I’m not lazy, I’m energy efficient

I’m still sick.

I’ve spent the past ten days looking like the walking dead. I cough, I sneeze, I whine, I cough some more. It’s not pleasant.

Today is Sunday. I was sure by now, I would be all better. I was planning on going to yoga today. Since I can barely breathe without making a Darth Vader sound while just sitting on my couch, I figure hot yoga might not be the best thing for me right now.

I’m starting a 30 day yoga challenge on June first, so I guess this being sick business is kind of good timing. Hopefully, hopefully, I’ll be better by next Saturday.

I’ve been falling behind on my picture a day challenge, because of the whole being sick thing. Today, I’m trying to catch up. I’m also making some lemon chicken (well, my crockpot is). And that is it. No cleaning, no working, no running, no yoga. Just me, my couch, my pyjamas, my books and lots of tea. It’s the kind of day I always tell myself I’ll make time for, when I’m not sick. Now that I am sick, I am having a lazy day, and I am going to enjoy it! I no longer have a fever or feel the need to sleep after being awake for 20 minutes, so I’m going to make the most of my lazy day and start my week off feeling rested.

Please send healing thoughts, flowers and chocolate. Also, wine. I’m sure that would make me feel better.

Maple madness

Apparently it’s spring. I’m not so sure, because it’s kind of cold and it’s supposed to snow on Friday. Up to 15 centimeters. In April. I believe the proper term for this is icky. The yuckyness is bad for people, but good for maple syrup. Maple syrup is made by boiling the sap from the sugar maple. The sap flows best when it’s not too warm.

Last Friday, I went to the sugar bush with my students. I will be honest here, I didn’t want to go. I was feeling sick and the idea of spending the day with small people eating lots of sugar was not appealing. It actually turned out to be a very nice day, so I whined for nothing. (Because I did whine about going, to anyone who would listen.)

I’ve been staying away from sugar, but I figured a little maple taffee wouldn’t hurt. Ha! I almost went into a diabetic coma. I ate a few bites and had to throw it away. It was, however, pretty funny to watch the kids eat it. It was melting off the popsicle sticks faster than they could eat it. They were sticky beyond belief. Like, I love you but don’t touch me, sticky.

Speaking of don’t touch me, while most of the kids were standing around, eating their taffee, kids from my class were rolling around in the mud. I tried to pretend they weren’t mine, but no one else would claim them. So they were pretty dirty, on top of being sticky. Lovely.

Here are some photos of my sugary, sticky, muddy day. The baby goat is my favourite.

Feel the love, share the love!

I enjoy blogging because I really like to talk, and this is kind of the same thing. What I didn’t know, before I became a blogger, was that there is such an amazing community of lovely people to connect with!

I’ve been blogging for almost a year, and I’ve been nominated for a few awards, which is really a blogger’s world way of saying “I think if we met in person, we would be friends!” That’s the way I see it anyways.

The first few times, I was really good at sharing the blog love I received, but lately, I’ve been falling behind! I’ve decided to combine all the love in one post.

The Liebster award

I’ve been nominated by Foods for the soul, Every day in a dress and Get it om.

Share 11 facts and answer 11 questions. Humm, since three bloggers have nominated me, that would be a lot of questions to answer! Check out the first time I received this award for some interesting stuff about me!

The Inspirationnal blogger

Nominated by Erin has thoughts

Share 7 things about yourself. Ok!

I wish I were a mermaid.

My favourite colour is pink.

I love hot yoga.

I used to want to be a ballet dancer.

I don’t like mushrooms.

My best birthday was a surprise party when I turned 7.

Cucumbers are my favourite vegetable

The Super Sweet Blogging award

Nominated by Little Miss Cornucopia

Cookie or cake? Both!

Chocolate or vanilla? Vanilla first, then chocolate!

What is your favourite sweet treat? Sweet tarts, but not the yellow ones.

When do you crave sweet things the most? All the time. I know sugar is bad for you, so I limit myself, but i would eat sweets all the time!

If you had a sweet nickname, what would it be? Honey.

The Sisterhood of the World Bloggers

Nominated by Chronic pain survivor

Share 7 things about yourself. Hey, I did that already!

Wow, that’s a lot of love!

Now, it’s my turn to share.

For the Super Sweet Blogger award, I nominate The Usual Bliss.

For the Inspirationnal blogger award, I nominate Six imposserous things.

For the Sisterhood of the World Blogger’s award, I nominate Scrawny girl.

Every award has different rules, but there’s one thing they all have in common: share something about yourself and share the blog love!

What’s a girl to do?

I’m not a winter-hater. When you live in a country where there are four seasons, it’s either embrace it or hate it. If you hate it, you’re miserable for a long time because let’s face it, winter seems longer than all the other seasons combined.

But.

