cozy blankets

Apparently I can't avoid anything lately when it comes to sickness.  I had the stomach flu a couple of weeks ago and now I'm fighting tooth & nail to not get the full blown strep throat and/or sinus cold that're going around. My tonsils are a little swollen so I've been forced to revert back to my Mono tactics: hot water with honey, soup, and laying on the couch with a couple of cozy blankets and a movie (Narnia's on tv right now).

Good thing I have a redeemable massage from Giselle's from my man for Christmas!  Oooo boy!

i'm dreaming of a white christmas

Well, I realize that this is already a few days overdue, but my limited time off for Christmas was spent with family & loved ones.  I had a great Christmas and was very grateful for all of the things I received.  I always wish I could spend so much more on gifts on people, but unfortunately life's finances never seem to allow it.

It was weird how there was nearly no snow on the ground for Christmas Day!  Watching White Christmas was almost parallel; the four main characters head to Vermont: "it should be beautiful this time of year, all that snow!" but arrive to an extension of fall...but at the end of the movie it snows...it didn't in Manitoba.  I'm not complaining that we've had a mild December thus far, but Christmas isn't supposed to be a crunchy brown.  I accept it though.  Christmas doesn't come in snowflakes.

*Merry Belated Christmas!*

a christmas story

Since it's nearly Christmas time, I figured this video was fitting.  A friend posted it on facebook and I actually thought it was pretty cute & cleverly done. The third wiseman is hilarious.

And Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish friends today!

*Christmas Countdown: 5 days!*

christmas tree

It officially feels like Christmas my roommates and my little cabin in the city!!

It's ridiculous how much a Christmas tree (a real one at that) can raise the spirits of someone.  The night of setting up the tree was followed by Christmas presents getting wrapped, my favourite movie playing on the tv (Love Actually), candles burning, and the Lindeman wine bottle nearly drained...  *le sigh*

Our motto for the season which we wrote on the whiteboard:

Christmas Season, Peaceful spirits

*Christmas Countdown: 13 days*

17 days

After a long day at work it's nice to come home and just kick up your heels.  It's also nice to chat on the phone with somebody you like...

I'm so excited for Christmas!  I've only bought one present so far (ewps) but I have a feeling I'll come across a day (Lord willing, soon) where I feel completely motivated and get a good chunk of it done.  The most difficult thing is narrowing it down to one thing that you really want to get someone- that's all the budget allows.  Roommate and I decided to get a Christmas tree (I know it's kind of late, but better late than never) so I bought some decorations at Zellers that were cheap as borscht at $2.99 for a box of 12- and they're actually pretty classy.  Good job Zellers.  I also can't wait to stuff my face with apricot oatmeal cookies....(mom, can you make some?).

What else is nice?  Pay day Fridays.

*Christmas Countdown: 17 days*

sick day

Yesterday I took a very rare sick day.

Somehow I seemed to contract a stomach flu bug and it hit out of nowhere.  Let's just say nothing stayed down in my stomach and I was flat out in bed every single moment of my day yesterday other than making the trips to ease my stomach pain and nausea.  I guess the picture above of tea isn't relative to yesterday- there's no way I could have had tea, other than water and a little apple juice, I ate a total of 9 soda crackers and 6 Pepto Bismol.

Hadn't been sick like this in 5 years!

But I am feeling a whole lot better today, I can actually stand up without fear of a sprint to find a bin- must've been a 24 hour thing.  I hope none of you pick it up!  Today I guess I can watch some tv shows/movies/read to pass the day unlike yesterday- there was no hope of me doing any of those without making the belly churn.

Time to start gaining back some strength, on the menu: toast.

black friday off

Today is Black Friday for our American neighbours and Canadians were preparing to create a similar situation for our retail stores here.  Fortunately, I have the day off!

So I've spent most of my morning browsing tumblrs and as I was checking mine, I was updated with a fact that someone I don't know actually re-posted a photograph I had taken that I'd posted on my tumblr!  For any average tumblr person with many followers, this might be a regular occurrence.  For me, however, I was kind of excited!  Means I've created something that's worthy of space on another persons private domain (some of these 'domains' are so incredibly creative, I'm in awe).  For those unfamiliar with tumblr, it's simply a place where you can share either photos, quotes, etc, that inspire you or just appeal to you-  you can either post things from your own personal collection or re-post things from other people's tumblrs.

