V came from Montreal tonight. We talked, had some wine, did my hair, played with the doggie I am baby-sitting, and had an all-round fun and relaxing time. I lurve her, it's always so much fun to hang out with her. :)
Oooh, wicked. I see and hear a thunderstorm starting. I just saw a few flashes of lightning, and am hearing some thunder. Guess this means I should get off of the computer. I know, I haven't updated in a few days -- busy, busy girl right now!
This is too funny. I've seen this linked in a couple of places, but the first place I saw it was on Jen's site. I think the only one he's left out is the Nirvana "Smells Like Teen Spirit" whiplash-inducing head thrash -- if you're my age, surely you remember that? I distinctly remember smacking my head into a wall doing that once. Yeah, no comment from the peanut gallery on that one, m'kay? ;)
It's all funny, but where it started getting super funny for me was at "You Shook Me All Night Long." Absolute classics: from "Ice, Ice, Baby" onward. I had completely forgotten about "Cotton Eye Joe," but I do remember being in Duluth with my mom and she and I both having a laughing fit from how that song sounded on a Walkman I had at the time that played songs a beat too fast.
This week has just flown by. And so has this month! (To the would-be smarties: I meant "May flies" as in "time flies," not as in insect life.) I seem to be back on a normal sleep/wake cycle, so this is good. It was a really busy week, and here it is, already Sunday. I've been back for a week already!
I did something new this weekend, which turned out to be a lot of fun. I'm working with a photographer, Dawn Bourgeois, who will be launching her portfolio for Naked Eye Imaging in the fall. She is awesome to work with! As a person and as a professional, she puts you very at ease, is very open, and she is totally amazing. She sent me a few of the test photos we did, which I've put in my gallery. They were all done with natural light, with me just wearing light, natural makeup (I don't wear foundation), and they are unretouched. We're both really happy with how they turned out. :) If anyone (in the area) is looking for a photographer, I highly recommend her! It was definitely a very cool, very positive experience for me.
I'm loving that it's a long weekend. I rented Crash and Just Like Heaven, and also bought the most recent Gemma Townley book, Learning Curves, and Lauren Weisberger's Everyone Worth Knowing. I'm hoping to get some yoga in as well, and maybe some rollerblading if it's nice outside. I ordered two Kundalini yoga DVDs from Amazon that shipped yesterday, and I'm excited to get them. I will still do classes, but I'd like to have some more kriyas I can do at home (well, I can get them from books, but sometimes following along with a DVD is fun), and the two I ordered had great reviews, and seemed to have a lot of the exercises I was looking for. I know, some people think yoga is yoga, or even a particular type of yoga would just be pretty straightforward, like any and all DVDs would give you what you're looking for, but not so! I think when you've been practicing something for awhile, you can get really particular about what you're looking for, both in terms of length of sets and what exercises.
It's time to start thinking about what to make for dinner... I might try making eggplant lasagna tonight. First I have to figure out how to peel the eggplant, heh. ;) New vegetables are fun!
Oh, I almost forgot -- the new Cali photos are also up in the gallery. All 98 of them! There are a lot of Newport harbour, but it warrants it. :)
This post is not about the consumption of wine, per se
Firestone wine! At the LCBO! Who knew?
Doo-dee-doo... Yes, I might have purchased a bottle of white and a bottle of red. This picture is being posted solely for the amusement of those friends who will "get" it. I don't know when they will be consumed, but they begged to be brought home:
No really. They whimpered right there in the Vintages section of my nearest LCBO store. I mean, how could I just leave them there?
For the concerned, this post/photo have been brought to you for reasons that have pretty much nothing to do with wine/alcohol/drinking it at all, but that will make a few people laugh. :)
Go to bed. Go directly to bed. Do not pass Google, do not get sucked into surfing the Internet. You're still not on a normal sleep cycle and/or schedule, yesterday and today have been busy, and you need to be at work for 7 a.m. tomorrow.
Just so we're all clear on this: in Southern California, I can drive myself, by myself, to various cities, beaches and shopping destinations, armed with directions from MapQuest and/or a friend, and arrive there without getting lost. In the city I've lived in for seven years, I somehow am unable to transfer this ability to navigating unfamiliar neighbourhoods. Eeeps. (Dear S: I lurve you. Thank you for lurving me enough to identify with the reasons for my occasional wacky phone calls and all you did for me today!)
Also, how come "What About Brian?" isn't on tonight? Anyone? Bueller? Was the season finale last week? I am trying really hard to rejoin the world of normal hobbies here...
