relaxation is the key

i love weekends. everything about them. no pressures, nothing needed to plan, just freely doing (mostly) what i want. i did a bit of cooking (that i have been enjoying quite a bit lately). did a bit of yummy baking. went to a movie, rented some movies. did a bit of produce shopping. did a bit of yoga (it has been too long). and went to the gym. even did a bit of readings, finished an assignment, AND attempted to work on a very daunting paper!

the best part of this weekend? a caramel sundae to go with supper tonight. wonderful dessert to a spicy meal. the second best part: jimi getting the big peanut buster parfait AND mark getting himself an ice cream cake!

gotta love weekends!
love

it is so nice

to get dressed up (even if it is a ruffly shirt)

go for a drive

buy two movie ticket

buy one popcorn and one drink

watch a movie

AND hold hands with the one you love

love

what's on my ipod?

okay i couldn't find the song on youtube that pushed me through my run today. it was the version with melissa ethridge. many people may have not heard of them, let alone enjoy this music but i sure do. i remember taking dad to their concert in st. albert as he too understood the joy of...can you guess it...ladysmith black mambazo!

but alas...i could not find it. but i also listened to this pretty little diddy. enjoy.



love

happy anniversary markness!

here it is!

love

happy days are here again

it looks like i have kicked the january blues! it has been a fun filled weekend of friends, family, laughter, and work. it's been fabulous. take a look and see...

friday

worked all day at my former (and now current) job. so good to be back there. i really love that place and really do love working in general. then i worked at my other favourite place...my respite job. i know, who gets excited about work...well it looks like i do!

saturday
saw anita during the day and went to a most wonderful place. then we checked out h & w produce. i definitely should have listened when people told me of this magical grocery store. cheap, cheap, produce. for this girl who eats veggies and fruit on a daily basis it will save my grocery bill. my dad would be proud and envious!

at night jeff, jeaninne, mark and i went to the ice on whyte festival. i liked it. we didn't have the energy (or the warmth) to wait in the line for the giant slide. BUT did enjoy the ice sculptures. what a crazy talent to have. made me wonder how someone got involved in sculpting ice (but then maybe others wonder how i started to scrapbook). AND what does one do after hanging around ice? go for ice cream of course! after that a friendly game of "dirty minds"...not as dirty as i thought! ;)

sunday
family day with my beloved brother who i hadn't seen since christmas! that with roasted veggies, steak, wii - just dance, and jimi's chocolate avocado cake made for a most fabulous night of sibling love + mark!

monday aka today
its mark and mine's anniversary! four years of blood, sweat, and tears! he he he. jk. i actually made him a slide show for our big day and we both realized how many memories we have together. the funny thing is that it probably is only 20% of our pictures. i will try to figure out how to post it later (maybe a mini-version since its probably too big for this website).

have a great night
now i must really hit the books!
love

what to say, what to say?

school: things are picking up. i am starting to enjoy one of my classes. its called acute altercations. learning about that, on top of theories and how to treat these acute altercations with specialized care. obviously there are other courses but this one is a stand-out for me right now.

books: continuing to read long way down. its about two people's (one is ewan mcgregor) journey from scotland to capetown on their motorcycles. it can get a bit dry at times but they do have some interesting bits. some of their work is to bring awareness to some issues as they explained how to deconstruct a landmine, and learned about a charity that relies on motorcycles to treat people with HIV as the bikes can take a lot of the off roading that a car cannot. i am intrigued to rent the documentary after this.

movies: saw a movie with anita over the weekend. country strong. so not what i thought it would be about (i was going in thinking it was chick flick). but it was still really good. although maybe anita and i should have contained ourselves at some points because some scenes (in our opinion) were outright ridiculous (and we were smirking) while others found it incredibly sad.

scrapbooking: been doing lots of this lately. almost done 2008 (just in time since i am now in 2011). a lot of the scrapbooking was our hikes as we did 3 that year. i completed the final hiking spread last weekend. as of right now i have been scanning  a lot of mark's pictures. my parent's got me a digital frame for christmas uploaded with tons of photos of myself and my family. so i thought it would be nice for some of mark's childhood pictures (and pics of ourselves) to be uploaded. check here to see what a cutie he was! :)

photos: this photo a day thing is a bit harder than i thought. quite frankly i am not that interesting. i do a lot of the same things and when i don't i seem to be forgeting my camera. i am going to try to keep it up. but if you find it boring, sorry! :) i will probably look back on this and laugh at some of the silly pics i have taken.

work: this has been picking up. with the bitter cold of last week there was no chance of relief as many of the clients were not coming in themselves. this week has turned around a bit, and same for a bit of next week too. it is nice to work a bit more. i think my brother is right when he says that i won't know what to do with myself when i just have one job and no school....he he. i like being busy.

eating well and exercise: that is going pretty good. i still have my indulgences of junk food and i know i am far from perfect when it comes to that...but i have been trying out some healthy foods lately. AND i am kind of enjoying cooking because of those different things! even my chef role model (my dad) seems impressed. PLUS its good to talk to him because he is always good for some tips. the exercise is going well too. i have jumped back into the winter gym schedule. i have to admit that i sometimes find it hard because i really just want to be outside working out...but i must be patient...it will come sooner than i think...FEBRUARY!

how is that for a summary of things done???

have a great night!
love

VALERIE!!!

in honour of my favourite show AND in honour of this song (valerie) as it helped push me a little farther on the treadmill today...i give you this little video! ENJOY!

hope you enjoy the rendition of amy winehouse's valerie...love it!



love

go away procrastination

the third week of school is about to begin and i am still having trouble finding the motivation to get back to the books. maybe its the never ending cold (although i must say right now being inside, with the snow falling it has a beautiful/romantic feel to it). maybe its coming off of clinical doing a "job" for so long that it is a struggle to study again. OR maybe its coming off all the holiday festivities with all the "to do".

alas. i just have to bite the bullet and start the studies. the blues of january will just have to take a hike. i must focus on all the things to look forward too (and there are many). things like snow sculptures this weekend, a jaunt to the art gallery, a fabulous trip in february AND (although slightly farther away) my mom coming to visit in april! EEK!

