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Christmas Holidays So Far and New Years

Posted by Elliswordpress on January 2, 2016January 2, 2016

Christmas is usually my favorite time of the year. I love the lights, the sights, the warmth, the friends, the family, the coziness…I love it all. This Christmas was no different except for the fact that we have now expanded our family a little earlier than thought! So far it has been an amazing little week, although my out of energy wife might say other wise :P.

A lot of friends and family have been asking what has changed for me. Probably one of the biggest things I have noticed is that I have become much more hypervigilant – I’m much more careful about when I tune out the world (i.e. headphones) because of the baby. Other than the immense proudness of being a father and proud of my little one and my wife, there is not a whole lot different for me. I truly believe that my professional training with the 0-5 age range so far has been an immense help in maintaining a general state of calm regulated being. While I certainly don’t have all the answers (particularly since the youngest I have worked with was at least 9 months old), I do feel like I can find the answers because of resource familiarity. Perhaps that might also be blind naivety too. Regardless, I feel good about the situation so far. My clinic has been absolutely fantastic in helping me out – plenty of mom advice going around and understanding supervisors.

Got to slam down a 4 shot pumpkin spice latte and slam out my proposal- I’m making good progress on my edits and I ope that I will be able to send it out this week. Its taken a lot of the wind out of my sails but its getting there. Meanwhile, my desktop just died and I want to get it fixed, but PROPOSAL SAYS NO FIXING RIGHT NOW. The good thing is that compared to before when my main/only PC died during finals time, I actually have plenty of other computers to cram out work on no problem. I just hate leaving my big giant InWin D Frame dead and alone.

Dinner at Old Spaghetti Factory- Hunter’s Chicken with Mizithra spaghetti- basically butter and cheese noodles. So good.

Chinatown dim sum- keeping it a mild winter snow out here.

Got to see a super repair line going on for old Macbook Pros- this is like the same as my passion for old Sony VAIOs. Have a MAcbook Pro 13, 15 and 17 (!) here. So so so jealous of the 17 incher. That’s definitely one I want to fix up one day. I actually really liked this unbody version too, even though the previous all silver edition is still my fave.

I’ve toyed with the idea of going to a public gym- mostly for motivation.

I find that public gyms, while less convenient for me, are way more motivating

Its interesting this Boxing Day was pretty quiet on my side. I went to London Drugs where it was super duper quiet and managed to score a Sony SRS-X33 Bluetooth speaker (I’m really glad that bluetooth has become a big enough item that it no longer is a term for bluetooth headsets- i.e. I’m talking to you on my Bluetooth. ITS NOT A BLUETOOTH THAT”S JUST THE WIRELESS STREAMING TECHNOLOGY- personal pet peeve). I didn’t need another BT speaker, but I have been wanting something with a little more depth and ease of use than my Soundmatters FoxL speaker (I really can’t believe their technology pioneered these speakers- they have pretty much dropped out of the picture, and even their mainstream licensing partner, Jawbone, has been struggling). The FoxL was a really fiddly speaker and required a bit of elbow grease to get running. While that’s more of a first world problem, it wasn’t a smooth experience. Furthermore, the best sound was when it was pumping past 60% volume- but awful once past 80% volume….so it was a bit annoying to have the ideal volume adjusted all the time. Anyways, the X33 is actually 20% smaller than last year’s X3 and apparently sounds just a tad bit better (I forgot in what area- it might have been less bottoming out on the low end at higher volumes). It also is an easier contender for the Bose Soundlink Mini, a BT speaker that I personally think is pretty slick, despite the Bose name. For a much smaller price. And on Boxing Day it was even smaller- they put up the wrong price on the speaker and when we went the scan it in, the cashier was friendly enough to give me the shelf price. Nice. Definitely a big fan of London Drugs. So far, its a very very solid speaker. I’ll be sure to post up a review for it, and compare it with my other BT speakers. For now, I will be using it as a primary companion to my BTX500 when I want a small speaker to accompany me on the go. I was also pleased with my experience in London Drugs on Boxing day- the staff were all really accommodating and helpful without being pushy.

