On a snowy morning in April, my Canadian-born mother and American-born father struggled through the final hours of labor. At 7:35am on April 5th, I was born in a small apartment in Belleville, a suburb of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. For five years my family moved: in and out of three Canadian cities and two provinces, until finally, shortly before I entered kindergarten, my father was offered a transfer. My dad was an employee of the Toronto-based Northern Telecom (later known as Nortel) and he and my mom jumped at the opportunity to try a warmer climate and better cost of living. We moved to Nashville, Tennessee. I have not lived…
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Long Days
I’m going to skip the guilt for not posting this time. For the record I did post, and a pretty good one at that, about a month ago. But seeing as it dealt with work, and in a pretty negative way, I decided it was neither the time nor place (yeah, censorship!) and took it down after about 15 minutes. Which actually ties nicely into my gloomy post for this evening. I’ve noted several times of the past few months that this year sucks. At first I thought it was just me feeling sorry for myself for turning 30, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Aside from…
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All-Star City
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Hopelessly undevoted to you
I know, I know. I’m hopeless at blogging. Ironically I have been doing some posting, just not that much here. But don’t be sad- you’re always be my first. Christmas was good aside from a miserable cold that hit Christmas Eve and would not let go. Wonderful to see the family and just hang out and relax. My brother and his wife have big plans to be pregnant again by next December (and keep telling everyone about it!) so that may be the last time we’re all together for awhile. Went to NYC for New Years. Had a great time with with my friends and got to see a lot…
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The Cookie Affair
Every year I participate in a cookie exchange with some ladies from work. My mom does so much cooking that I like to try to help out by bringing home 6 or 7 dozen cookies to keep the troops occupied satiated with sugar. In case you’re not familiar with the concept of a cookie exchange, I have to make 6 dozen cookies and I trade them with a dozen cookies 6 other people have made. Of course I also like to make a dozen to take home for myself because I (unbiasedly) believe mine are usually the best anyway. With 7 dozen cookies to make, I like to try to…
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Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (Monty Python)
My crazy cousin has a great blog where she spends lots of time talking about her sweet little baby (http://jellybeanmama.blogspot.com/). Her post yesterday (“It Could Always Be Worse”) resonated because I, and I suspect many of you, have been feeling the chill of recession and tension of questionable job security lately. So here is my contribution to positive thinking. The 5 things I am grateful for today: Friends who have you over for a fantastic (and free) home-cooked meal. Comes with great conversation. A home that has a mortgage I can afford. Having a skill and a job (with awesome perks like health insurance and coworkers I like) where I…
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Thanksgiving: The Horror
Yes, all right, it’s been a month since I’ve posted. I am going to add a “Post to blog” task on my “Remember the Milk” list and monitor it via my iPhone. I know, it’s hard to believe I don’t have time to post since I obviously don’t have a life. So I am one of those people that, when asked by friends and neighbors “how was your Thanksgiving?”, feel compelled to really answer. A simple “fine” is not in my vocabulary. And when I stopped to recall this Thanksgiving, it was really quite chilling. First there was the conversation at Thanksgiving dinner. Somehow I ended up sitting between my…
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Giddy with Technology
Not all of you starved-for-entertainment readers know me that well, but I’m a little high-strung. I stay busy anyway and if you’ve been reading you know the last 10-11 months or so have been extra crazy. So the vacation was a blissful break and I honestly didn’t realize how stressed I’d been until I got back.The last week or two post-vacation has also been somewhat dreamy. Sure, it’s been busy but it also feels like time has slowed down. I can’t believe, for example, that I have only been back for two weeks. It feels like a month!So for the first week and a half or so I was able…
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Really Bag Blogger
I think 4 or 5 people have told me that I accidentally entitled my last post “Bag Blogger”, which was exciting since I had no idea that many people were reading! Hi people! I am a really bad blogger. In my defense, things have been very busy and I have been thinking about blogging. I actually have 3 or 4 things in mind to write about, starting with the story of baby. But I want to give that story it’s full weight so I’ll save it for next time. And by “next time” I don’t mean 3 months from now. I don’t really have any great updates; work is still…
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Random Updates
Progress EnergyApparently I wasn’t the only one with power problems in my area. Progress Energy came out and tore up the cables for everyone in my row of townhouses and then kindly put down grass seed in the area where I’d just finished killing the grass. On the plus side, my power hasn’t flickered in the slightest since then so (knock on wood) I think things might be fixed! Bedroom SetIt’s GORGEOUS! The biggest problem now is that I don’t want to get up in the morning because it’s so pretty and comfy! Yeah! Valentine’s Day & Weight WatchersIt took me a couple days to get over it this year.…
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More for Me!
I have been mocked pretty mercilessly for the whole “year of Jen” thing (can you believe my co-workers actually read this thing? Joke’s on you!) but I’m stickin’ to it. I realized today after a completely meaningless interaction with a waitress that I have gotten better and stating my point-of-view, even when I don’t want the confrontation. I’d like to think I’ve also gotten better at knowing when to say nothing, but that may just be an excuse for all the times I say nothing. My latest year-of-jen extravagance is that I’ve bought myself a new bedroom set (check out the picture)! My brother put up crown molding, I painted…
