Atlas Meowed

New blog

2010-01-25T20:57:00.002-05:00

New decade - new space.

2009 wrap-up

2009-12-31T16:32:00.005-05:00

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!

Christmas timeish

2009-12-09T22:38:00.004-05:00

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.

Fun food

2009-09-13T21:21:00.004-04:00

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!

All about the pork tenderloin

2009-07-01T23:26:00.003-04:00

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.

Fun-filled times

2009-06-28T22:15:00.006-04:00

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.

Pics of my new place

2009-06-26T18:53:00.010-04:00

Jen likes.

Sidewalk Rage

2009-06-25T11:50:00.002-04:00

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?

Yay for long posts

2009-06-03T22:46:00.003-04:00

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*

Eep

2009-04-17T08:38:00.002-04:00

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.

A little bit of random

2009-03-27T11:33:00.002-04:00

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.

Postal Code + 3

2009-03-23T17:03:00.002-04:00

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.

A Chair Story

2009-03-16T13:06:00.001-04:00

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!

Longest walk to work ever

2009-03-15T11:01:00.002-04:00

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.

Friday the 13th

2009-03-14T14:53:00.003-04:00

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.

Happy Coins

2009-03-12T20:25:00.003-04:00

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.

What they don't want you to know

2009-03-06T08:00:00.003-05:00

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.

I like brackets today

2009-02-16T22:49:00.002-05:00

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.

A little fun

2009-02-09T23:16:00.004-05:00

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.

Don't Hate on the Chocolate Cake

2009-02-04T19:46:00.003-05:00

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.

Brunch? Dessert? no no, Supper.

2009-01-29T18:42:00.004-05:00

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.

My amusement for the morning

2009-01-28T21:55:00.004-05:00

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.

Tires big

2009-01-20T22:12:00.017-05:00

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.

Last Christmas Post

2009-01-17T16:53:00.007-05:00

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.

There's nothing wrong with orange and purple

2009-01-13T19:14:00.010-05:00

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.

And then there was four

2009-01-10T16:55:00.006-05:00

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.

Literally Christmas

2009-01-09T19:17:00.004-05:00

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.

Christmas Phase 1

2009-01-08T21:23:00.006-05:00

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.

Nuit Blanche

2008-10-20T15:19:00.002-04:00

A few weeks ago was Nuit Blanche. Jer and I went out for a few hours to check some things out. Here are the highlights, good and bad.

- A 'waterfall' at OPG (woooo!). It was a big sheet of intertwined plastic with a light shining on it. It was a little underwhelming.
- Cardboard houses with a tv in the window playing random people talking. Ummm, what?
- Cars with a light in the car. Ahhh, most of the cars were essentially empty. A couple had things in them. The only one that amused me was the one with a row of shoes. Whee shoes.
- People singing in Queen's park.
- Writing on a postcard to be randomly delivered to somebody at Nuit Blanche. This one was fun. See below for what I wrote on my postcard.
- Crazy guy in stilts, really tall and serious looking, walking right up and around us. So creepy!! I was hiding behind Jer. But so fun too. A couple guys playing the sax were following him around. I
loved it.
- Zombies.
- Lots of rubber duckies in this cool really blue foggy looking pond by Ryerson.
- An overhead ceiling installed in an alley by Massey Hall to look like an office. The alley was filled with lots of random garbage: christmas decorations, chinese new year decorations, hospital iv cords, file folders, and lots of other random things. I really liked it.
- A weird blue blob in the Eaton Centre. I got the underwhelmed feeling here again.
- City hall with lights in all the windows making shapes and designs. I saw a person running around at one point. Very cool.

After all that walking we were pretty tired. We took the path halfway home since it was a bit cold out and being melodramatic walking up the stairs at metro hall I flopped down and lay up/across the stairs. Jer joined me and we made tired noises which amused me. It gave me energy to make it home so I could rest in a chair and drink gingerale before curling up and sleeping.

And here's my postcard:

I have 5 minutes left to live, and I am using these last moments to write you this: hi.

Live life as if every moment is your last. I know I sure have!

Cheers,
Jen

Michelina's

2008-10-20T13:53:00.002-04:00

I love Michelina's Lasagna with Meat Sauce and Cheese frozen dinners. In lazy times, they've been a staple in my life.

I bought a couple a while ago and later I realized that the label says New: Improved Flavour!

I was excited. And fooled. It was more like New: Removed Flavour! It seriously tastes like all they did was give half the sauce they used to.

It was barely worth the dollar I paid.

Quiet in the daytime, too loud at night

2008-10-17T07:51:00.001-04:00

Last night as I was just falling asleep I heard my phone buzz across the room. Argghh. Stupid phone. Probably just facebook with a missed text notification. *grumble* Too tired to get up to turn off the buzzzzzzzzz (ie, i was sleeping before I really finished this thought).

I wake up early in the morning and can't get back to sleep. Buzz. NOoo Nooo I want to sleep. Alarm not off. GO away. Grrr stupid phone grumble pout grumble.

Eventually get out of bed, go pee, go on internets. Buzz. Buzz. Why won't it go away? It's literally in reaching territory in my purse but so much effort. It's too early.

*sigh* fine. The phone wins. I grab my phone to see no text msg. Oh. Hmm private call. Who could that be? Probably somebody stupid; I hate the phone, especially voice mail. Cue voice:

"Hi Jennifer, this is Di from So you think you can dance Canada calling to confirm your tickets for the show on Monday October 27."

OMG OMG!!!!! The phone is the greatest invention ever! (Okay not really, but jen happy!!!!) Girls night at the taping of So you think you can dance Canada!!!!

Thanksgiving

2008-10-15T21:14:00.003-04:00

Thanksgiving long weekend was full of yummy food and interesting times. Although probably not in the sense that first comes to mind.

First the interesting times.

Saturday we were on a couch mission because it's not fun waiting for a couch to be delivered that may never arrive. Jer bought a couch a month and a half ago and the Brick kept calling with bad news, delaying when they expected the couch to be back in stock. You can only go so long with one chair and computer chair. Especially when tv is so awesome. So off to the Brick in hopes of solving this issue. Being new to this world we brought my dad to do the negotiations. We ended up saying bye bye chocolate truffle couch, and hello caramel happiness. The couch arrived yesterday and it's wonderful!!

Saturday night Jer and I went to the symphony. Jer had bought me tickets for my birthday. Some guy who's won awards was playing a solo and he was amazing. My favourite parts are still when the whole symphony plays in full force.

Sunday we did the whole family thing at Jer's sister's. It was the typical people talking, kids being kids, and perogies. Okay, the perogies aren't typical, see what I mean about defying expectations?

Alright, now on to the yummy food cause mmmm food so good!

It started with a pint of cream. 20(?) minutes later came fresh butter and buttermilk. The buttermilk was used to make blueberry pancakes Monday morning. I don't know if it was the buttermilk, but the pancakes were the best we've made. The butter was used with bread from Le Pain Quotidien. Delicious.

Next on our menu was gnocchi. I'm still figuring out gnocchi. It's coming along but I was mislead by a blog post saying to test the gnocchi to see if it falls apart or tastes gummy. If so, add more flour. Well, it always tasted gummy fresh out of the water. The best it tasted was my second attempt where I wasn't afraid of the flour but didn't keep adding flour because the dough was sticky, because no matter how much I added the dough was always sticky. Okay, this isn't amusing. Are you amused? no, well, on to the fun part. Tiramisu!!

Yep, that's right. This weekend I decided it was time to tackle Tiramisu. I've been wanting to make it for months. I bought the ladyfingers in July in fact. I debated making it in August around my birthday, but I got a little overwhelmed with all the recipes. Egg whites, whipped cream, cooked eggs, not cooked, this liquor, that liquor oh goodness make it go away. So I set it aside for the time being. Then one day I did a bit of research to understand the differences in recipes. The classic way uses raw eggs. Some people don't like the risk of getting sick so they cook the egg. This makes it more dense. Some will use raw egg yolk, but skip the raw egg white since it's more likely the whites will make you sick. So they replace the egg white with whipped cream. Makes it significantly less healthy since it adds fat and removes the protein goodness of egg whites, but it doesn't use too much cream so I guess that's fine. Anyway, I decided to face my fears and use raw eggs. Oh wow am I ever glad!!

I went to St. Lawerence market to look for mascarpone. I was hoping they had some italian stuff since I was reading the north american version has gum this, other stuff that and makes it a heavier tiramisu. No such luck, but I did find out how to say mascarpone. I was waaayyy off. Speaking of how north american ruins things, my ladyfingers were the proper Savoiardi, but they also had lots of junk added to it but you know what? It turned out just fine with all the extras.

Here's the recipe I ended up using and a picture of my first tiramisu.

Mocha

2008-10-06T22:15:00.002-04:00

SPoT coffee has a contest on right now to become a "SPoT celebrity". You tell them your favourite drink and why. Jer has become addicted to their Mochas in the past month, and with the prize of your favourite drink free every day for a month, I knew he had to enter. Saturday morning after breakfast we headed out to buy a couple mochas, find a comfy spot at SPoT (haha?) and come up with some ideas. I gave useful suggestions every so often, while Jer worked his creative writing skillz. Here's the final product:

What is your favourite SPoT coffee drink?
Mocha

Why is this your favourite SPoT coffee drink?
For 15 years I had been enslaved by the sweet, buttery aroma with flowery undertones of the percolated coffee bean, and its intoxicating caffeinated effects have ravaged my entire being for far too long. I courageously broke free from this hideous addiction over the span of many weeks. I sought refuge in a monastery where the soothing and rhythmic chants offered a quantum of solace to my frayed and frightened soul. Once I had successfully overcome these demons that had haunted me, I became calmer, serene, and significantly less jittery. But was I a better person?

One by one, people I had thought were friends began to disown me, as my lifeless corpse and empty gaze provided a stark reminder that I was but a shadow of my former self. Even my puppy sensed that something was seriously amiss. Taking the garbage out one day, the door was left slightly ajar. Puppy, seeing a glimmer of light, made a ferocious dash for the elevator and with all the strength in her tiny puppy heart, made a terrifically improbable leap hitting the ground floor button, a button to freedom.

I was broken.

That night I searched the streets of Toronto for her, and in a metaphorical sense, searched for myself. At 6 a.m. I stumbled across SPoT, and with tired eyes I dragged my heavy feet through the doors and ordered a Tall Mocha, which brought life back into my decrepit frame. For this I thank you.

And even though I still haven't found my puppy, and my friends won't return my calls, I don't care. I've found the one thing that can make sense of this topsy-turvy world: a delicious combination of espresso, 2% milk and chocolate in liquid form, put together by an angelic army stationed in SPoT.

- - -

So this may be a bit longer than an average response (considering I had to write in tiny print and use the back of the small sheet of paper provided) but I think it will be well appreciated. On the way out, Jer confirmed they do indeed read the entries. It is unclear whether they pick the winner by random or based on awesomeness. We're hoping for the latter.

Blueberry Pancakes

2008-09-07T11:13:00.001-04:00

Yesterday Jer and I went to Kensington market to buy some meat and fresh produce, including blueberries. I had no immediate plans for the blueberries, but I remembered the beautiful pictures from Smitten Kitchen and knew for breakfast today I needed blueberry pancakes.

We made half a batch and put a small amount of batter on the pan because the first pancake doesn't work as well and I didn't want to waste too much batter. We watch it cook. Umm it looks weird. Okay okay, first pancake, whatever, throw it out and try again. The pan might not have been quite ready anyway.

Second pancake looked pretty much the same. Why isn't it rising? Pancakes are supposed to be fluffy and thick. This was flat and had a weird texture.

Well, the batter was a little runny, maybe if I add more flour that'll help. Nope, not so much.

What if I add more baking powder? Argh, it's a bit better but they're still not pancakes and taste bland and bleah.

Jer goes back to the computer and checks the recipe again. Oops, forgot sugar. That's not too bad, but I add some anyway. The recipe calls for baking powder and baking soda. Jer doesn't have baking soda so I just used a bunch of baking powder because baking powder is essentially just baking soda and cornstarch anyway. Oh crap. Realization hits.

