It's been a week comprised of a) being out; b) being social; c) being at work; and d) studying. As of yesterday, I was living in my own filth and eating take-out sushi for dinner. Today I have groceries and the carpet has been vacuumed. There's swiss chard-chickpea stew simmering on the stove alongside a pot of rice. This is progress. (However, my bathroom needs cleaning and my inbox is out of control. Such is life.)

On Sunday, Tara and Deb and I went cross-country skiing in the Callaghan Valley. A couple of months ago, my manager gave me her cross-country ski equipment (thanks Elisa!). Despite a pretty spectacular wipeout into the trees on Cypress in December, I was looking forward to getting out skiing again. I've barely cross-country skiied as an adult; when we were kids, my parents would take us out skiing a few times a year. We were pretty wussy and whiny kids. "I'm cold." "I'm tired." And so on. It's amazing that they kept taking us out, but it means that now as an adult, I can get from point A to point B on a pair of skis, so long as there aren't a lot of hills involved (hills are scary).

This was exactly the third time that Tara had gone cross-country skiing. She was a trooper, despite the fact that the terrain had as many hills (scary) as flat stretches. And even though it was kind of a wet day, it was nice to be out in the quiet and the snow and the trees. And to eat Tara's home-made peanut butter cookies on the way home (thanks Tara!).
One unexpected thing that happened this week was a spontaneous visit with my next-door neighbour. We've never really gotten to know each other, but now that she's about to move we finally spent an hour or two chatting, and it turns out that she's interested in cycling and food and textiles. In fact, she even gave me her button and fabric stash and a bag of stuffing (thanks Margie!).

The other thing that happened this week? I finally decided to join the 21st century.