Thursday, December 31, 2009

2009 wrap-up

I haven't been very good at blogging lately so I figure a catch-up post before the new year is in order.

Culture

Holly and I went to the Sleeping Beauty ballet. It was beautiful, but very, very long. 3 hours was a bit much. The evening overall was a lot of fun though. We had dinner at Penelope's and then had tea at starbucks before the ballet.

We also got to see The Nutcracker. SL sponsors the ballet and each year they get some tickets to the final dress rehearsal. Jer and I entered our names into the draw to see it and Jer won 4 tickets! We took Holly and her friend Diana and it was a lot of fun. We had box seats in the grand ring which had its own door to the box and hangers for your coats and lots of leg room. It was pretty sweet. During intermission we saw Ron MacLean. Oh, and the actual ballet was pretty good too. The first part was less ballet and more dancing, but the second part was more traditional ballet and I enjoyed it more. The highlight was Jer thinking the horse was real, even while the horse was dancing.

A coworker and I went and saw the Shanghai orchestra. They came to Toronto and played at Roy Thomson Hall for one night. The first half had an amazing pianist and I loved it. Afterwards she played some solo encore pieces which were spectacular. The second half was much different. I didn't quite 'get' it. It sounded like psycho knife sounds and screaming. Ie. it was totally lost on me. I'd need to hear a lot more of it to understand and appreciate it. A little bonus to the performance was that we got to sit behind and slightly above the orchestra. I loved it. It felt like being in the orchestra. I could even see sheet music.

Jer's 30th Birthday

Jer was dreading turning 30 for quite a while so I made it my mission to make it enjoyable. We started off by taking the Friday before his birthday off and had a nice breakfast while watching Up. Then in the afternoon we went to see Cirque du Soleil. They did some crazy impressive things like normal which was fun. Jer had never been before and loved it. When we got home, we heated up some shepherd's pie and had a relaxing evening.

On the Saturday was Jer's actual birthday and to start things off I had a surprise for Jer. I managed to keep it a secret although it was difficult because I was excited about it. All he knew was we were going to the distillery district for two to four hours. We went to this old building with exposed ceilings and brick walls and took a waltz lesson! There were two other couples with us and the teacher was great. The two hours flew by and afterwards we practised for a while. We gad a lot of fun. For dinner we had lamb and sweet potato fries then opened gifts. Jer wanted a new man purse for his birthday so I found him a nice, dark brown, leather man purse to celebrate him being all grown up haha. Then we were off to meet everyone to go to Second City. The show was hilarious and people started getting Jer drunk. Afterwards we went to Fionn MacCools for drinks and cake. It was a lot of fun and nobody could tell my cake didn't have wheat or refined sugar in it. To end the evening Jer and I bought a pineapple and mango from Rabba.

Christmas

Work is really busy in December and January for me so all I could take off was Christmas eve. After work on the 23rd we went to Jer's parents. We watched a really bad made-for-tv movie which we mocked so it was a lot of fun. We had some quiet time on Christmas eve before everyone showed up, including 7 kids, when the chaos began. There were many presents and lots of good food. Jer's sister made me a special batch of cabbage rolls that had chicken and brown rice with carrots and squash instead of beef, white rice, and tomatoes. It tasted great and I really appreciated the effort. Christmas morning we took off to Kincardine and had presents and yummy food with my mom. We stayed a couple days in Kincardine and since it was winter there wasn't much to do. We went to the grocery store and the bulk barn. Exciting stuff, I know.

This past week we've been working, so tonight, Jer and I are going to celebrate our Christmas. We're having shepherd's pie (yes, it's one of our favourites), apple crisp, and present. Oh, and champagne for New Year's!! Tomorrow we'll head to my dad's to visit with them, and we'll make a trip to Peterborough to visit my grandmas. At that point Christmas 2009 will officially be over. Well, I guess after we pack up the Christmas tree it will be official.

Random

I haven't had any refined sugar or wheat in over 4 months. It's hard to believe it was possible. My go to dinner was some form of pasta and a day without sugar was unheard of. I went from eating a bag of chocolate in a night until I felt sick cause I couldn't stop myself, to having ferroro rochers in my apartment and not giving them a second glance. At the beginning I would get sad and long for treats when I saw other people eating it but now I'm indifferent to them. My favourite cake and sweets I just shrug at now. I am very happy I've gotten my brain off needing sugar. And I've discovered I love walnuts.

Happy New Year!

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Christmas timeish

To get in the spirit of Christmas, this past weekend Jer and I got out our Christmas decorations. We made lamb and sweet potato fries for dinner, with peach and blueberry cobbler for dessert. Afterward we put on barenaked ladies Christmas carols and put up our Christmas tree.

While we were decorating the tree, I was playing with a friend's SLR camera to see if I might like to have one. I enjoyed playing with it. Now I will post my favourite picture from last year using my point and shoot, and this year using the SLR.



Sunday, September 13, 2009

Fun food

Lately food has been extremely boring. My elimination diet cuts out so many foods I feel like I'm eating the same stuff over and over, none of which is all that good. The only stuff I'm not sick of is my morning fruit smoothie.

This weekend, I took a break from the monotony and had some really great food.

