The Magic of Winterlude

There is something magical about skating on the Rideau Canal in February. Thousands of people flock to the Ottawa area for Winterlude every year. I think it's the city's biggest tourist draw. I guess we have to do something to help ourselves get through the long, cold winters. As I get older, Winterlude has less and less of a draw for me. All of my memories of skating on the canal are fraught with cold feet, sore ankles, sore back, cold nose, getting left behind because I'm too slow and just generally not liking the experience. The only good thing about Winterlude is the beavertails, those sticky, sweet pastries loaded with brown sugar, cinnamon and just a hint of lemon. But wouldn't it just be so much better to not have to eat them with your mitts on and your scarf sticking to your face??

Winterlude is a time for many gatherings. Our little church swells with visitors during this time. Family comes from far and near and friends jump at the chance to come and hang out downtown during this frigid time. I dread this time of year. As the only chance to hang out with people is to tighten up those skates and join them on the ice, where my feet invariable cramp up and I run out of energy all to quick. Nobody seems to understand the feeling of panic when everyone you know skates out of sight around a corner laughing with delight; not even realizing you are struggling to keep up. Being torn between wanting desperately to take off the dreaded skates and curl up with a mug of hot chocolate and wanting to join in the fun everyone else is having, that's the magic of Winterlude for me. Not very magical.

Tampa Take 2

I thought I would divide up the post a bit. So, read the second one first, ok?!!


This is me on Indian Rocks Beach just taking it all in!!!!!Here's Reuben taking it all in and then using this wash station to wash off his sandy feet.


Here's us in our Mustang Convertible!!!

Here's some pictures of downtown Tampa ... the sun came out in the morning and it was just gorgeous!


And if anyone asks us if it was worth it to go down for under 24 hours, we would both emphatically say "YES"!!! It was just so nice to get away from the cold winter air!! Stay tuned for our next crazy adventure!:)

Tampa

Well, it definitely is a wonderful life. Reuben and I decided at the last minute to go to Tampa this weekend. We just wanted to be warm and do something crazy! So, we hopped on the flight Saturday morning. It turned out that we flew with my friend, Kimberley, from work, Reuben and Jodi and Chris and Charlene Van Popta. They were heading out to Vancouver for Grandma VanPopta's funeral. Kimberley was going to Toronto to visit her family. Our flight was through Toronto, which was ok except we had a delay in Ottawa and we had to go through Customs in Toronto. We had to run to catch our flight only to sit on the tarmac for an hour and a half to be deiced. This was definitely frustrating but we were relaxed because we didn't have a huge agenda when we got to Tampa, we just wanted to be on the beach!


After this delay, our flight was uneventful and when we landed in Tampa and saw the snow-free, sunny runway we were so glad we had done this. As we exited the plane, we caught a breeze coming in through the cracks in the gate and were even more excited, a fresh, warm breeze! sigh! So wonderful!!!!

So after getting our luggage, we went to get our rental car and lo and behold they had a Mustang convertible available so we snatched it.




Then we drove to the beach, put our toes in the sand and even into the ocean(it was cold!!). It was cloudy and windy but still a lot warmer than Ottawa and we just basked in everything.

I made a QUILT

Here's a picture of the quilt I made for Hadassah.
I'll admit that Karin helped me quite a bit but I did all the cross-stitching and most of the sewing of the pieces together. YAY!! I hope she likes it.
We'll be going down for her baptism this weekend. Shhh!!! It's a surprise (the quilt)!:)

Tim's Christmas Poem

Check out Tim's Christmas Poem. It's simply amazing! Touching, really.

Hadassah Rein

My new neice was born! Check it out at http://diaryofanaunt.blogspot.com.

Our Holidays

Well, it's the New Year and time for a recap of our holidays. As my husband has done this with pictures, I shall do it with words.

Finally, a week off together since we've been married and did we ever enjoy it. On Friday, Dec 22 we stayed home and had a scrumptious dinner of ham and perogies along with a bottle of homemade white wine given to us by one of Reuben's colleagues. Then
we opened our gifts to each other.

