Loooooong overdue!

I can't believe our last blog post was exactly two months ago! Life has gotten veeeery busy since then. No more summer days frolicking in the waves. Fall has fell. Hmmm. Fall has fallen. Ummm. Yes.
My weeks consist of school and work with very little free time in between, but I expected that! Here's a little peak at my schedule:

It really is a dream come true. I love going to class!



Most of our adventures have been put on the back burner for now.... I can't wait for summer again already! Scott has been applying for job after job with little to no response...

Who wouldn't hire this handsome guy??

... so he continues to be my house husband, taking the doggies out and cooking and cleaning. I could actually get pretty used to this! And I think Aluka and Clyve could too...

 Whoopin it up at the doggie park.

Although they do have to share it with some weirdos.

(Yep, that's actually a pot-bellied pig.)

The first couple weeks of school and work were blissful and simple, except for a sore hip that continued to worsen until I ended up being off work for 3 weeks. At first I was diagnosed as having bursitis, but my physiotherapist thinks it's actually related to my back (a nurse with a back problem, golly what a shock.) So I've been doing physio and have been back to work for a couple weeks now. I had some x rays done through a walk in clinic, then one day I got a phone call from a strange doctor... "We need you to come in, there are some spots on your x ray." Spots?! What kind of spots?! "I can't really say, just come in and get it checked out." Oh. My. God. Then I couldn't get into my GP for 2 weeks. So of course I spent the next 2 weeks convinced I had cancer, writing my will, imagining how I would look with no hair... etc...etc. (Yes, if you haven't picked up on this already, I have a tad bit of anxiety about my health. Tad.) Only to get to my appt and have my doctor say "These aren't spots. This is nothing." There are "os acetabuli" on both my hips. Since I am now having pain in both hips I am not entirely convinced that they're nothing... but I work in orthopedics, so one of the residents there can look forward to me subjecting them to some questions. Every doctor's dream, I'm sure. Speaking of doctors, sure wish I could throw acid in the face of the one who called these minor bone abnormalities "spots." Pretty sure you shouldn't just toss that word around, mister, um, sloppy.

Remember the beautiful full moon in September?

This is what it looked like at the Halifax waterfront. So beautiful!



The Halifax waterfront is full of other treats as well...

 Theodore the tug boat!

 Pirates?

Wave sculpture.

Scott says it looks like tongue.

Wave tongue!

We've also been blessed in having some friends and family around. My high school friend Tiffany was here visiting family, so we got to spend an afternoon together. Such a treat!

Tiff is brave! I wouldn't trust myself to drive around my baby on a railess, rocky dock,

but she handled it like a pro.

And we got to have Thanksgiving with family! My cousin Christine and her husband and daughter came over. And her dad, my uncle, and his wife happened to be visiting at the same time, so we had a big turkey dinner! A friend of mine from school also came over; it was a great day! A normal person would've taken photos of everyone at the table, sharing the love and festive cheer. Instead, the *only* photos I took of the day were of Christine and I doing surgery on the turkey. Just so everyone knows, apparently farm fresh turkeys come with the organs still fully attached inside their bodies, tendons, arteries and all. No nice neat package of organs that you just reach in and pull out the bum. It's a good thing I was already a vegetarian going into this... I almost certainly would've been afterwards!

Dr. Christine, General Surgeon.

Speaking of cooking, in our povertous (not a real word? don't care!) state we've taken to making our own pizzas.... YUM!

 Scott's BBQ chicken pizza

My BBQ chickpea, pineapple, red pepper, mushroom, feta, mozza pizza.

Overkill? I think not.

Here's a little peek into my life at school...

 Can you believe I have a class in this building?!

It looks like the parliament buildings or something!

 Nope, not a sweat shop.

This is my studio!

 Had a little visitor while I was outside studying the other day.

This church is a block away from one of my classes.

It is soooo incredible.

 Waiting for the autobus.

This is the little mouse that lives in our heater in the Costume Studies student kitchen.

He is so cute, he looks like a little fuzzy cotton ball scurrying around on the floor!

Amidst learning how to sew, I try to find time to actually sew.

This hoodie was for my friend Brittney's birthday! Ain't she purdy?

 We're learning how to make these neck "ruffs" right now.

This is mine. Not very spectacular yet, but just you wait.

Well, I guess that's about it for now. I have only 4 weeks left this semester, so it's crunch time. And Scott is still looking for work, waiting for that golden phone call (he had an interview last week at a care home that went really well.) Oh! We're also looking for a new place to live, as the girl who owns our beautiful townhouse is coming back in January. Thankfully Halifax is a pretty dog friendly city, but I'm nervous about finding a good place! Que sera sera....

