Mr. Bennet You scored 62 Idealism, 41 Nonconformity, 70 Nerdiness

Are you on the list?Congratulations, you're Mr. Bennet! You are one mysterious person with mysterious motives. Despite all the mystery, it's clear that you believe what you do is for the greater good, and you are obviously a well-educated person in your field. Your best quality: Dedication to your work/organization/etc. Your worst quality: Keeping too many secrets

Link: The Heroes Personality Test written by freedomdegrees on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

It's a good thing I've already got a guy otherwise, being this unattractive might be a problem. Heh.

Dating Strengths	Dating Weaknesses
1. Kindness - 81.8% 2. Generosity - 80% 3. Financial Situation - 69.2% 4. Adventurousness - 66.7% 5. Open-Mindedness - 63.6%	1. Appearance - 77.8%

Dating Strengths Explained
Kindness - You treat other people with empathy and goodwill. This positive trait helps you stand out and draw people into your warmth. Generosity - You are a giving person by nature. Others will see this quality in you and recognize your kind nature. Take care not to let others take advantage of you. Financial Situation - You've got your financial situation under control, which is a very desirable quality. Be careful to avoid men who are only interested in your money. Adventurousness - You are willing to try new things and be spontaneous. You want to get out there and really live, and you will attract people with a similar love of life. Open-Mindedness - You are open to trying new things and entertaining new ideas, and this widens your pool of available men.
Dating Weaknesses Explained
Appearance - Devoting a greater effort at making good first impressions is a must. Try to be fit and develop a style if you want to catch a man's attention.
Dating Strengths and Weaknesses Quiz

I've been working on some super secret ProJEct^TMs that have been taking all my time. Except the time I've been spending on the phone with friends. And hanging out with friends. And saying good-bye to friends. Oh, and sleeping (awake for 7 hours on Saturday).

Of course, the farewell dinner was amazing - pollen, bees, and flowers for supper. Everyone should be envious of those who got to partake. It was a fabulous evening and I didn't particularly want it to end. Too bad the boys beat us repeatedly in Buzzword. And apparently, "pencil" while containing the word "pen" isn't part of any of the solutions even though "Penn", short for Pennsylvania in some cases, is included in several solutions. I didn't deserve razzing about that one. It was a logical leap for me. I'm not good at that game - except when it comes to tea.

This week, we start playing In Nomine regularly on Tuesday instead of D&D. [sniff] Not that In Nomine won't be fun, but I really love D&D.

Did you know that while 2 kittenses are just cute and playful, 3 kittenses can seemingly swarm like vermin - especially at supper time?

There were a few magical minutes this morning. Whilst looking out my office window, snow was falling through a sunbeam and sparkled like diamonds floating to the earth. It was very cool.

Another friend of mine moved away from Home and I hadn't heard anything from her. I'm very proud of her. She is a very strong person and can do more than she thinks she can. That would be why I didn't see her car at the place in the spot where she used to work on the long weekend. I guess that just goes to show that I should keep in touch more often. Blogs are kind of one-way.

And I'm losing two staff at work to other departments and have to hire in Ontario. I'm going to try to get out there for the new staff first days. It's a good business reason and I can go visit all my staff there. It'll be exciting.

Anyone available to move a big filing cabinet up a flight of stairs tonight? [grin]

I like this new statutory holiday in February. For those in the know, Saskatchewan now matches Quebec for the most statutory holidays at 11 rather than the usual 10. You see, while some Alberta businesses provide the August civic holiday to their employees, it isn't truly a stat holiday there. That is likely a little known fact by most in Alberta because it is observed in the rest of the country.

So I did spend family day with my family. My mom, dad, Cheruby, and all the kittenses. On Friday after work, Cheruby and I headed up to Nipawin, picked up my mom and drove another couple hours out to Little Bear Lake. My dad had gone out earlier in the day to warm up the cabin. A very beautiful cabin indeed.

On Saturday, Cheruby and I got a little cold heading out to the ice shack as we don't have proper winter outer wear to keep us warm, but we both caught a good fish. Dad didn't catch any keepers. His little walleye got put back and so did Cheruby's three burbot. He spent much time watching them swim in his hole in the ice willing them to be smart enough to get off his hook. They are too slimy for my dad to touch so we didn't keep any that we caught.

Burbot are a strange looking fish (borderline repulsive) that’s extra slimy to the touch, but surprisingly excellent tasting. They’re found on the bottom of deep lakes and rivers and- even though they look like they eat something vile such as carcasses or algae- are actually voracious predators of other fish. Burbot are also called eelpout, ling, lingcod, loache, methyl, lush, gudgeon, mud-blower, cusk, mother eel, or lawyer fish.

Cheruby very much enjoyed his first snowmobiling experience except the cold and ill-fitting helmet. I would have enjoyed it more too if it weren't for the cold. I get kind of (understatement) whiney when I'm cold.

The fire was very welcome at the end of Saturday and we all went to bed early. I love firelight to sleep by. It's comforting somehow. We woke up on Sunday with the intent of fishing again, but the light snow that was happening at the cabin didn't indicate that there was much heavier snow only 15 minutes away so we turned around and didn't make it up to the lake again. We were all kind of grateful except dad who really loves ice fishing. There is something kind of relaxing and neat about it, but without the warm winter gear, it's not as much fun.

Because I'd been so cold the day before, we got all kinds of new clothes for me to wear and as such, I could barely move in all the layers I had on. Honestly, they made me more of a strange discoloured marshmallow man or Michelan Man than anything else that might be considered human. So even though we didn't make it out ice fishing, mom took some pictures of me in my funny get up. And then I fell back into a snowbank. Because I had so many layers on, I couldn't even bend 90 degrees at the waist which made it a little difficult to get up from my fallen position. And then I tried to roll and trying to roll in a snowbank is hard enough without being in stitches with laughter at the whole situation.