Reuben bought me the most beautiful jewelry box from the Bombay company and along with it a necklace, which he'd found, which I'd lost on our honeymoon. I got him tickets to an Ottawa 67s game and a gift certificate for dinner beforehand.

The next morning, we had a scrumptious breakfast of waffles and then headed out around 12:30pm for Waterdown. The drive was uneventful and a lot more pleasant than when we drive at night. That evening we spent catching up with the Helder family with good food and a fun game called Hoopla, a variation of Cranium.

On Sunday, we did the church thing and for dinner we had a steak fondue with lots of different sauces, yum, yum. Then we exchanged gifts. We also had to write poems. Lawren had Reuben's name so he adapted a Spirit of the West tune and sang it to him. Reuben's mom had my name and she also got me a jewelry box!! I really like it to so I decided to keep it but also thought I could share it with Reuben as it's not too girly! We also got chocolate letters and other small things.

On Christmas day we went to church in the morning and then relaxed the rest of the day. We had Oma Helder over and had a feast of turkey and all the fixings!!

On Boxing Day, we got up and drove straight to Arthur to hang out with the Buist clan. My parents with Rich and Emma had driven up the night before and Karin and Josh arrived about the time we did from their shindig in Port Stanley (Josh's hometown). We had hors d'oeuvres for lunch and then dove right into the gifts. We always have lots of laughs at this time. This year, my dad decided to count how many gifts there were. Suprisingly, there were 101! Craziness. Well, our family has now grown to 11 people so it's not a surprise. The big surprise was that my Mom bought my Dad, a James the Butler. We have been eyeing this statue for so long that it has become a long running family joke. Come on over to my parents' place and you can see him in his rightful place serving my Father. I couldn't find a picture online.

For dinner we had lasagne and then just hung out the rest of the evening, talking and walking and playing Sequence. We drove back to the Helders that night.

On Thursday, we drove home during the day and except for the traffic in Toronto it was also uneventful.

For New Year's Eve we went to the Wildeboers and had a nice time with the church congregation ringing in the New Year.

Our weekend

Raclette at my parents with Mom and Dad Helder and Karin and Josh.











Us at the Museum of Civilization with the Parliament Buildings in the background. We didn't have a tripod so it's pretty blurry. We were trying to make a nice Christmas card picture but as you can tell, it didn't quite work out. Also it's freezing cold and pretty windy.









Reuben and his dad dress up at the Canadian War Museum. We had a really nice time there. If you're in the area you should really check it out. It's definitely worth it. We were there for 3 hours and we didn't get to see half the stuff.









Here we are outside the Canadian War Museum with another attempt at a good picture of us with the Parliament Buildings in the background. Again, very cold and windy. Oh well.










And this is our bench, finally at home in our home. We just love it. It fits perfectly and adds a nice touch to our appartment. Thanks Dad!!

School - UPDATED

Ok, so I was going to quit until my wonderful husband convinced me that he would take care of all our house chores until I was done. So I took a deep breath and am planning to dive into it again tonight. Wish me luck!

School

I don't know how people do it. 40 hrs of work a week plus a night class that includes hours of homework especially as the semester comes to a close and things get more advanced in the class. At the same time, Christmas is coming and you have a home to regularly maintain.

I've overstayed my welcome in this class.

Bye COBOL ... it was nice getting to know you but I hope I never see you again!

Wet Cement

Ok, so does anybody else like the smell of wet cement? I know this sounds really weird but I do like it. . . a lot! I love walking through the tunnel at our church, it's so old and cementy! One of the first times I noticed the smell was walking in the parking garage at Carleton University. I loved the smell as I climbed the stairs. And today, I noticed the smell again as I took my daily walk through the parking garage at the airport.
I tried to google it to see if I was just weird but I found one forum where they were talking about pregnant women and the weird smells that they like. One woman really liked the smell of gasoline!? Now that is crazy!

