Hello fun-seekers,
I missed my usual Sunday deadline! Oops. I’ve been all over the place this week, but I’m having a great time. I think I’m working too much (and my mom agrees), but I do enjoy my jobs, and I like to be busy. My life-balancing skills are pretty much back, though, and this lululemon yoga challenge is largely to thank for it. The company has doubled our free class allowances, so I get two per week now, and I bought a 5-pass at Moksha (the hot yoga studio) as a treat. (Merry Christmas, me!) Four classes this week, and I’m lined up for two, at least, next week. (Though next week will be harder, as everything’s closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day…) Anyway, I’m feeling great. And Nick J arrives home tomorrow, to a house full of Johnsons who dearly miss his loud jack-assery.
I must say, as the advent calendar gets more and more full (ours is a tree with ornaments, not a chocolate one that would undoubtedly already be sneakily emptied), I’m starting to feel the holiday spirit. With festive love in mind, today’s episode is dedicated to A.J. Fraser, whom I am so very lucky to count among my dear friends, and his mom, Jeri Pero-Fraser. I met A.J. when we were both counselors at the Tim Horton Children’s Ranch out in Kananaskis, Alberta a few years ago. He’s in Calgary, training to be an amazing guide – climbing like a fiend, playing outside, perhaps whitewater rafting, though he already honed those skills as a rafting guide at camp two summers ago. He still finds time to be one of the most insightful people I know, and I can’t wait to see where he goes. Thanks so much to A.J. and his mom for their support.
(A little younger, slightly under the influence of the Calgary Stampede and the Drum & Monkey… A.J. and me.)
Well, I’m waiting on some advice from Christiana, who works for WWF in Antananarivo. She’ll let me know how best to attack the visa situation, so I can do that as soon as possible. There is a Malagasy embassy in Ottawa, so Jamila, that means we might be having a beans & rice slumber party. Get excited. (And I have my fingers crossed that none of us contracted schisto this summer – Jamila has been shouted at by a series of doctors in our nation’s capital, who can’t believe that she walked in tropical freshwater. Well, if you can’t go over the rice paddy, and can’t go under it, and it would take a day to walk around it… you trudge through. Squelch squelch. Parasite city. As I said – fingers crossed.)
Best wishes, and I hope all of you in Halifax are holed up by the fireplace and not driving this evening. (For those of you reading from afar, we are experiencing a wee snow squall today. I fishtailed onto my street. But the trees look lovely.) Love love love.