I took a walk to the Healthy Butcher to get some lamb. It's September, which means the lamb born in spring are ready to be my dinner. Baaaaa. I went with some leg meat, stuffed it with garlic and mint, and roasted it in the oven. Soo freaking good.



Tonight, it was fish. And I don't really like fish. I can enjoy it deep fried in batter with a lot of tartar sauce, but that's it really. We've had tilapia a couple of times and the one time it was okay, the other time bleah. But I'm trying to eat more fish, so it was time to try the Black Cod I picked up at the Healthy Butcher the other week. We just fried it in olive oil and topped it with some garlic. I had some cabbage sauteed in some olive oil and spices in case I needed to eat the fish with something to mask the taste, but I was very surprised. This fish was amazing. It was rich and not fishy at all. Want. More!



Maybe one day I'll get to a real post, but until then, yay food!

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

All about the pork tenderloin

Work has been driving me a little crazy lately. Constant questions with quick turnaround required and my brain is tired. Whenever I think the questions have stopped I get bombarded with more. Ack!

Today was a much needed breather. We had a nice easy day by taking a walk by the waterfront, and then I did some cleaning and baking. For supper we made more pork tenderloin with a blueberry bbq sauce which was delicious. Then we ate some chocolate chip cookies. Buttery chocolaty goodness. We finished the night watching the fireworks from Jer's, but the smoke hung around so you couldn't actually see much of them. What we could see was fun though.

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Fun-filled times

For a few weeks, I had been looking forward to going to the jays game for a work event. Why?? Ohh cause there were 1 dollar hot dogs. My mouth watered on many different occasions leading up to the game. On Tuesday it was finally time. We got there a bit early to get hot dogs in time and still get to our seats for first pitch. Yeah, well, the hot dogs were disgusting. The bread was a bit stale and the texture kind of grossed me out. I hid most of the taste with onions, ketchup and mustard, but overall it was a huge disappointment. And then I realized I had 3 hours of baseball to watch in the 500s. Jer and I made it to the middle of the 7th before deciding it wasn't rude to leave and ended up watching the very end on tv haha.

Wednesday night was much more enjoyable. We went to the symphony for 'Tso goes to the movies'. They were playing famous songs from movies and had a 60 second clip of the movie to go along with it. I loved our seats which were looking down into the symphony. My favourite performance of the night was definitely Singin' in the Rain. They had a guy from broadway come to sing AND he danced. He did a fantastic job. So animated and joyful it made me so happy watching. Other highlights were music from superman, rocky, harry potter, godfather, indiana jones, and I can't even remember all of them, but it was very enjoyable.

Saturday was Chris's birthday party and we went to Jack Astors then back to Chris's for cake and presents. It was a lot of fun seeing everyone and I was happy Chris seemed to like the Leela bobblehead we got him.

And then there was Sobeys. I've been waiting 3 years for this sobeys. There's always been this talk of a sobeys in the neighbourhood. This friday it came to be. Jer and I went at 8:30am on their opening day and just wandered the store so happy to have such a great variety right across the street. We went back several times this weekend and each time was a happy time. Tonight we picked up a piece of pork tenderloin and some snow peas and um. wow. It was damn good. We made a honey-mustard dijon sauce to go with it and all I know is I plan on having more pork tenderloin in the future! For dessert I made blueberry upside-down cupcakes and they were also delicious. A great way to end a great weekend.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Pics of my new place

Jen likes.









Thursday, June 25, 2009

Sidewalk Rage

I've gots it.

People just make me so angry. Leaving work yesterday I'm crossing the street and there's a car partly in the cross walk area. So I go around it and come across somebody doing the same thing and we're blocking each others way. I stand my ground. And she makes an annoyed sound at having to move. at me!! the nerve. I really wish I could freeze time and be like, yo. I see we're in each other's way. But there are more people beside you and this car on my other side. I realize there are also more people beside me causing a real predicament. But I'm on the right side of the street SO FUCKING MOVE.

Okay, so technically this wasn't a sidewalk, but same applies on actual sidewalks, or in the underground path areas. And don't get me started on automatic wheelchair access doors on only one side of the path. All that's left to say is: rawr.

Also, I'm posting this while at work! The blocks are down and I have no idea why but I'm giddy with all this access with no free time to fully appreciate it. Yay work?

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Yay for long posts

Yeah, so it's been a while. Things have been crazy busy. I went from studying, to having to work overtime consistently, while trying to pack, move, then unpack. In fact, I just unpacked the last few boxes last night. Felt great. Now there's only a few things left to do and the place will be complete. First, my couch broke in the move. Argh! Who doesn't make their biggest elevator their moving elevator? Apparently my new building. So the couch had problems fitting into the elevator, and getting out was even harder from the sounds of it. Whatever happened during the move seriously messed up my couch. Tonight I had a guy come in to do an estimate and he was like, yeah, this is extensive damage. Eep. Thankfully it won't cost too much to repair and I will have a much happier, well-put together couch afterward. I'll take a half day next week so they can come in and fix it. Next are curtains. I have sheets and blankets up on the windows I feel need them which is a little ghetto. I've decided what I'll be doing so I will head to the store to buy some curtains soon. Maybe even this weekend. The last thing to do is to paint two accent walls!! I've picked out the colour for the bedroom, but the paint samples I picked out to go in the living room were all the wrong shades so I have to go get some more to choose from.