Update to last night's posts: my body has NO idea what time it is right now. It is going to be an early night, for sure! But first, some dinner.
Heh. Okay, so here's how the sleep thing has shaken down today:
Aside from that possible half hour or accumulated hour of sleep, I was up for over 33 hours before I attempted sleep again, thinking maybe I'd fall asleep and just wake up earlier than normal in the morning. Well, it kind of worked. I slept for 2 1/2 hours and now even though I know I'm tired, I feel awake? Except not. Hmm. Tomorrow's state of alertness shall be interesting.
Speaking of sleep, I had some of the most whacked out dreams while I was away. One of the highlights is a dream where the Sens and Sabres were playing a playoff game in the aisles of Canadian Tire, road hockey style, and both teams had forgotten their jerseys. And speaking of that, it's so sad that the season is over for the Sens. I was wondering about the game results last night while waiting for my flight at LAX (it would already have been long over, I just didn't know the score), and didn't find out until this morning. Oh well. Now I'm hoping for Edmonton.
Well, it might be time to try this sleep thing again. Here's hoping! G'night, everyone. :)
Oi la vey... well, I think I slept on and off for maybe an hour or half an hour this morning/afternoon? By the time I got home and got to bed, I'd been up for over 24 hours. I had big plans to sleep on the plane last night, and a single glass of wine at 30,000 feet is quite powerful and almost did the trick, BUT there was a baby across the aisle who was none too happy to be up in the air so alas, sleep was not to be.
My connection out of Toronto was delayed... while we all sat on the plane. Dear Air Canada: when you tell an entire plane full of people that the plane has had mechanical failure and is broken, what people really want to hear is "so, we'll be switching you to a new plane" and not "so, the mechanic is going to come over and see if they can fix it," followed by "okay, so we're pretty sure it's fixed, but we have to 'reboot' the computer system of the plane" and further followed by "well, actually, we have to try rebooting the computer system of the plane again" with a comparison of it to someone's home computer. At that point you sincerely hope the system the pilot is making a comparison to is, oh, I don't know... a Mac platform or something stable like that.
I'm in that state of tired where, when I was trying to nap, it felt like the world was kind of shaking underneath me? It's still like that, but I think the easiest way to get back into the Eastern time zone groove is just to stay awake until bedtime. There were a couple of errands I'd wanted to do today, but I think those will be happening tomorrow! I checked my work e-mail when I got home to discover that I'm in a French class tomorrow morning? (At work.) This is a really good thing, but I'm hoping my brain is functioning tomorrow, and I have a good case of the giggles right now thinking about this because I've currently got some California-style inflection going on when I speak (this is normal, it'll fade over the next couple of days) but I'm imagining this, but then trying to flip over to a) French in my mind and b) a French accent/intonation, annnnnnnnd... heh.
So busy already this week. Different appointments on three different evenings this week, a very early morning on Wednesday, a few errands I need to do tomorrow night, catching up on work accumulated while I was gone... I hope I get some good sleep tonight!
Writing at the beach was how I spent yesterday afternoon. There's something about sitting there under the sun, on the warm sand, salty ocean air whipping at my hair and skin, watching waves crash to the shore. I was at the edge of the continent, but it feels like being at the edge of the world. I was content to just lay there for awhile, thinking.
There's some differences here from being at home. For one, a lot of places require a zip code when you use a credit card. When you have to substitute a postal code for that... heh. Also, my debit card doesn't work with the U.S. version of Interac, although I already knew that from previous trips -- it does, however, work in ATMs. So, no idea!
I think I'm really used to the Pacific Time Zone now, which is going to make for an interesting transition once I'm back -- and I thought Daylight Saving Time was something! ;)
Tonight at dinner I gave Kelly my heart, then she cut it in two and ate it... my artichoke heart, that is! ;) (Full credit and props to Timothy for coming up with that first line at dinner, heh heh.) Tonight was the first time I've ever had an artichoke. They're good, but I think I'm much more of an artichoke leaf person than an artichoke heart person, which works well because Kell likes the hearts. :) Plus, I was pretty full by that point, what with the scrumptious chicken puff pastries, zucchini blinis and the rest of the artichoke before that! I've also had eggplant (prepared somewhat like lasagna) while here, and totally love that recipe. Yay, new recipes to make at home! Kell is the best for cooking inspiration. :)
We've just returned from Wild Oats, where I picked up some mocchi and grain sweetened chocolate chips (neither of which I've been able to find at home), and we stopped at The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf before heading back. I've never been to The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf either. Yummy coffee... I'm going to be up for awhile, I can tell. ;)
I spent the day in Newport, taking in the sights and soaking up some of the gorgeous sunshine we had in abundance today. I went on a harbour cruise and took tons of pictures, of houses, boats/yachts, some great ocean/oceanside scenery, and sea lions. Sea lions are cute! After that, I spent awhile wandering the piers. It was the perfect day for exploring. :)
Found: what is quite possibly the world's most perfect bra. Location: Victoria's Secret.