See, one of the problems with splitting your time between two places is that rather than having two of everything, it means bringing things back and forth between apartments. For example, sherry for stir fry. Or what I like to do, is put some ingredient in a little baggy and just keep it at Jer's place. This is what I did for baking powder. And cornstarch.

Rather than adding baking powder, I had been adding cornstarch. That explains the flat pancakes and weird texture.

I dump some baking powder in and success!! Happy blueberry pancakes. So delicious.

Maybe it's time to buy some baking powder and cornstarch for Jer's place. Or you know, label the baggies perhaps.

TIFF 08

2008-09-03T17:26:00.002-04:00

For the film fest this year I decided to try the 10-ticket package instead of buying single tickets when they went on sale to the general public. Both ways are a lot of work, but I found the advance ticket procedure less stressful.

It took a few hours reading through all the 300(ish) films to find ones I wanted to go to, then figure out movies that won't conflict with each other, but I think it'll get easier after I've done it a couple times. I guess the one thing is I get attached to all 10 movies, but know I'm only going to 5 of them. I definitely had favourites and ones I was less interested in, so it made the process an adventure. I went and dropped off my selections the day after the advance ticket books were available because I went to lunch at a restaurant near the box office. I decided not to worry too much on when to drop my choices off because I'd go crazy debating when the right time would be to get in 'the' box. Rather, I went with when it was convenient for me to go. I stick by this decision, despite it not working out too well. My order was in box 7, and box 9 was randomly drawn to be the first box processed. I couldn't believe I was in the 2nd last box. What
bad luck. I had the usual reaction of pouting and grumbling, but in the end it turned out just fine. I am very happy with what I ended up with and think it'll be a good mix of movies.

I start the film fest off with a France/UK/Belgium movie called Vinyan. The description says it leads to a confrontation with madness in a storm-torn jungle alive with feral children. I can't think of a better way to describe it and I'm very intrigued on what this movie turns out to be.

I like to go to a Canadian film each year, which started unintentionally but I do like this idea and plan on keeping it up. This year I'm going to the world premiere of Cooper's Camera, which is about a Christmas holiday with lots of awkward humour. Should be great.

Hooked will be my first subtitled movie at the film fest. I can't think of a better way to start than a movie about a couple killing a prostitute, oh wait, she's not dead! And she won't get out of their lives.

I'm not sure exactly what this movie is going to be like, but Adam Resurrected is about the Holocaust and coming to terms with something so tragic. The description says to imagine a theology class taught by a sad clown to get an idea of how disorienting the film actually is.

And last but not least... I'm going to my first midnight madness movie! Sexykiller is a Spanish movie about a serial killer that sounds amusing, disgusting, and has zombies. I don't quite know how I'm going to manage to stay awake yet, but I am so excited! This is also a world premiere and only adds to the excitement.

My 26th birthday

2008-08-15T19:14:00.008-04:00

I'm not sure why, but this year I wasn't too excited or anxiously waiting my birthday like normal. When I realized it was approaching and I hadn't begun to think about planning anything, I tried to think of something but I couldn't think of anything I really felt like doing. A low-key birthday sounded just fine to me. I have to say, I ended up having a wonderful birthday.

It started the day before my birthday when my co-workers took me out to cora's to celebrate. It was amusing like normal, except odd things kept happening. Like everyone randomly picking up their knives. So I picked up my spoon. Knifey-spoony. When the food arrived, Wendy asked for scissors, and because that's just a normal thing to ask at lunch the waitress brought her a Caeser drink. Later Alan took his glasses off. We never see him without his glasses so this is strange to us. Me and Jer end up staring at him strangely, some may say in disgust, but I think that's a little too far. Thankfully he put back his glasses on and he went back to looking like Alan. A bit later I see a sparkler and groan. I thought I had talked them out of singing happy birthday to me! ack. But it didn't stop there. On came a sash, a tiara, and then a wand. But at least the odd things now made sense. The knives all came out because wendy took hers to try to take off the tags off the tiara/wand, and asked for scissors when that didn't work. And Alan took off his glasses because they said it was the birthday of the one with glasses. To top off the outing, I had to put back on the tiara/wand/sash (because I refused to wear it walking back to work) when we got to the dog statues outside of metro hall so we could take pictures sitting on the doggies. Clearly Wendy's idea if you've seen any of the other stuff she's had us do.

For *wing* night I choose Terroni's because I was craving their rigatoni with cherry tomatoes and zucchini. So amazing. I've had it a few times now and I still have no urge to order anything else from the menu. It's just too good. Afterwards I went home and Holly was making me birthday cupcakes! I asked for confetti cupcakes and they looked amazing. I was full from all the food that day so they'd have to wait for dessert on my birthday.

So now the big day!!

Before work I got to see Holly and she gave me my birthday present. The whole gift was extremely amusing. To start it off was something that looked like a Hershey's chocolate bar, but it said calculator. With more inspection, it's an actual calculator, that looks like chocolate,
and even smells like chocolate! No, you may not eat my Chocolator. It's for simple math only! Next, I got magnets which will make a great addition to our fridge, but you have to come see that for the full experience. And finally books, because I think a gift from Holly and no books would be incomplete. A great way to start the day off; Laughter with one of my oldest friends.

In the morning at work my boss dropped by my desk and gave me a package and said it was in the mail. Cool. So I open it, to find a pair of fun unmatching socks!! People asked where the other pair was... unknown. It also had a mint aero, skittles, dark dove chocolate, and a letter. Best interoffice mail ever. So I open the letter and confirm it was from Jer, and read that these were not my official birthday socks, and that the other pair of socks have been mailed to Alan and I will have to ask him nicely if I want them. I thought that was hilarious and also curious if it was true. I then look at Alan's desk who's away at a meeting and I see a package. He did send the other pair to Alan!! Later I was helping a coworker when Alan came back to his desk, where he proceded to open the package, see a pair of mismatched socks and had the most confused look on his face, for at least a full minute, while everyone just laughed. Too funny.

For lunch I met up with my dad and we went for chinese. Crispy beef and broccoli. So delicious. It's been a while since we've ate there so it was a great birthday lunch.

Later in the day JWAM! gave me a gift - A Nascar Nextel mug and coaster, socks, and of course candy and chocolate. So sweet of them. Another coworker randomly came by, said happy birthday, then came back like 10 minutes later and dropped off a pile of chocolate saying "I know you like dark chocolate, happy birthday". I guess people at work knowing your birth date isn't so bad after all!

After work I went to Jeremy's because he's barbecuing for me. What's the perfect bbqd food (in my opinion)? Filet mignon of course. We also grilled some zucchini on there, and made mashed potatoes as well. The steak was tender and flavourful and so delicious. The veggies completed the meal and it was perfect. For dessert, the aforementioned (I love that word, I don't know why, or when my love for this word came to be. I somehow think Jeremy may be part of the reason) cupcakes and oh wow, fluffy icing and sweet cake is awesome.

Other points of fun:

The official birthday socks came from the san diego zoo and are absolutely adorable!
My sash said Miss Arms 2008 and had stars on it.
Don't tell people you don't like hugs (while sober). You get a lot of them.
I had a cupcake for breakfast this morning.
Jen happy.

This & That Part 2

2008-08-02T12:05:00.001-04:00

You know when you get a taste for something and just can't get enough and want it eat it breakfast, lunch, and dinner? The other day I had Alapha-bit cereal for breakfast, and all day I was craving the alphabet so for supper I had Alphagetti.

Yesterday I got a free piece of Stride gum on my walk to work. It's supposed to last a really long time. My way of testing this is for Jeremy to eat a piece of Excel, while I eat my Stride gum. When we're sick of chewing gum we switch to see who's has more flavour left. Conclusion of experiment: they both still had flavour so it didn't really matter which lasted longer. Maybe people who like to chew for a very long time should try this sometime.

The other day I was looking at Concierge Connection to see what events were coming up. Then I saw Monster Jam. I'm not sure why, but I got this giddy 'omg I totally want to go' reaction. But wait, does that make sense? It's Monster Jam. Trucks running over other cars, doing tricks. That's weird, right? Matt said it was Strange and confirmed my suspicion. I left it for a couple days, and then while walking to the theatre with Jer last night I randomly asked him how he feels about Monster Jam. He said he's always wanted to go and got super excited to hear they were coming in January. Looks like I'm going to Monster Jam!

Speaking of theatre, we went to see Avenue Q last night. Matt and Martha both had seen it in NY and highly recommended it. People compared it to sesame street, except bad ass. I never watched it as a kid, so I didn't have much commitment to going while it was here in Toronto. At work Martha mentioned a sale through Travel Zoo for the first week of the show. I was very willing to sit in crappy seats for cheaper. By crappy, I mean practically the worst in the place. It was at Elgin theatre which I had never been to before, and was surprised that the seats were very decent, and the seats were comfy. I just realized now my ass didn't hurt once which is a thing of beauty. I can't remember the last time that's happened at a theatre. Anyway, back to my point of which I wholeheartedly agree that Avenue Q rocks. I loved it and definitely think it's worth full-price tickets.

The other tickets I've bought recently are for the So You Think You Can Dance tour, wheee!!!

Not too much else is new, other than a bunch of cooking. Last weekend Jer and I went to St. Lawerence market for fruit and stuff to make beef and broccoli stir fry. I love beef and broccoli from chinese restaurants so it was fun to make it at home. It turned out great, despite the fact it uses oyster sauce which kinda creeps me out. And now we know how to cut beef to make those thin squares. Then on Sunday we made crepes for the cityplace crew which was yummy and fun. This weekend we're going to Jer's quasi-family cottage and we're going to make crepes for them since it was fun the first time. Although there will be quite a few more people so it shall be interesting.

This & That

2008-07-18T16:07:00.001-04:00

Fried double-baked French toast. It may sound good, or at least
intriguing, but believe me when I say: not very good.

I think I can finally rest my fear of walking in to the men's washroom
without realizing it. Martha walked in by accident the other day and
immediately saw something wrong and was confused. This makes me
believe if I make it to the peeing stage I'm 99% confident I'm in the
right bathroom.

Speaking of bathrooms, we have a brand new Dyson Vac in there! It's
awesome. Some people have seen it in public places before, but so far
nobody else has the pleasure of using it on a daily basis. Believe me
when I say my life is better because of this development.

Banana update: there have been less black bananas at work lately. I
think it's because Martha realized bananas taste so much better when
they're still yellow. How did she not realize this before? She was
just used to the taste of rotting fruit.

Enjoying normal

2008-05-20T23:03:00.002-04:00

My brain is at peace. It may not be working at full power yet, but it's just so happy to be resting that I expect a full recovery.

The last 4 months have been incredibly draining. Over 2000 pages of material to know in detail with 95% of the information being completely new. I learned a lot, but there is also a lot I could have known better. I understand now why hot shot lawyers are known/stereotyped to be big on coke. The brain just isn't meant to be worked so hard. There is no 'runner's high' for thinking. Bummer.

After my exam I spent the weekend recuperating. I slept a lot, watched a lot of tv/movies, and cleaned. It was relaxation time well over due.

Since then I've been enjoying doing normal things I just didn't have time for. It was very strange the first time leaving work without having to study. I got over that feeling quite quickly though.

Holly and I went to the opera on Wednesday. We went and saw Debussy's only opera and it was a great experience. I wasn't sure if I even liked opera but loved Debussy and had to go. The music was beautiful but very sad and slow.

This weekend was a long awaited market and cooking weekend. Jeremy and I decided it would be fun to make gnocchi so we bought stuff to make pasta sauce and backup gnocchi for just in case. I knew gnocchi is difficult to make but I found a good recipe with clear instructions so I figured it couldn't be too bad. It may not turn out great but I'd be happy with decent.

Oh. wow. I don't know this for sure (okay, yes, I do), but I'm pretty sure gnocchi isn't supposed to be lumpy. gross. Ignoring the lumps, the taste wasn't quite right either. It seems strange considering it's made of potato and flour, but it tasted too much like potato. Thankfully we had the backup gnocchi to salvage the meal.

The rest of the weekend was mostly lazying around due to the weather, but we did have two great brunches. One at Le Select, the other thin homemade pancakes with nutella and bananas.