Also appears that I am getting readers from a broader spectrum than my inner group of friends or family here on this blog as well!  So thanks to those who actually read this!

Anyway, once I decide to put myself together for the day, I'm going to go and visit my cousin who just had her little baby girl, Chloe, a week ago; I haven't yet met the little munchkin.
*
Exactly one month until Christmas!!

It's winter.

My roommate and I had done pretty good with not turning on the heat in our house due to our heated kitchen floor which kept our toesies warm enough.  However, the night that it snowed enough for us to have a more permanent blanket of snow on the ground (aka, shovels were brought out), the temperature in the house dropped to 11c...that was enough for me to cave.  Especially when my nose felt like it had been subjected to an evening in the fridge.  I've been wearing my wool socks from Peggy's Cove on a daily basis.

And now that the snow seems to be more permanent, I've looked at how many weeks there are til Christmas: 4 weeks!  Looks like it's the perfect time of the year to watch my favourite movie Love Actually.  And I also happened to stumble upon a box of new Christmas mini-lights in one of my boxes- those will add to the warmth and coziness of my little cabin-like home!

fresh bread

 

One of my favourite smells is freshly baked bread!

I decided to throw the ingredients into the bread machine before I left for my basketball game.  It smelled so good when I got home; it's so welcoming opening the door to the warmth and smell of that freshly baked goodness.

Don't hate because I documented bread...

It also snowed all last night so we've got a layer of white outside.  What's keeping me "okay" with it is this homemade-bread toast with homemade jam and some Christmas music playing.

fake english

You're sitting in a coffee shop and you hear a couple beside you rattling off in some other language and you have no blessed idea what they're saying.  I had a Korean roommate one year in college; you can imagine the (often humorous) barriers...  I've always found it so interesting to think that those weird sounds they're making actually make sense to the other person.  Sometimes a language difference can cause you to think the person is less educated (it's shallow, but don't deny it, it happens).

So I've always wondered what we, as English speakers, must sound like to foreigners.

This gives me an idea.

i like change

Do you ever get that feeling of realizing that you've changed?

People are constantly going through changes in their lives and I think everyone, at least I do, has a moment where they actually realize a significant change from a moment in their lives til the present- and it doesn't even have to be a great time lapse to get those changes.

I'm not talking too in depth about anything in particular, but I was thinking as I was driving home tonight (darkness outside, a misty atmosphere, and being el solo in the car are a perfect setup for think time) about my thoughts on a certain subject (can't remember the exact subject at the moment) and how they've changed from only a few short months ago.

Some might attribute it to growing up or the crowd you hang out with, but whatever the case, I kinda like it.  Crazy changes like moving to a new country might be a little dramatic, but changes in what you think about something are little exhilarating.  Maybe that word's a little too strong, but sometimes people get caught up living life day in/day out without ever exploring or allowing themselves to gain a new perspective on something.  I know I get pretty unsettled with that.  And sometimes your mindset has changed without you ever realizing it was happening until a random moment- like an epiphany (sometimes a really lame small one, but none-the-less...).

Sometimes you only have that angle of thought for a short period of time until you get a new perspective...but the cycle can continue.
*
Weird how I haven't really been a committed blogger for awhile and I come up with that...

more east coast

More shots of my trip to the East Coast this past August/September.

I've been so busy!  I was frantic trying to find a replacement tenant for my old place before I had to pay October rent.  Yes, I've moved!  But only down the road.

The week prior to this one I was busy with job interviews at a few places; in one instance, I had two interviews for one place.  I ended up taking that one particular job and filled out the paperwork on the very same day that I found a replacement tenant for my old house!

No need to worry about paying rent at two places and finally finding employment so that I'm not nearing the big goose egg in the bank account anymore!  Can you imagine the weight off my shoulders?!

So I started my new job the very next day after I willed out the paperwork and worked evening shifts for the next three days.  Having been off work for a significant period of time, it was a bit of an adjustment being back on my feet all day and having to actually look presentable for a good portion of the day.