I've bought a few fun things to make my new place feel like mine. I got two beautiful paintings by a local artist. Art! I've never had real art. It's fun, and it makes the place feel more put together. I love it. I also bought some fun kitchen things like a Kitchenaid stand mixer and a red toaster. This reminds me, I made gnocchi in my Kitchenaid mixer and it turned out soooooo well. It made a dough, rather than a sticky mess. It was great. Now I have a bunch in the freezer for later. Also made pizza dough in it. The dough was the best pizza dough I've made. Yum.

So after all the crazy busy Jer and I took a mini-vacation and went to Niagara Falls. I had never been so it was so great. It was a little nerve racking when we first got there. We arrived at the hotel and the girl was like, you're not in our system, I bet you're at the sheraton attached to the casino. Ooops. She calls there, and no, we're not there either. Ah, oh noes? Jer ordered on the phone and they said they were going to email the confirmation but never did. So all we had was a confirmation number. The girl was absolutely amazing. She called hotels searching for our hotel and did everything she could to help us out. Jer happened to know the day he made the reservation and found the phone number in his cell. She called that number and found our reservation. Turns out we were in the Marriot just next door. Relief!!

The day we arrived it wasn't a very nice day. It had rained all day and the sky was still very cloudy. We had a falls view room though and I am so glad we did. The view was gorgeous, even if it was gray and cloudy out. And the view only got better.

We got a package deal with the hotel, so we got dinner and brunch vouchers, and 20 dollars in casino chips each. The dinners were delicious. I got this gigantic pork tenderloin the first night. It felt like I was eating a whole pig it was so huge. Despite it being so tender and wonderful I couldn't eat it all. Jer's pasta was meh that night, but the calamari was great. The next night I got a ravioli that was incredible. Jer got steak and it was so tender and delicious. Mmm, meat. Then we had dessert. Jer had this white chocolate mousse with raspberry and thin crispy layers of pastry and it was one of my favourite desserts ever I think. Then we were so full all I did was lie in bed complaining of full tummy haha.

We went to the casino the one day and wandered around. The poker tables were so expensive to play so we weren't all that interested. I stumbled across a game that had a 1 dollar min bet. Score! We had 5 dollar chips though, so we were big spenders *lol*. Me, I've always had a bit of luck when it came to games. I did awesome at this game. It was a wheel that spun with canadian bills on it. The 1 dollar had 1-1 odds, the 2 dollar had 2-1 odds, the 5 dollar had 5-1 odds, and you get the idea. I won most of my bets. Jer lost his money fairly quickly hehe. My last bet I made had 20-1 odds. I swear, the guy had a slight panicked look in his eye when I placed that bet. Sure and behold, that 20 dollar came to fruition and he handed me a beautiful black casino chip. 100 dollars. Excuse me while I dance a little. We stopped there cause I don't like to push my luck. We wandered a bit more then decided to play some War. You know, that childhood game of where high card wins. haha. Jer sat down first, lost his first hand, then convinced me to sit down. I proceeded to win a bunch of hands, but then got in a losing streak and came out about even I think. Still fun. Then we tried slots which was NOT fun at all. You press a button, most of the time it says GAME OVER. Some times it'll highlight random pictures on the screen and say win. Lame. I really don't get why people enjoy it so much.

After that we went out and enjoyed the beautiful day that developed. We went on the ferris wheel which, wow, was pretty rough on me. The first 1/4 rotation I thought I was either going to throw up or pass out. Once we got up a bit I could focus in the distance and my stomach settled. So it wasn't so much the heights as just motion sickness. Thankfully after the first rotation I was feeling mostly fine. By the 3rd I could actually move around without freaking out and took a few pictures. Overall it was enjoyable and glad I did it.

After that, we walked along the water and just enjoyed the beautiful blue scenery. When we got back to our hotel room there was a rainbow!! I was so surprised and happy and stared at it for ages. It lasted for hours it was so awesome. Even during dinner we could still see a little bit of it lingering.

We also went behind the falls. That wasn't so impressive, since all you saw was white and occasionally could make out some water. But the one look-out point at the base of the falls was so beautiful. I didn't get nearly as wet as I thought I would have though.

The next day we went by the falls one last time for some pictures, then slowly drove up to niagara on the lake. We went on the white water walk and walked on a boardwalk beside the level 6 rapids. Beautiful. Then we went for a walk to check out the whirpool which I loved. On the way back from that Jer jerked me to stop walking and I looked over and there's this gorgeous deer just staring at us. He moved to hide a bit in the bushes but continued to stare at us for a while. So pretty. Eventually we left when we realized he was going to out stare us.

We did a bit of shopping on niagara on the lake. Got some fresh turkish delight in many different flavours which was delicious. I wish we had bought more. We went to a winery and bought some wine. Then we headed home for a quiet evening.

It was a great break and everything was so pretty. It was a wonderful getaway.

In other news, I find out which job I'm rotating to as part of the actuarial program. The consulting group has been great, but it will be enjoyable to get to know a business group well. I know where I want to go, and they want me too so hopefully the people doing the matching doesn't mess this up!

