Not A House, But A Home

My Saeco GranBaristo and a Free Printable!

2015-08-10T07:01:00.000-04:00

Saeco generously provided me with the Saeco GranBaristo, but have not paid or asked me to write a review. All opinions are my own!

A few weeks ago, Saeco invited me to attend a coffee event. Their knowledgeable staff and a barista from Rooster Coffee talked about different aspects of coffee beans and espresso makers. I left that event positively buzzing from my caffeine intake and my excitement over my new coffee maker!

Until this point, I used to make coffee at home using a moka pot. If I wanted to be fancy, I would use my manual milk frother. While I could make an okay cup of coffee, I would always apologize before making a cup of coffee for guests “Sorry, I hope this okay. I just make my coffee with my little moka pot. I won’t be offended if you don’t like it” Jeeeez, no confidence.

Since getting the Saeco GranBaristo, I can’t wait to offer my guests a coffee. It’s pretty much the first thing that comes out of my mouth when people come over. “Hi! Come in. Can I offer you a cappuccino? A latté?” It has upped my hosting 100% and has totally changed my morning and afternoon tea times to coffee breaks. My favourite drink is the espresso macchiato. It’s beautiful and delicious. I just don’t think I’ll ever be able to buy a drink at a fancy coffee place again!

I am so impressed with the sleekness of this machine. It can make 16 different drinks and is only 8 inches wide. With my condo, counter space comes at a premium, and I have no issues leaving this out. It looks great and I use it at least twice a day. As this machine also has a hot water function, I’ve been able to get rid of my stove top kettle (in addition to my moka pot and manual milk frother) so it seems like a pretty great upgrade!

In terms of function, there are two parts of this machine that make it a total winner for me, and the first is that it’s a bean-to-cup machine. It grinds whole beans fresh for you for each cup of coffee. That’s amazing! First off, coffee beans lose their aromatics very quickly after being ground, so grinding them right before using them is ideal. Secondly, whole beans are far cheaper than pods. At the Saeco event, we were also provided with a bag of the House Espresso from Rooster Coffee and it was so good that I went back last week to get a second bag. I’ve made coffees for half a dozen people and they’ve all commented on the freshness, aroma, and taste.

The second part of the GranBaristo that I love is the milk frother. This thing is a total game changer. I’ve been told that whole milk or 3% milk makes the best froth, but we drink 2% at home so that’s what I use and it’s great! The steamed milk comes out beautifully silky and the froth comes out nice and thick. This machine also created a beautiful crema. I seriously cannot say enough good things about the quality of the drinks.

The machine gives you a prompt when the water needs refilling or the spill tray or spent grounds tray needs to be emptied. The only learning curve for me was remembering what drinks the icons on the front made. I wish it was written underneath the icons. At this point I’ve almost made each drink, but I made myself a little chalkboard inspired coffee menu as a reminder. I love the way coffee art looks in the kitchen. Click here to download the printable!

From the time I turn on the machine to the time I’m sitting on my couch with my macchiato is probably about 3 minutes; I have an 11 month old, so anything that gets caffeine in me with expediency is a welcome addition in my home :)

Taking a Baby to an Amusement Park

2015-08-03T07:49:00.000-04:00

Kevin won two season’s passes to Canada’s Wonderland at work a little while ago – lucky him (and me!). I wasn’t sure if a huge amusement park would be such a good place to bring a 10 month old, but I spoke to another mom about it last week who had just gone with her family and she assured me it was fun. Her biggest tip was to leave during his morning nap so he could sleep in the car, and to only plan on being there for 2-3 hours. Sounded good to me!

On Saturday, we took the 40 minute drive up. I checked out free parking before leaving and we scored a pretty sweet spot on one of the side streets. It saved us about $20 and was literally as close at a lot of parking lot spots. The City of Vaughan rule (where we parked at least) states there is a 3 hour limit, which worked for us. We also brought lots of snacks and water for Benjamin. Apparently you’re not allowed to bring in food or drinks (I didn’t know this), but they only checked my backpack (which had nothing) and Kevin cruised right on through with the stroller contents. In all honesty, if they had checked under the stroller and tried to take away Benjamin’s snacks/drinks, I would’ve caused a serious ruckus. I mean, as delicious as it is, I’m not feeding him funnel cake and hot dogs.

Once we had our season passes (kids under 3 are free by the way), we entered the park. Just as we were passing the mountain, the divers came out so we watched them jump off the mountain. Very impressive.

Then we went straight to KidzVille.

There were about 5 rides that Benjamin was allowed to go on and we went on 4 I think. He mostly seemed indifferent. The rides were super cute, but I think he wasn’t fazed because the “ride experience” at his age level is akin to being in a car, and for him it’s a case of been-there-done-that.

