I get teary eyed whenever I see videos of the country I came from.

I’m really tired as I write this. It’s 7:30 pm after my first day of waking up at 4:30 am to get to my new job. A new job that takes me down to Massachusetts. A new job that is a one hour commute when traffic is good.

The first few days, traffic was not good. And I didn’t want to waste an extra hour a day living in my car. So I made the conscious decision, get to work by 6 am, miss the traffic jam that starts by 6:45 am. So after a few months of sleeping in, I am returning to a schedule I promised I would never follow again. The 4:30 am wake-up call of a rower.

Perhaps waking that early has its advantages?

The new job is closer to the university where I take Master’s degree coursework, so I will hopefully be able to hammer out the classes I need faster. A disadvantage of this, I will be tired, very tired.

I will probably also need a new car at some point soon. I’ll probably be putting 600 miles a week on my current Subaru Outback, a car with 170,000+ miles already.

Speaking of my poor car, last night I decided to go to Target. So I got off the busy highway and took the side road to get to Target without going through major intersections. As I drove on the side road my car suddenly died. It died right in front of the only auto repair shop on that side road. The mechanics were able to repair the car on the spot and I was out of there an hour and a half later.

But I was lucky. Lucky that I got out of work a little early that day so there was less traffic on the way home and that the shop had time before they closed. Lucky that I was on the side road not the highway. And lucky that my car chose to die in front of a very helpful auto shop. Things work out sometimes.

I’ve been thinking a little about why this blog was neglected for so long. I had so many adventures, opinions, and announcements in the last few months. Looking through my pictures I clearly had planned on writing tons of posts.

At the same time, I didn’t feel like the blog had any direction, any specific audience. And while part of my audience may like that about the blog, I get a feeling that those I meet at running races or at gardening events might not. Part of the purpose of this blog has always been to connect with members of my family far away. But an important part has become to connect with people from all over the world.

So, as soon as I find time I will be splitting up this blog into different sections. It will still have the option for a single feed for those of you using blog readers and each section will be able to be reached from the other sections (I hope). But here’s a draft outline of how I think the sections will work.

Adventures of a Filly Runner: As I’ve started running and getting back into shape, I’ve met lots of folk in the outdoors community. I’d like to post more race reports, more about my journey to fitness and adventures had doing so.

Life with the Blonde Poodle: While I’m sure that some of the adventures will include Cooper, I want this section to be about my home life. The cats, the house, the wildlife I encounter in the backyard, recipes I want to post, discussions about the slow food movement, instructions to renovations we are doing, and of course the progress Cooper makes in our life. Basically this would be the every day sort of stuff.

I like to Babble: (Or suggestions for a better name) Reviews, opinions, just me expressing my French Canadian side.

Photography: Pictures and tips from my most beloved hobby. I think this will mostly be filled with wordless wednesdays.

Photo365: Already a standalone project. I haven’t quit on it. I’m just being bad at updating it.

Archive: I’m sure not all my posts will fit into these categories. So a place to keep the extras.

How does that sound? Any ideas for sections I should add? Sections I should merge? Anyone with tips on how to design a blog with extra sections? How to find the time to do this when I can barely find time to blog as it is?

You know what’s awesome, having parents, friends and family that support your hobbies. It’s really wonderful to be surrounded by encouraging people who want you to succeed.For Christmas my hubby got me a pair of trail running shoes, because I was complaining about Manchester’s streets being more like a trail than a sidewalk. My in-laws got me a wonderful winter sweater that has gotten me outside on days that were just bitter cold.

My parents like to get me gifts that are useful, yet splurges. Objects that I would have a hard time financially justifying to myself, but that would be helpful to my quest at the time.

Because they are so pleased with my progress with the running they decided that they would get me a GPS tracking watch for my birthday. They gave it to me when I was visiting St. Catharines to get my Passport renewed. I was so happy with it that the first day I got it, I ran 13.2 miles consecutive.

And I have been running with it since. I find it very encouraging, the distance measurement pushes me to got a little further (how bad is another .25 miles). The timer helps me be accurate with my pace. I can look at the graph after and see where my heartrate was at a given pace.

I find it to be a very handy gadget. If only it held Cooper’s poop bags so I didn’t have to stuff them in the only pocket I wear sometimes (love that sweater).

I still have a long way to go in this running journey, but I think I’m making good progress towards some lofty athletic and weight loss goals.

I’m taking a light week from training this week, I have a lot of races coming up and my knees were talking slightly. So it’s better to rest up now than be sorry later.

How are you doing on your goals for the year? Any special gadgets that keep you motivated?

