Christmas wrap up

Wasn’t able to blog over Christmas  at all …  we attended midnight mass on Dec 24th at St John’s Cathedral.    Brrrrrr it was a cold night!    As expected,  there was no parking nearby the church as well so we’ve had to park in a distance and walk  …..  walking in such a low temperature was not fantastic  at all for me!    Perhaps we could have gone earlier … the Church was packed!

Did have sometimes to prepare our Christmas meal on the 25th … Almost all  shops and restaurants are closed on Christmas Day.   Perhaps  hotel outlets  with lobby bars that cater for special Christmas  dinners remained opened to the public on this day.

And finally TODAY ~ Boxing Day and the day after Christmas, I am back to work at my weekend job …  Nice!!!! I can update my blog again.   Everyone is still on a ‘merry’ mood so its sort of very quite around the area.  They were extremely busy at the place I work full-time … Humanitarian Bowl started to check-in and as all other colleagues requested for the Christmas weekend off,  only Teri and Juanita were there for the team.   Ah well they’ll manage just fine.

Merry Christmas to All!

the contrast

Taken in about the same area ….

During a winter storm and a sunny autumn day!

December Solstice

I guess its the shortest time of the year …. not much of fun!  Well also  the 1st day of Winter in the norther hemisphere!   The weather forecast says that we’ll be getting lots snow starting 11pm tonight and this is going to be  a heaven for skiers.   It was pretty dark at 5pm  her and probably no light at all at SANTA’S &  REINDEER’S land up north!!!!     Had to work a short shift today, I wasn’t on schedule but had to come in anyway.

Happy Sunday!

Winter Solstice will officially be tomorrow – Monday Dec 21 …   we’ve had a terrribly foggy day this week that visibility was only about a mile away.  Not much time to blog but will  continue ….

My life around

Just a pretty normal sight around this time of the year …  kids are waiting for Santa …    Its the great season for … shopping for Christmas presents,  parties, getting drunk and lots of good stuff.    Lots of business have cut down cost and may not have any of those so-called “annual event” at all.  Department stores have all the sales and tremendously at a very nice bargain … its very tempting!

Well not for everyone though.   Lots of people have lost their jobs in 2009 and lots of people had their properties and houses foreclosed, leaving some homeless and be confined in a public shelter.

When I took this picture at the mall, nobody seems to be around ..  When I went to Macys and JC Penny, the store was sort of packed.  Observing much, saw many people standing by the fragrance counter buying gift packs …  Macys  was having a great promotion on branded perfumes.  The shoe department was packed as well.

Not meant to go by the mall on this particular day but since its in the area, I dropped by anyway.    Gone to the Asian’t grocers to buy some oriental stuff i.e  some kailan and sawi but they didn’t look too good.  It was probably because of the cold weather, they got retarded ~ they looked short in size so did not get any of those.   Not a nice thing noticeably, they have also increased the prices of the common goods that I have always been buying  like Thai rice and those fish ball packs  from Malaysia.    Even the  Indonesian ‘nasi goreng’  sauce pack was up by 10 cents.  They are surely making money!

A day of falling snow

Its Saturday and I’m working at my other job ..

Again …. it snowed almost all day today ~ Saturday.   The road are already icy by now at 6pm.    Its dark and cold out there.    My car slided to the left  (on a two-lane  roadway) when I was tyring to make a left turn on the green light.   It made me scary and was lucky enough that no car was on the other side of the road!   The truck behind me actually slowed down or rather stopped on the side to give me way to adjust my wheel!  Have to be driving as slow as I can to safety …

halfway blogging, I went outside and took this picture just outside of the lobby area ~ looking slushy and icy!

its the season!

Its a beautiful scene …. snow!   We were snowed in last Sunday and lasted all day on Monday.  When I woke up, there was a fairly heavy snow and all was covered white.  I thought it was beautiful as usual … took some snaps.  Well the day made me lazy and wanting to stay home to keep myself warm.  This was the 1st snow blizzard of the season and I know that the snow would not go away for now when the temperature is so low, keeping it icy cold.   Well this is fairly normal at this time of the year but not the freezing temperature  .. probably would be getting a WhiteChristmas again this year typically!!

Uneventful Sunday, just seeing snow

Its really a gloomy Sunday … its raining and snowing at the same time but the snow lasted for only about half an hour.    That was rain turning into  quite a thick snow!   Its  been raining overnight and still is.   Wished the sun would be out there later.

Managed to  snapped the snow fall ….  taken at 10am

When I was driving to work later in the day,  it was dark and  cloudy and did want to get wet while I walk from the parking lot to the office.

This is also a very boring Sunday for me … I am feeling so sleepy now.  Thought the coffee would help but not quite.  That was a strong caffiene …  even by using a pack.     Not bad of a gourmet coffee and I think they specially ordered.

Thanksgiving Week

Its Thanksgiving week ahead ….. we’ll have our Thanksgiving day changed to a day earlier this year!!!   Traditionally North American being celebrated during the last Thursday of November ~  Not sure whether this is acceptable or not but its going to happen anyway.   Those two days before the actual day are our days off … what a coincidence! Will have to make full use of these 2 days ….     Lesley & I are both working on the actual Thanksgiving Day which is on Thursday.   Its going to be an extra hectic working day for me as I am scheduled to work on both jobs  with minimal hours on one    …  thinking about it … just for 2009!   I did work last Thanksgiving as well, did I or was it the day after?    My colleague, Juanita has invited me to come over to her place in Nampa to try out her thanksgiving fiesta dinner but can’t possibly go with my day being occupied.

Found this delicious turkey on the internet …. unfortunately not one of  mine!   Looks so perfect  for the Thanksgiving dinner table.    Would like to prepare one of those as I did in 2007 but the turkey was soooo humongous that we’ve had to  keep left overs frozen for quite a while .    Had it nicely done and tasty as well though.     Not sure whether I want to do that this year though.  But will surely prepare  a decent good  meal for us!