To finish off the great long weekend, I baked cookies and watched the finale of House.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Banana

2008-04-04T06:24:00.010-04:00

On Wednesday, I arrived at work to find a very brown banana sitting on my chair. I wish I could say this was the first time this has happened, but sadly it is a recurring theme.

You may not know this about me, but I have leaky-banana-phobia. This means, much to my coworkers enjoyment, I make disgusted/upset noises when I find such bananas in my work area.

What exactly is leaky-banana-phobia? It's the fear of old bananas leaking gross juices. This means I also hate touching squishy bananas because I worry I'm going to touch a leaky spot. The smell even bothers me because it's a reminder it may leak at any point.

Wednesday morning I retaliate and put the banana in Martha's mug. She sees it when she gets in but is simply amused. Martha doesn't share my fear of horribly brown bananas.

Later that morning I decide to eat my normal, edible, banana. I ask Martha, "What's this yellow colour on my banana? I don't understand." She's sad I mock her banana. We continue to discuss the differences until I eat mine and throw the peel into the garbage by her desk. I missed, and it ended up landing on her work papers before falling down into the garbage.

HA, she may not fear the banana juices, but she sure doesn't like having them all over her work. She wipes it off the best she can then decides to throw her disgusting banana into the garbage can by me. She doesn't miss thankfully.

I don't exactly know why, but I decide I want to continue looking at the gross banana throughout the day, so we end up putting the banana on the edge of the garbage.

Later that day my boss comes by and notices the garbage and asks "What is that?" I respond, "It's a banana, feel free to poke it". He looks confused/intrigued and proceeds to stab it with his pen.

As Martha is leaving for the day, she examines the banana a bit further.

She realizes just how disgusting this banana is and states "I can't believe I debated eating that banana this morning".

Ew.

Martha then heads home and I reclaim the upper hand. I'm not ready for this banana to die. I pick it off the garbage and put it on her keyboard.

No, I can't do it. I felt there was a 50/50 chance the banana would start leaking all over her keyboard, and as much as my coworkers hope one day a banana will leak onto my keyboard, I just couldn't do it.

If you're having difficulty finding the banana in this picture, it's because it's so black it's camouflaged with the stapler. Look for the green grape.

Thursday morning Martha is in disbelief that the banana is still around. She then throws it hard into the garbage can and it lands with a thud.

As much as the thought of the leaky banana disgusted me, I couldn't help but look. I guess it's the same concept as a headless dead rat. You don't want to look, but you can't help but wonder just how much more disgusting it looks the next day you walk by it.

BANANA GUTS!!

Charity

2008-04-03T18:32:00.003-04:00

So long have I searched for a way to express how important charity is to me. I can now rest easy, as my views will live on through my DIY Demotivator.

Earth Hour

2008-03-30T09:08:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago I read about Earth Hour and I marked it on my calendar because I really liked the concept and thought it would be cool to walk around the city in the dark.

A few of us met up at 8 to explore together. My first destination was walking down Bremner because I love the skyline of the financial district from there. Then we wandered up and made our way to Nathan Philip Square for the celebration.

It was there I got to see the big dipper. I was so excited! I can't remember the last time I've seen it.

We stayed and listened to Nelly Furtado and the Philosopher Kings then wandered back home.

I insisted on walking by work and then through the little Metro Hall park because another place I love the skyline is by Roy Thomson hall.

I am happy with how the pictures turned out and you can see them here.

Vertically Challenged

2008-03-25T21:39:00.002-04:00

I've begun to realize I have a very skewed sense of height. If I'm less than half a foot shorter than somebody, I feel as if I'm almost as tall. If it's one or two inches shorter, I actually think I'm taller. I think my brain just isn't used to being almost eye level with people so it gets confused.

Iron Chef

2008-03-18T21:00:00.003-04:00

Today at work I was defending my love for macaroni with butter (okay, and lots of salt). I brought it in for lunch one day and they haven't let it go yet. Alan and Martha both tried it, Alan agreed it's delicious, but Martha was not impressed at all.

Today I came up with a theory of why macaroni with butter is so good. Bread and butter is good, so replace one carb with another and you get macaroni and butter.

Martha was trying to ruin this theory by suggesting other combinations with macaroni that wouldn't work, like say jam and macaroni. Then after she said that she realized that did sound kind of good.

She tried to argue you wouldn't eat bread and butter for supper, but I do. Grandma's toast with butter and a little bit of peanut butter.

This was her next inspiration. I wouldn't eat peanut butter and macaroni. Or so she thought. I think that sounds good. The peanut butter would be all melty and warm. I told her I would try this for breakfast on the weekend, since toast with peanut butter is great for breakfast.

If I enjoy it, this means my theory is correct and she can no longer mock my macaroni and butter.

I've asked other people if they think macaroni with peanut butter would be good, and I've gotten positive responses. Okay... responses, plural, may be exaggerating, but one person did agree it sounds yummy.

Speaking of exaggerating, I've recently been told I act very exaggerated while drunk, but I don't know if me being drunk is really a requirement. Holly just asked if I needed anything sewed because she had to sew on a button and when she said she'd sew on my button for me I got realllly excited. That's just so cool. Thanks again!!!

Crunchy is the new Juicy

2008-02-28T21:46:00.003-05:00

So I've finally decided to join the CIA. I am somewhat amused by the order in which things happened.

I mailed in my application form with a cheque (ew, but they had no spot for mastercard) and waited. Quite a while.

Then I was added to their mailing list and started receiving emails.

A few weeks later the cheque was finally cashed.

Now I'm waiting for confirmation that I am in fact a member and hopefully receive my member ID so I can log into the CIA website and such.

I don't understand why more people don't want to study actsc. You get to become a member of the CIA, make fap and DP jokes.. what more can you ask for really? Oh, right. A life.

hot dawg

2008-02-17T20:52:00.003-05:00

Things I'd rather do at lunch than watch one guy eat nine hot dogs in an hour

1. study
2. clean the bathroom
3. wax my legs
4. throw out the moldy mystery food in the fridge
5. feed the homeless

The concept of seeing how many hot dogs a coworker could eat at lunch seemed like a good idea, but in reality, it was incredibly boring and disappointing.

Need Snacks, Stat!

2008-02-13T21:47:00.002-05:00

You know you have the munchies bad when you eat a bunch of chips, then chocolate, then start craving something in sugar form so you have a couple breath mints. Now onto grapes.

Kangaroo says: creme eggs rock

2008-02-10T17:24:00.002-05:00

If they ever discontinued cadbury creme eggs, I think I would die a little inside. I imagine I would need to take a week of sick leave before I could face the world again. Then I'd create a candy hall of fame to appropriately honour the greatness that is the creme egg.

I feel the urge to find a rich husband, so he can buy me Cadbury for my birthday, and I can have creme eggs whenever I please. My friends can of course have them whenever they want as well... for cost + 10% that is. Okay, maybe 5%. But only if I like you a lot.

Hahahahaha

2008-02-07T19:14:00.001-05:00

I see now that posting from my work email is not the best idea.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This e-mail message (including attachments, if any) is intended for the use
of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain
information that is privileged, proprietary , confidential and exempt from
disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that
any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is
strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error,
please notify the sender and erase this e-mail message immediately.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Le présent message électronique (y compris les pièces qui y sont annexées,
le cas échéant) s'adresse au destinataire indiqué et peut contenir des
renseignements de caractère privé ou confidentiel. Si vous n'êtes pas le
destinataire de ce document, nous vous signalons qu'il est strictement
interdit de le diffuser, de le distribuer ou de le reproduire. Si ce
message vous a été transmis par erreur, veuillez en informer l'expéditeur
et le supprimer immédiatement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fight People, not Poverty

2008-02-07T19:11:00.001-05:00

... or was it the other way around? I can't remember.

I arrived at work today at 1, after a successful half study day, to be greeted by a protest outside my building. It was a peaceful protest to stop the war, but there was still a high level of security in place. There was only one door open and security people were checking passes and lots of extra police inside to make sure us office workers were kept safe. I have no idea why they choose my building but there have been other times when we were warned of possible protests so maybe it's just a fun spot.

In other news, what not to wear would shoot me right now if they saw my boots. They are so worn now that the little rubber end on my stiletto fell off, so I have a screw sticking out of the end. Yet I'm still wearing them. It's probably slightly unsafe to walk on them since the screw as a heel is a bit small and slippery but until I find new boots I don't care and I'll commit my fashion crime until somebody throws them away. Don't get any ideas.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This e-mail message (including attachments, if any) is intended for the use
of the individual or entity to which it is addressed and may contain
information that is privileged, proprietary , confidential and exempt from
disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, you are notified that
any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is
strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error,
please notify the sender and erase this e-mail message immediately.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Le présent message électronique (y compris les pièces qui y sont annexées,
le cas échéant) s'adresse au destinataire indiqué et peut contenir des
renseignements de caractère privé ou confidentiel. Si vous n'êtes pas le
destinataire de ce document, nous vous signalons qu'il est strictement
interdit de le diffuser, de le distribuer ou de le reproduire. Si ce
message vous a été transmis par erreur, veuillez en informer l'expéditeur
et le supprimer immédiatement.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Peeing in fear

2008-01-17T23:21:00.001-05:00

At work, I'm in the washroom, peeing, and then I realize I don't completely remember the walk to the washroom. I zone out or go on desk-to-toilet autopilot or something. And then my mind panics slightly.

I am in the women's washroom... right??!
No no, I am... I didn't see any urinals.
And there's the napkin/tampon disposal.
I'm where I should be.
Phew.
Continue peeing.

It's sad how often this happens.

Caution Contents Hot

2008-01-06T10:21:00.001-05:00

This morning on my way to work to study for the morning, I dropped in to Spot to grab a coffee. I get to my empty, completely gloriously quiet office, with only sporadic lights on (since I don't know how to turn on the lights on the weekend) and settle in. I look down at my coffee cap as I remove it to add x spoonfuls of sugar from my sugar stash, and see "Patented". I thought, "I was there when it all started, when the lid said Patent Pending!". I am happy to see this wonderful traveler plus cap (which has a switch to close the drinking hole whenever you please, if you're not fortunate enough to have had one before) did in fact get their patent.

On another note, Cora's on a Sunday before 8 o'clock... not so busy. No line up and I could see many empty tables as I walked by. Spot wasn't busy either for that matter. In fact, the girl working there looked slightly surprised to see a customer. I guess most sane people were still sleeping or being lazy.

But my studying is going well, so I will end on that note to read more about ALM.

Completely random

2007-11-15T16:27:00.000-05:00

Would you like the last peanut M&M?

a) Mmm peanut M&M, yes!!

b) What colour is it?

c) Nah, I just had two chocolate bars for lunch.

d) I just had two chocolate bars for lunch... but sure!

Sometimes when life gives you a free M&M cookie... you get three free M&M cookies.

When I was at sleep country I tested out the 5 'S' brand of beds. The only one I instantly disliked was the Simmons. What have I been sleeping on for the past 3 ish years? Simmons.

I found it oddly disturbing that I find it fascinating to look through all the dirt and gunk that my new wonderful purple Dyson picks up. I hope the novelty of that wears off. Dirt is gross.

I have been highly amused with Sun Life's advertising campaign "Life's brighter under the sun". I was volunteered to help organize the Corporate Holiday Contest which is to make our own version of a new set of commercials, so the amusement continues. I can't tell you about our creative commercial just yet. It's very hush hush, confidential, top secret stuff right now. Maybe after the contest I will write about it. Or just tell you to assume it was entertaining and awesome.

What's the point of an "extra" stat holiday if it means my company just takes away one of my floater days. Not only will it eliminate the choice of when I take my extra vacation day, but I will also be pressured to spend it with my family!!! *grumble*

2 + 2 = chair.

The end.

Quick Poll

2007-09-10T09:51:00.001-04:00

What did Jen do this weekend?

a) Found a new roommate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

b) Rented a car for the first time and did not buy insurance.

c) Went to Liz's wedding and had an amazing time drinking, eating, and dancing.

d) Won the beautiful lily flower centre piece and brought some of the flowers to work.

e) All of the above and more.

