It's All That I Want

In the last 6 months, I've made a lot of new decisions. I decided to take a positive attitude when my job contract expired and wasn't renewed. I decided to go back to school. I decided that I was going to do some more theatre. I decided I was going to try and take better care of myself.

Shit, though, these decisions were difficult to carry out all at the same time.

For various reasons, but mostly because travelling is so important to me, my employer couldn't renew my status at work, but I can pick up shifts casually. During November, December, and most of January, I only worked 3 shifts. Yes, that sucked, but I was able to spend time thinking about why we were in Sudbury in the first place - and it sure as hell wasn't because I wanted to work. We came to Sudbury so Michael and I could travel! Without being tied down by my schedule, we could decide easily on several more grand adventures. And as a bonus, I wasn't obliged to work on Christmas or New Years this year - we just went home to Kamloops for 2 weeks instead. So, for the short term, it really isn't so terrible that my work schedule is fluid.

Still, with all that extra free time between shifts and trips I wanted to keep sharp. A couple of years ago, I started taking a specialty nursing course in wound care. Strange as it sounds, I love wounds, so I may as well learn more about them! But back then, I was also transitioning from mental health to acute care nursing and my brain nearly exploded from all of the stuff I was trying to learn at once. I took a break, and in January I started it all up again. To be honest, what I'm learning is great information but it's mostly geared towards chronic wounds in older populations (and I've never cared for someone older than 18.). My ultimate goal would find me the wound care RN at a Children's Hospital. All wounds, all children, and it comes with the 9am-5pm schedule. A girl can dream, can't she?

Theatre, though, has been consuming most of my free time. I don't think it's a secret now that Michael is planning on going back to school, in which case I'd have to give up my life of leisure and take on the role of Primary Breadwinner. When this happens, I know it'll be a long, long time before I'll get another opportunity to do another show. It was an 8 year dry-spell between Anne of Green Gables and Tommy! last year, and I missed it so very much. By February, I found myself in rehearsals for two shows. At the moment, I'm in the final week of performances for Rock of Ages, where I am part of the ensemble with a few lines and a lot of dancing - including a lap dance and a tango with a gilded pole. The other show is Mary Poppins, where I play the titular role. I hope I can do her justice. At the very least, I think we have something in common in that we're both a little bit strange, but with good intentions and a rather healthy imagination. So my evenings and weekends are well booked up until May.

But what about the travelling? Ah, yes, you're right. I've hardly touched on where we've been off to.

Dad, at SilverStar

Like I mentioned, we went home for two weeks at Christmas. We spent a couple of days out skiing at Sun Peaks and SilverStar and Big White, and we were fortunate enough to hit some major powder. I'll have dreams of that whipped cream snow for ages.

This powder was legit

In January, we hit up Miami for some Scuba and Art Deco. We spent the first half of the week in Key Largo and went for three spectacular dives. The first two were spectacular because of everything we were able to see - turtles and fish and coral and rays and eels barracuda and even a shark! The third was spectacular for how terribly awful it turned out. We wanted to try out a nighttime dive, because we heard you could see lots of great things that are usually hiding during the day. Unfortunately, the group ended up a little larger than expected (making it harder to keep track of your dive buddy) and the weather didn't co-operate. We got tossed around a bit under water, and after I got back in the boat I ended up so sick, I tossed my cookies. I'm feeling nauseous just thinking about it. We ended the week at Miami Beach, which sounds warm and relaxing, but apparently Miami beach isn't all that warm in January. Also, it's rainy. But being the hardy travellers we are, we still went out each day to see the city and check out the fantastic Art Deco architecture. I highly recommend the walking tour given by the Miami Design Preservation League. Another highlight was stumbling upon the South Beach Dachshund Winterfest - it was a park full of Wiener Dogs! How very Miami of them.

"Essex House"

Looks pretty, but the reason there's nobody on the beach is because it's only 17 degrees (11 at night)

In February, we took another turn at snowboarding in Québec, this time at Le Massif with "the highest vertical drop east of the Rockies" and Mont Ste. Anne, a smaller hill nearer to Quebec City. Our visit to Le Massif was pretty fantastic, and the views over the St. Lawrence with its ice flows from the top of the mountain were worth the drive.

View from Le Massif

The next day, the weather wasn't co-operating so instead of spending a grey day on the slopes, we drove into Quebec City, where the Winter Carnavale was in its last day. Glad we did! Despite it being fantastically, nose-freezingly cold we had fun. We visited the Ice Hotel, and wandered around the Plains of Abraham looking for Bonhomme. While we didn't see him, we did spot some either very brave or extremely stupid people....

...just who gets on a ferris wheel when it's -30 degrees out?

Snowmobile carved from ice at the Ice Hotel

 I would call our second ski day an "adventure." It was really, really, really cold. Racing down a mountain while it's really, really, really cold only makes things colder. But at least the views were nice. Mike's a nice guy to listen to me complain about being frozen and having chronically frosted goggles all day and not get grumpy at me.

We knew that our drive back to Sudbury would be long (10 hours), so we decided to overnight in Ottawa. Not wanting to waste an opportunity, we booked a cell at the Ottawa Jail hostel. I mean, why not? This place is a real 19th century jail, used up until the 60's, where several people were put to the death sentence. The communal kitchen is next to the death row cells. When you book your bed, you can choose which type of accommodation you'd like, but the real reason you stay here is because you can choose to sleep in a real jail cell. Now, I'm not sleeping alone in a notoriously haunted place like this, so we booked a "double cell" which was surprisingly cosy. If you were a singleton, however, you might find yourself sleeping in a place like this: 

This is a spare cell. If you book this, you get your one single bed and a lamp.

At least here, they give you the key....

We've got another trip coming up next week. This one is definitely blogworthy, and I can't wait to go!