*waves*

Friday, April 17, 2009

Eep

My exam is two weeks today. There's a lot to do still so it makes me cringe, but at least the end is near. For these last few days I will be focusing on two key thingermabobs.

First, I have to stay relaxed. Not mentally - I like my mind racing, it's a good motivator and I can absorb a lot of material that way - but physically. I've been working on fixing my posture because studying has me leaning over to write and my muscles get so tense that it's painful. Correct posture helps relieve some of this tension but I've realized I'm trying too hard. I'm forcing my muscles to where I think they should go and I'm actually tensing them to do so. That's not helping the pain. So new plan, relaxed proper posture. Jeez. Who knew sitting and standing could be so freakin hard.

Then there's aiming to be average. I've always studied to know everything in great detail. Usually that meant studying more than I needed and that was fine. But there is just too much material this time to be able to do this. I have to concentrate on having a solid understanding of every topic and let go of the greater detail. It does get you more marks, but in a marginally decreasing manner. Ohhh how I enjoy phrases like 'marginally decreasing'. I am such a geek.

Afterward, I will concentrate on letting my brain rest so when I want to use it, I will be able to come up with better words than thingermabobs. Cause really, that sentence doesn't seem like it should be so hard.

Friday, March 27, 2009

A little bit of random

You know what bugs me about Roll up the Rim to win? How wasteful it is. Even if you bring a reusable mug/thermos, they still give you a paper cup for your chance to win. So in addition to another paper cup getting thrown away, it's not even being used first.

I've discovered I much prefer a cheapo haircut than an expensive one at a salon. At the salon I tend to have to fight the haircut to make it look good, but with the cheap haircut, it's just simple layers that is easy to style. I'm so glad my roommate recommended Top Cuts. I'll take a predictable 20 dollar haircut over unknown cut and price any day!!

Tonight Jer and I are going to the second city show about the economy. Should be funny. Saturday I will be finishing up my easy studying. Where easy means making my own notes of almost 450 pages of condensed study notes. Then Sunday I'm taking a break from studying so I can let my brain relax before going into memorization mode.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Postal Code + 3

I'm getting my own place!! I'm very excited. I can't wait to move in and figure out the best place to put things, and the layout of the rooms. Although I cringe when I remember I'll have to pay for a truck and two moving elevators to move 300 feet.

What I'm looking forward to:
  • I tend to like things in a specific way but with my coat, for some reason I can't bring myself to bother with hanging it up in a closet. It ends up on the floor and I don't like that either. Solution: I'm getting a coat rack!
  • I was thinking about all the things hidden underneath my bed: a printer I haven't used in 3 years, a scanner I used once, and a bag of mystery wires. Then, there's my flute. I love the flute but I don't like practicing if anybody can hear me so I probably played a half dozen times in the last few years. That's kind of sad. I've decided I'll leave my music stand out so I am more inspired to take out my flute and play a little. Even if I only end up playing a couple times a month, I'll be happy.
  • I am thinking I'll paint a couple of walls. I saw a place yesterday that was all painted and it made such a difference that I feel inspired to paint. I have no idea about colours though so If I ever decide on a colour for the living room and bedroom I'll do it.
  • I'm happy my kitchen and bathroom will be pretty much the same. I'm a creature of habit.

Things I'll miss:

  • The view. It overlooks the lake and I love looking at all the sailboats out in the summer and watching the planes take off at the island airport. I'll also miss watching the fireworks from Ontario Place for Canada day and the air show during Labour day weekend.
  • My walk-in closet. This seems fairly self explanatory.
  • Living with one of my oldest friends for the past year and a half has meant lots of chats and fun tv which was great. Girl nights will be a must.

Monday, March 16, 2009

A Chair Story

In second year of University my mom took me out to look for a desk chair. At the end of the day she was not impressed with me at all. We went to a half dozen stores, sat on all the desk chairs and I hated them all. I eventually picked a chair that was big and could curl up in. Some might say I was being difficult, but It wasn't until recently that I discovered this wasn't my fault.

Being 5'3'' (well, almost) with a long torso means I have short legs. The seat depth of the majority of chairs is much wider than my legs are. That means when I sit on a chair it's impossible to sit straight. It causes instant bad posture so it makes sense it would be uncomfortable. I didn't clue into this until my neck was already sore from constant looking down from studying, so at work sitting normally my neck would be aching by the end of the day. I consciously corrected my posture and my neck was much happier.

My chair at work is a very good ergonomic chair, but it barely works with my legs. There's no space between my legs and the chair and that's not completely comfortable so I find myself slouching to get a gap like there should be. I then have to force myself back up straight so I don't hurt my neck.

I went to office furniture stores with fancy expensive ergonomic chairs, but I couldn't find anything. I thought about just buying the same chair as I have at work, but it's expensive for something I still struggle to sit properly on.