Our bench

Dad Helder is making us a bench out of an old church pew. It just needs a couple of coats of varnish and a way to get to Ottawa and we'll be able to sit down to tie our shoes. We can't wait to see it in place.
We plan to put a shelf with some hooks above it. I keep threatening Reuben that I will fill the shelf with nicknacks and hang dried flowers from the hooks. Wouldn't that be nice?!

Raleigh Pictures-UPDATED

I thought I would add some descriptives of these pictures.
This is my attempt at rollerskating. I look pretty confident don't I? Good thing you can't see me that well:)
While in Raleigh we did a quick tour of some show homes that were decorated. They were all quite lovely. This is Reuben having some fun.
Reuben has wanted to drive one of these since doing a project on it in highschool. It's a Lexus IS300. And it's my aunt & uncle's. So he finally got the chance.
While touring the Capital buildings downtown Raleigh, we got to test out some of their stationary canons.
These are some of the flowers blooming around the Capital building
My favourite cousin with my favourite man, what a sweet picture!

This is for my Mom

*This program is intended to collect savings account data
*and store it into a text file.

IDENTIFICATION DIVISION.
PROGRAM-ID. SAVINGSDATA.
AUTHOR. IRENE HELDER.
DATE-WRITTEN. OCTOBER 25, 2006.

*Maintenance Log
*Name Date Explanation
*--------------------------------------

ENVIRONMENT DIVISION.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
FILE-CONTROL.
SELECT PRINT-FILE ASSIGN TO 'A:\SAVINGS.DAT'
ORGANIZATION IS LINE SEQUENTIAL.

DATA DIVISION.
FILE SECTION.
FD PRINT-FILE
RECORD CONTAINS 36 CHARACTERS.
01 PRINT-LINE PIC X(36).

WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
*All the variables needed for storing the data.
01 WS-SCREEN-SAVINGS.
05 WS-ACCOUNTNUM.
10 WS-ACCFIRST PIC 9(5) VALUE 0.
10 WS-ACCHYPHEN PIC X VALUE "-".
10 WS-ACCLAST PIC 99 VALUE 0.
05 WS-NAME PIC X(17) VALUE SPACES.
05 WS-AMOUNT PIC ZZZZZZ9.99 VALUE SPACES.
05 WS-TERM PIC 99 VALUE 0.

*Other variables needed for running the program.
01 WS-OTHER-VARIABLES.
05 WS-COUNTER PIC 99 VALUE 0.
05 WS-MORERECORDS PIC X VALUE 'Y'.

*Variables for printing data to the file.
01 WS-PRINTLINE.
05 PR-ACCOUNTNUM PIC X(8).
05 PR-NAME PIC X(17).
05 PR-AMOUNT PIC 9(7)V99.
05 PR-TERM PIC 99.

*Control variables.
01 WS-CONTROLS.
05 WS-SAVE PIC X VALUE SPACES.
88 SAVE-DATA VALUE 'Y','y'.

*Details how the screen will display.
SCREEN SECTION.
01 GET-ACCOUNT-NUM.
05 VALUE "PLEASE ENTER THE ACCOUNT NUMBER:"
LINE 2 COLUMN 2.
05 PIC 9(5) USING WS-ACCFIRST LINE 2 COLUMN 34 REVERSE-VIDEO.
05 VALUE "-" LINE 2 COLUMN 39.
05 PIC 99 USING WS-ACCLAST LINE 2 COLUMN 40 REVERSE-VIDEO.

01 GET-ACCTNAME.
05 VALUE "PLEASE ENTER THE NAME:" LINE 4 COLUMN 2.
05 PIC X(17) USING WS-NAME LINE 4 COLUMN 24 REVERSE-VIDEO.

01 GET-ACCTAMOUNT.
05 VALUE "PLEASE ENTER THE AMOUNT:" LINE 6 COLUMN 2.
05 PIC ZZZZZZ9.99 USING WS-AMOUNT
LINE 6 COLUMN 25 REVERSE-VIDEO.

