video. I am also putting up a photo where Rachel is obviously not engaged in the photo taking and saying hi to someone. Notice I am wearing a rowing jacket? Still don't own winter wear. Am committed to looking for some end of season sales so that next winter I look the part.

It was a lot of familiar faces at Cypress and confused looks as to why I was getting to sit in the VIP tent and drink Coors light.

I just kept pointing to Rachel and saying 'I'm with her. This is not a work function for me.'

Two other rowers were at the venue; Marnie and Karen. You just can't keep us away.

My next event is a week of working at Wheelchair curling. It will be 8 days of shifts ending at 9pm or as late as 11:30pm. Good times.

One year to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am starting to get a lot of questions from people about what I will do after. It feels much like when you are graduating university and everyone wants to know what your next step is.

good television, bad TV

I think I am cutting my cable. I had this great digital cable package and was enjoying all the movies channels and then it all ended. Now, if I actually get home and have time to watch anything there is nothing on.

My plan is to cut the cable and go to Rachel's to watch TV. They have a PVR and tape anything I would likely want to watch. My place is great and the new television is super nice but I was thinking I could be like my own movie channel. Maybe get a Nintendo Wii as well. Movie and video games at my place and any TV shows are watched at Rachel and Chris'. The programming on TV is just not cutting it and I refuse to spend a $100 a month just to have the movie channels when I am home.

Will call Shaw tomorrow. I will, of course, need cable back before Games time. Maybe even HD.

sweet chardonnay

Once again, I am so happy to live downtown. A friend stopped by to split a bottle of wine and some good eats and it was all possible because I live in the centre of the universe. Totally addicted. Cannot go back to the burbs. Will stay here forever. I wonder if there are many kids in this building?

After one of the craziest days I have ever had at work I got home at 7pm and preheated the oven for some frozen mini quiches and cracked a bottle of wine. Even prepped my lunch for tomorrow by cutting up salad stuff. It was great to catch up with a friend I see everyday in passing at the office but haven't had time to chat to for more than 2 minutes. All is well.

Had to email our father today and reply to his request for Sunday stroll with 'I don't have weekend off until April. How about we catch up then?'

One year countdown is tomorrow. Are you excited? I am. We are starting to mark in months rather than years. Woo hoo!

Made my own jeans...kind of

I am huge fan of tailor made clothing since I went to Asia last summer and got two wicked suits for work made for $150 each (that included jacket, pant and skirt). I love all the pieces and feel good wearing them. So nice to not have jackets look like they are 3/4 length sleeves, pants not look like capris and skirts not look inappropriately short.

Santa brought me a few magazines in my stocking and one of them was InStyle. It had a great article on ordering tailor made jeans. The author actually tested two different companies; one high end ($100+) and one low end (under $70) to see what they could produced. You pick the style and color of the jeans and then send a number of measurements. Someone in India gets all the information and they make your jeans and mail them off to you.

I decided to test out makeyourownjeans.com and they arrived last week after placing my order in early January. The total cost ended up being $87 with shipping.

The Verdict
A bit too big (was maybe too generous on the measurements) and too long but I can wear them with heels and for a change my jeans don't gape at the waist in the back. Will purchase more.

Home Sweet Home

After a week in Whistler I am happy to be back in my humble abode. As Grand Forks Dunnets and Chicago Dunnet have not seen the place I thought I would post a few pics. The color of my furniture also explains the hesitation to have young Dunnets over. Mum suggested to cover the furniture in bed sheets but that just seemed over the top and a bit anal retentive. Which is actually how I would be described when it comes to my new place. Margo stayed for one night and I had 3 pages of instructions on the place. I feel like I am leasing a nice car and going to get dinged for every scratch on it when I return it.But man did it feel good to walk in the door after the week in Whistler. I was back for one night to put out a few fires at work but it was a pit stop. Have spent most of the day wondering what I do when I am not working. 7 days straight of work does that to you.Notice I have a real bed. Bed frame and everything. Totally legit. Feel like a grown up.

base out

In event mode working in Whistler and boy is it a break from my office job. Unfortunately, my office job continues so after a good 13 hours at the venue I came back to the hotel and spent almost 2 hours answering 'urgent' emails last night. Are they really that urgent if the person didn't call? Flagging something with an exclamation point does not mean it is that urgent. If you make the effort to call I know you need an answer ASAP.

I have spent the day listening to the urgent and non-urgent voices of others. 'I need a spritz from 11 down', 'Crash on 13', 'There is a line up out the door of the workforce break area. Please hold your workforce departing for lunch.' or ' Training will start 25 minutes later than scheduled'.

People urgently needed to know these things. They impacted what they were doing at that exact moment. So someone picked up a radio and passed on a message.

Now wishing we all walked around with radios rather than text messaging and email. You don't even have to be polite on the radio. No 'thank yous'. Just 'over' and 'out'. No 'pardon me'. Just 'say again'. It is all so simple.

Better get back to my urgent work email.

On the road

Today I leave for Whistler for a week of work. This may sound glamourus or fun (if you're a powder hound) but the reality is a 6am start time for the first 4 days and juggling my actual job while working at an event, living out of a hotel and trying to workout everyday. I am looking forward to the break in scenery but not necessarily the break from my new bed.

I am also trying to spend less on eating out, so this week with no kitchen could be a real challenge. Do I make instant soup boiling water in the hotel room coffee maker? Or just bring a ton of larabars and fruit and eat only snacks for 7 days. I predict I will have to hit a restaurant for a meal at least twice but I am bringing my espresso maker with me and can hopefully avoid too many coffee purchases.

Must run. 9:45am pick up time and I still need to do hair, finish packing and pick up fruit and coffee stuff. Thank goodness I live above IGA and across the street from Starbucks.