The other day I was on the Ikea website and was looking at desk chairs. I found one with an adjustable seat depth and the minimum was the smallest I've ever seen! Jer was already planning on going to Ikea on the weekend so it was perfect. I went, I sat, I liked. Chair dilemma finally solved!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Longest walk to work ever

On my walk in to work this morning there were a lot of roads blocked off. I was curious as to what was happening today. As I was walking past cora's I had a faint recollection of a st patrick's day marathon last year. Not a minute later the runners appeared. In a steady stream. Along the one road I needed to cross to be able to get to work. I walked along the road a bit in hopes of being able to pass somewhere but no luck. I waited a while and eventually I ran across through a gap. The prize for making it through was studying, so overall, not a fun walk to work.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Friday the 13th

On Friday Jer and I took the day off work for a random break. It was a nice normal day free of studying. We spent the morning relaxing, eating brunch and watching Wall-E. In the afternoon went skating at harbourfront, then picked up food to make a yummy supper. We made a meat sauce I've been wanting to make for a while now, but it needs to simmer for a couple hours after it's all made and I haven't had 3 hours to make supper in a while. It was delicious. It was a lot thinner than I expected, and Jer ended up eating the penne with a spoon to take advantage of it, but overall I was happy with it.

Now the skating. I've been wanting to go skating outdoors in Toronto since I've moved here but each winter went by and all I managed was a darn! So with a bit over a week left before all the rinks are shut down for spring, I finally made it out. On the walk, I admitted to Jer I was a little nervous. I went rollerblading once a few years ago, and I couldn't really remember the last time I skated. We got on to the ice and I realized I had no idea how to skate and was just concentrating on not falling. Jer pulled me around, but very slowly at first so I could ease into things. It took a while but eventually I was able to mostly skate on my own but I still wouldn't let go of Jer's hand.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Happy Coins

Normally when I'm looking through my coin jar I look for quarters or sometimes even a loonie. Typically I do this when I don't have any cash and I need a few bucks to last me until I get to a bank. Now? I scrounge for nickles. My coworker has a gumball machine which currently has easter eggs in it. A mixture of jelly beans, malt balls, and mini eggs. I am extremely addicted and was sad when I only had 3 nickles in my purse. One nickle will you get 3 - 4 eggs. I now have a good sized handful of nickles to take to work to keep me happy over the weekend studying.

Friday, March 06, 2009

What they don't want you to know

I like clean. Clean makes me happy. The process for the most part I don't mind, but there are things that drive me crazy. Dusting. It seems to be never ending. I use my swiffer mit and wipe away the dust, but when I'm done, there's still dust. Nooo go away argh. In this case I typically just wait for the sun to go away and I can go back to not being able to see it.

The stove is another story. The stove and I are not friends. I always spray BAM! on it in the morning and clean later that night. But it doesn't all come off. Depending how much time I have I can let it go, or I go into OCD overdrive. Last week it was the latter.

I decided I'd google it since I had good luck finding lemon pledge on stainless steel appliances this way. I came across a site that suggests using baking soda. I would have probably ignored it but she claims that 'with a little elbow grease it'll come right off. And I do mean a little'. I was intrigued. I got out the baking soda box and gave it a go. And wow. It really did work. Craziness.

I then went on a baking soda cleaning binge and was surprised by how great in general it worked. The sinks sparkled, the stained white plastic garbage can that refused to get clean became white, and the fridge was clear and white once again. It was great.

But who knew?? Sure, the baking soda box says you can use it to clean, but there are no commercials on how great it cleans so I didn't believe them. And that's how they like it. They don't want people realizing there's a cheap, environmentally friendly cleaner without an awful smell that works really well or else their other more expensive products wouldn't sell.

The next day at work I tell my coworkers who sit near me about this. The guy tells his mom this later that night. She claims I'm wrong, that it doesn't clean well. My other coworker's mom thinks I'm young and foolish and I don't know what I'm talking about and refuses to try it. *tear*

I also wrote my dad a big long email about the wonders of baking soda and he responds with enthusiasm. He is in awe of such a discovery and had no idea. The next time he's out shopping he picks up a fresh box of baking soda and tries it out. He was surprised at just how well it worked and actually enjoyed cleaning for a change. I was happy to finally share my happy cleaning experience with somebody.

This post is longer than my valentine's day post. I take this to mean cleaning is more fun than quinoa. *shakes head* Also, I love saying BAM! like in the commercials. It's so much fun. In other news, I just found a wicked looking split end which I've decided I will give as a gift to my coworker as a going away present. It's sad, but I'm not even joking. I will probably end up making some sort of splitting ways joke too. Hilarious, I know.

Monday, February 16, 2009

I like brackets today

Valentine's day was great. I generally think Valentine's day is stupid, so very early I made it clear that I didn't want to make a big deal about it but I did want to do something little.

Friday night we went out for dinner for winterlicious, which was a celebration of Friday the 13th, my age nearest birthday, pseudo-quasi valentine's day, and payment from an old bet. Overall a very productive and yummy time.

Saturday I spent the day at work studying (and I peed in each of the 4 stalls in the washroom!! (I never do that. We share the bathroom with the other side of the floor so I just use the two closest to our side because otherwise that's weird. it just is.)) and when I got back we made a simple meal of sesame/breaded baked chicken, snow peas, and rice. For dessert we made apple crisp.

