It’s been a bit since I’ve updated, but it’s because we’ve been so busy! Last weekend my parents came up for their first trip to Calgary, and we had a fantastic time. They got in Friday, and we spent Saturday checking out the city and downtown, then Sunday we spent the day in Banff sightseeing and taking in the mountain scenery. We caught the Ladysmith Black Mambazo concert Sunday night, and had breakfast Monday morning before both my parents and Lucas’ flights. That’s right – my parents headed back to the U.S. and Lucas also headed to the U.S. for a business trip in L.A. to work with the MarketWire software all at the same time on Monday morning. It was great getting to see and spend some time with my parents over the weekend – it seemed like the weekend flew by so fast! You can check out some of the pictures we took in our gallery.

So far the week has been busy and eventful, which is good because it’s been a little lonely in the evenings with Lucas in L.A. Thanks to Claire, I’ve been completely obsessed with the crafting forum craftster.org, which has opened me up to 398246948393487 crafting ideas and more inspiration for crafty projects than I know what to do with. I’ve lately grown attached to making “plushies” … basically, making my own stuffed creatures and items. I have let myself start too many projects at once due to the overwhelming resource that is craftster.org, and am working on christmas gifts and some fun stuff for myself all at the same time. Since some of those items on my current project list are “top secret” (soon-to-be-gifted), I can’t go into detail here, but I’ll show them off at a later time. Wow, the craftster.org book and one of those little mini portable sewing machines would be a fabulous Christmas gift! … *hint hint* … sewing all of those things by hand is fairly time consuming. (*hint hint*) ;)

Today I had a meeting downtown with the volunteer program coordinator of Calgary Public Libraries. She was incredibly nice, and has found me a position working with kids and helping them with their homework after school a night or two a week at one of the branches close to us. The meeting went very well, and I really enjoyed the woman’s company. She was very kind and easy to talk to and we had a good chat about immigration (she’s from Ireland) and our pets. She just so happens to have a handsome dog like us, though I was polite enough not to remind her that Oliver is the most handsome dog in the world. I’m totally excited and can’t wait to get started with the volunteer program.

So I get on the train to head back home after the meeting, and as usual, scoured the train for interesting people to watch, which is one of my favorite parts of taking public transit. The train was pretty full for being 2:00 in the afternoon, and there was only one open seat diagonally across from me. We start going, and all is generally quiet. Then suddenly, a man wearing nothing but a pair of short khaki shorts comes and sits down in the open seat. Let’s take a moment to realize that it’s late October. Nearly November. In Canada. Now I will admit it’s a fairly mild day for being October in Calgary, (I didn’t even wear my coat downtown) BUT short shorts and absolutely nothing else is going to the extreme. The man must’ve seen my impossible-to-hide expression of surprise, and began attempting to carry on a conversation with me and the surrounding passengers in jibberish. However, it wasn’t complete jibberish; I caught a few recognizable words amongst the chatter, such as “13-14 years.” Then as quickly as he came, he was up and moved further down the train to stand. I looked around at some of the other passengers to make sure I wasn’t the only one who found this to be incredibly odd, and I was greeted with lots of confused looks, grins, and shrugs … so I guess I didn’t make it up.

In nerdy news, an article guide I wrote for the current in-game event in World of Warcraft has made front page website news on both the official World of Warcraft site (my second front page mention there) and the WoW Stratics website. I warned you this was nerdy news! And speaking of writing articles for World of Warcraft… the company that I write WoW articles for just paid me today for one of the five articles I’ve submitted to them in the past week and a half – I was pleasantly surprised that it was worth double than a typical article. Now I’m looking forward to seeing what the other four are worth on top of that. While it’s not tons and tons of money, it feels good to make a little here and there by just doing what I like to do on the side as a hobby anyway. My gaming website (where my personal, non-paid articles are posted) is www.pinktoque.com.

What else? It’s been a fairly quiet week crafting away while I watch movies, but tonight will be fun; Kali and I are going out to dinner and a movie. Not sure where we’re going to eat, but we’re going to go see Marie Antoinette at Eau Claire. Should be a fun time! And speaking of Kali, I have to thank her for suggesting me to help out with a “job” that Nikki has. Most of the people in Lucas’ office (where Kali and Nikki also work) own dogs, and it’s pretty normal for dogs to be in the office. Next week there will be some people from the L.A. office in for a project (that Lucas is currently working on in L.A. this week), and so no dogs are allowed in the office due to the guests. Nikki has a beautiful Doberman named Mikka who needs someone to walk her, feed her, and let her out during the day next week since Nikki’s boyfriend will be out of town. Yay for me- Oliver and I are going to go over and hang out with Mikka a little bit each day to help out. Oliver and Mikka met a few months ago before Kali and Caley’s wedding at a dog-friendly work party. Mikka was infatuated with Oliver, who wanted nothing to do with her. (He’s so shy and anti-social with other dogs, especially ones bigger than he is.) Maybe next week they’ll get a chance to be better friends :)