I now how the weekend off to attend a friends wedding in Winkler (congrats Janelle & Ryan!) today and be with my family and my guy for Thanksgiving!!  I absolutely love Thanksgiving with all my heart.  I love the food, the pie, the fellowship (of the rings), the fall-ness, and I really love that it's a day that can hold me accountable to be thankful for all that I've been blessed with.  Having had a difficult summer, it was easy to focus on the negative and allow stress to overwhelm me, but I always had things to be thankful for.  Of course I should focus on those blessings more than for one day or weekend, but in reality, it doesn't always happen.  So, one thing I'm thankful for is that there is a day out there specifically created to get my out of my own head.

Now go drink & be merry!

Happy Thanksgiving!

dots & loops

Second favourite place we visited on our trip had to be Lunenburg, Nove Scotia (from about the early 1700's).  I will dedicate another post specifically on the place.

Dots & Loops was a shop that I had about 1-2 minutes (literally) to look around in as we were running late for wedding decorating back in Chester, NS.  I wish I had found it earlier; it had such neat things!  I wouldn't have minded a souvie from there.

the creep

I have heard complaints lately, especially with the recent formatting changes that have been made, that "facebook is just all about creeping people now."

When has it not been about creeping people?

You consciously make a decision to put your life on the internet (in pictures, comments, personal background info, etc.).  Not for people to see?  Right, I forgot- it's just so you don't forget what your interests are and what you look like and who your friends are and who can present their best life.

You have a select group of people you are "friends" with (about 1 trillion give or take a few...), but yet you still throw out the request for them to unsubscribe to your activity because it's faaaar too public: "Why are so many people invading my privacy on this public social media site on the world wide web??"  If there are friends you don't want seeing what you're up to, why are you friends with them?  (And I don't mean so that you can creep them- don't be hypocritical, that's rude).  Suggestion: stop posting on walls so that everyone can read all the woe's of your life spilled ever so personally to your mentor; I don't know if you knew this, but an inbox message (or email, or text, or phone call) does not include the public eye.

You bet, I am a facebooker.  I experience exactly what you do.  But it's our own fault if people see our lives made public on it by none other than you, the author of your profile & posts.

I get it that more & more non-friends can see your activity, I support the idea that that's unnecessary.

However, facebook-abstinence may be the only way out.

souvies

I was fully prepared to end up coming back with zero souvenirs from my trip simply because I was on a strict budget and my pictures would be enough of a memory keepsake.  However, in Peggy's Cove, two lovely ladies (Irene & Grace) had set up a stand with some of their home knittings and when I saw these wool socks, I didn't think twice about taking this little piece of Peggy's Cove back with me to shield my feet from the horrid Winnipeg winters.

As the weather gets cooler here, my body will only thank me.

bay of fundy

If any of you have not had the opportunity to go to the Bay of Fundy, you must!  It has some of the greatest  fluctuations of high to low tides in the world.  I was told that in 6 hours, it will rise/fall 15 meters.  It seems difficult to put that perception into a picture in your head, but I was able to see if for myself and was blown away by the craziness (for lack of a better word) of it.  We saw the "craziness" from Hopewell Rocks, NB which has those highly famous flower-pot rocks (where the tides have eroded the base of the rocks away over the course of the years).

Yes, I took these pictures (below) and they are actually the two same locations documented at both low tide and high tide.  The park wasn't even open when we arrived at 9am and we hung around until about 3pm to see the final stages of the shift.

Also, to blow your mind a little, I will include for you a real time video I took of how fast the water is actually rising.  It'll make you careful of how long you linger in one area for too long...

gleeming

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to do a photo shoot for the designer, Jane, of Gleem jewelry where the models were nine'd up in clothing from Poppie on Corydon.

It was my first time actually shooting for someone I didn't know!  It was a fun experience since she's just starting to promote her work online and I'm just starting to become more comfortable putting myself out there in order to get behind-the-lens experience; amateurs coming together!  I'll admit I was awful at getting the edited final shots back to her promptly, but major things came up that needed to be dealt with so editing was put on the back burner for awhile and Jane was extremely gracious about it.

It may not have been a campaign for Chanel but it feels extremely rewarding seeing strangers get excited about your work (as evidenced by all three of the models making one of my photos their facebook profile picture).

vespa

My dad bought my mom a little scooter recently.  I finally was able to get to their place and take it for a spin.