SO GOOD-BYE PROCRASTINATION and welcome (but not so happily) the school books.

love

bsb forever

remember this post? well it looks like i am taking another stroll down memory lane. yes. the reunion tour of backstreet boys is coming...but not just them new kids on the block too! i have just commited to going with a most excellent fan by my side!

sigh. i remember when i first went to the backstreet boys concert. aaron carter was opening for them, it was at commonwealth stadium and jeaninne and i didn't tell anyone. we were convinced that everyone would make fun of us so none of our friends could find out. then we bumped into two of those friends on the lrt who kept it a secret too. TOO FUNNY!

already have some fabulous memories to look forward to in the summer!

love

sabrina butterfly

BECAUSE i love this store so much i have it on as one of my "likes" on facebook. as a result i found out about a contest where they were giving 250$ to anyone who wrote a little story with a picutre of them in sabrina clothes. SINCE i happen to have a bunch of pics from new york...i entered.
AND GUESS WHAT!! i didn't win. but she did say there was going to be a little something in the mail for anyone that participated and we got a spot on her blog...right here. that is my little bout of fame today! :)
love

weekend of laziness

so many plans this weekend that just went totally and utterly awry. friday night we were suppose to go to a birthday party for one of mark's friends. as soon as mark got home, i knew it was a bust. he spent the majority of the night coughing and wheezing. the next morning after a chest x-ray and two visits to the doctor all is better and he is on some medication.

saturday was a blizzardy one. i decided to venture out into the vast amount of snow to work out (i really am that dedicated!) AND went grocery shopping (it was surprisingly busy for the amount of snow outside). as soon as i got home i decided on the importance of staying in and forgoing my dreams of an art gallery day and movie night (also mark was not really up for it). i made banana muffins (nutritious, even) and learned once and for all what that funky thing was in my mom's kitchen that i so very much loved to play with when i was young. this thing right here:

link

that's right a steamer! well i used it to make a delicious meal of steamed fish, peas, water chestnuts (and broccoli) once again jamie oliver came through for me! it was fantastic! and thanks to anita for telling me about the recipe in the first place!

i guess some days you really just need to chill out and relax...and if you don't want to, weather and illness will make you! :)

love

2011 Goals

another year gone. what a year it was. i think it was pretty fantastic but i am prepared for some more fantastic-ness in 2011 so bring it on! :) a couple of goals that i would like to keep up this year are similar to lasts. these include:

• scrapbooking. i really have found the love for it again. it has been a great release for me during school and i love going through all my old photos laughing, smiling, and reminiscing about my fabulous friends and family. i do think i need to finish (or start) some long overdue projects. and maybe move on to 2009 pictures. one day i hope to be ahead again...
• travel travel travel. whether its hiking the west coast trail, going to "the dream" location up north, seeing the fam in new brunswick, or going to a hot "dream" vacation of my own i would like the opportunity to see, try, taste, explore, and take pictures of different things. life is an adventure, right?
• read. school has really taken a hit on my leisure reading. i found the last rotation i was able to do it a bit more but hitting the books again seems to always affect the "fun-ness" i have reading fiction books. i think i have over 15 books in this house that i have not read. let's try to bring that down.
• take more photos. i am by no means a professional photographer, nor am i ever going to try to be. but i thought i might try documenting my year in photos. i managed to do pretty good over the holidays so i figured why not try it on a daily basis. here's to trying. if you want to check out my progress just click this link...OR check out the link on my blog roll on the right hand side.
• lastly i would like to make a valiant effort in eating healthy. this is something that is always a challenge. what can i say. i am a girl who loves her sweets and junk food. i think the first is to try to give up some of my beloved fast food (like mcdonalds). now don't think i am going to quit cold turkey. i will indulge. but (hopefully) not as much! 
• and as always i will continue to exercise...but that is something i have no problems doing! :)

i am sure other goals will come up through out the year. like i said...these aren't so much resolutions as things for myself to achieve either now, or long term...(or short term).

have a good one and hopefully you will enjoy my blog journey for another year!

happy new year

i hope all of you have had a wonderful holiday season. mine was fabulously full of fun, laughter and plenty of eating. i am really not one of those people that makes new years resolutions (mainly because i think they are set up for failure). however, i have never shied away from goals. they don't have an end date, or a beginning date. just something to achieve and the excitement involved in that achievement. so i am going to take this month to reflect on some personal goals i would like to accomplish in the near (or far) future (i may even share them).

one goal in the very near future (i.e. tomorrow). take down the christmas tree and clean up our place. then relaxation involving tons of movies, books and scrapbooking. does it get better than that when the holidays are soon ending???

love