I'm shocked.... Literally

My clothes have been tightly clinging to me recently (not due to weight gain - this time anyway) and my hair is constantly standing on end. Every time I go to open a door, pick something up and wash my hands I get stung. It was funny at first but now it's really pissing me off. My favourite new saying is 'Oh Fuck!'... Ok that's a favourite old saying of mine but i''m using it now more than I ever did, if that's possible!

Ever since we moved here I've been getting shocked and zapped something chronic... The culprit - static electricity.

In winter back home we tend to get this a little and i'm usually only affected by it with my hair clinging to my face for a few days but this is just ridiculous! It's an awful feeling - every day without fail i'm getting shocked multiple times and it's actually made me fear turning a door knob!

Apparently dry air is a better conductor of electricity, and due to the fact it's much drier here than in Australia, matched with the bitter cold that draws even more moisture out of the air, I really have no chance of avoiding it. So i'm off today to buy some anti static spray which will hopefully alleviate the problem because i'm over it!

Winter sucks and thank GOD for chinooks!

It's no secret that Canadian winters are brutal. In Alberta temperatures can get down to -40C which is so hard to even comprehend for an Aussie like me. Compared to our average low of around 10C in winter on the Gold Coast it's been a pretty big shock to the system to say the least.

Luckily, where we live in Calgary we get warm winds known as Chinooks that blow in from the Rocky Mountains and heat everything up. They can last for a few hours or even a few days. One day it will be -10C and the next it will be +10C. Its one of the only places in the word to experience this so we are very fortunate to have ended up here. Honestly if I had to endure a long harsh winter without the respite of these warmer days I think I would have already packed up and headed back to Australia. Even the thought of enduring another one next year isn't too appealing. We'll see how we feel as next winter draws closer I guess.

Before we left D & I really wanted to live somewhere with 4 distinct seasons as we don't really get that back at home but honestly it seems like winter here lasts at least 6 months! I know what you're thinking - well you DID move to Canada what else were you expecting?!? Fair enough.... but I feel like we had to come here and discover this for ourselves to know for certain that we do, in actual fact love Australia and it will always be our home.

Now that it's late February I am well and truly OVER the cold and the snow - the fact we don't have any ski gear to actually enjoy these conditions doesn't help either but we needed a house and a car first and that prevented us from being able to afford those things.

So bring on Spring/Summer. I need warm wind in my hair, sun on my skin, the smell of BBQ in the air, the sound of crickets humming in the trees. A beach would also be nice but that's never gonna happen in Calgary, I guess i'll settle for a lake!

A New Course

Those of you that know me on facebook you may have realised that I LOVE LOVE LOVE taking photos. I have thousands of them uploaded via facebook and most of the storage on my computer is devoted to pictures i've taken through the years - meticulously sorted of course. Although I really enjoy re-living all the great places and things i've been lucky enough to experience I often wish my photos were better. I notice small things that annoy me about them and wish I could go back and try that photo again.....

Instagram has made it easy to turn otherwise boring or basic photos into almost a work of art - I really like the app but I still wish I had the knowledge to create stunning photos without the help of those awesome filters! Back in high school I took a film class that taught me the basics of composing an image and it’s something I really enjoyed and I still use those concepts when taking photos today. I also touched on this during my brief University  studies but never ventured past the really basic stuff.

Browsing through the course options

I bought a very basic but still good Nikon DSLR camera with a twin lens kit for cheap from Costco in the states and it's perfect for a beginner like me. I think i've taken some really neat shots with it already but it’s mostly been on the auto mode and i'd love to know how to use it in manual mode. That being said it's hard to teach yourself how to use something so complex and I’ve decided that I want to do it properly, not just look it up on youtube or read another blog about it. I want some formal guidance to be able to use the camera to it's full potential (and to see my full potential as well).

Just after I enrolled - so excited!

So, to cut a long story short, D decided to enrol me in a photography course at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology which is only about 1/2 hour drive from our place. One of the things I wanted to do while here was learn a new skill and I know taking photos is something I already enjoy. As long as I have a camera in hand, I can take this hobby with me wherever I go. I'm really excited about it and hopefully I will be taking better photos before I know it!

