christmas time!

It's Christmas Eve! My first Christmas as a Mrs with my Mr! We decided on cheap gifts for each other this year since we're hopping off to MAY-HE-KO on January oneth which is a pretty slick gift of its own.

May your Christmas be filled with peace, love, & joy and may it continue into the new year and throughout.

Merry Christmas!! xo

On the day of { 10 | 13 | 12 }...

(Photograph by Dave Fretz)

As it goes, time has passed and much has happened. Namely, my last name! The time came a week and a half ago, on October 13, 2012, where I finally got married to my guy!

I can tell you I plan on never getting married again (Lord willing) as planning of the wedding is the downfall of stable women everywhere (okay, not the only reason, I assure you). I can also tell you, though, that all the headaches and few emotional breakdowns all lead up to the most memorable day. My family & friends went above and beyond in making sure I was not worried about anything on the day but getting my "Mrs" on. And I thank them for the many sacrifices they gave to make it so perfect for us.

It's true, all that they say: the day flies by and you look back and wish it could go on. On the day specifically, I do remember that during the bits of downtime before the ceremony, my adrenaline began to pump and all I wanted was to walk down that aisle to hold Dallen's hand.

Now it's been a week and a half of marriage, and it still feels surreal. I still feel like one of us is visiting and we'll have to leave for the night...but neither of does! It's truly a blessing. He is a blessing.

And remember, friends, I'm promising that just because I'm married now, doesn't mean I'm not up for a good time. Yeah, I may cook up a beefy dinner for my man once in awhile, but last night we locked ourselves out of our house while having a pipe on the deck and we had to break in.

The adventures begin...

pine cones and scones

Autumn:

Changing colours of the leaves

Pine cones

Pumpkins

Pumpkin flavoured things at Starbucks

Tea time because it's actually necessary

Snuggly sweaters

The colour palette for fall fashion

Candles

Smell of campfires around the neighbourhood

S'mores

Flannel plaid

Generally, the layering of clothing (in moderation, of course, since it's not winter yet)

Reading cozily on the deck

Movies on the rainy days

How unbelievably fresh the air feels (personal taste season to season, I suppose)

Not sweating 24 hours a day

But also not freezing 24 hours a day

Finally being able to sleep more comfortably (no a/c)

Season premieres of shows (Downton Abbey, here we come!)

Crepes with roommates

For some reason, fresh bread is always better in fall

*crunch, crunch, crunch* (self explanatory)

The back to school feel (even though I'm done)

Coffee

Wooly socks

Feeling God in the incredible nature around me

&

Getting married!

(31 days)

These are a few of my favourite things.

brass from kenya

Bought the necklace this morning from Ten Thousand Villages. Made of brass by women in Kenya. They also have free fair trade coffee as you shop, what a good start to my Friday.

89 days

Monday saw me accomplish a few things off of my to-do list...finally. I managed to find a few things I had been looking for for my wedding. It's beginning to get into the detail stage: collecting decorations and worry that your ideas that you have in your head aren't going to look nearly as neat as you had blueprinted in your minds eye. Here's to hoping it all turns out within budget and okay-looking!

And despite my protestations to doing yard work on the field of weeds that have rampaged my garden, I do enjoy the raspberry bushes that have been yielding sweet-ass berries! I went to my friend Stacey's the other day for a waffle brunch (white sauce included!) and I brought fresh rasp's for toppings. (Those lilies are slowly dying off though, quite possibly due to the Winnipeg heatwave this past week).

Also, yesterday I actually was off work before 7 o'clock which meant I was finally able to go to church again at St. Ben's. It was so refreshing. Sometimes I feel like I lack a peaceful environment (even though I live alone) and it was nice to feel a little more at peace in a community of others. A good reminder to live a life of love and acceptance even though I live and work in a very secular society that often make me forget to be a grace giving person that I'm called to be.

Here's to 89 days til I'm a hitched woman!

Cheers!

long weekend wishes

It's July long weekend. Tomorrow is Canada Day, but Monday is vacation day. I enjoy my job working fashion, but one thing I really am looking forward to at some point in my future is actually having my weekends available to take that little extra needed time off (at the same time as other people). People are headed out to the lake to relax, enjoy the sun, and be free of all cares. I will stick around and work.

Today all I can think about are hot dogs over the fire, s'mores every night before bed, sitting on the edge of the lake just watching the water, aimlessly drifting along in a canoe...

My sister and brother-in-law moved away from Winnipeg yesterday. It makes me a whole lot of sad because now both of my sisters are on polar opposite ends of the continent (Anchorage and now Toronto). It's tough to see your best friends living so far away, but at the same time you are happy for them because they are young, married, childless and living a life of opportunity! I am super excited to begin my adventure with my top notch best friend whom I get to marry in 105 days (yes, I have a countdown on my phone). I'm daydreaming about when I'm married and I'll actually have weekends to spend with my guy and spontaneously take off to relaxation nation.

(Photo taken in Salisbury, England)

trending

Blogger seems be falling behind in popularity compared to it's trending rivals of pintrest, twitter, and instagram.  I have neither.  But I have made it onto some instagram posts.  I basically play the pity card at work with my friends saying, "I don't have an iPhone..." and they seem quite inclined to help me out with my lacking online celebrity status.  For instance here (just another day in the life at Club prepping for our new June collection):

And here (this one is an unfortunate angle where I look a little frumpy, but it got re-pinned on our corporate pinterest page!).

Okay, so I'm not actually concerned with strewing my face all over the internet.  They just happened to snap my picture.

For my girly readers, I feel some might be wanting a certain story from my England trip.  That will come, hopefully soon.

ENGLAND

I haven't posted since I've been back in Canada from my trip!  Apologies for anyone who actually still follows my blog (Meghan!?)...  Here are a few pictures from the trip that I'm sure a number of you have already seen.  It was the best trip of my life!

Cheers!

pot-o-gold

The great road trip begins in 4 days.  It's like the leprechauns once said: on the other side of the rainbow (which is the road trip), there lies a grand pot-o-gold (being the UK)!!  That analogy works, you see, because even the road trip is going to be fun.

I've been so ecstatic about my trip, that my heart sank yesterday when I walked into my garage to find my car screaming at the top of its lungs.  Well, more like an invisible someone had laid on the horn: "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...!"  (you get the picture).

The timing was perfectly appropriate to make my hair to curl and cause me to start panicking that I'd have to make payments on a car fixture instead of my extracurricular fun on my trip...  Especially frustrating because I was on my way to work when I noticed the horn, I didn't have time to do anything about it so I had to leave it (and leave my car's battery to die), and it was still going when I got back from work.

Long story short, I disconnected the battery for night.  It randomly started working again and I don't need to fix it.  For now.

I was frantic and panicky...until I realized how funny the situation actually was.

Now, off to fix myself something to eat, which will be quite the task as I have been emptying my fridge over the week in preparation for being gone.

Rice cakes?