We also passed by a stage where Charlie Brown and his crew were putting on a show. Benjamin was entranced. He leaned forward, mouth ajar, eyes wide open for the 5 minutes of the show that we caught. Next time I want to make sure we catch a full show because I’m pretty sure this was his favourite part of the day.

About halfway through our trip, Benjamin let us know he wanted to be nursed… his cues are easy to read because subtlety is not his strong suit

I looked around for a shaded area as he gets very hot and sweaty even when he’s nursing in the AC at home. Just as I went to sit down, Kevin pointed out a family pit stop area, called Parents Rest Zone. It was pretty great! I’m not sure why I didn’t bother looking for one of those. I mean, we were in Kidsville. It would make sense that there would be an area to change, nurse/feed babies. The nursing station looked like a triage room at a hospital – picture two “rooms” created with curtain partitions. I didn’t mind though. They each had a wooden rocking chair, and Benjamin happily nursed. I’m always grateful when I can find a quiet place to nurse him because he gets so easily distracted these days. He’ll break his latch over the slightest noise or movement to see what’s going on around him.

We then made our way to the Water Park. I wasn’t sure what he would be allowed to do so I asked one of the supervisors. He said the kiddie pool was fine and there was a new water attraction at the other end of the water park that was geared toward the little kids. The kiddie pool was good though. Benjamin loves the water. I busted out one of my old swim suits (I only own bikinis), but after a bit on insecurity I also packed a fitted workout tank for a bit more coverage. Although I’m happy to say that once we got to the park, I felt fine just wearing my regular bikini top and bottom.

It ended up raining minutes after we finished up in the water, which was great timing. We were able to get out and into a change room with no line-up! People were running out of the pool in droves as we were leaving the water park, which had us a bit perplexed… I mean, you’re already wet, no? What’s a little rain?

My 7 tips for going to an amusement park with an infant:

Check the forecast! It’s just not worth it to go if it’s going to rain or if there’s a heat alert. Babies have a harder time regulating their temperature and can get dehydrated very easily.
Leave your house at the start of morning nap. Stay for 2-3 hours. Leave the park at the start of afternoon nap. But be open to leaving earlier if your baby seems tired. We arrived at 11am and left at 3pm. Benjamin slept from 8:30pm-5am that night, which was AMAZING! Any parent of a young baby will tell you that a good night’s sleep is worth its weight in gold!
Bring some baby snacks and lots of (frozen) water. We fed Benjamin right before we left so a container of Cheerios was sufficient for food. We brought a few bottles of water and his sippy straw cup. I froze 2-500mL bottles of water so that we’d have a nice steady stream of cool water.
Bring your stroller! And maybe a stroller lock if you’ve got a nice one because you have to leave your stroller at the ride entrances. I took my backpack onto the rides, but we left the diaper bag in the bottom of the stroller without issue. We made sure to lock the wheels and put a carabineer around one of the wheels so that someone couldn’t just run off with our stroller. You’d have to remove the carabineer and unlock the wheels first. This didn’t make it steal-proof, but I basically just wanted our stroller to be a bit harder to steal than the others! It was very convenient to be able to put our belongings with the stroller (babies come with a lot of stuff…) so do yourself a solid and just bring it.
Figure out parking before you leave. At Canada’s Wonderland, the parking prices are pretty crazy and the spots are FAR!! You have to arrive at or before the time the park opens to get a “close” spot. We arrived at 11am, parked across the street (for free) and walked 5 minutes to the front entrance. To us, it was totally worth it.
If you're still nursing, bring whatever you need (a cover or blanket or nursing top) so that you can nurse comfortably in the open. We were lucky that there was an air conditioned private area to nurse, but I would’ve nursed him under a tree. I don’t have any issue nursing in public, but I don’t want to nurse in the hot sun!
Bring your camera! I wasn’t sure if I should bring it, but I’m glad I did! I really wasn’t fussy about getting amazing photos, so I barely touched my settings. I just wanted better than phone quality photos, which is what I got (except for the water park one).

What To Watch When You Don’t Have Cable

2015-07-23T07:02:00.000-04:00

As renters, we always had cable and internet included in our rental costs. Now as condo owners, we have to pay for those services ourselves. And let me tell you, it’s expensive! I had no idea how much internet and cable costs were until April last year, and I wrote a post about that experience. The condo we live in is set up with fibre optics, which is faster, but it ties us to either Rogers or Bell as other ISPs can’t run on these fibre optics*. Our decision was to go without cable television and just pay for internet. When people find out we don’t have cable their response is “What do you watch??…” or “Do you have a TV?”. The answers are “Lots of stuff!” and “um.. yes (Duh…)” Just kidding on that last part. I used to think the same thing when I found out people didn’t have cable. So if you’re curious what we do at Casa Watson, here it is!