Last week, there was a really mild, spring like day. You could hear water dripping everywhere and the air smelled different. It made me think of wearing skirts and dresses with boots but no tights (my favourite time of year, both in fall and winter).

I’m trying really hard not to be sick of winter.

I really wanted to go snowboarding, and I did, last Saturday. That was the last winter thing I really wanted to do. So now, I’m ready for crocuses, Easter eggs and rain boots.

Then today, this.

Yeah. All day.

It was a fun day at work, because it was our winter activity day, so the snow was good for that. The kids could go sking, skating, tube sledding or snowshoeing. I was with the skating group and we went to an indoor rink, so the snow just attacked us on the walk there and back. The other groups got drenched. It was like huge, falling, slush flakes.

Although fun, it was one of those days. You know, with a few sucky moments that take all your energy. Report card glitches. Running around all day. Forgetting my lunch. Having my hair turn crunchy from the snow/hairspray combination.

On the plus side, the school day ended with a snowball fight. Now, snowball throwing is not usually allowed, but there were four teachers throwing snow at each other, so the few kids who had not yet been picked up by their parents were thrilled. As an added bonus, that takes care of number 69 on my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days!

After work, I figured I would go home, relax, then go to yoga.

Not so much.

I had to stop at the store to get a few things. (You would think I’d wait. But no, I just had to get toothpaste. Today.) When I got back in the car, I sat there eating Easter eggs, waiting for the windows to de-fog. I realized it might not be a great idea to drive to yoga, but I wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

I got home, only to notice that the driveway had not been cleared. Great. I tried to back up, and promptly got stuck. Like, stuck, stuck. Spinning wheels, flying slush stuck. Two really, really nice people stopped to push me out of my slush hole. Karma, send them something wonderful please.

So now, here I am, after a topsy turvy day, needing yoga. But I can’t go to yoga. So what’s a girl to do? That’s right. Wine.

Just call me Kristy Yamaguchi

When I was a kid, I loved figure skating. I watched all kinds of competitions on tv and my parents even took my sister and I to see different shows, like the Icecapades and Stars on Ice. My favourite was always Kristy Yamaguchi. I wanted to be just like her. I even took figure skating lessons. Only for one year though. When it came to doing some of the faster, face-close-t0-the-ice thing, I changed my mind and took dance lessons.

Even though I’m not a famous figure skater, I still love to skate. I’m not exactly athletic, and it’s always been the only winter sport I do really well.

One of the good things about living near the capital is having access to the world’s largest skating rink. It’s a canal that connects the Ottawa river to Lake Ontario. Part of the canal that goes through the city is turned into a 7.8km skateway.

I love skating on the canal. There’s so much to see! I went yesterday and it was such a nice day out. I would have loved to take better pictures, but I didn’t take my new camera, just my little point and shoot.

There’s a festival going on called Winterlude. There are all sorts of activities and shows to attend. There are also ice sculptures, which are pretty amazing.

Sure, it’s cold and it snows a lot, but that’s winter. It’s staying for a while, so I might as well enjoy it!

Knit one, drop two

My sister is a terrific knitter. She can knit practically anything. She’s really fast too. She’s made me lovely gifts. I think she has a small obsession with buying yarn, but I love her anyways.

I am not a knitter. I’ve knit a few blankets, but they’ve been few and far between. Actually, I’ve knit two. In about five years.

When my friend Caroline was pregnant, I knit her a baby blanket. It all went relatively smoothly, even if I had to call my sister pretty often to figure out how to pick up a dropped stitch. Here’s a tip: don’t drop your stitches. And if you do, don’t try to fix it over the phone.

About four years ago, I found out my friend Sandra was pregnant, so I thought “Hey, I can knit her a blanket too!” Yeah. Not so much. I started it. It was lovely. All pink and white and soft. And so loooong to make. Her daughter will be four in June. She never saw the blanket.

When my friend Suzanne told me she was pregnant, I asked her if she would be ok with a previously-started-for-another-baby blanket. She said yes. Perfect. Now, all I had to do was dust if off and remember how to knit.

Fortunately, my sister came over and figured it out for me. Then my sister left and I finished the blanket! Woohoo! Just in time for the baby shower. Small problem. How, exactly, does one cast off? How am I supposed to remember how to do this when I only did it once, over four years ago?

It was the morning of the baby shower and I really wanted to give Suzanne that blanket. So I had only once option. I wrapped it up, knitting needles and all.

Then I had a brilliant idea. I stopped in to see my grandmother before the baby shower and she finished it for me. She even re-wrapped it.

Suzanne loved the blanket. So did Stella. Well, she hasn’t seen it yet, but she only just arrived to the world yesterday.

It’s got a few (ok quite a bit) dropped stiches and mistakes, but I’m really proud of it! It will keep baby Stella warm!

Ooh la la!