01 GET-ACCTTERM.
05 VALUE "PLEASE ENTER THE TERM:" LINE 8 COLUMN 2.
05 PIC 99 USING WS-TERM LINE 8 COLUMN 24 REVERSE-VIDEO.

01 SAVE-RECORD.
10 VALUE "WOULD YOU LIKE TO SAVE THIS RECORD?"
LINE 10 COLUMN 2.
10 PIC X USING WS-SAVE LINE 10 COLUMN 37.

01 MORE-RECORDS.
10 VALUE "WOULD YOU LIKE TO ADD ANOTHER RECORD?" LINE 12
COLUMN 2.
10 PIC X USING WS-MORERECORDS LINE 12 COLUMN 39.

01 ERROR-MESSAGES.
05 SCR-FIRSTERROR.
10 VALUE "PLEASE ENTER 5 NUMBERS BEFORE THE HYPHEN"
LINE 3 COLUMN 2.
05 SCR-SECONDERROR.
10 VALUE "PLEASE ENTER 2 NUMBERS AFTER THE HYPHEN"
LINE 3 COLUMN 2.

01 CLEAR-SCREEN.
05 LINE 2 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 3 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 4 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 5 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 6 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 7 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 8 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 9 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 10 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 11 BLANK LINE.
05 LINE 12 BLANK LINE.

PROCEDURE DIVISION.

CREATESAVINGSACCOUNTFILE.
PERFORM A100-STARTUP.
PERFORM A200-PROCESSRECORDS
UNTIL WS-MORERECORDS = "N" or "n".
PERFORM A300-FINALIZE.

STOP RUN.

A100-STARTUP.
OPEN EXTEND PRINT-FILE.

A200-PROCESSRECORDS.
* DISPLAY 'ENTERED A200 PARAGRAPH'.
DISPLAY CLEAR-SCREEN.
INITIALIZE WS-SCREEN-SAVINGS.

PERFORM B100-GETDATA.
PERFORM B200-SAVERECORDS.
PERFORM B300-MORERECORDS.

A300-FINALIZE.
* DISPLAY 'ENTERED A300 PARAGRAPH'.
CLOSE PRINT-FILE.

*I left the code in but commented it out because I can't get it to
*work properly.
B100-GETDATA.
DISPLAY GET-ACCOUNT-NUM.

* PERFORM WITH TEST AFTER UNTIL WS-COUNTER = 5
ACCEPT GET-ACCOUNT-NUM.
* INITIALIZE WS-COUNTER
* INSPECT WS-ACCFIRST TALLYING WS-COUNTER FOR CHARACTERS
* BEFORE '-'
* IF WS-COUNTER <> 5
* DISPLAY SCR-FIRSTERROR
* END-IF
* END-PERFORM.

* PERFORM WITH TEST AFTER UNTIL WS-COUNTER = 2
* INITIALIZE WS-COUNTER
* INSPECT WS-ACCLAST TALLYING WS-COUNTER FOR CHARACTERS
* BEFORE '-'
* IF WS-COUNTER <> 2
* DISPLAY SCR-SECONDERROR
* END-IF
* END-PERFORM.

* DISPLAY CLEAR-MSGS.
DISPLAY GET-ACCTNAME.
ACCEPT GET-ACCTNAME.

DISPLAY GET-ACCTAMOUNT.
ACCEPT GET-ACCTAMOUNT.

DISPLAY GET-ACCTTERM.
ACCEPT GET-ACCTTERM.

B200-SAVERECORDS.
DISPLAY SAVE-RECORD.
ACCEPT SAVE-RECORD.
IF SAVE-DATA PERFORM C100-PRINTVALUES.

B300-MORERECORDS.
DISPLAY MORE-RECORDS.
ACCEPT MORE-RECORDS.