On "The Source", Sun Life's intranet, the welcome page always has a quiz that's actually a learning ploy. I fall for it every time.

a) Congrats Holly on your new job!!!!!!!!!! I am very excited for you, and very excited to be getting such an amazing person/friend as my roommate. I can't wait to make the apartment feel like ours... and stealing more of your cooking ideas =)

b) Driving went very smoothly. Okay, I had some parking/backing out issues, but that doesn't really count. Oh, and problems finding the hertz parking lot. Just because I drove out of the parking lot, doesn't mean I had a clue where I was at the time. Thanks for answering your phone and helping me out Matt. I did discover they had a map of where it was on the hertz door but I found that later, when I went to drop off my keys... only to discover the express box was in the parking lot. Arghhhh.

c) The wedding went perfectly. Liz looked gorgeous and so incredibly happy. I knew hardly anyone there but enough that it was lots of fun.

d) My flowers are a little crushed from all the travelling but they still make me smile.

e) I can't write about all my stories from this weekend. I am supposed to be working you know.

what an idiot

2007-08-05T15:22:00.000-04:00

Studying is poo. I decide to make cookies. It calls for parchment paper, which I recently bought so I was looking forward to trying it. Ummmm, but no. Apparently I had wax paper and that is flammable. *Luckily* I noticed the TONS of smoke pouring out of the oven before there was any fire. I did a search and read about the difference. At least I wasn't the only one who discovered this the hard way.

I am such an idiot. Thankfully Rob is away and I didn't set off the smoke detector =) Haha ohhh goodness.

But eughhh. Why does the package have baked cookies on wax paper? Why does it say ideal for baking??? Why no warning to only use in the oven if it's completely covered or else IT WILL CATCH ON FIRE?

I blame no name. And now what am I going to do with 200' - 3' of wax paper?????

OMG

2007-08-03T13:22:00.001-04:00

I met an actuary that smokes!! WTF??!!!!!

- Jen, ASA

Back in the Boonies

2007-07-14T23:54:00.001-04:00

So far I'm loving being back in Kincardine. It's been so long it's nice to come home. The bus ride was long but not painful. I do hate buses though. Mostly because waiting in line at the bus station sucks. It's sooo loud and the fumes are nasty. You have to move a crap load of times so you don't get run over by buses. Eugh.

Hehe my kitty just came in and meowed at me. I think he wants me to go to bed so he can curl up. Awww I love having a cat around. So cute.

Kincardine now has a Chinatown!!! Okay... There's one store that sells asian stuff that I have to check out. I wonder if there will be asian people in the asian store. Kincardine is sooo white. I'm excited to see what it's like.

Tonight I went to the pipe-band parade with my mom. Now that I can't go to them every Saturday in the summer I don't mind going. They actually amuse me now. This one was definetly interesting! Just as they were starting a storm came in and it just POURED. There was some thunder too. Poor pipers got drenched. My mom and I managed to stay dry though. Before it rained we went and got gelato. Kincardine now has gelato. This also amused me. They don't make it on site like in Toronto though ;)

My mom bought me a coffee maker for my birthday. I can now have Cora's coffee at home!!!!!!

My last day at work was sad. I'm going to miss my first work family. Then I think of all the work I'm leaving behind and I'M SO HAPPY!!!! Sun Life, here I come!!!!

3 New Airports - 4 Days

2007-06-07T16:43:00.000-04:00

We have an intern in Armonk in our department!! I get to give him work!!!! It's so amusing. He's just a baby, I love it. He also added me on facebook after talking on the phone briefly. Who could not like him after that? hahaha.

Anyway, I'm ready to talk about my business trip to Indiana.

It got off to a shaky start. Ang and I left in plenty of time to get to the airport but there was tons of traffic at the border! ack!! We were stressed and freaking out the whole way. I got the airport about 30 minutes before my plane was supposed to leave. I thought that would be enough time, but the line was long. So I talked to employees there, probably sounding very panicky and I got to go to the first class check-in where there was no lineup. Phew. Or so I thought. When I scanned my passport the computer told me it was too close to departure and I couldn't check in. Oh no!!! So I asked the girl what I was supposed to do, I had to get to Fort Wayne. There was a flight at 7 tonight and I said that was fine. Little did I know I didn't actually have a seat on the plane. I was just put on some sort of waiting list? People who fly more would be able to tell me what this is exactly. I'm still a little clueless.

So it's noon. I have a while to wait for my plane. Thankfully I had procrastinated reading my Module 8 readings and had planned on going through them at the hotel. Rather than the hotel it was the airport. No biggie. I read, listened to my ipod, watched people. It wasn't so bad. Ang felt soooo bad which made me feel soooo bad. It wasn't her fault. We just should have left earlier. Hindsight.

I liked the Detroit airport a lot. The tunnel to get to my terminal was a little creepy. Lots of changy colour lights. Once I got used to it, it wasn't scary and it amused me. The terminal was nice and roomy so I was happy.

With how my day was going, it wasn't surprising that our plane arrived late. And then we had to wait for our crew to arrive. I got to the front and the girl was all pissy. Telling me I had to stand to the side and how I should have told her right away I was waiting for a seat. Well that was news to me. The girl who put me on the 7 o'clock could have TOLD me this. argh. Thankfully I got a seat!!! and the plane didn't leave too late.

Me being completely paranoid I got into Fort Wayne worrying the girl put me on a plane to a different Fort Wayne and I wasn't actually in Indiana. Yes, I'm a little crazy. Once I checked into my hotel I confirmed i was in the right place hehe.

Anyway, I get to Fort Wayne and what happens? There's a sweet elderly lady handing out cookies (in a plastic wrapper that says FWA) saying welcome to Fort Wayne! How welcoming hehe. Good ole small airports. Gotta love them. Then in baggage we all know my amusement of the flying elephant. I felt a little ridiculous taking a picture but a flying elephant?? I want to know why more people weren't!!

After I collect my bag (at least that works out for me!!) I go and look for a cab. I found it a little confusing. A girl asked if I wanted a taxi and I said yes. She said this van could take me. But there was somebody in the van. But I guess they all work together. She got out and helped with bags then I was in the van with a guy driver. I said I was going to the Hilton. We sat there for a while, then said "I'm not going to do that to you". He pointed to this white van that was going to the Hilton and said I should take the shuttle. Well, that was nice of him. So I hop on the shuttle and we head to the hotel. The only problem is, I didn't actually want to go to the Hilton. I wanted to go to the Hilton Garden Inn... When I got there they were nice about it and the shuttle guy drove me to the proper hotel. Ohh jeez I felt retarded. Oh well. I made it to my hotel thankfully!! *relief*

Tuesday I had treaty training and it was actually interesting. They discussed issues clients have with parts of our reinsurance contracts. For supper that night we went to a steak and seafood place. I got a fruity martini because I had to milk this trip!! After it my head was just slightly light headed which probably made the meal even more enjoyable. The filet mignon was beautifully cooked and tasted amazing. The mashed potatoes had bits of cheese and bacon in it so that was great. And rather than the crappy in season veggies I saw on other people's plates, I requested the grilled asparagus. A perfect meal, if not perfect company. Haha. When I got back to the hotel I had missed the first half hour of the Veronica Mars finale so I watched something on tv but mostly just slept. I was tired =)

Wednesday was work as usual. Too many meetings. I did enjoy my alone time in my big empty office they stuck me in. I was tempted to hide in the little cubby of the wooden desk when I heard my boss ;)

That night I was planning on ordering room service. The one girl I work with felt bad but I was alll for it. I had been social long enough hehe. I got home, grabbed the guest services, and looked for food. All I found was an applebees menu, and a list of restaurants and how to drive there. Ack!!! So not helpful. The area I was in was pretty much a highway so I couldn't walk anywhere safely. If I could I would have gotten pizza hut or something but that wasn't an option. There was a mexican place across from the hotel that I could go to but I wasn't in the mood.

So I decided to call room service and find out what was up. I press the button, and ask "Is there food to be brought up"? The girl said "What?". I asked again, "Is there food to be brought up"?. The girl said "What?". Okay, this is already getting old. So I asked if this was room service. She responded by asking if I was at the Hilton. I was indeed. And it turns out the phone number on my phone was wrong and I had called this random girl's house. How about that? So messed up.

I decide to head downstairs and talk to the guy at the front cause if there's no food I'll try to get takeout from the mexican place. I went to talk to him and asked if there was food to be brought up. He explained that you call applebee's, tell them you're at the Hilton, they call them, they go and pick it up and bring it to your room. I hadn't heard of that before but it was pretty cool. I told him about the girl and I guess she had called about it. She has the old number of a restaurant they used to use for room service. so silly. I gave him my room number since they didn't know which phones still had the wrong number. Couldn't they just reprogram everyone's phone??? Whatever.

So I ordered this yummy sounding chicken and lava cake with ice cream. The chicken was pretty good, but the lava cake was amazing! Yum yum!! Mine is still better but this was damn good. I was happy. When they brought my meal up it came on a plate with cutlery and a fancy napkin and a mini ketchup and mustard bottle. Loved it. Took those! hehe.

Thursday I got to work at 7, since I didn't want to bother with a cab and girl at work said it was on her way and wouldn't mind picking me up. Eugh, early. (The other days I went with a co-worker who was staying at the hotel too. She rented a car, I did not.) So I worked for a few hours, then took off to the airport. Who was my taxi driver? The same girl who I saw at the airport coming in, and the same girl I saw that morning who was dropping somebody off at the hotel as I was leaving to catch my ride. How many freakin taxi drivers are there in Fort Wayne??!! It is a city. I did see a bit of it when I went to the wrong hotel. Why couldn't the office be down there? It was much better than the outskirts. Ah well....

I liked the Fort Wayne airport a lot. It was small, but big enough that it was spacious. They had a little airport museum which amused me. I also donated a loonie to help support it, but mostly cause it amused me to throw in some canadian money with the american haha. They had FREE wireless internet there so I amused myself by going on facebook and emailing people.

Once again my plane arrived late, then they had to do stuff before we could board. Not knowing how long it will take them before we can board, and knowing I have a connecting flight, had me again worried. So much worrying!!!! Argh. It ended up being 30 minutes late so I still had enough time in Chicago.

The flight to Chicago was GREAT!!!!! They had those big fluffy white cotton ball clouds!! I've never got to see them while flying before and I loved it. Sooo pretty. I saw Shrek while I was up there. And a dog. And the thumbs up. And Shrek again haha. I must have had Shrek on my mind. Landing in Chicago freaked me out a little. We turned around over the water but I didn't realize that's what we were doing so it was just lots of heading down towards the water. It amused me though.

They gave us connecting flight info and a pilot (? or some sort of airport employee) who was sitting beside me saw I was looking at a map of the airport and explained how to get to area K where my gate was =) Nice guy!

So I got off my plane, looked at the board, and saw the gate was in H, not K. Oh well. And the flight was already late. But only by 5 minutes so no biggie! So I tread over to H. It was packed and crowded and hard to get around. Plus my laptop bag was heavy. Not very fun. I get to my gate but it says another city... So I look at the board again and see It's actually in K. Argh! How did I mess that up? Oh well. So I go over to K. Hmmm it doesn't say my city still, but the boards do confirm it's my gate so I sit down. They make an announcement how Atlanta is now boarding at another gate and lots of people leave. Why were Atlanta people at my gate? Am I at the right gate???!

So I look around and decide to ask an older (40s?) man if he was also going to Toronto. He was!! I felt relieved. He told me that a plane got cancelled and it's causing lots of problems and delays and gate scrambling. I was glad to know I wasn't crazy by going to H!!! hehe. I decide I'd check the boards again since I wasn't confident this was the proper gate still. It wasn't! And the plane was more delayed. Boo. So we head over to the new gate and chatted about stuff. I made an airport buddy!!

The plane ended up being 45(?) minutes late which isn't horrible but it could have been better. I thought about going to see the dinosaur while I waited, but it was in a different terminal and with all the gate confusion and the crowdiness of the airport I decided it wasn't a good idea. Maybe next time, if I ever fly to Chicago again. I wasn't a huge fan of the airport.