We’ve been subscribers to Netflix.ca (for about $8/month) since 2009… long before we knew anyone else using it and back when it was all grainy off-brand movies from the 90’s. It has come a LONG way since then. There are lots of lists online on what to watch, like this one by the Huffington Post. My husband and I are currently watching Orange Is The New Black season 3, but he’s watching a bunch of other shows, like House of Cards, and House of Lies. Also, the movie selections are great, as is Netflix Kids, but Benjamin is a bit too young for section.

YouTube has blown up in the last few years. I remember going on it and posting a few videos back in 2007 when there was a 3-minute limit. Now people have very successful careers being professional YouTubers! I watch a variety of channels from daily vloggers, to makeup gurus, to news-y reporters, to comic videos. If there’s something you want to learn, someone has made a video about it on YouTube. It is very easy to get caught up in a YouTube black hole. I suggest disabling the “auto-play” feature so that you have more control. Here are a few of my current favourite channels:

WhatsUpMoms: Comedic shorts, DIYs, and recipes
BuzzFeedVideo: Fun, inspiring, interesting videos. There’s also BuzzFeedYellow, BuzzfeedViolet, and other colours, but I’m not sure what the difference is.
The Slow Mo Guys: They film cool stuff in super slow motion and it’s pretty wicked.
Philip DeFranco, LastWeekTonight: news and pop culture topics as discussed by Philip DeFranco and John Oliver. Hilarious and informative.
Jamie Oliver, The Domestic Geek : Food channels. Lots of dinner inspiration. Yum.
Desi Perkins /Jaclyn Hill / Lauren Curtis: Makeup gurus. These girls are beautiful and can teach you a thing or two about makeup

A lot of people don’t know this, but tv stations have a LOT of shows available to stream (for free) on their websites. So in terms of Canadian stations, I’m talking about Global TV, CityTV, CTV, MTV Canada, HGTV, etc. Just look around and you’ll see what I mean. I use these stations to watch most of my cable shows that I’m “missing” by not having a traditional cable subscription. The only caveat is that you can’t watch them live. Sometimes they’re available the same day, but mostly I watch these shows the following day. Also, they’re not available online forever. Some only stay available for one week, some for a few weeks. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Using this method I watch shows like:

The Social, on CTV (I watch this every day during Benjamin’s afternoon nap, some time between 3-5, and it airs live at 1pm, so it gets to their site FAST)
The Amazing Race Canada, on CTV
The Bachelorette, on CityTV
When they’re back on in the fall, I’ll use this method to watch Big Bang Theory, Black-ish, Modern Family, New Girl, etc.

DVDs

Kevin owns a few hundred movies on DVD. I have a few TV series on DVD. We watch them sparingly.

What We’re Missing..

Kevin loves Game of Thrones and sports. He’ll get GoT episode downloads from others and he watches sports at our parents houses when he’s there, but we don’t make special trips for it.

***Tip!***

My biggest tip to streaming online is to download an ad blocker. It has completely changed my streaming experience! I use AdBlock Plus and it’s available on Chrome and Firefox. I cannot recommend this enough as it removes all the ads at the beginning of YouTube Videos and all the commercials from the network TV sites. Even if you’re not streaming, this removes ads from other websites. I love it.

Additionally, I have a computer tower set up to our TV. Basically our TV is acting as a giant computer monitor, so when I turn on the computer the TV opens up to my desktop. I have a wireless keyboard and mouse so I sit on my couch to do everything computer related. It’s awesome. Whenever anyone comes over they think it’s a SmartTV, but it’s just a basic flat screen.

I hope this helps you expand your knowledge of tv/video watching options outside of traditional cable! What’s available in Canada versus the U.S. varies greatly (it seems like our options are more limited) so if you’re a Canuck and have another option I’ve missed here, please feel free to share it!

*After I finished writing this post, I read a news article that says the CRTC is forcing the country’s big ISPs to allow competitors access to their fibre optic lines.

Life Updates

2015-07-07T11:15:00.001-04:00

Hello? Anyone out there???

What a long blogging break, eh? I’ve missed blogging! I’m back today to let you all know what I’ve been up to lately!

I use Windows Live Writer for blogging and kept getting an error message when I tried to log into it. With a bit of trouble shooting today, I finally figured out how to reset my password. So yay for that! Also, typing a blog post is a lot harder these days. I’m literally typing this with one hand while holding my keyboard over my head with the other hand lol. Benjamin loves to crawl all over me. I always thought I’d blog regularly when he was napping but I’m usually running around the condo trying to get other stuff done. I really want to try to commit to a weekly blog post but it’ll probably continue to be an annual event knowing me :P

So, I have a 10 month old! Benjamin is 10 months old today. Kevin and I spent a good long while looking through my Instagram post yesterday and marvelling at how fast Benjamin has changed. The last few months have been a blur. It feels like time is flying and going by so slowly too. I’ve made a few friends in the past year (mom-friends, if you wanna call them that) for which I’m thankful! Specifically Jeanette, from This Dusty House! Conveniently she lives a few houses down so we hang out a couple times a week. Isabel is Benjamin’s bestie!!