Gifts!! You may remember Jer's obsession with mochas, and lately he's been trying to recreate them at home. He recently adopted a tassimo coffee machine and can now make espressos. But what he was really missing was good chocolate syrup. He was just using Hersey's which I've never enjoyed ever (redudant? yes. but it's just that bad). So I made him chocolate syrup and now his mochas are great and close to being comparable to SPoT's. I also made him a personalized cook book by developing pictures of the food we've cooked together, making recipe cards, and putting it into a little photo album.

Jer bought me apple jelly (which I love but can never find), york peppermint patties (I'm so addicted to these), and quinoa!!! Why am I so excited about quinoa? I've recently decided we need to start cooking with it and it's super healthy and well, that's it. On Sunday we made a quinoa and mixed bean side dish and it was sooo good. Anyway, he also made me a bunch of dinosaur comics about memorable j&j events which is so awesome and they are all hilarious. jen like jer.

Monday, February 09, 2009

A little fun

You know what's fun about penis pasta? (Besides the obvious of course.) Bringing it in to eat at work. The fact that I did this on a Saturday does not take away from the awesome factor. I still felt sneaky and bad-ass for getting away with something I'm sure would be frowned upon.

And there was at least one other person in the office so it could have gone horribly wrong. I can just imagine this older lady getting a wide-eye expression and muttering something like 'oh my' before quickly running away. I guess that would have been better than my old boss, who showed up later in the day, noticing and probably trying to have a conversation about it. That wouldn't have been awkward at all.

But thankfully I managed to warm up my penis pasta and get to my desk unnoticed. I may have giggled a little while I ate my lunch.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Don't Hate on the Chocolate Cake

While Jer and I were still very subtly flirting/getting to know each other, I discovered something about Jer I didn't especially like:

"Your cake sounds delicious, if it's a dense cake with homemade icing, I generally like it. Except for chocolate cake, I rarely if ever like chocolate cake, even the highest quality ones. I like real chocolate, but chocolate flavoured things, like cake, I don't usually like. Here's your challenge: Make a chocolate cake that I love. (P.S. You will fail, so you shouldn't bother trying.)"

Who doesn't like chocolate cake??! I vowed not to waste my chocolate lava cakes on him, but of course that didn't last.

Shortly after we started dating I convinced him chocolate cake with chocolate warm delicious goo with ice cream just might actually be really good. And in the end, Jer agreed: "The warm cake encasing the delightful, moist, melty inside, combining with the ice cream to form an amazingly delicious mess was, well, amazing."

But it wasn't until recently that I decided this case to be officially closed.

The other weekend I decided I felt like baking. I scrolled through my starred recipes in my google reader and came across a cute and delicious looking loaf pan chocolate layer cake. Even Jer was a bit excited about it. After he tasted the batter he was even more excited. I picked up some vanilla frozen yogurt and after dinner we had a piece. It was yummy but we took way too much and just felt sick afterwards. There was so much cake left so I decided we'd cut it in half and freeze it all for later.

Last weekend I wanted cake so we took out half to defrost. It was still cold when we wanted to eat it so I figured might as well try the microwave. And oh wow. The cake got all warm and soft and the icing was a bit melty. With the frozen yogurt it was delicious. We had more the next night too.

But it wasn't until a few days later that I knew he'd never claim not to like chocolate cake again. He asked me with hopeful eyes if we could take out the rest of the chocolate cake from the freezer.

Transformation complete.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Brunch? Dessert? no no, Supper.

There are days when I get home from work and just can't decide what I feel like eating. I think about the options but none of them are appealing. I mostly just stand there, staring at my food, hoping the decision just magically happens.

I complain to my roomy that I can't decide and she asks what my options are. Well, I could make chocolate chip pancakes. She nods. Or then I was thinking of making pancakes and putting them in a stack with nutella in between. More agreement and eyes light up. My last option was making fried rice. She quickly discards that option and convinces me to try the layered nutella pancake.

I decide to go all out and make chocolate chip pancakes and smother nutella all over them.


Um, let me just say: omg soooo good. Next time I think I'll add a scoop of vanilla ice cream/frozen yogurt. It's sensible really. Gotta get a 3rd food group in there.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

My amusement for the morning

The other day we found out Jer's sister is pregnant. It's her fourth. Fourth!!! It's a lot right? Jer claims no, but he does have 3 sisters so I guess that makes sense. Anyway, after the shock of it wore off (hahaha the shock, it's not even mine), I came to realize how great this is. Jer and I had already discussed the perfect name if she ever had another kid, and this morning I emailed Jer my plan.

Part 1:
jer's sister: Car?
jen: Yeah, Car. I hear it's really hip these days to choose names based on inanima-hahahahahahahah.
jer's sister: Inanima?
jen: hahahahahahahah
jer's sister: Tilts head.
jen: Hahaha *straight face* inanimate objects.
jer's sister: Oh really?
jen: Yeah. It's all over the internet.

And now technically it is. It won't even be a lie.

Part 2:
jen: *cries*
jer's sister: Ohh what's wrong??!!
jen: My grandpa just died.
jer's sister: Ohh honey, I'm so sorry to hear that.
jen: Yeah *sniff* me too. If only I had a child to name their middle name after him. *single tear*
jer's sister: What was your grandpa's name?
jen: Go.
jen: And conveniently gender-neutral.

