Thank you for the music....

I was really going to go to bed, but I can't get that song out of my head.


Well, another item has been scratched off my musical to-do list... and been re-added.


I finally saw Rajaton in concert tonight (click on "English" in the upper left or else the site will make no sense - unless you speak Finnish). If you haven't heard of them, check the site out. I've always been familiar with their acapella music, and admittedly, when I heard their Edmonton concert would be music from their ABBA album instead of the previous acapella stuff, I was a small bit disappointed. But wow, what a night! The Edmonton Symphony was their accompaniment, and the group was so energetic that it was impossible not to be swept up in it. They even did a couple of acapella pieces: "Fernando" and "Head over Heels" (which I didn't know before, but was awesome). At the CD table, I picked up their ABBA disc and one I wasn't aware of: a sacred music CD. It's a combination of Finnish, English, Latin and one Irish piece. It's got all kinds of influences in it. Also a very recommended listen for anyone who likes relaxing music, world music, sacred music in general... anyone who truly loves music, really. Toward the end of the show, one of the guys in the group thanked everyone for coming, and announced they would return in October to do a concert from their new Queen album and that tickets would be going on sale tomorrow. I arrived home an hour later to find out that the pre-sale had started during the concert that night and tickets were already going! So I am indeed going to see Rajaton again in October. I have a feeling that every time I see them, I'll be scratching it from the to-do list and putting it right back on there again. I'm glad Jason enjoyed himself as well (even though it seems he took the ABBA CD with him when he left the apartment to go home), because this group is really becoming something we can enjoy together!


I have received a new book which I have not yet started to read (The Shack), but am looking forward to as soon as I get a few spare minutes! Speaking of looking forward to things, I have my wedding shower coming up tomorrow evening, so I don't know what that will bring, but it should be fun!


Oh, and yes: Heather was right. The song was Mr. Bass Man. Many road trips were driven listening to that song.


I'll finish off with an amusing picture I saw in the city. I think it celebrates Canadian-ness in some odd way. Hopefully you can read what is written on the sign. I haven't been as much on the lookout for funny signs, but I'm going to change that, I hope.

So I say
Thank you for the music; the songs I'm singing
Thanks for all the joy they're bringing
Who can live without it? I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a dance what are we?
So I say thank you for the music
For giving it to me

While I was at work today, I had a very special delivery which I hope the sender won't mind if I share with you. While I was on the phone, someone walked in saying "I'm looking for Susan", at which point I received this beautiful gift:

I then had practically every person who saw the gift on my desk marvel at how lucky I was to find someone who thinks of me so often, to which I replied "I already know!" haha. Jason will be getting home from Calgary tomorrow, after being gone for over a week, and it will be wonderful to have him back.

After work today, I headed to Kingsway. Most of my trips to Kingsway Mall end in absolute frustration, mostly because I can never find my way out of the mall. The Bay is sort of a peninsula, so every exit goes "out", but discovering which one leads to the bus station can be a longer adventure than it needs to be. On more than one occasion , I have gotten trapped in The Bay's hat section, and so yet again, another trip to Kingsway ends in a new hat for me. Check it out!
Either my head has shrunk or they've started making hats in bigger sizes, because I never used to be able to wear hats. They'd always kind of sit awkwardly on the top of my head, ready to fall off with the slightest breeze.

I was actually looking for a sun hat of some sort, but this was too much fun to pass up. The sun hat will have to wait until later.

I imagine I should get some sleep in before the morning smacks me in the face, so I'll say good night here.

Yesterday morning I had two thoughts I'll never have again:

1) Not having a cell phone is kind of liberating!

2) I'm going to be environmentally friendly and take the bus to band practice!

I used the internet to map out my route to the church last night, printed it out and left. While waiting for my transfer route downtown, I began to wonder why my bus was taking so long. Assuming I had missed the run that my printout had told me to take, I waited for the next bus of that route. After another few minutes, and lacking any cell phone to call BusLink and find out, I asked the next bus driver how often my route came. He seemed angry that I was daring to walk onto his bus without any intention of sitting down, and gruffly told me that it was an hourly route.

I wasn't happy with this, but decided to wait the now-remaining 35 minutes until the bus would have shown up again. 40 minutes passed and I asked the driver of the next bus I saw if she knew of any problems with my route. Apparently it stopped running downtown hours ago. I showed her my printout, and it was not to worry. With the little time remaining on my transfer, I was assured that I could catch a route 4 in front of the library. Seems odd to me, as I could have sworn I'd been on route 4 before and it doesn't touch downtown, but I'm not the transit driver who just checked her official-looking schedule book. Off I go! I got to the library to discover that perhaps my bus driver didn't know a 4 from a hole in the ground. I gave her the benefit of the doubt and decided that maybe it was the next stop up that she was thinking about. Nope. It's the hole in the ground theory. Remembering from my "transfer to Sherwood Park" days that the 112 stops at the Telus plaza, I ran there to discover that the 112 stops running at 6:30. At this point I decided my next major bus hub may be the Shaw Conference Centre. After this turned out to yield no routes that helped me in any way, shape or form I decided to walk to the Temple. After all, I've walked from downtown to that area before. How hard could it be? Plus, it was still light out! It must be plenty early.