For years, my mother and I have been very different in our ideals of how the Christmas tree should look . I think it started way back when I was in high school. This is partially why I was so glad we got our own house, so I could put up a tree to my liking.

My mom likes a tree that looks put together. Something you would find in a magazine, or a display at the mall. First of all the tree has been artificial for the last several years. While I admit that artificial trees are probably better for the environment, I love the uniqueness of a real tree. I even love the years we had to tie the real tree to the walls because someone picked a tree that was heavier on one side than the other.

When it comes to ornaments, my mom generally likes to keep a theme. So in the past her trees have had red and gold decorations, or red and silver. I think one year was simply silver. The first year she did this my brother and I were quite offended. Our beloved childhood ornaments, like the smurf, were not welcome on the tree.  And the ornaments we had made as preschoolers certainly didn’t belong there.

This year, some of the childhood ornaments came back out, they decorate the bottom of the tree so that Cooper wouldn’t damage the nice ornaments. She decorated her tree in red, gold and silver including some red lights. I think her tree is beautiful and put together nicely. But I still love the clustered randomness and special ornaments of my mother-in-laws and our trees.

No matter what you believe in, I would like to extend my wishes for a wonderful and happy holiday season.

And I’m posting this on Christmas Eve because it was traditionally when we celebrated Christmas when I was a kid.

I hope some people still read my blog. And to those people thank you. I’ve had quite the chaotic last few months and my life is still in turmoil. But I hope to start posting in a blog again soon when my classes wrap up in a couple weeks (which is by far the smaller part of my problems).

I’m also hoping to move the blog to a new domain eventually. I don’t really want my town’s name in the title anymore because it’s a small town with a very uncommon name.

So hopefully soon, parts of my life will calm down and I’ll be able to post about my adventures.  Because despite all the drama, the stress and the uncertainty I still try to live my life and have a good time when I can.

In the meantime my husband wrote up a trip report for the trip he did that I posted pictures of in my Wordless Wednesday last week.  So please feel free to visit his rarely updated blog to get the climber’s perspective on the trip.

So I’m probably going to eventually move my personal blog over to this domain. So consider this to be a placeholder.  While this will be a personal blog, it’s title is related to my blonde (cream coloured) Standard Poodle Cooper. So I hope I’ll get this up and running quickly but until then, visit us at our old domain http://candiacrew.com

October in Boston., originally uploaded by candiacrew.

I spent the weekend in Boston visiting friends and watching the Head of the Charles regatta.

Sunday rained. The rain was heavy and cold and my friend Hadley and I were so frozen and wet that we decided that going to the Cambridgeside mall was the only way to starve off hypothermia. While we ate lunch I looked out the window and declared it was Snowing. October 18th and it was snowing. The “snow” was falling rather quickly so Hadley half convinced me that it was just really big rain drops.

As is shown on my car above, it was snow. And while it didn’t accumulate on the road, it accumulated on the car.

My car had snow tires on, so I felt confident as I headed North in the snow storm. My hubby was coming back home from Northern New Hampshire as I was heading up from the State south of our home. Turns out, he didn’t even see any snow.

I’m looking forward to seeing Cooper play in the snow, but October is a little early in my opinion.

Blogging is one of those things that becomes a habit. It’s a labour of love and I’ve found that like exercising, when you stop, it’s hard to start up again.  I keep doing awesome things that I want to blog about, but when I get home I have homework to do and pictures to process and quality time to spend with the hubby and pets.  And blogging just falls down that priority list. I even spend most of my lunches either catching up with work friends or working on homework.

Well I want to start blogging again. Because blogging reminds me of the good things in my life. The things that make me happy. And I love recieving comments from people around the world. And allowing family members who live far away a tiny peek into my world.

So I’ll be posting again. I’m going to try to keep at least a 3 posts a week schedule for now. Even if the posts sometimes end up just being a picture or two. There may be a lot of backposts into September too.

So seeing as I’m writing this post during my lunch break, while I should be writing a paper for Plastics Processing class (if I get it done during my lunch I plan on treating myself to a haircut after work today). I’m going to start simple.

Picture by sonicwalker

I’ve heard a lot about polenta lately. And it looks so delicious. So I bought some on impulse when I was in the organic section of my grocery store.

Well it turns out now that I have it. I don’t know what to do with it. I don’t have time to dig through cooking magazines looking for recipes. I don’t remember which of my bloggy friends posted about it.

So help a girl out. Send me links to your favorite polenta recipes on the web. Tried and true would be best. Hubby approved would be awesome, but I highly doubt I’ll be able to get mine to even try it.

Oh and internet friends I have missed you, and I will try to catch up on my google reader soon. I apologise in advance if I comment on things that happened a month ago.