So I finally arrive in beautiful wonderful Toronto and I'm happy to be at home. It was fun, there was a guy walking super fast so I got to keep up with him. It wasn't fair, he didn't have a big heavy backpack like me! I kept up though hehe. I beat him through customs!! Point for me. Customs was funny. They didn't seem to believe me that I didn't buy anything. No, not even a "souvenir for friends or family" haha. It's Fort Wayne!! and I was there for work. Then I grabbed my bag and was off to get a taxi. Fast walker got his bags first... Point for him.

The timing was bad so there was traffic on the highway. It was frustrating since I was already late getting home but I listened to my iPod and relaxed. I got home and felt worked up and annoyed from 4 hours of work and 8 hours of travelling. But I calmed down and did some cleaning in preparation of writing the FAP Final Assessment!!! Boy I'm glad that's over with. 96 hours of *fun*. I'm still waiting for results. I don't like the waiting game.

So that's my very long detailed story about my trip to Fort Wayne. I love you all who read it all hehe.

Kraft Macaroni & Cheese

2007-05-26T20:15:00.001-04:00

States KD is icky. Why is it different? I don't understand. Spongebob Squarepants Kraft Macaroni & Cheese was still amusing though.

Back to my exam. Less than 65 hours to go.

Blue Smarties

2007-05-26T08:31:00.001-04:00

I'm sitting here, working on my asset liability matching task for my exam, eating smarties (I am still trying to save some for the next time you're over Reena!) and the mini box had 0 blue smarties! It made me happy. I don't like blue smarties. They turn your mouth blue. My mom doesn't like them either. It reminds me of the Halloween my mom and i emptied every smarties box and sorted them by colour. We then fed the boxes filled with blue smarties to George hahaha. If I remember correctly, the colours were fairly well uniformly distributed ;)

FWA

2007-05-24T20:05:00.000-04:00

I got in to work today at 7. worked for 4 hours. then spent 8 hours travelling. Not in the mood to write about my trip. But I will leave you with the one picture I took of Fort Wayne.

All i have to say is: hahhahahahahah wtf???!

Windsor = shopping and drinking

2007-05-23T20:45:00.000-04:00

So Tuesday I had to be in Fort Wayne for treaty training. Since there's no direct flight to fort wayne international from Toronto (where's the international part then?), it made for a long trip, and it meant it ruined my long weekend. To make up for it I took the train to Windsor on Friday and got to visit Angela!!!

We had a great weekend. When I got there we went for supper with a couple of her friends and the food was yummy. Saturday we went to Detroit for some shopping!!! I *heart* cheap shoes! And they're sooo pretty. I bought 3 at Ang's fav outlet store. Then we went to Target!! I've never been so it was so exciting. I bought another pair of shoes as well as spongebob square pants KD =) They had a bunch of nascar stuff too! Yay states for being obsessed.

After that we went to..... wait for it.... the olive garden!!! omg i was so excited. I keep seeing commercials and drooling. I decided to go for the pasta that i kept seeing on commercials and damn it was GOOD! After that we went to a mall closeby and did a bit more shopping.

We were pretty tired by the time we got home but they didn't stop us from having one or two (okay four) pina coladas! Mmmmm soooo good! Then it was off to the loop for gooood times. Got to meet some of Ang's friends and dance the night away.

Sunday was mostly napping, a bit of shopping, olive garden leftovers and tv! It was an awesome weekend. Need to visit again.

I leave for Toronto tomorrow afternoon and when I get home I'll post about the highs and lows of my trip to Indiana.

who knew?

2007-04-12T13:03:00.000-04:00

On my Tony Stewart Daily Calendar today, I learned that the Nascar Nextel Cup Series has more women fans than any other sport. I found this surprising. I googled it and found an article that claims 40% of nascar fans are female.

stay interesting

2007-04-11T16:14:00.001-04:00

Last week I went on my very first business trip. I spent a couple days in our Armonk office. Flying is fun so the trip there was great. I flew into La Guardia which amused me since I could see the NYC skyline as well as almost landing on water. I had a driver (with a sign!) waiting for me at baggage. Then he took me to my hotel and I showered since my boss wanted to leave the hotel at 7:15 the next morning. Argh, so early. He admitted sometimes he gets in really early some days and thinks why did i come in this early? He suggested meeting beforehand to grab some breakfast, but i graciously decline. EW breakfast before 7 with my boss? That's too early to deal with.

The Armonk office was nice. It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere, so definitely a change of scenery. It was pretty though. Lots of trees and a river. Accomplished a lot of work and had supper at the hotel with my boss (since it would have been at least a 15 minute drive to a restaurant haha). The hotel reminded me of REV a little. Maybe I'll post a picture later. Oh, I stole two pens (which say stay interesting), some Q-tips to bring to work to clean my keyboard with, and lemongrass soap. I would have taken the shampoo and conditioner but my plastic baggie for liquids I was allowed to bring as carry on was already full.

The flight home wasn't as fun as the flight there. I flew out of Westchester county airport and it was small and crowded and loud. They were horrible at updating the status of my flight so when it was over an hour later leaving it felt like a lot longer. The plane sat no more than 20 people and had propellers. Smallest plane I ever flew on before. It was fine once we got above the clouds. It was amusing since you could see into the cock pit area during the flight. When we got to Toronto we had to drive more than 10 minutes to where we could unload, then there was a shuttle to take us to the Terminal since we were in some weird small plane area. Very irritating. Thankfully I caught a cab quickly and didn't fret over the price since I got to expense it.

I had a pretty quiet Easter Weekend. Went for lunch with my dad and he bought me Entourage Season 3 Part 1. What a great daddy.

In other good news, I managed to somehow pass the most retarded exam I ever wrote! Yay!

Last night we went to Da Gianni and Maria Trattoria that we were supposed to go to a couple weeks ago but happend to be closed for a couple of days. It's a family run Italian restaurant where the husband does the cooking and the wife does the serving. The gnocchi was amazing and so was the tiramisu!

To end, I'll just say: I like shoes.

yawn

2007-03-27T09:31:00.001-04:00

I know my pens. It happens when you have somewhat of a stationary fetish. I'm getting people addicted to my favourite pen. I helped a girl at work find it in the Basics catalogue cause it rocks so much. More and more will realize the greatness of the fine blue Zebra Jimnie Stick Pen. Beware, the medium sucks!!!!

Early morning meetings suck for obvious reasons. But they also suck since nobody is around to email me to keep me amused when I'm waiting/hoping for the caffeine to kick in. Maybe I should find new friends that start work earlier in the mornings. Too bad Holly can't access email at work. I'd get angry at her employer but I think bad things would happen if the word got out. Hahahaha. Ohh that amuses me way too much. Silly mornings.

This weekend I went to see Holly for a girls weekend. There was lots of chocolate, but also yummy food Holly made. Like guacamole with baked tostitos! Mmmm. I bought avocados yesterday so I can make some soon. Baked chips suck, but baked tostitos are yummy. I was surprised and impressed. I forgot to check the difference in nutrition value when I was buying some yesterday. Oh well. I got Holly addicted to Entourage. Since not only am i a pen pusher, i'm a tv pusher too. Holly showed me the sights of Hamilton, and since Denningers was one of them, I was hooked. I'd go back to Hamilton to go there. So much fun food.

Sunday I got home in time to watch the last 7 laps of the Nascar race, to see 2 of my drivers finish 1 & 2!! Happy day.

I forget what else I've been up to. I got to see my brother which was cool. I went up to the skypod at the CN tower. That was fun. I should get my dad to send me pics from that soon. I've realized I have something to look forward to each day this week. Tonight is *wing* night at this amazing sounding italian place. I can't wait for gnocchi!! Tomorrow is Daffodil day, Thursday is bonus day, and Friday is Friday. Hopefully that helps move my week along.

The coffee still hasn't helped my sleepiness but I do have to pee. That's something I guess? I've also realized I said "suck[s]" a lot in this post. Wait, only 4 times. That's not all that much. Hopefully my morning rambling amuses somebody other than me.

Life needs TV

2007-03-12T22:02:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow my weekly 8 o'clock meeting gets pushed to 9 since Zurich hasn't changed their clocks yet. So far this is the only reason I'm happy about the new daylight savings timeframe. Too bad I only get two 9 o'clock meetings out of it.

On a sad note, today I discovered girl guide cookies still have trans. I had to walk away from the open box at work that was just begging me to help eat. *sigh*

I've started watching Veronica Mars. I read an article about how more people watch GG but Veronica Mars has been a better show compared to the past couple seasons of GG and I felt left out. So far i've watched the first 6 episodes and I'm enjoying it. Is it better than GG? No. Is it better than GG Season 7? Yes. Too bad it's on the same time as House. Oh well, I have lots to catch up on still =)

Creme eggs in the Morning

2007-02-27T10:07:00.000-05:00

It's my study day and I'll eat my creme egg whenever I want. Which is right after I finish warming it up. Creme eggs are most enjoyable when the chocolate is soft, but not melty. I prefer a little too melty over not soft enough though. It's also important to eat half the chocolate shell, then eat alll of the sugary goodness, then the rest of the shell. And if you're wondering, yes, i do eat other chocolate bars in a particular way as well. Only a few though. I'm not crazy or anything.

I remember that glorious year in high school when I ate over 30 creme eggs that easter season. The no name ones came in a package of 4, rather than Cadbury's 3, for the same price. Ohhhhh goooood times.

Creme eggs are on sale at Pharma Plus this week. Holly, you know you want one!!! =)

Nascar Sunday

2007-02-25T12:23:00.001-05:00

I'm just sitting here, drinking a beer, reading about financial security systems. Yes, a beer. Sleeman Cream Ale. The only beer I don't mind drinking.

This weekend I've been studying like crazy, reviewing as much as possible before my Exam on Wednesday. It sounds like a stupid exam that no matter how much I study it'll still be easy and hard at the same time. I'd rather just a hard exam. Oh well. After I spend two hours on wednesday I have the afternoon off to do whatever I like so that is totally worth it.

I think studying too much makes me go a little crazy. Hence the beer, and the fact I've decided it would be a great idea to give a gift I deemed to be too young for an 8-year old to my friend as a house warming present. I don't know why, it just seems soooo amusing. And no, it's not the beer talking. I haven't finished half of it yet.

Current Pet Peeve

2007-02-23T16:41:00.001-05:00

is the way Americans say finance/financial. *shudder*

Am I weird for sorting my trail mix into little rows for each item? I don't think I am. I think I'd be weird if I had an order I liked the rows to be in. Which I don't. Well, not yet anyway. Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned this.. hmm...

And yes, this was the most interesting part of my day, thank you.

Walking in a Winter Wonder Thunderstorm

2007-02-22T17:33:00.001-05:00

I think I've been deprived of snow this year. It was snowing like crazy this morning and I loved every minute walking to work. I think I enjoyed it because it wasn't very cold, and the snow hadn't turned to slush yet. I could have walked inside part way but i didn't want to. The snow was too much fun. I made a huge mess at my desk though. Sooo much snow was stuck to me that the carpet is pretty wet. oops =)

Right when I was leaving my building I saw a flash of light. I was confused, I couldn't figure out where the light came from. Then I heard thunder! I can't remember that happening before. There was one more on the way to work as well. Very amusing.

On the weekend was Rob's Birthday, Happy Birthday Rob! Lots of people showed up for his party on Saturday and it was very amusing. Some of the highlights were cake, rob's slutty cousin, and one of the girls taking home some of our toliet paper.

Sunday was DAYTONA 500!!!!!! Ohh how I've missed nascar and the hilarious nascar commercials. Holly and Matt watched with me which was awesome. I made tuna casserole to make the time spent watching worth it for them hehe. It was a crazy race with the majority of the big names getting involved in a crash. It was the second time I saw a car cross the finish line upside down, but the first time it happened while the car was on fire. eep!

Tonight is the final episode of The O.C. evar. It better not suck like last week's.

Americone Dream

2007-02-16T17:42:00.001-05:00

On my way home from work yesterday I went to a couple drug stores to buy some cheap valentine's day candy. Instead, I ended up buying easter candy. Oops. I can't help it easter candy is soooo much better than valentine's day chocolate. My favourite shape is the star, not heart. The only thing I regret is not buying the family size bag of mini eggs. What I really should do is get to costco and buy a gigantic bag. Wait.. no.. I'm trying to be healthy.