So, dad took the snowmobile out on Sunday and got it stuck in about 4 feet of snow. Slogged through that deep snow to get to the road and then caught a ride back to the cabin. He convinced one of the neighbours to go help him get his snowmobile. All this while Cheruby, mom and I played Arkham Horror and listened to music. Later that night, we played Kaiser. Cheruby and I got walloped in the first game. Lost in 10 hands. The second game went on and on. The Lasers(tm) had a struggle, but managed to escape a second defeat. It was a lot of fun.

Monday came and it was time to go home. Dad and I went for a tour of the resort and campground on the sled. It's so much different than being in a car and I can't truly express how. Maybe it's that total layer of glass and metal being between you and the trees. Maybe it's the total freedom of vision that you can see in any direction you choose to look. Maybe it's just that you are truly closer to it all. Whatever it is, it was way cooler - both in temperature and in status.

My big brat came home with us and has ignored Cheruby's cat pretty much the whole time he's been back. I'm very happy to have all my family at home now. The fat one, little one, and dainty one.

You can see most of the pictures from the weekend here. I'll upload the rest soon except for the one that got deleted. Kaz really likes the story about the picture that got deleted.

Okay, maybe I just wanted say tumultuous, but there is some upheaval of lives going on around me. Enough that it started to upset my delicate (HA!) internal sense of balance. My angel helped me by listening to me and getting into discussions with me about upsetting things and still kissing me goodnight and telling me he loves me.

So in the end, I figured out that yep, I'm happy. I'm not just pretending because I want to be happy and have a good life. I'm truly happy. Things are good for me.

I've been having a lot of fun lately. Mage is turning out to be really fantastic. I get so exhausted after the game from being so high energy and poor Cheruby pretty much needs to explode after not laughing or cracking a smile for an entire evening. We don't mesh well coming out of those characters. Cheruby is especially funny when he thinks that his in character actions will affect people's opinions out of character. Well, if the person is any sort of respectable at role-playing, there won't be a problem and if there is a problem, the line between reality and fantasy for that person is likely a little more blurred than it should be. He'll start to get to know these folks in real life and it'll help.

Low Life was great fun. I'm playing talkin' werm. I don't shut up - EVER. It's hard to believe, really. It's giving me a really good giggle. Now, if only I can figure out how to be that talky in the Mage game. I'm on in the Mage game, but I have an agenda which happens to be comprehensive. Low Life is just about keeping going.

Took some alone time this week which helped with the above confirmation that yes, I am happy. The second last D&D game in Saskatoon with Kaz was this week. I am saddened by this. After next week, it'll be April when we play again and it'll be in Edmonton. Crazy business that - people moving Away.

My angel and I went to Taverna for supper yesterday. They really do make one of the finest alfredo sauces I've ever had the pleasure of tasting.

The lunch and short visit we had today was really good, but too short. I felt like I could have talked the afternoon away today with her. And she's right, we both are in such a different place than we were 10 years ago. The lessons we've learned and loves and pains and joys and sadnesses we've experienced. I'm sure the best really is yet to come. For me, being 30 means knowing more about who I am and what makes me happy and knowing that I deserve that without it being selfish.

I talked to my big brat a few times on the phone since he's been with my folks in Nipawin. There are few things greater than hearing my cat start to purr at the sound of my voice and hear him nuzzling the phone because he misses me too.

Did you know that I hate having to do performance management with my staff. It's not that I don't like having the conversations, but I can't seem to get passed the hours of preparation and then the hours of meetings (at least 34 hours in total) in order to get right down to it. I need a plan. A good plan - a list of items to go through with each staff member including some pointed questions about how the team is doing and how our processes are doing. It's getting a little ridiculous though. Why can't I just sit down and do it!!

So, because of that, I slept too much this week and was mostly crabby and ggrrrr... I don't like being like that. Of course, the weekend is here now and I don't have to think about it very much. I do have to work this weekend, however. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow though.

Not all meetings are stupid. I really liked the ones we had on Friday with the HR team where we were in focus groups about what we could be doing better. It was really hard for me to think of those things because the company is amazing and treats us very well and I really love my job. To try to think like someone who isn't happy with the current state of things is very hard and I don't want to do it. My lead to actual thoughts of unhappiness and I don't need to go there.

I made a CD this weekend for a friend of mine. I was fairly pleased with it, but it was a little rushed. Altogether the best part was the last song - Kermit the Frog singing The Rainbow Connection. What could be better than that? I hope she likes it.

My brother's fiance is starting to get antsy about the wedding plans. I'm just getting really excited. I don't want to get too excited and promise that I'll do something that I don't have time for, but it's really hard not to! I'm really, really excited. It's going to be a very long wait until May.

I spent the day with Umbrella today. She's sooo awesome. I love spending time with her so much. I helped her buy a new wardrobe for $70 at Value Village where I saw a lovely couple trying on clothes. The woman was very pretty and had the cutest tattoo on her hip. She had a fabulous accent too. She tried on this very lovely orange and pink dress that I thought was really great even though it sounds horrible. She was saying she wasn't sure about it while her boyfriend was pretty keen on it. I wasn't helping Umbrella at the time so he asked me how she looked and since I'd already been looking, I said, "She looks fabulous. It's a great dress." She looked a little surprised by my candor, but she said thank you. It was a very nice little conversation. Apparently, he really likes orange.