I was out on a mall adventure today, inspired by a gift card from Victoria's Secret a friend had given to me. Lo and behold, I stumbled across what may very well qualify as a wonder of the women's fashion world. I mean, I lurve the bras at Jacob Lingerie, I pretty much shop for them there only, but this... this has no words. I'll admit, I was skeptical when two different sales associates raved about them to me and told me they were the number one bra in the world, but now I believe them!
It's nice and sunny here right now, with the perfect breeze. And, it's almost dinner time, so I should be heading off. :)
It was kind of like Kanata Centrum, only with palm trees
Someone had a bit too much fun shopping today and that someone might be me. ;) To be fair, we don't have Kohl's and Bath and Body Works at home. It was a fun, laid-back afternoon, and the guy serving me at Starbuck's was so cute/sweet. He was making conversation for a few minutes and was all, "Sooo... maybe I'll see you back here again this week?" They are definitely friendly here! :)
Fun in the California sun, day three. :) I'm having an awesome time! On Friday, I celebrated my birthday with Kelly and Timothy, which was super nice to be able to do. I am so lucky and so fortunate to have them as friends, and to be able to visit with them.
As a birthday cake for me, Kelly made an agave cheesecake, which is sooooo yummy. :) She is a super duper awesome cook and always inspires me with what she makes. Everything she makes uses all natural, non-processed ingredients (so no refined sugar, only natural sweeteners, and no "bad" carbs) so it's also really good for you that way. I notice a huge difference in the consistency of my energy levels when not having the bad sugar/processed carbs. Since Friday I have also been learning to do Sudoku puzzles. It requires logic, soooooo... ;) Just kidding! It's cool, it definitely requires focus and thought!
Yesterday we went to the beach, which I loved doing. The ocean is something I could watch for hours upon end, and laying on the sand is so relaxing and mellowing. Also, YAY sunshine! I plan to go back once or twice this week, and am also going to do some writing while I'm there. I find being near the ocean so inspiring.
This morning I went to church with Kelly and Timothy. I had only ever been to Catholic church services, baptized Catholic as I am, so this was a new experience for me. I have to say that it was very different than a Catholic service. (It's a non-demonational church.) I found it very engaging, and very uplifting and inspiring. Andrew, a member of the congregation who is completing a Master of Divinity degree, gave the service this morning, and he is a very lively, very engaging speaker. It was a really enjoyable experience for me.
After church we went to Jack and Veronica's house for lunch. They are so great! Lunch was delicious, and they are so sweet -- Veronica made a delicious chocolate cake (again, naturally sweetened/no bad carbs), and she and Jack wrote me a super sweet birthday card. It was so nice to be able to see them again this trip.
I also met a few of Kelly and Timothy's friends today whom I've heard about for ages, so that was cool -- photographs come to life! ;) There is even a fellow Canadian among them, and it's so great when you're in another country and someone else brings up things like "This Hour Has 22 Minutes," hee.
While out for a walk this afternoon, I watched a lizard cross the street and sidewalk in front of me. THAT was cool. That's not something that happens back home unless it's recently escaped from a pet store. ;) I have a picture of it when it was in the grass near a tree. It's pretty "Where's Waldo?" because of how well it blends into the grass. ;) Tonight I also had an In-N-Out burger for the first time, and I have to say that it was very good. :)
So that's the brief update from here. I don't have pictures up yet, I'll probably wait until I'm back in O-Town to upload them. Lots of love to everyone.
Yay, it's May! :) And you know what that means? That means it's birthday month for Kell and I. Happy birthday month, Kell! It's so exciting that we're going to be together for part of it!
So yes, this means it's my birthday on Friday, Cinco de Mayo baby that I am... which also means I will be turning 25 for the second time, heh. Hey. Some people choose to stay 29 forever, but I say dare to be different.
Okay, work to do. It was a super busy weekend, and I anticipate a busy (but good) week.