I came across the Stephen Colbert Ice cream the other day which i find very amusing, and OMG it sounds so good. While I was browsing Rabba's today, I was checking out the Haggen daz ice cream because they had a sale on. I came across a very similar flavour. It has the chocolate covered waffle cones with caramel, but it also has almonds in it. Well, I had to try it. I've been craving this Stephen Colbert ice cream since I heard of it and who knows if it'll come to Canada. It won't be quite the same though, since I don't get to look at Stephen Colbert while I'm eating it, but I'll take what I can get. Now I'm off to the gym in preparation of eating ice cream for supper. Like I said, gotta stay healthy.

V-Day

2007-02-14T13:12:00.001-05:00

I have to say, this Valentine's Day has been going pretty well so far.

First, it brought the first real snow fall!! Snow in general is a pain and cold and icky, but the first snow fall rocks. It was so fun trudging through the fresh white snow drifts on the way to work and back. My coworker said it felt like Christmas cause of the snow. How can a day that feels like Christmas not be awesome? I was even wearing a Christmas sock so I obviously had the Christmas spirit too.

Also, I got 5, count em five Valentine's day gifts this year. I have to admit I use the term gift quite loosely. A couple *gifts* I received are a Valentine's Day card from my Grandma, and a chocolate heart from building management at work.

And tonight, is the finale of Beauty and the Geek. Throw in working out at the gym, some crappy season 7 gilmore girls, the prospective of buying cheap chocolate tomorrow, and I have myself a successful Valentine's day.

Chopin

2007-02-14T07:44:00.001-05:00

Last night for *wing* night we decided to go to Rob's Polish place for supper. It was pretty far west, but thankfully the streetcar went right past it. Well, it was supposed to anyway. The streetcar we got on decided to randomly stop at Roncesvalles which left us 6 blocks more to go in the cold snowy weather. Thankfully Patrick asked the driver about it and we all got transfers and hopped on the streetcar which conveniently just behind ours. So that turned out alright.

Rob was watching out the window to figure out when our stop is, and when he requested a stop we gathered and watched out the window looking for the restaurant with him. We saw it.. and the closed sign as we drove by. Closed???!! We spent half an hour on a street car and the place was closed? Oh noes! So we got out and went to look at the sign. It was closed from sometime in January to February 15th. Two days early. What bad luck.

We followed Rob into the Sobey's a couple doors down, where he asked the cashier if she knew of any other good polish restaurants. He knew there were a few good ones close by but didn't know of them. The cashier was useless. Thankfully a couple people paying were helpful. One suggested Chopin because his friends go there a lot and one is polish so it must be good. The other pointed us in the right direction. Matt had heard on Chowhound that it was one of the best polish restaurants so off we went. It was a nice little place. And the food was yummy!! Another wing night success =)

Bears vs. Colts

2007-02-08T07:57:00.001-05:00

The superbowl was pretty exciting to me. My colts made it, as well as my brother's bears. My brother has been a fan of the bears since he was a little kid. He stuck by them even when they were playing horribly and was embarrassed by them. That's a true fan. Me, I just randomly decided to like the colts a few years ago. Because of this, I decided I would cheer for the bears last Sunday.

Yeah... that didn't work out so well. After the first kick off when the bears out maneuvered the colts and went all the way for a touchdown I was like "noooo!!!" then I realized wait, I want the bears to win, so I should be happy. It was too strange and conflicting and weird to not cheer for the colts. I decided I would cheer for the colts but in the end i hoped bears would win. Sucks they didn't, but on the other hand, wohooo! They really deserved it last year and it sucked they got knocked out so quickly, so I'm very happy they won. Maybe it'll be the bears turn next year.

I made chilli for the big game, and Matt came over and brought fresh bread from thuet. Mmmmm bread. Wilson came too and brought homemade dumplings! Those were super yummy. Rob watched too (while playing DS) and he contributed melon bread from j-town. Overall, there was a silly rainy game of football in pretty HD, friends, and lots of great food. I call this a superbowl success!!

17 Days

2007-02-01T11:39:00.001-05:00

Since my secret shame of liking Nascar is simply just a fact now, i guess it's no surprise I have a Tony Stewart daily calendar at my desk. My Dad saw it at Walmart and thought of me. Each day has lots of orange, the number 20, his autograph, a monthly calendar, date, and a little nascar/stewart fact. Today had to be the *best* fact I've read so far: "Tony Stewart drives the No. 20 Chevrolet for Joe Gibbs Racing". It's a Tony Stewart daily calendar for goodness sakes. If you're going to state the obvious, at least mention one of his championships. At least that way it'll bring happy memories, rather than disgust of the writer's stupidity.

I remember a girl at work asked me once, "Is that your boyfriend"? referring to the picture of Tony on my mouse pad. Eugh. If I have to have a nascar boyfriend, it would be less embarrassing if he was hot. Easier to justify anyway.

Music galore

2007-01-12T20:59:00.000-05:00

One thing I hate about winter is if I leave work even a tad bit late, it's dark out. It's so depressing. The other day I wasn't looking forward to going home cause it was dark. When I got outside I realized how wrong I was. The city looks so pretty! There are even some lights up on some trees still. I love it!

The other night on my way home, I faintly heard music. I had no idea where it was coming from. As it got louder I only grew more curious. I discovered the music was coming from the little park I like to cross through on my way home. I was extremely surprised to discover there was a marching band, battle of the bands! They had girls spinning flags in the air, and fun marching band music. Sooo amusing. They were in town for the football game the following day. I could even hear them when I opened up my window that next morning.

On Wednesday I got to see my high school friend play in a concert at the Four Seasons Centre of Performing Arts. It was sooo amazing. It was a drumming ensemble that combined traditional Japanese rhythms with Western influences. I loved it. The movements were very dramatic and as important as the actual drumming. It was as fun to watch as it was to listen to.

Next week I'm going to the Symphony to hear some Mozart. I've never been so I'm very excited.

I miss playing music some days. Like today.

Old Folks Convention at the Rogers Centre

2006-12-15T19:31:00.000-05:00

Today I took a vacation day cause I realized not going into work sometimes is very nice. It was a beautiful day out. Very sunny and warm. I went to the mall to do my Christmas shopping. I went in the morning so it wasn't busy which made things less annoying. I had lots of great luck and found some great stuff. I haven't had a lot of luck shopping lately so it was a great change. I couldn't believe it only took 2 hours including walking time!

When I got back from shopping I watched a bunch of episodes of an amusing new tv show. Then I did a bit more shopping and had some supper. Great day... great day indeed!

Word of the day: Whilst

2006-12-14T10:40:00.000-05:00

It's nice to have people at work look out for you. Like when there's free chocolate in the kitchen when you're not around, they grab one for you and put it in your drawer.

7 days

2006-12-10T22:54:00.000-05:00

7 work days until Christmas vacation and counting!

Fresh laundry equivalent at work

2006-12-08T15:57:00.000-05:00

Brrrrr i'm cold. It's been cold at the office lately. Are they trying to save money by lack of heat? I guess it's okay if you're wearing a suit with a sweater underneath, but since we've moved to "smart business casual" there's no need for lots of layers anymore.

Today I discovered the 'laundry out of the dryer' equivalent at work: paper right out of the printer! Soooo warm. It warmed up my arms today for a bit. It's not quite the same though. No fresh smell and not as cozy. It still amused me. I feel like printing more, but instead I'll go home. Yay weekend!

I'll have wine with my wine, thank you!

2006-12-06T23:20:00.000-05:00

I went and saw Wicked last month!!!! It was amazing. I loved it. Yay witches!

My company's Christmas Party was a couple weekends ago. It was at this fancy place on Toronto st. I didn't know there was a Toronto street. It's very short. I couldn't find a new dress to wear, so I bought new shoes and fun earrings and called it a day. High heels are amusing!! Since Matt came with me I could wear really high heels while still being short.

The party was fun. Matt and I amused ourselves by drinking lots and enjoying the tons of fancy food. Soup, salad, steak, and two, yes TWO desserts. Creme brulee and white chocolate raspberry cake. Soooo yummy. Oh, and the bread was awesome.

I don't think I made a fool of myself. I think I left before the last of the alcohol really hit me so I didn't feel too embarrassed on Monday. Nobody commented really about how much I drank so all is good. Thankfully nobody saw me kinda stumble down the stairs. They were narrow stairs i tell you. It had nothing to do with the wine.

This weekend I went for lunch with Holly and Nadia to celebrate Holly's birthday. Happy Birthday Holly!!!!!!!!! We went to yummy spring rolls then Holly and I wandered the mall, and hung out at timmy's. It's nice that hanging out at timmy's is done by choice now, not because of lack of any other options.

Last thing, is that I am one super duper nice person. People say I'm mean, but they are sooo wrong. In the mail there was a cheque for some guy I hadn't heard of before. Being the first to live here, means it had to be the wrong address. I was just going to write return to sender and drop it off in the out box at work, but then I decided it's likely just the suite number was wrong. I took the time to talk to security and found out just that! The security guy was going to make sure the cheque got to him. I'm awesome.

Waking up in a cloud

2006-11-25T09:23:00.000-05:00

I had to try really hard to be able to see anything outside my window this morning. It amused me.

Customer Care

2006-11-14T17:01:00.000-05:00

I just got to talk to the best phone help person ever. I'll start at the beginning though.

I got a call saying I had a cable installation appointment tomorrow morning. What???!!! This is news to me. So I call, and have to go through the lame voice menus. Since I was at work I felt especially stupid. Thankfully it worked well and I didn't have to repeat myself. I got to the end and the recorded voice said there was no scheduled appointment and asked if I wanted to talk to an agent. I said "agent".

The guy who helped had a voice that could have been used as the recorded voice or on commercials. It was awesome. I told him I just got a msg saying I had a cable installation appointment tomorrow that I knew nothing about. And then he asks, so you have rogers people coming to drill holes in your house and you don't know why?? hehehe he even made a joke! I was so amused. He had a good idea of what the problem was right away which was cool. He checked to see if somebody else had an appointment with my number and they did. Why somebody says my number is their number confuses me, but at least the mystery is solved. He explained he couldn't change the number without the other person's permission. Then, while I was still on the phone, he put a note in the file saying that the number belonged to somebody else. Now I know it's been taken care of as much as possible. To end it well, he makes sure that the reason I called had been resolved. Well done.

Rogers customer care rocks.

Cat bonds

2006-10-23T14:12:00.000-04:00

I haven't felt like going to the gym lately, but I was given a publication about Insurance-linked securities and I suddenly feel like working out on the elliptical machine while I read about cat bonds. I'm a little frightened.

Infamous

2006-09-15T01:26:00.000-04:00

I GOT TO SEE SANDRA BULLOCK!!!!!!!!!!!! She looked so pretty!!! Eeeeeee!! Okay, I have that out of my system... at least for now ;)

Tonight was the North American Premiere of Douglas McGrath's Infamous. It was exciting because It was a TIFF's prestigious Gala event at Roy Thomson Hall. Matt and I lined up fairly early in hopes of getting good seats. It looked like we had succeeded until closer to start time when swarms of Priority Seating people kept going in. A TIFF volunteer came by asking if we wanted to upgrade our tickets to the main floor seating. Without it, we could have gotten either the main floor, or the balcony. It seemed like a good idea so we went for it. We got a little worried if it was the right choice after seeing how many Priority Seating people there were.

While waiting to get in we saw fancy cars drive in and I got to see a few glimpses of Sandra!!! giving autographs. Yay Sandra!!! The crowd was totally there for her. They were a little excited for other actors but went crazzy when Sandra showed up =) That's cause Sandra's awesome.

So finally we got in and luckily the upgrade didn't fail us. I was very happy with our seats. We were in the middle of the theatre with a great view of the screen.