C100-PRINTVALUES.
* DISPLAY 'ENTERED C100'.
MOVE WS-ACCOUNTNUM TO PR-ACCOUNTNUM.
MOVE WS-NAME TO PR-NAME.
MOVE WS-AMOUNT TO PR-AMOUNT.
MOVE WS-TERM TO PR-TERM.
MOVE WS-PRINTLINE TO PRINT-LINE.
WRITE PRINT-LINE AFTER ADVANCING 1 LINE.

Irene needs . . .to join in the fun!

Irene needs to make a decision: should she try to lose weight with a diet program again or should she see the psychologist? - woah, get with the program
Irene needs to pull together the information she has collected - hmmm
Irene needs a medication refill - definitely
Irene needs to push Harry - um ... Harry get over here
Irene needs to stay warm, it's sooo cold ... - oh so true, we haven't turned our heat on yet
Irene needs a new pair of shoes - and how
Irene needs to know how to win at slot machines - nah, gambling is bad
Irene needs purpose and reasons for living -- sometimes this is so elusive and sometimes it is staring at me from across the room
Irene needs to be escorted to upstate New York to deal with a more serious criminal matter - did something happen that I wasn't informed about?
Irene needs to update her wardrobe and get a new haircut style - oh yeah, Reuben better keep bringing home that bacon!
Irene needs to balance her home life with social endeavors - you know me, social butterfly.

haha ... that was a funny exercise!

Thanksgiving

here goes,
I am thankful for:

my hubby
my family
living in Ottawa
the ability to travel
my church family
friends close by
friend far away
the ability to dream big
oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
wonderful, quiet Saturdays in which to get as many chores done as you want or don't want
jeans
hoodies
pasta
income
the color green
Ikea
God's love
freedom of religion
mountains
oceans
music
cousins to giggle with
books and time to read
hot showers
warm mittens
coworkers who are willing to drive you home
my soon-to-be neice/nephew
the Bible
scrapbooking supplies
the view from our appartment



peace be with you all.

My favourite thing

We just returned from another road trip. If you're here from Reuben's blog you'll see that he succinctly described our trip in a series of bullets. I don't have much to add. It was a fantastic time! Everything worked out wonderfully, as far as the plan went except for one thing ... the weather. We had read that it was 30 degrees and sunny in Raleigh when we left. When we arrived and for the entire weekend it was 17 degrees and raining. The exact weather we had just left behind us in the frigid north. Sigh! The grass isn't always greener. (As our friend, Joel, recently pointed out.

Ok, every time we go on a trip we have to tell my father what our favourite part of the trip was. So, here goes. My favourite part of our trip was roller skating!! Can you believe we actually went roller skating? Ottawa doesn't have any roller rinks. It's too bad because it's a lot nicer than ice skating. Why? You may ask. Because it's not freezing cold! At the roller rink you could get roller skates or roller blades. We all got roller skates just for old times sake. When we were younger, my parents had a basement with concrete in the laundry/work room part and we used to roller skate around down there. We'd run into the dryer to stop ourselves. And my cousin, Corrine (who we were visiting, in case you didn't know), used to do this with us. So we did a lot of reminiscing. We always do a lot of reminiscing when we are with her.

Speaking of which, Reuben and I have a really hard time listening to music together because there are only a few bands which we both enjoy listening too. My cousin, Corrine, seemed to have both of our favourites on her IPOD. It's so great when your husband gets a long with your favourite cousin. Anyway, that was just an interesting side note.

So, rollerskating was fun but it's more exercise than I had bargained for. My calf muscles and heart were hurting after just 15 min. You should have seen some of the 'locals' at the rink. There were these 40 year old guys with their wives, just whizzing around the place like they'd been going to the rink every Saturday night since they were 18. It was really cool! And then there were the young people just grooving and having a good time. The music wasn't too harsh either. All in all, a great way to spend a Saturday night in a foreign country.

Other good parts were the grits (mmm ... looks like Cream of Wheat but is eaten with salt and butter instead of sugar and raisins), the Parade of Homes and of course, the company.

Another successful road trip under our belt ... Winnipeg here we come. (Not a road trip, by the way.)

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.