The gorgeous 'Heritage Hall' building at SAIT

Happy Birthday to me!

My first birthday celebrated outside Australia was this week. Usually I get together with my family & friends and have a party, or dinner or a BBQ. I was feeling a little depressed about turning 27 as well as being away from most of the poeple who usually make me feel special.... so I didn't feel all that excited about it.

I share my birthday with Vaentines Day and this year moreso than ever before it really pissed me off. It's probably because Valentines Day is SO MUCH BIGGER here in North America than it is back in Australia and I was left feeling not so special after all. It sounds so selfish I know but I couldn't help it. I felt a tinge of guilt for not getting D anything for Valentines but then decided he doesn't have to get me anything on his birthday so why should I get him anything. I think from now on we will celebrate Valentines Day on February 15th because I felt like a right bitch! I understand how people born on Christmas Day feel now!

For my birthday I went and got a much needed pedicure and manicure - the dry air and constant closed in shoes had left my feet very unhappy! Then D bought me a beautiful orchid for my bedside table plus chocolates and pecan pie (YUM). Then we went to lunch at Boston Pizza (an institution here in Canada) where they do heart shaped pizzas every VDay followed by a movie - Safe Haven which was a book by Nicholas Sparks that I read a couple of years ago.

Heart shaped pizza :)

Chocolates & orchids from my sweetheart

I bought a cute pair of tan wedges and then we walked around a thrift store in Airdrie where I found an awesome vintage suitcase for $3 which I intend on re-lining (maybe with some discontinued fabrics from work) and putting my cosmetics in. D also worked a bit of overtime last week  so I could enrol in a photography course for my birthday which i'll explain more in another post.

All in all it was a good birthday but I still can't believe i'm 27... I think I still have a lot of growing up to do yet!

Revenge of the Wisdom Tooth

I'll admit it - i'm a complete and utter wimp when it comes to the dentist. I had some pretty traumatic experiences in the school dental van as a child that have always just stuck with me. I avoid going to the dentist until I really have to and unfortunately that means things get pretty bad inside my mouth before I actually decide I can't put it off any longer.
Case in point - my wisdom teeth. In my teens I wore braces for 2 years and had 4 teeth extracted in order to allow room for my wisdom teeth to come in. Unfortunately a couple of them impacted and never fully popped through the gum. Oh how I wish I had them removed back then :(

I remember feeling a cavity in one of my lower wisdom teeth when I lived on the Central Coast of NSW in 2006 - yep 7 years ago... But did I do anything about it at the time? NO. Stupid girl! Then a few years later in 2009 as that tooth was getting progressively worse I felt a sharp pain in the wisdom tooth on the other side of my jaw. Seeing as though my wedding was only a couple of weeks away and I didn't want to spend the day in agony I decided to visit the dentist who put in a temporary filling to alieviate the pain and gave me strict instructions to visit again right after my honeymoon as it wasn't a permanent fix and I had some other 'issues' that needed attention. Well, do you think I went back? Hell no, I was just married and not interested in doing anything less than pleasant. The pain had gone so as far as I was concerned there was really no need to do anything about it right now anyway.

2 years later in 2011 I had MAJOR trouble with these same two teeth which resulted in an infection, allergic reaction to medication and about a week in total off work. I was so sick and just wanted to be hospitalised as I couldn't take care of myself. I did book in to have my teeth removed that time however being the university dental clinic I got stuffed around quite a bit and long story short the extraction never eventuated.
Now here in Canada I have been expreiencing the normal type on/off pain I am used to after years of dealing with these teeth but then the temporary filling fell out of my tooth a couple of weeks ago, and things have gone downhill quickly from there. The last few nights have been the worst whereby I have had pretty much no sleep, excrutiating pain in my jaw, terrible headaches, up and down with a hot water bottle, not being able to eat and a tummy full of pain medication has made me feel very sick as well and lack of sleep has rendered me quite the grouch. At this stage I want to rip these teeth out of my head myself and the Tom Hanks in Cast Away method is actually quite appealing - nothing can be worse than the pain i've been dealing with the last few days... Unfortunately that isn't much of an option as the real problem lies below the gumline in the roots closely located to nerves in my jaw. Double that with hooked roots and rotting easily breakable teeth and you have a case for an oral surgeon, not just a case of a routine extraction in the dental chair. My teeth will need to be cut out of my gums, oh joy!