Yep, I forgot about how late it stays light AND how quickly it gets dark once it sets in. Also, it started to rain. So I panicked and started to take shortcuts, which turned into long cuts. Man, there are some sketchy neighbourhoods close to some nice neighbourhoods here. Eventually my only thought was "let me get to the Temple before band practice finishes so someone can take me home", which did happen.

So that was last night. I wanted to go to bed and not wake up for weeks.

Topic #2: Good Day at Work

Today we had our monthly staff celebration, and the theme this month was "Sixties Music Celebration". Anyone who knows me knows that for this type of event, if you put me in charge of the music, I will ask for nothing else. So I got to go through my computer and dig up all of my favourite 60s music. Good deal. The best part was looking around the room today and seeing people who grew up in that decade swaying their heads and singing along. But who can resist singing along when "Daydream Believer" is on the playlist? When the whole thing accidentally turned into a hula-hoop contest, everybody had a blast.

Heather & Paul, guess which semi-obscure 60s song I included just because I could? Hint: car rides when we were very young.....

So Heather, when I'm putting together music for your reception, have no worries. Susan can musically stir up a crowd :) Or not stir up. Whatever works for the occasion.

With a rare non-holiday weekday off yesterday, Jason and I headed to West Edmonton Mall yesterday. Every time I see that bungee jump, I want to try it a bit more.

I thought of Heather as I saw something amusing at HMV. There was a copy of Grease for $20. Right next to it was the exact same copy of Grease, packaged together with Grease 2, except the price was $15 for the pack. How bad is a movie when you have to give people discounts on other movies just to take it off your hands?

As the apartment continues to come together, I am getting rid of more and more boxes. Eventually there will be enough boxes gone to take some decent pictures.

I was looking at pianos yesterday! Exciting. I'll obviously start with a digital model, as apartment buildings kind of demand some sort of control over the noise coming out of each unit, but it's still exciting nonetheless.

At work, things had been extremely high-paced and stressful for a while because of an accreditation that we had coming up, but now that it's over, things have gotten mostly back to normal and I'll hopefully be able to start enjoying weekends again. I miss taking pictures of silly signs and things like that.

Well, I must get on with my morning.

Well, hello, everybody! It's nice to blog. I admit I haven't been that great at doing it regularly, but as I find myself unable to sleep, here I am. The apartment is coming together, and as soon as I can get rid of the remaining boxes, I will take pictures and post them so you can all marvel at my wonderful decorating scheme! It's not as funky as I'd like, but it will get there (hopefully!). I had to go to IKEA today - for work purposes - (what a job, eh?) and I saw my favourite couch in the world. It's been there for a while, and I'm willing to bet that as soon as I can convince Jason that it's wonderful enough to buy, it will be discontinued. I don't know why I like it so much. Maybe I'm just mesmerized by stripes.

What do you think? I think it's great.

I also think posting pictures on Blogger hasn't gotten any easier than the last time I tried to post one.

For those of you who are wondering about wedding plans, things are going okay-ish. I feel incredibly stressed out about it almost every time I think about it, because I am trying to do things from so far away, so roadblocks get a little bit harder to get past.

The weather here is very nice. I do enjoy it when I can walk places instead of driving, or just walk for pleasure for that matter.

I live close enough to Rexall to walk to hockey games in nice weather, but nice weather hockey games and the Oilers..... it doesn't seem like it's going to be a good fit at the moment.

Maybe next year.

Well, I'm living in yet another new place. This one should be a keeper, though. I'm living in the apartment that Jason and I will share after we're married. Pictures will come when the place is a little more set up than it is right now.

What else is new? I'm heading to Moose Jaw early tomorrow morning with an ensemble from the band. It's that corps' 120th anniversary, so they've requested some musical support.

Wedding plans are coming along nicely. We have musicians, an officiant, a photographer, and a caterer booked (caterer is almost booked, actually. not quite sure on that one). The decorations might kill me. I'm not a crafty person by nature, but I'm not sure if I want the elaborate-ness (not a word, I'm sure) of a professional decorator. I guess that decision has to be made very soon.

I would like to say more, but as my ride to the airport will be arriving at 4:45 AM, I should do some more tidying before I sleep.

I will try to update again soon.

It's been far too long since I updated this, but if you tried to use my laptop, you'd understand.

For anyone who hasn't heard, Jason and I are now engaged and are getting married on August 23rd in Grand Falls. Original plans said Ontario, but logistics really didn't allow that to happen.

I don't know how often I'll be able to update this before I get a new computer, because on any given day, it's anyone's guess as to whether or not my computer will allow me to post anything without a huge fuss.

So, please keep checking my blog a little bit, and you may get a little glimpse into some wedding plans (when the computer wants to post, that is)!