Finally it was show time!! Douglas McGrath was there and talked about the movie and he was very excited and passionate about the movie. After hearing what he tried to accomplish made me really happy to be seeing this movie. Then it was time to introduce the cast! You didn't think I was satisfied with seeing glimpses of Sandra from the distance were you??!! I got to see Sandra on stage!! It was so awesome! I felt like a little kid at Disney World seeing Belle or Cinderella *lol* Throughout the movie I would randomly think "eeeeee I got to see Sandra Bullock!!!!!" then forced myself to concentrate on the movie once again =)

So the movie was about Truman Capote (played by Toby Jones who was also there!) during the time of his life while he was researching his book In Cold Blood. It was an excellent movie. I thought it was very well done. It highlighted his good and bad times nicely, had a lot of funny parts, and made you feel for him. I'm curious to see Capote to see another writer/director's take and will probably see it at some point but I'm not sure how soon I will be ready to watch it. Right now I'm more interested in seeing Infamous again. The movie also makes me want to read In Cold Blood. I think that's pretty impressive.

Yay for Sandra being in another great movie. She did an amazing job and I hope people agree. There are talks that Infamous is an Oscar hopeful which is extremely cool. I hope it does well. I guess I'll have to read some reviews tomorrow to see if other people agree.

The Last Kiss

2006-09-11T22:55:00.000-04:00

This afternoon I took my half vacation day and went to see the Last Kiss starring Zach Braff and Rachel Bilson. It was about relationships and I don't like giving things away cause I don't like knowing things so that's all I can think of without giving away alot. I enjoyed it alot. Getting to see it before it's released was fun!! Yay!!

Check it out, pictures from the premiere of Fido are on imdb! I was there and saw those guys =)

Fido

2006-09-08T20:03:00.000-04:00

OMG!! Last night was incredible!!! I'm still not over how great it was. For my first time going to the film festival, it couldn't have been more perfect.

Yesterday was the start of the Toronto Film festival, and Matt and I went to the Canada First! opener and saw Fido. We went about an hour before the start time because I was told lines get really crazy and I saw no good reason not to go early. It worked out well because we had lots of choice when we got into the theatre so we had great seats.

We had no idea who might show up so it was an amazing surprise to discover everyone came!! The producer, the writers, the major cast including Carrie-Anne Moss, Billy Connolly, Dylan Baker to name a few. They introduced everyone and talked about the film. It was so cool!

Honestly, choosing this film was pretty random. I would read parts of the descriptions of the movies and quickly put it on my list of possibilities or reject it. I thought it would be cool to see a Canadian movie and once I read "pet zombie", I was amused! I sent Matt the link kinda as a joke while still sort of wanting to see it. He was also amused and it slowly joined the must see list. For a random movie which we knew very little about... it turned out to be extremely funny! I really enjoyed it. If it comes out on DVD I would buy it in an instant.

Afterwards they had a Q&A session and one part was Billy Conolly talking about how it was like acting as a Zombie. He was entertaining. He was talking about Situational Fashionists. He gave an example of this of when you are on a plane coming back from Mexico wearing a sombraro and you think, What was I thinking??!! He explained that he was in Scotland a few days ago so at the time his plaid pants and tux like jacket made sense but that he was currently feeling the "what was I thinking?!" regret hehe.

My first TIFF

2006-09-07T12:35:00.000-04:00

This morning, I went to the box office and picked up my Toronto Film Festival tickets so it's official.... I'm going to see Sandra's new movie Infamous!!!!!! Eeee! Yayayayayayayayay!! *happiness*

Matt and I were interested in the same movies so we picked some we wanted to go to, as well as a few good backups. I was up early yesterday when individual tickets went on sale and refreshed refreshed until eventually I was able to buy tickets. I managed to score tickets for 3 really great movies so I'm very excited.

To begin the experience, we're going on opening day (tonight!) to see Fido - a Canadian film about a kid with a pet Zombie.

On Monday, I'll be using vacation time for the first time ever, to take the afternoon off to see The Last Kiss, with Zach Braff and Summer from The O.C.. Matt will be taking a long lunch and working late instead. It's what I did alot as a co-op but it's alot of hassle and it'll be nice not to worry about making up time. Yay for becoming a real person!

And Thursday the 14th is the big day! My first gala event and the North American premiere of Infamous starring Sandra Bullock =)

And because I don't say this *nearly* enough... Toronto freakin rocks!

Breakfast of Champions

2006-09-05T14:40:00.000-04:00

There was an article in the newspaper today about how much sugar is in cereal. I've always known there's a lot, even in the "healthy" cereals. I've never cared. Mmmm sugar. The article compares how much sugar is in various cereals and chocolate bars.

They try to convince you cereals are bad by saying: "You'd never consider a Kit Kat for breakfast, but it contains no more sugar than at least one popular cereal."

Hahahaha seriously? I've had chocolate bars for breakfast many times!! Chocolate is great. Why not start the day with something so yummy? I do admit I don't do this nearly as often as I did in high school now that I'm more health conscious, but it's still not unheard of. I'd like to think I'm not the only one out there who's done this.

I'd also like to point out that yes, cereals have tons of sugar, but it's really unfair to compare them to chocolate bars. Chocolate bars are loaded with bad fats (mostly sats now) and cereals have at least some nutritional value to them. To conclude, all I have to say is stop dissing my Count Chocula!! ;)

Tea in Toronto

2006-08-31T20:04:00.000-04:00

This weekend my mom came to visit me!!! It was a very big deal for her to venture to the scary city that is Toronto. The last time my mom was in Toronto was about 7 years ago and it was for less than a day. They found my place no problem. Well, they got a little confused when they got to HVE, but I went down and helped them out. Now that they've realized it's not so hard to get here, they should be able to come more often! yay!

My mom came with boxes full of crap from the garage that she no longer wants to store but I may want to keep. *sigh*. Ah well, it can stay in my storage locker I guess. Some of the stuff she brought was cool. Like my grade 10 class blues tape! My painting of Notre Dame. There was also a picture of me holding a cute kitten but I look huge!! Why she thought I'd want that picture is beyond me!

She also came bearing gifts!!! Yay birthday presents! She bought me canisters that now hold tea, sugar, flour, and unknown (maybe cocoa powder?), fun napkins, tea lights, kitchen towels, and this fun metal basket organizer thingy. I can't decide where I want to put it yet. She also brought a yummy chocolate truffle cake. My mom rocks.

It was alot of fun showing my mom and George around Toronto. You can't experience Toronto without going to one of the summer festivals so we went to the buskerfest. There were lots of little shops set up which my mom and George loved. We listened to a really cool band from Australia. The one guy had an electric didgeridoo! So fun. We also heard this guy playing the drums which sounded really good. Then we saw he was playing with buckets! It was unbelievable.

Afterwards, we wandered around downtown a bit. I showed them some of the path and took them to see where I work. Then we went to the Fat Belgium for dinner. It's so yummy there! They really enjoyed it. They can't get food like that back in the boonies.

When we got home, George helped me fix Rob's vacuum. While I was cleaning in preparation of my mom coming, I discovered it was MAJORLY plugged, and rob and I couldn't get all the crap out of the tube. Ewwww it was so gross. But anyway, with George's help we solved the problem! I was all excited to vacuum to see how well it works, but I got lazy. Maybe I'll do that this weekend. Later we watched The Longest Yard which they both really liked. We paused near the end to watch the fireworks at the ex. Gotta love the view.

Sunday morning we went to Cora's for breakfast and it was amazing as usual. I can't see myself ever getting sick of that restaurant. Then it was time for them to head off. The good news is they can't wait to come back! I have a list of things to do in future visits.

Crybaby Tiger has some competition

2006-08-27T00:16:00.000-04:00

Thursday was SR's staff association golf tourny. A couple people in my team were going so I decided it would be fun to go too. We went to Brampton, and the course is long and difficult! I was afraid it was going to be cold and cloudy, but the weather turned out to be perfect. A very enjoyable way to spend a late afternoon/evening.

It was best ball and we had alot of fun. I was going to use the golf simulator the night before to practice, but I was tired so I napped instead. Even so, I'm glad to say I didn't embarrass myself. They were impressed with how I did as a beginner. I made some nice shots, my ball was used a decent amount of the time, and I made one gorgeous put. Putting is the hardest I'd say. Not like mini golf at all ;) I must say, my dad is a great teacher! People say I have potential.

Afterwards there was a bbq and prizes! I like prizes. Our team won!! ... for having the highest score hehe. I did mention the course was difficult right???? At least we were able to get bogey's consistently =) But it meant I got a SR golf towel!! Now I just need a golf bag to put it on. I also got 3 "Big Bertha" golf balls with the SR logo on them. Very nice!!

On my walk home I decided it would be a good idea to drop by the matts first. Silly me I called first. We decided it's not necessary. I like this plan. It's so fun living close. More people should move into Cityplace. Yay Cityplace!!

The only bad thing about Cityplace is that they tore down the Spadina golf course. If they hadn't, Jeff and I could go play golf easily. Maybe other people will be interested too and we can all go somewhere like this golf course I really like which is east near my dad. Hopefully one day...

Wedding bells

2006-08-23T22:53:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was Justin and Monica's wedding. The ceremony was really nice and they both looked amazing. Mon changed a couple times during the reception and each dress was gorgeous. The flower girl and the ring barer were so cute! When the ring barer started walking too fast the flower girl put her arm out to stop him, then they continued along. The Father's speech was a little questionable and it wasn't really related to marriage. It was mostly about how electronics have taken over and how people should take time away from them or something. Meh, I like my gadgets.

The reception was really nice. I was amused by the wedding memento. Everyone got a poem in a frame and mine said: "I promise you as a lover and a friend; I will love you like I never love again; With everything I am". How sweet of Justin to give me a love poem! Too bad he is married now, otherwise how could I resist?? hehe

I didn't have alot to eat during the day since I was told there was going to be an 11 course meal for dinner. My drink for the night was white wine since it was easy. It hit me pretty quickly. After one I was feeling it, after two.. you could say I was kinda drunk. I think around this time the first or second course was being served... oops. I've been told the multiple Advil I had earlier in the day wouldn't have helped either. I didn't end up eating too much since there was alot of seafood and by the end of the meal I was too drunk to even bother eating. People seemed to be amused that I was the first one drunk. Chris probably wish he wasn't sitting beside me. I know I annoyed him when I kept trying to put heart confetti into his hair.

The night consisted of trying to walk straight, seeing double, and having fun. I managed to catch the bouquet! It came flying at me and landed in my arms. No moving necessary. The flowers are beautiful. That made me happy, and no, I haven't suddenly decided to get married anytime soon! My mom and dad were both freaked out when I told them I caught the bouquet. Apparently they believe in the meaning more than I do.

After catching the bouquet, I was waiting until the lucky guy got to put the garter on my leg. I remember past weddings not wanting to catch the bouquet solely for avoiding this, but drunken jen was amused by this idea. I waited, but it never happened! I guess they didn't know of that tradition. No worries, later that night I enforced it! And of course I made him use his teeth. That's how it's supposed to be done. Apparently I agreed that Greg could take it off later that night, but I don't remember that part! I ended up going to sleep with it on cause it amused me. How silly of me!

We were sent home with ALOT of cookies and cake. That's what we had for breakfast on Sunday. Mmmm cake and cookies. Well, I guess it was more lunchtime by the time I wasn't dizzy any longer and was out of bed. We played some cards, watched baseball and nascar, and I napped later. Very enjoyable weekend.

My ears hurt

2006-08-17T18:40:00.000-04:00

9:30 am:

Last night, at about quarter to 5, the fire alarm went off! I was having such a nice sleep too. It went on for about 15 minutes? no idea. Way too long anyway. I discovered you could silence the alarm in the suite by pressing the "silence alarm" button (go figure). It helped, but you could still hear it from the hallway, and it only worked for so long. It would start up again and eventually we couldn't silence it anymore. Damn technology!!! It also made me realize I have no idea what the building fire procedures are. There were two different alarm sounds and I have no idea what they mean.

Finally the alarm went off and I started to try to go back to sleep. It of course went on again. I stumble out of bed with the intent to try to silence it only for it to stop. *sigh*. So I get back into bed, then there's the worst noise yet! I would compare it to a very very loud feedback noise from a microphone or something. Then the security guard came on the intercom (and of course the announcement was ear piercingly loud!) to inform everyone that there was a pipe broken and we don't have to leave our suites. Not that anybody was going to anyway. I saw about a dozen people wandering around downstairs from the window. I figure I would have headed downstairs if more firetrucks than just the one arrived. Well... probably.