So not impressed to be at work with such a painful toothache

So today I went to the local dentist for a referral to an oral surgeon. The dentist gave me a temporary filling to hopefully relieve some of the pain shooting up my jaw/ear/head and an antibiotic prescription but it may take a few days for them to get working. I'm booked to see the oral surgeon at the end of March - it was the earliest they could fit me in - so, so upset at the thought of dealing with this shit for another 6 weeks but I don't have a choice. Will update the situation when I have anymore news... Until then i'm praying this pain goes away I can't live like this!!!

Chevy Chase - our new car!

The pain in the ass that has been trying to get around without a car has finally 'driven' D & I to decide a car is a definite must for our time in Canada. I'm sure the public transit in bigger cities like Edmonton & Calgary are more than fine but our smaller town of Airdrie only operates a bus Mon - Fri between 8 - 6pm and weekend transit is non-existent. Also, the fact we want to explore outside of Airdrie and take a few road trips to the States means that we really do need a vehicle of our own. We needed an Alberta license to own and operate a car here so that was the first step.

Initially we thought there was no way around surrendering our Australian drivers license in order to get an Alberta one which totally put me off. It's illegal here to hold more than one drivers license but I wasn't ready or willing to trade mine in as it is my link to freedom at home and I just couldn't part with it.... Well that plus it took me ages to take a license photo I actually liked. We found the only way we could keep our Australian license AND get an Alberta one was say we had 'lost' our licenses from Australia and submit a paper copy from QLD Transport instead. Of course we didn't have the paper copy with us so had to enlist the help of D's dad back home to get it and send it to us.  A 2 year license here was $40.... MUCH cheaper than home!

Next was to actually find a car. Despite being pretty picky about things like make, model, colour etc at home I pretty much had no preference this time. Going without a car this long had rendered us desperate for anything and although we have had awesome work friends offer to drive us around and even lending us their cars for longer trips we both really hated depending on others. Being in Alberta there are lots of big trucks on the road and of course D was mostly interested in those but considering they were older and more expensive to run it just wouldn't have been practical. We looked for a while online to get a feel for the types of cars in our price range and then went to see a couple in person. One was in Red Deer (about 1 hr drive North) which was a total waste of time as the owner wasn't there when we went and his wife could only speak Mexican - FAIL! Then D spotted one right here in Airdrie so we met up with the guy and instantly loved the car - a maroon (damn can't escape the QLD colours) Chevy Impala, 2000 model with power everything, woodgrain accents, a huge trunk and even a sunroof and neons haha talk about quarter life crisis!Within 24 hours of first seeing it we had paid the money, bought the insurance and registered it into our names.

In Canada you own your license plates and keep them for each car you have. This will be coming back to Australia with us when we go so we can hang it on the wall

"Chase" our new car, I can't tell you how great a feeling it is to have my freedom back!

The 'high school' neons made us laugh - and I added the dice i never drive without them!

We are so excited to FINALLY have our independence and freedom and are now planning some weekend drives we can do to see more of Alberta/BC. I doubt we will be at home much when we aren't at work from now on. Nothing beats hitting the road, one of my favourite things to do at home was just driving in my car. Because we lived about 1/2 hr drive from anything there was always plenty of time to vibe out with my music turned way up while picking my nose (i'm not kidding i'm terrible for doing it in the car!). Driving has been something i've REALLY missed and now I don't have to miss it anymore! Some longer trips to Yellowstone & Glacier NP in the US state of Montana are also on the cards. We are finally hitting the road, Jack!