Finally:
I'd like to present to you... Car Go Vroom.

No joke.

I guess if this doesn't work, I can gradually convince the kid Car is a good nickname. I could probably settle for Car Vroom, but make the Vroom sound like an engine being revved.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Tires big

Monster Jam is amusing. Not what I expected, but overall entertaining. The first half of the night was an actual race. There was qualifying and then round 1, the semi-finals, and the championship race. It was two laps, each lap had two jumps. A few cars ended up damaging themselves right away and were out the rest of the night. Good work guys.

The second half was freestyle, and it seemed like this is what people waited for. It was pretty tame. They had 90 seconds to go around the track. They did jumps, but most not high or just crawled over the cars. At first I didn't get why Grave Digger was so popular, but by the end I got it. He was by far the fastest, and the funnest. He went all out with as high as jumps as possible, did donuts, got stuck for a while but once his engine started again he kept on going to please the crowds. Very cool. Anyway, here's a 'story' with some of the pictures I took.


Meow.


Woof.


Hi Hi Hi! I wanna play, can I play too?!!


Um, no. Your name is Bulldozer. You're an embarrassment to this establishment.


Hello darrrllinnggg. Let me introduce myself. I'm Grave Digger, and I'm the shit.


Check it out!!! I'm in the air. I'm awesome.


Correction: I'm awesome.



HEY what are you doing Bulldozer?? We said no. Stop it! You're distracting me.


Damnit Bulldozer! Look what you made me do. *sigh*


Hahahah hilarious!!! *ROTFL*


Look, I'm sexy from behind too.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Last Christmas Post

On to Phase 3!!!! *cue Barenaked Ladies Christmas music*

Christmas night we made it back to Toronto, took the essentials up to Jer's apartment, put the gifts we wrapped at our respective parent's houses under the tree, and enjoyed the fact we had two days of relaxing jen & jer time, or j&j time if you prefer.


I love early morning, turning on the christmas tree lights, sitting on the floor, unwrapping presents in my pjays and throwing the wrapping paper wherever. We'd take turns unwrapping and the other got to pick the order in which we opened.

We had a budget since we had already spent some money on the aforementioned tree, so it meant we planned and used resources we had. I used my best buy reward points towards a dvd, and Jer got me a free (stock car racing!!!) book through a 'Buy 3 get 1 free' deal.

We both ended up making each other something as well. I made Jer some fridge magnets with magnetic paper I had. One of my favourite ones was an LOL cat: U is my favrite flavur, with one cat licking the other. And Jer wrote me a story, combining two of my favourite genres: nascar and vampires. I couldn't believe it, how incredibly sweet/thoughtful/great/etc.

Jer also got me some baking/cooking stuff, socks of course, and an awesome purple SIGG water bottle. I got him new gym shorts & socks, and an orange stapler.


Afterward, we made blueberry pancakes, cheesy scrambled eggs, and malt bread and watched the Anchorman dvd I got Jer. It was perfect.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

There's nothing wrong with orange and purple

So. Christmas.

Bleah.

It's so much work. Trying to figure out when to visit everyone and how you're going to get there. It's stressful and tiring and I have to use good vacation days for this??

Nowadays I go home, to an already decorated house, with 90% of the gifts under the tree for other people and it doesn't feel like Christmas. This year I decided I wanted to change this.

First step: Tree!!

Jer and I decided in December we'd go out and buy an artificial tree, and decorate it with purple and orange decorations - our favourite colours. Does orange and purple not sound Christmasy to you? no? Well, apparently stores in general agree with you. We had one idea to make orange and purple presents as ornaments, so all we needed was purple and orange wrapping paper and some ribbon. Even that seemed impossible.

With some luck, we found a few orange and purple ball ornaments, but couldn't find any wrapping paper. There's orange bristol board, but of course no purple bristol board. Then, something in my head clicked, and I knew what we could use: file folders. Work had purple ones! So we 'borrowed' purple file folders, bought orange bristolboard and then found ribbon at a craft store.

Cutting, folding, and assembling a dozen little boxes each? Words can't describe the frustration, boredom, and despair that ensued. With some pep talk (and whining) we managed to fight through it get it done. Afterward we were pooped. We saved putting the ribbon on for another day.

So we had gathered enough ornaments to decorate our tree, but was it really going to look good? We're talking fluorescent orange bristol board here, with a metallic orange. The purples clashed just as much. I was hopeful, but prepared to love a tacky/ugly tree. It came together rather quickly, we flipped on the lights, and wow. It worked! It looks like a real tree! *happiness*




Later this week I'll conclude with Christmas Phase 3. Ha, I bet you weren't expecting five Christmas posts. Oh snap.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

And then there was four

Phase 3 was by far the best so I'll leave that to the end.

Our last stop was Courtice to visit my dad. We get there to learn that for supper we are having a turkey dinner and my grandma, aunt and uncle, and deb's parents are all coming over for it. This was unexpected, but in the end probably better than going to Peterborough and meeting them there. Jer got to experience the Italian way of pushing food continually on you. Eugh. But other than that it was a typical dinner with family. AND it meant bread. A whole loaf of grandma's delicious bread. I even managed to convince my dad to slice it up before putting it in the freezer. Score.

