26 Days and Counting Woo Hoo! I’m going home for a visit, and I can’t wait!

I haven’t been home since March of last year. My baby niece was just one month old, now she’s talking and only knows me by my photo on the wall. My nephew is now in school half days, and won’t talk to me on the phone, but he’ll yell at me from across the room! ;-)

First things first of course, Mum is picking me up at the airport, and we will have to stop at Tim Horton’s for donuts. LOL. My sister wants to have a day out with me, and wants to take the kids to the local public swimming pool. That should be fun :-)

I arrive on the evening of June 28th, on June 29th I hope to be able to go up to see friend Charlene at her place, and maybe take some donuts ;-)

On the 30th Mum and I have to go downtown to pick up our tickets for The Gathering of the Fellowship It’s a Tolkien convention and starts off with a bang so to speak, with a picnic and fireworks on Canada Day (July 1) on Centre Island. It runs to July 4th, with a bunch of really neat stuff to do. While I’m in the city I will of course have to have some Street Meat! I miss those hot dogs something fierce! I just can’t find anything comparable here in Western NC. Its pathetic really.

Included in my convention tickets is an outing to see Lord of the Rings, On Stage http://www.lotr.com/intro.html playing at the Princess of Wales Theatre. Plus the Trilogy Movie Marathon (cinema TBA), which of course will take all day on the 4th. Other events include a banquet and costume contest (I’m not nearly skilled enough to bother to make a costume). There are also planned appearances by Craig Parker (Haldir), Bruce Hopkins (Gamling), Kiran Shah, (Frodo body double), Ted Nasmith and John Howe, (artists and set designers for the movies) among others.

This is the second convention of this type held in Toronto. I missed the first because I was in the US, and refused to go without James. This time he’s not so lucky :-p Plus, its an excuse to go home for a while.

I (and my Mum of course) are also planning a family BBQ at Mum’s house. Most of my extended family I haven’t seen since before I left Canada, I didn’t get to see them on my last trip. My Grandmother is planning to move out west soon, so I need to see her before she goes. Its not likely I’ll be getting to British Colombia any time soon. Maybe I’ll make a birthday cake for the party. We can celebrate everyone’s birthday while I’m there!

Of course we’re also planning a Girls Night Out to go see Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest on July 7th. We’ve ALL be anxiously awaiting this one since it was announced they were making sequels. I’ll likely have to make a trip home to see the third installment next year too ;-)

I’m trying very hard to talk myself out of going to see my tattooist while I’m there. We have yet to find a decent tattoo artist here in our area, and I’m jonesin’ for more ink. I really should stop watching all those tattoo programmes on TLC and Discovery channel! I really don’t have the money for another tattoo tho, unless I win a lottery between now and then. That would require me going out to buy a ticket tho wouldn’t it? We finally have the PowerBall lotto here in NC, I just haven’t got out for a ticket yet. What with only working 2 shifts a week since I got back from Scotland, I’m finding it difficult to justify even $1 for a lottery ticket. I suppose I could count out some pennies for it! ;-)

My tickets for the convention I’m paying for out of my savings account, which is very quickly dwindling away. I am surprised tho how long its lasted me. Its leftovers from my severance package and cashed in RRSPs from when I got laid off at JDE and moved here. A big chunk of RRSP went into a locked in CD, which I can’t touch, but my savings account is the interest off it, which is $80+ per month for about a year and a half. I do hope that James’ parents’ estate will close soon, so that we can get a move on moving. He won’t do anything until that’s done now. *sigh* We’re thinking Michigan now. If the store(s) is (are) still available when James gets around to it that is.

Ah well…in the meantime there’s not much for me to do, other than sit and vegemegate. We bought a bunch of DVDs on sale the other day. Grey’s Anatomy season 1, The Muppet Show season 1, Ghost Hunter’s season 1, Dinosaurs season 1 & 2…we need a bigger house, just to fit our DVD and VHS collections! ;-)

Well another thunder storm is rolling in, I’d better turn this beast off so I don’t get zapped!

Ciao.  ¶ 2:22 PM