My roommate also has one and facts are: you can fill it up for approximately $5 (or less!) and that can easily last you 3 weeks.

Moral: I want one.

returned traveller

I'm back from the East coast and it was beautiful!  I'll have more detailed posts about where I went, but I just wanted to let you know that I am back and am sharing a couple of pictures (above) of my favourite spot we visited: Peggy's Cove.  I couldn't bear leaving, but alas, time was short.

This photo (below), is a sneak peak at another historical place we went to...

the sea be billowin'

I leave for the East coast tomorrow morning!  (and just in time to miss hurricane Irene!)

It's been hectic trying to pack since I've basically been living out of my car for the last week (long story), but I'm chipping away.  Had a double-double coffee this morning, so I plan on having energy to get myself together before crashing at my sisters tonight.  I'll probably over pack...as usual.

Bon Voyage to me!

the gears

As I sit here and watch an episode of BBC's The Vicar of Dibley (highly recommended for those who love a little good British humour), I felt the need to revive my dusty blog.  Perhaps some photos that have been hiding in my folder on my desktop.

1.   In honour of the coast.  I'm headed out to the Maritimes in 5 days!
2.   Had coffee on the brain lately.
3.   One of the best hairstyles- coincidently am wearing my hair like that today!
4.   Fall is coming and so is comfort like this.
5.   An ensemble I dig.
6.   Exposed brick!  Hardwood floor!  Cats!  I wouldn't mind living there.
7.   Touché.
8.   The yellow knit sweater, Starbucks, & HBC blanket...super appealing.
9.   Sweet antique ring.
10. That's an outfit I'd most definitely wear, plus, the red hair still haunts me...should I?  Shouldn't I?
11. I'm one for "roughing it" when camping, but how cool would that be?!
12. All the photos about clothes...I want to go shopping...get a job first, Jillian!

Like I said, the blog is being revived and hopefully I'll become more creative in terms of what to write about.  I know lots of familiar faces follow this thing so it's easy to gear it towards what I know they'd be interested in reading about or looking at, but sometimes I need to forget that and just post whatever.

I'll tell you this, I will be writing about my trip to the East Coast for my dear cousin's wedding as well as the new place I'll be moving into on October 1st!  Bookmark me!

Cheers!

come back, jack!

Summer seems to bring so much that one could possibly blog about yet so it goes that blogs seem to come to a lul.  I've been unemployed for a significant portion of this summer (most of it spent trying to get over the irritating lingering fatigue aspect of Mono...just ask those people you know that have had it).

I attempted to do something despite the lack of employable energy and decided to go off and coach at a volleyball sports camp for a month- WHAT?!  I, too, wonder sometimes what I was thinking about that decision, but let me just say this: despite the fact that my energy level was sometimes so low I thought I was going to throw up, faint, cry, or all the above, it has been good to be there.  I feel like I can get some things in my personal life that were lacking back on track.  I can also find more appreciation for my life outside of a certain world again.

I popped open the bubble I'd been living in for the past 3 weeks (yes, 1 week left to go) today by catching up on the last few weeks of SYTYCD that I'd missed while away and also purchasing not one, but two magazines.

There's something about fashion magazines that get me motivated to do stuff (probably due to the fact that they are so visually stimulating- and I'm a visual person).  Make/buy new outfits, take better pictures, write better blog entries, get a better job, be a better person (believe it or not, there are articles in these two magazines that are motivating & not just trashy..like the first cover might show; hence, the reason I buy these ones), or just be a better version of me.  All things I think I need since I've been surviving off of government cheques for the last little while.  A swift kick in the pants, if you will.

I don't really have an aim for this blog entry.  It's not creative in any sense really.  Can't even say I used a new word or anything.

But I do wish to inform you that the blog will become lively once again soon.  For one, you can anticipate a trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia documented in the next few weeks!!  Besides, August/September are my favourite months, so I'd better get camera-clicking and writing!

Please keep me on your radar!  Cheers!

new bothwell

Wandering around my boyfriend Dallen's parents country yard yesterday made for some fun pictures.  It's a taste of something that I really miss while living in the city.  New Bothwell's better for more than just it's world famous cheese!