The rest of the visit we spent it as I always spend my time at my dad's. We played sequence, cribbage (jer's first time!!), ping pong, went on a shopping trip, and ate lots of yummy food including waffles, french toast, and steak. We also made crispellas, an italian donut. Mmm so good. There was a bit of guitar hero but I am out of practice and I sucked. Well, I played on hard, but still, sucked!!

Overall playing ping pong was the highlight. It was energetic and everyone was really into it. We'd play 'doubles' with the kids, or against dad and deb, or take turns playing each other. My dad and jer were pretty closely matched. It made for a few exciting games with Jer leaving as the champ. At this point my dad had made plans to go buy new paddles (since he had cheap ones and we had brought our good ones haha) for the rematch next visit.

And to end the trip, my dad had to go to Whitby to go to futureshop, so we follow him out of the city to the 401, where we eventually pass him, wave bye, and carry on back to Toronto.

Friday, January 09, 2009

Literally Christmas

On Christmas Eve we take off and head to Innisfil.

Leaving the relaxed atmosphere, we enter the chaotic yet fun-filled Phase 2: Jer's parents place. With five kids running around there was always something happening so my memory is a little blurred.

Christmas Eve I remember spending a bunch of time wrapping presents for the aforementioned kids. We wrapped in the office by the kitchen so it was off limits, which of course meant there were frequent attempts of entry by the little ones, one of which ended up in a quasi-peek-a-boo session. I'd open the door and point at the youngin, he'd burst out laughing, I'd close the door and repeat.

In the evening it was opening presents time. The kids went first and it was a bit overwhelming. Lots of paper everywhere, so many toys, and so much noise! It was entertaining though. The most amusing part was when the peek-a-boo kid from above got two (toy) guns that lit up in multi-colours. He was incredibly amused by them and would shoot everyone and laugh hysterically when they twitched/played dead. He didn't quite understand how to actually shoot somebody though, the gun was pointed up at the ceiling i believe. Ohhh kids are stupid. haha? Anyway, once the kids went to bed the grown-ups ate dinner, then opened gifts in a more structured fashion.

Christmas morning everyone went to church, after which my comment was: thirdly is not a word. (Neither is firstly or secondly, etc). I remember being happy when he said finally. I thought yes, he's not going to say Ohhh noes, he went with 'Finally' pause, 'and Fourthly'. Anyway, leaving church was entertaining because Jeremy was a hot commodity. It felt like we were bombarded with people who haven't seen him in a while, excited to say hi.

There were appetizer type snacks for lunch, and dutch cake for Jer's dad's birthday at some point. Later we got to open stockings which again was chaotic but fun. We all played dominos which was amusing. I had never played dominos before and ended up doing horribly (3-4 doubles in your hand is badness), but I liked it. At one point I curled up on the couch and watched barbie a christmas story with a couple of the kids. I'm not sure why, but at some point one of the kids decided she wanted to sit with me and she happily lied there for a while. Worked for me, now I was being lazy while technically being helpful.

There was turkey dinner and dessert, and the inevitable cleaning up. Slowly it calmed down as the kids went to bed. A bit later we packed up our stuff and headed off for Phase 3.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Christmas Phase 1

Christmas was quite busy this year so I've broke it down into 4 parts.

The couple months before Christmas were crazy busy at work, and I was just itching for my almost two weeks off with Jer. Our Christmas was divided into 4 phases, all of which involved Barenaked Ladies Christmas music.

First up was good ole Kincardine. I warned Jer it was going to be pretty low key, but we were looking forward to a relaxing time. The only thing Jer was worried about was the fact the highways close frequently and the threat of being stuck in Kincardine was a real possibility. We managed to get there fine, with surprisingly good driving conditions. We drove down on a calm day between two big storms.

Jer got the proper Kincardine experience. Our first night we went to the Eerie Bell, one of the town's long-standing restaurants, one I remember very well as a little kid. We got fish and chips and ceaser salad and it was yummy. Next we went to the 24h Sobey's to grab a few things, and because you can't go anywhere without running into somebody you know, we ran into our work friend's parents. He also got a glimpse of the typical winter weather. Every time we'd go out somewhere it would look fine out, then it would start snowing and turn gray, and very gloom and doom looking. One of those snowy days the highways were even closed. Thankfully not the day we were leaving though. We drove around a bit but it's so dreary looking, no hint of how nice it looks in the summer. Oh well.

Some other Christmas/Kincardine things Jer got to experience:
  • Skipbo - the card game me and my mom always play (he even managed to win the championship game which I'm still pouting about)
  • My favourite dessert ever which I make my mom make on any special occasion - strawberry trifle
  • Decorating gingerbread cookies - wheee
  • Went to Chinatown!! ie. the one asian store in Kincardine that appeared a few years ago.
We also made dinner for my mom and George the one night, watched Love actually, and spent the rest of our time there mostly reading, and playing with the kitty. And of course the whole exchanging presents thing.

Christmas Eve we pack up, have breakfast at Jean's with my mom and George, then we follow them along highway 9, since they are off to Peterborough to visit my grandma, until they turn off to go to an LCBO.