COBOL

hey everyone, I'm in my night class right now at Algonquin college. So, it's sort of boring because it's really basic right now. I don't know if that's because it's a college course or just because it's the beginning of the course and I've done programming before. You do need 2 prerequisites to take this course but I'm not sure what everyone else's background is.

The stereotype is that College is easier than University. Is that the case? Or is it just more practical than theoretical. Well, I'm just glad that my course is easy right now, I don't know if I can handle a full day's work and homework and school. I guess I'm not the first one to attempt it so I should be able to do it.

If this doesn't make sense it's because I'm half listening and half typing this blog. It's very distracting having the Internet right in front of me. I end up starting to look something up and totally block out the teacher and then realize I've missed something that could be important.

haha ... life of a student. This includes leaving your homework to the last minute!

Happy studying all of my fellow students!!

The Morning Routine

Mornings ... I've always hated mornings. The alarm clock sounds and you emerge drowsily from sleep to a new day. There is that moment when you just want to turn off the alarm and roll over and go peacefully back to sleep but then you realize that you must arise and face the day with all it's joy and trouble. I've never been one to ignore my alarm and oversleep. There is some sense of duty and of not wanting to disappoint that makes me rise and shine. Before marriage I was always a total groucho in the mornings not wanting to communicate with anyone. Living on my own seemed to encourage this mood. Now that I am married, sometimes I wake up grumpy and Reuben is happy sometimes Reuben is happy and I am grumpy. Oh wait ... I'm still the grump. Ok, so most days Reuben has to really encourage me to cheer up and be happy, get out of bed and face the day. He always thanks God for a good night's sleep and good jobs to go to. How come I find it hard to pray this in the morning. Having just woken up, it's hard to believe that I have had a good sleep. Especially, last night when I tossed and turned with a severe headache until 2 in the morning, when I forced myself to take advil and then tossed and turned the rest of the night but at least without a headache. But this morning Reuben woke up more grumpy then I've ever seen him in the morning. He's sick. He has a sore throat and we hardly spoke one word to each other.
I'm not sure what my point is. I guess I was just pondering the difference now that I am married and have to communicate with someone in the morning. About the fact that I love waking up with someone rather than alone. And that inevitably my day is better because of this.

Reuben's Birthday Weekend

It's time for another long and boring post. Work is very slow so I am going to write as much as possible because I have nothing to do here and I'm trying to make the day go by just a little bit faster. Anyway, it's almost lunchtime so that's a good thing.

This past weekend it was Reuben's birthday. We knew we wanted to do something special and since travelling is our specialty we spent some time working on where to go. Eventually, we decided on Brockville and Merrickville, both within an hour's drive of home. We had thought Calgary at first, to take advantage of my working at WestJet but then it was so far away and we didn't want to spend them money to go to the mountains so we opted for something closer to home. Plus we hadn't been to our own church for 4 weeks so it was good to be home for that.

On Friday after work, we headed out with our suitcase to Brockville. We took the 416 up to the 401 and got off the 401 at Prescott and then drove down Hwy 2 to Brockville. This was a little more exciting than the 401 as it follows the St. Lawrence river. There were some great views and great countryside homes to see! In Brockville we drove around to find a restaurant and ended up at the Brockberry Cafe. It is a small, family run business but the choice, wine and food were all excellent. We loved the wine we had, not sure what it was, something Italian! Reuben had his famous Philly Cheese Steak sandwich that he always gets and I had a great salad with Thai chicken and mandarin oranges. We had bruschetta to start so we were too full for dessert.

Then we checked into our hotel. It was a really nice room! I couldn't wait to give Reuben his birthday present (his actual birthday was on Sunday) so he opened it then. He was very surprised! It is a GPS locator. We've been having lots of fun with it!

In the morning, we checked out the complimentary continental breakfast and were dismally disappointed. There were some dry croissant bagels with jam. Some bread, muffins (not fresh). And coffee and orange juice. oh well, we filled up anyway. On the road we decided to skip the Brockville Farmer's Market and used our GPS to get to Merrickville. We had to pass through Smith Falls' and since Reuben had never been to the Hershey factory we stopped by and purchased some much needed chocolate. Then it was on to Merrickville. It was sort of a cool and windy day but at least the rain held off until we left. We toured around the cute shops, saw the locks and had some lunch at the Yellow Canoe cafe. It was a nice time, I'm glad we went.

On Sunday, we had a very fun dinner party at my parents' place. Ribs, chicken, fettucine, salad and a wonderful chocolate mousse dessert birthday cake.

Then on Monday we were supposed to have a church picnic but the weather was decidedly not picnic-like. So we grabbed all the food we had planned to bring and brought it to Mom & Dad's and had a smorgasborg dinner.

All in all, a wonderful and memorable weekend.