My best friend Suzanne is going to have a baby. We’ve been friends since the first grade, and now she’s going to be someone’s mom. It’s strange, wonderful and perfect, all at the same time. She’ll be an awesome mom. I can already picture her with her daughter. Of course, in my mind it’s all Hallmark moments, but I’m sure real life will be different! Either way, I hope the next two months go by really fast, because I can’t wait to meet baby Stella.

Suzanne’s mom and sisters hosted a Paris themed baby shower yesterday. I don’t know where they came up with that idea, but it was perfect! They really went all out with the decorations too, with paintbrushes hanging from the ceiling and impressionist-ish paintings done by Suzanne’s two year old nephew. It all felt very artistic and Parisian.

We all had to wear hats, which was fabulous, because how often do I get to wear a hat that’s not a woolly toque these days? I wore my fascinator and it made me quite happy. I didn’t think I would get the chance to wear it again! Especially not in the winter. I didn’t get a picture though, as I was busy being the photographer with my awesome new camera. I did get Suzanne’s sister to take a picture of the two of us, but I had removed my feathers by then!

I was asked to make the cake. I wanted to stay with the Paris theme, but not be too tacky. I decided “chic” would be my theme. I bought some edible paper, which I had never worked with before. I liked the design, but I couldn’t cut out shapes like I wanted, it kept cracking. I decided to go with strips instead and this is what I came up with.

I wanted to take step-by-step photos as I was decorating the cake, but I am way too messy for that to be possible. Making fondant is not difficult, but it requires a very hight tolerance for extreme messiness. Powdered sugar everywhere. And I’m not exaggerating!

I hope baby Stella liked it!

31 days of dresses

Today is day 2, A.D. (After Dressember) and it feels strange to be wearing jeans and not a dress! I had a lot of fun with this challenge and I will definitely do it again next year. I’ve been posting weekly updates, but I thought it would be interesting to see all my dresses in one post. Here it is!

My favourites were days 3, 10, 20 and 24, although I love all my dresses! Do you have a favourite?

Playing dress up begins at age 5 and never truly ends

Today is December 30th, which means there is only one day left to the year and also to Dressember. When I started this crazy month of dresses, I thought there would be days where I cheated, or maybe that I would run out of dresses. Surprisingly, other than a long-shirt-that-counts-as-a-dress incident on day 9, I’ve worn a dress or a skirt every day! I even have dresses left over!

Day 22

This is my Minnie Mouse look.

Day 23

I was going last-minute shopping so I opted for a black dress as my coat was pink and my boots were beige. I felt if I added more colour, I might look like Rainbow Brite.

Day 24

When I was little, I would always get a new outfit to wear on Christmas eve. I like having a new dress to wear even now that I’m an adult. It brings back some of the Christmas magic.

Day 25

I wanted something colourful and comfortable for Christmas day, so I “winterized” this dress with black tights and a black ribbon belt.

Day 26

Day after Christmas poker game. I didn’t win, but I looked pretty!

Day 27

Perfectly comfortable outfit to watch a full mini-series with my mom. Holidays are awesome! Also, there was a snowstorm, so I wasn’t going anywhere.

Day 28

Super comfortable skirt. I thought I would miss spending the days between Christmas and New Year’s in  my pyjamas, but this is just as comfy!

Day 29

I don’t usually wear patterned tights. I like them on other people, but I always feel like my legs stretch out the patterns. I’ve had these forever and I figured Dressember was the perfect time to try them out.

Day 30

This dress is a little fancy for an afternoon of browsing at a bookstore with a latte and a friend, but I don’t have that many dresses left to choose from!

Only one more dress to go!

Check out more dresses on ModaMama’s link-up!

Spinning like a girl in a brand new dress

Week three of Dressember is already over! December always goes by in a flash, but it feels like this year, it was even flashier. I’ve been wearing dresses every day, even though it’s getting colder and colder! Also, we got a lot of snow yesterday. But I’m still dressembering.

Day 15

My first skirt of the month, and also my new hair! It’s quite the change, but I love it.

Day 16

I was thinking this would be a nice picture next to the river, but it was really windy and cold!

Day 17

Another skirt. I really wanted to wear this top, because it’s new!

Day 18

Even though this dress is grey, it doesn’t make me feel blah like grey sometimes does. I think it might be the little pink flowers.

Day 19

My hedgehog sweater, also new. My class is the hedgehog class, so I just had to buy this and wear it before the Christmas holidays.

Day 20

This is usually a summer dress, but I winterized it!

Day 21

My ballerina skirt. I don’t wear it much, just around Christmas time!

Work days are the easiest, because I always dress up. Weekends are sometimes spent in my sweats or pyjamas, so those are the hardest days! I’m on holidays until January 7th, so I’m not sure how the days between Christmas and New Year’s will be. We’ll have to wait and see!

If you want to check out more Dressember blog posts, head on over to ModaMama’s link-up.

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3