After the announcement, I figure that's it for the fire alarm problems. It pretty much was, except when I was finally starting to fall asleep again, the intercom would come on for a bit, but all it did was click on and sort of buzz for a bit. It was enough to startle me back awake. That happened a couple times.

So, I was pretty tired this morning. My shower in the morning didn't wake me up like it normally does. I decided I would buy a cup of coffee on the way to work today for a morning kick. I discovered buying coffee when you don't normally is actually harder than I would have thought. The fact I was tired made it alot worst, but was also the reason for buying coffee! What a vicious cycle.

I decide to go to Timothy's for a treat since I love their Cafe Mocha's and thought I'd try their coffee. First, I manage to get in the pay line, so I had to back up a bit to order. I asked for a medium coffee with milk and 2 sugars, and she says milk and sugar are over there and points. I look... I feel stupid. Then she kinda waves her arm pointing out all the coffees I have to choose from. Of course it wouldn't be as simple as just asking for coffee (I'm such a Tim Horton's girl, obviously!!), there were like 10 different kind of coffees to choose from. This isn't actually uncommon, but in my state this was unexpected (well, i saw them when I came in, but my brain never registered what they were). I kinda read the names and I'm like oh goodness, i have no idea what any of these mean!!! I like my coffee, but I'm no expert by any means. She sees I'm totally clueless so she starts to describe a few, but being tired my brain clues in shortly afterwards, so I didn't really see what she pointed to, so I just said medium strength and she poured me a cup.

I've decided they should have coffee shots when you walk in to help get your brain working so buying coffee isn't so complicated.

So now I'm at work, my coffee finished, with a slightly burnt tongue due to my anxiousness for caffeine, and I'm only marginally less tired than I was an hour ago. Figures!

10:30:

Update: It's an hour later now, and as I'm slowly becoming more awake, I realize how pitiful my little "adventure" to get coffee really was.

11:30

Update 2: HAHAHAH Now there's a fire alarm at work.

Gotta love DQ

2006-08-15T23:23:00.000-04:00

Tonight we went to Fresh, a veggie place on Spadina. It was interesting. I tried eggplant. It wasn't gross, but I couldn't get used to it either. Everybody else really enjoyed their meals though. It was Dave's last wing night for a while since he finishes work this week, and it was Reena's first! She ended up driving which turned out to be a bad idea and missed most of it =( Awww poor Reena! I hope next week is more successful.

Afterwards some of us played a Robot board game. I did horribly the first game, but when I killed myself I managed to kill Matt first so all is good. The second game was a super hard version and I kicked ass and made it look easy! Yippee!

On the walk home, we made a very exciting important discovery... An Orange Julius/Dairy Queen store is opening up in HVE!!!!! YES! This DQ is even closer than when I lived at Westcourt AND there's an Orange Julius too!! Can't beat that!

Mid-Twenties

2006-08-14T22:23:00.000-04:00

My birthday was yesterday! Yay birthdays! Friday night I spent all night cleaning. New carpets suck!!!! They should sell pre-vacuumed carpets. Vacuuming shouldn't make a bigger mess than when you started. My dad told me to keep vacuuming every few days until it's better. bah!!

Saturday I went for breakfast at Cora's with my Dad, Debbie, Vincent and Erin. It was a last minute thing so it was really nice. The food was sooo yummy it was a great way to start my birthday weekend.

Afterwards I dragged Keizo out of bed (at 2:00!!!) to go to the the gym and show him the super club. I also got to try out my new work out shirt! It's cool.

The rest of the day I spent getting ready for my party!!!! It was lots of fun. More people were able to come than I expected so I was thrilled. Highlights included earrings, melon bread, turtles (slippers and bread), alcohol and as i mentioned, friends!!

Sunday I spent watching nascar, gilmore girls, and big brother, and napping. Tony Stewart was passed in the last few laps which was a bummer, but I can't get everything I ask for, even if it is my birthday. On the other hand, HOH was revoked and a player i liked ended up winning it so yay!

Toronto has been fun like always. I got to go to the beaches jazz street festival with Rob, Patrick, and Toni which was fun. There was alot of non-jazz played, but I hadn't been down queen street east before so that was cool. We also ran into Kenny which amused me. I went to the yonge street festival with Dave which was alot of fun. We saw these amusing dragons, really creative music/art/dance/drama performance, big band, and really funny improv.

I'm getting into the habit of going to the gym and going on the elliptical machine. One week it was really hot and my ac was broken so i only went once that week, but other than that it's been successful. I'm looking forward to when exercising is no longer new, but just part of my routine. I've wanted to do this for a while so it's nice it's finally happening! I guess the next step would be using weights, or taking up some other form of exercise as well. No rush though! haha

I've been to Waterloo a couple of times. I got to see Keizo try lobster for the first time. Their eyes are beady and gross. When he was finished I hid it with my napkin. It was creeping me out!! I tried a piece and I'm not a fan of the texture. I chew, but nothing happens. I don't understand the appeal. It didn't taste gross, but didn't taste amazing either.

I discovered I can buy movie tickets at work for 9.50. That means I don't have to avoid going to the movies in Toronto since I hate paying more than I was used to at Waterloo.

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, but that's my fault for not updating in over a month. oops!

Ack! I'm becoming a real person!

2006-07-05T17:51:00.000-04:00

Goodbye freedom... hello working world!

I started working yesterday. Pretty sweet day. Got to catch up with some people I knew from working as a co-op, met some new people, did some reading and paperwork, went for lunch with my boss, then left early to watch the Italy semi-final match! The game was great, but did they have to scare me so much??? I really did not want the game to go to Shoot outs. Nice goal at the end though! Viva Italia!! After the game I went to Rancho Relaxo for first *wing* night in months!! Yayaya! Great times. Afterwards, Chris and Will came back to see my new tv and hung out for a bit. Speaking of which, the tv is awesome! I love it. So pretty. HD rules!!

Today was just as great. Did some more reading, there was a fire drill and afterwards we got free ice cream!!! I got a cookie dough ben and jerry's ice cream bar. Soooooo yummy. That turned out to be my lunch. Oops! haha. I had a nutritious supper to make up for it though. Best part of the day (and this is even better than the ice cream!!), was discovering an old co-op friend at SR is back working full-time!!! I had heard she went to a pension firm so it was a huge shock!!! Yay!! I have an actsc friend at work that's cool, and is at the same level as me. YES! Life is good =)

The Last of my Vacation

2006-07-03T11:00:00.000-04:00

After convocation, I went to my grandma's with my dad for a visit. We played golf every day, watched the italy game, went tv shopping, had lots of yummy food and saw some family. We had a great time. I only wish the visit could have been longer. Now that I'm back in Toronto I'll get to see my dad more often which will be nice. The golfing was lots of fun. We played a 9 hole golf course with all par 3's. I had one par each day, and near the end I was getting alot more consistent with alot less re-do's. I want to get a couple golf clubs so I can practice in the golf simulator in the superclub.

Keizo and I went to Detroit for the Astros' series. Comerica Park was awesome. I loved the real field and the open area. They had alot of fun baseball displays, a carousal with tigers, cup holders for every seat, and daiquiris. It was great. Too bad the astros got swept, but we made it on tv!! Keizo almost caught a foul ball that came straight at us. Unfortunately he was scoring the game so he didn't have his glove on, so the ball bounced off his hand. Ouch.

Now I'm settling into my apartment, waiting for my dad to bring my 32'' lcd flat panel tv. No apartment is complete without a tv. So far I'm loving the new place. I love looking out at the water and all the boats. I can see and hear the fireworks from Ontario Place which is really fun. Not only do I have a kitchen facet that actually works, it's a really nice facet. It becomes a hose and sprays. There's also a dishsoap dispenser to hide the bottle. I love the granite countertops. Very easy to clean. The appliances are great. I love that you can tell the fan to go on for so many minutes. The gas stove still scares me a little but I'll get used to it. My walk in closet is a beautiful thing, and having my own washroom rocks. The toilet paper holder is ingenious. The one end is open so you can just slide it off, but has a little edge so it doesn't fall off. I'll post pictures once the living room is finished.

Pictures of Convocation and Detroit

Convocation

2006-06-25T20:39:00.000-04:00

Last Friday was Convocation so I am now done with U of Waterloo!! It was a grogeous day out which just makes everything so much nicer. My dad bought me white and purple roses while we were waiting until I had to go line up. So pretty. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered I was lined up with 2 other white people! It made the wait until we could go into the gym go by quickly since we chatted. The gym was ugly with the bleachers and their "gold" curtains, but it didn't matter. I got my robe and degree which is all that counts. It kinda sucked that it was split by Math and CS because afterwards I couldn't get pictures with all my Math friends. I did get pics with my actsc friends and my fav prof in her bright pink robe which rocked. Afterwards my mom, George, Keizo and I went for lunch at Ennios. My mom made a cake which was so yummy. She even gave a piece to the waitress! I was amused, hehe. For graduation mom bought me canadian diamond earrings. They're gorgeous! That night it was off to Aga's to celebrate! Good times.

Baby Toronto

2006-06-21T07:49:00.000-04:00

I went to Calgary on June 6th to visit my brother for a week. The plane ride was so fun. I haven't been on a plane for about 8 years so I didn't remember it well. It was a mostly clear day so I was able to see land for most of the trip. I loved being so high. I want to fly more now. The plane ride home wasn't as exciting. Mostly cloudly but it was fun seeing different kinds of clouds.

Mike met me at his apartment when I got in. His place amused me. I figured because he has a well paying job, buys expensive shirts and suits, that he'd have this stylish little apartment downtown Calgary. Well, it's definetly downtown... He uses his dishwasher as a drying rack and leaves it open and pulled out, he has empty boxes scattered all over his apartment, his liquor bottles are on the end table in the living room, and has alot of magazine and telephone books all under his coffee table. Other than that though it's a nice little place. The elevators were so slow though!! My only complaint =)

The first thing I really noticed once I got to Calgary was that they have their traffic lights horizontal. I've never seen that before. I'm told they do that in Quebec too. I find it funny. Their transit system is fun too. Their subway system couldn't be underground because of the river that runs through town I believe, so they have street cars. Instead of street cars in Toronto where it loads like a bus, it loads like a subway. It's also the honour system like the GO which I find so crazy! Calagary's so cute though cause the suburbs are actually in Calgary. That's why I think of it as Baby Toronto =)

Mike showed me around a bit and he took me up to see his office which was hilarious. Piles of papers everywhere! All over his desk and floor. I can understand the need for lots of piles but I try to keep it more controlled than that hehe. His office was nice and big and the view was gorgeous. A very fun building.

So the day I arrive it's sunny and beautiful out. Then it gets cold and cloudy and it rained at times. When does the sun come out? The morning I leave!!! The weather wasn't nice to me, but it was still great. I wandered around while Mike was at work and we'd hang out when he got home. He made supper a few times and we went out a couple times as well.

I went to visit (Mom's boyfriend) George's daughter Bonnie and her family the one day. They're a great bunch. Bonnie and Dean are very nice and the kids are lots of fun. Mike played soccer with Spencer for a while which was funny and I drew with Spencer and Sydney for a bit. I also got to meet the neighbourhood cat Buddy. He wanders around visiting people when they are outside. It's awesome! The fun of a cat without the hassle of cat hair and littre box.

Some of the things I saw in Calgary were City Hall, Calgary Tower, Stephen's avenue, Chinatown, Eau Claire, Saddledome, a couple of malls. Speaking of which, I have to talk about the malls!!!!! I *heart* shopping. The first one I went to was Shinock. I'd compare it to Yorkdale but ALOT closer! It was sooo beautiful. Lots of great stores, newly renovated, it was great. The food court was unbelievable. It had a carasoul and had lots of big windows. The Mall downtown is above ground and has lots of levels. It even has a big garden by the food court. It was cool.

One last thing I loved about Calgary: the police officers wore cowboy hats!! Yeee-haw!

Best Penny Spent Online

2006-06-14T18:26:00.000-04:00

What's inside?

My cell phone!

How cute =)