Kingsway mall was a bit wild but we managed to find parking with minimal time driving in circles. That was nice. Much better than getting parking space at West Edmonton Mall. While I don’t think the deals are actually that amazing (mostly because the things I shop for I can get online), I do like the thrill of the chase- being with the excited shoppers looking around at all the things. I remember the last time we tried to do WEM shopping, we ate pretzels for lunch because every single food joint was brimming to the edge with line ups. That actually introduced me to liking soft baked pretzels. Anyways, Kingsway mall was super packed in the food court- definitely excessively warm with humidity. Other than that, quite reasonable. I didn’t get anything at the mall, but I did get to babysit C a little bit-it was funny carrying a baby that was like half a year older- all the things I do with H I could not do with C because the weight difference was huge- I quickly became fatigued. The nice thing that I noticed is that I didn’t panic when she started to cry- that’s been a massive change since starting at the clinic- I never wanted to be with other people’s kids because I didn’t know what to do when they cried. Yay me. I also got to try out the PONO DAP and Sennheisser Momentum 2.0. I was not impresed with the PONO- the sound was not something I thought was mind blowing and I really didn’t like its sound signature. I am interested in how it handles balanced cables as I heard that its quite a lot better in that sense. I liked the Momentum 2.0 build quality and design a lot, but not I need to buy it a lot. The sound was good but nothing that I would be envious of. Its a good everday headphone and very stylish. I am still conflicted over not buying its wireless brother on Boxing Day, but I really don’t use headphones like this one anymore. I just don’t do a lot of commuting with headphones all that much, and that would be the big reason to get wireless and noise cancelling.

Dad made a tasty egg noodle dish that was simply oil and soy sauce.

Chow mein and rice at lunch time in Chinatown with family.

Changed it up for me and got the Chicken Parmigiana instead of the hunter’s chicken. Wanted the tomato sauce to cut into the fat. Yummy.

Dad making fried trout for Christmas dinner.

BBQ Pork ribs with spaghetti.

In-laws really liked the baked bread for starters with garlic butter.

Dad made frog legs after thinking he bought chicken. Actually really good and tasted….like chicken.

Celebrating New Year’s with friends- glad I got to be with them this season. J managed to get his car towed that night – I cannot believe that a condo company would actually contract and enforce a towing policy for overnight parking on new years eve. Seriously not a nice move for the holidays.

Butter and lobster for Christmas.

Freshly made. Still prefer a big fat steak, but this will do I suppose….

I’m not sure why I took so mnany pictures of the lobster, considering that I didn’t eat any.

Lots of seafood for Christmas dinner

I love the cozy nature of Old Spaghetti Factory. Its just warm and family friendly with lots of tasty cmfort food.

Hotpot with family.

Mussels with butter that were cooked with a microwave. Didn’t think it could be that simple.

Look at that tasty beef slice waiting for the hot pot.

These Micro Machines Star Wars line came back…..and they are a shell of their former selves. I definitely remember these being much more detailed and hand painted versus the cheap colored plastic that these are now. The details on these is awful and not anywhere like the super sweet machines I had when I was younger.

Cranking out runs – I cannot believe what baby brain has done to me- twice this last week I have left my iPod in the treadmill after finishing up my runs. I NEVER do this. My runs are alright right now, but I really am looking forward to spring when it gets warm again for outside runs. Just want to hit those stairs and summer sun again.

Dead lifts- managed to try something new and started with low weight and did a big 8 set warm up first, then moved into my regular weight. FELT AMAZING- like way way stronger with my lower back that day.

Powering through Abs day – I don’t know what is going on, but jsut felt so solid hitting this up. I changed my reverse crunches a little bit to not go all the way down with my feet to the bench, but just keep them lifted and focus on crunching the abs. Super solid.

I seriously don’t know why, but every workout has been AMAZING- leg press was awesome awesome awesome.

I really liked my incline dumbbell row- I don’t like doing the rows separately for each arm, as it just takes so much time. Double incline bench dumbbell row just was a nice addition to my mid back routine.

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