Love and miss you all!!























Synonym for update.

Yes, I'm running out of title ideas, particularly those involving the word update.

It seems as though what little summer we had here is gone now. I actually turned the heat on a little today! It's not really that cold I guess, I think I just expected September to be warmer than it is. I'm so not ready for fall and winter. Except that it means I'm in school now! YES! But I'll get back to that. First I want to show you guys what we've been up to the last couple weeks...

For starters, we've been hanging out in doctor's offices. Here's Scotty after having the abscess behind his ear drained. Why did he have an abscess you ask? Your guess is as good as mine. After doing daily packing and dressings at home for a week, (yes, just as fun as it sounds,) it is all healed up!

But that wasn't the end of the home dressings, unfortunately. About a week later I decided maybe I do need some meat in my diet (haha, is that too gross to say?) and tried to chop off the end of my thumb while cutting potatoes. Warning, graphic photo coming up...

This picture is from the next day. It was still bleeding! The kitchen looked like a war zone when it first happened. No more sharp knives for me! Maybe no knives at all.

But amidst the unexplained ailments and self-inflicted injuries, we still managed to have some fun. We went camping for a night at Porter's Lake Provincial Park, about half an hour from our place.

Porter's Lake Provincial Park is the red circle with the "A" in it.

We had a great campsite at the end of a point extending into the lake, very private. Unfortunately it was also veeeerrrryyy windy. Starting a fire was a lengthy and frustrating process, to say the least. It was still fun though. The lake is actually connected to the ocean, so the water is salty in varying degrees, depending on how far from the ocean you are.

Our lovely little campsite!

Our own private beach. And rock.

Doggies basking in the sunlight.

The King of Fire.

All the provincial sites have these crappy little fire stoves that don't give off any heat!

I've been more than a little sick of my hair colour lately. I haven't dyed it in years and years (I've developed a fear of chemicals in my old age,) but decided to give Lush's Caca Marron henna dye a try. Yes, that's right. The name is Caca. Not sure who the marketing genius is who came up with that one. But actually, as a descriptive word it's not all that far off...

This is what it looks like after being prepared. Tasty!

It comes in a block like this, and you have to shave it down and melt it.

Can we say labour intensive??

A little frightened after smearing Caca on my head.

But I like it! I always liked being a red head...

16th birthday. You can't get much redder than this!

On one of the nice days we spent the afternoon playing in the waves at Lawrencetown Beach (it's by Porter's Lake, circled on the above map.) It's nice and sandy by the water, with nice smooth beach rocks further back. Beautiful! We left the dogs at home... they aren't too fond of waves and run away from them when they break on the shore.

Lawrencetown Beach!

Merman Scott.

Lonely little red shovel.

The seaweed on the Atlantic coast looks just a little different.

I hope you're not getting bored yet, because there's more!

Hurricane Katia passed by south of Nova Scotia yesterday. We didn't really get any bad weather from her, but she sent some incredible waves to our shores! We went back to Crystal Crescent Provincial Park to watch them.

Remember the first time we came here?

Not so Mexico-esque now. Or maybe it still is, considering the hurricane.

The little birds were running around playing in the water. Cute!

Aluka watching the waves.

This one looks much worse than it is. We were on a big rocky ledge like 20 feet above the ocean. Only the absolute biggest waves sprayed up, no chance of getting washed away. And Scott is nowhere near the edge, there was a whole slightly lower level of rock that you can't see.

So nobody get upset! We were being safe, even if it doesn't look that way!

Fog settling in on our walk back to the car.

I absolutely love how the beaches here have "boardwalks" and long grass along the shoreline.

And last, but certainly not least, I had my first class on Thursday! EEEEEEEEE!!! So exciting! It's called Fabrics Laboratory, and it's the one class I take at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design this semester. And it's all about.... FABRIC! Different kinds of fabric, how they're made, how they 'behave'... etc. I'm in heaven. Sounds boring as hell to others I'm sure, but I can barely contain myself. I met a couple people there, everyone is really nice. I can't wait to go to more classes, which is such a new feeling. Nursing school was like pulling teeth, I forgot what it was like to love school. I'm still concerned that I'm biting off more than I can chew with working and going to school. But with school being fun and exciting for me, maybe being so busy won't be so bad. *hopes*

I'll tell you one thing I did learn on Thursday... next time, take the bus to class. It was pissing rain, I could *not* find parking, and when I finally did it was $12.50 for a 3 hour class. Oi. Scott and I were so excited how little traffic there was here... turns out that's only during the summer. When September hits, look out. Thankfully there is a bus stop in front of our place. Yay!

Congrats if you made it to the end of this long post! Miss you all. *love*