We moved into the condo last August. I can’t believe we’ve been here for almost a year!! I haven’t lived anywhere for more than 2 years in the last 15 years, which just seems crazy to me. For a while I was feeling like a transient hobo and it was really getting me down. I was feeling so uninspired to decorate our last 2 places. We kept everything in boxes in our last apartment and slept with the mattress on the floor (in anticipation of the condo being completed). Eventually I told Kevin that we had to put the bed together because I couldn’t get up off the floor anymore with my huge belly. Frankly, we haven’t done much to the condo either. We had some deficiencies, one of which was a crooked wall that they came to fix, so all we’ve really done is move our furniture in and that’s it. I rearranged things in here about a dozen times, but I think it takes a while to find what works. I’m still working on furniture placement (shhh.. don’t tell Kevin).

I’ve been out of full-time work for over 2 years as well! After my last full time job ended I thought I’d get back into work quickly, but it never did happen. That’s another reason for the lack of decor inspiration. We’re using what money we have a lot more carefully. Once I’m back at work I think we’ll work on making this place more personalized!

So anyhow, that’s what’s up with me these days… Hopefully I’ll be back here before 2016 :)

Benjamin's Birth Story

2014-12-08T07:35:00.000-05:00

I gave birth to Benjamin in September and had a crazy, whirlwind delivery. When I was pregnant, I obsessively read other women’s birth stories. I found them fascinating and felt like they would help me prepare for labour myself. In hindsight, they didn’t prepare me at all.. I don’t think anything can. But I still wanted to put down the events of the day in writing so I could remember it. Here goes! This this not concise in at ALL. I’m writing this more for me and future Benjamin than anyone else, so that’s why I’ve included all the details. Congratulations if you can read through this whole thing lol
P.S. My experience with midwives was amazing I would recommend midwifery care to anyone!

*****

On Thursday September 4th, I had an appointment with my midwife. I was 2 days overdue and she suggested we do a “stretch and sweep”. She had talked to me about it at my previous appointment and I had no desire to do it because I trusted my baby would come on his own when he was ready and because I have a horribly sensitive cervix and I didn’t want to put myself through unnecessary pain. We talked a bit more about the procedure and I ended up agreeing to do it. It was painful and I cried. Like ugly, red faced, huffing and puffing crying. She wasn’t even able to do it properly because I couldn’t relax at all, so it was all for NOTHING! Ultimately she was able to deduce that I was not dilated at all, 0% effaced, and my cervix wasn’t even facing the right direction. She told me I wouldn’t be going into labour in the next 24 hours and very unlikely would it be that weekend.

On Saturday September 6th I went to get a pedicure with my mom and sister. The guy doing mine said I looked HUGE (uhh thanks jackass), but he gave me a nice strong foot and leg massage that felt awesome, so I forgave him. Later that day I went grocery shopping with my sister and did an extra large shop. I forgot to get bagels so I walked back across the length of the store to get back to the bakery section. The walk back to the bakery section completely winded me, but like the aesthetician said, I was huge and the extra 35lbs was really weighing me (literally).

When I got home from grocery shopping, I ate a bunch of pineapple and hung out with Kevin. I really felt like crap (tired and achy) so I decided to take a bath. I sat in the tub for maybe 10 minutes and it wasn’t helping me at all, so I went to bed early. This was about 9pm. I woke up on 3 different occasions with splashing acid reflux. The third time I actually ran to the bathroom because I thought I was going to throw up from coughing so hard. Kevin had been watching TV at that point but came in to check on me. I gave up on sleep at this point and asked him if we could watch Hitch. It was after midnight. I felt little twinges when we settled on the couch to watch the movie, but I had been feeling twinges for weeks, so I ignored them and didn’t say anything to Kevin. At 1:30am I was having a harder time concentrating on the movie so I told Kevin I thought I was having contractions. He was excited. I kind of was too, but the anticipation scared me. I told him at this point that I wanted to wait until at least 6am before calling the midwife.

Side note:
In my previous appointments, I had said I would like to try to have a natural (drug-free) hospital birth. I had also said I would like to labour in the comfort of my home as long as possible. The midwives said that was fine and waiting up until 7cm was safe. After that point it’s hard to relocate because then you’re starting the transition phase of labour, which is the shortest, but most intense, painful part. They told me if I hadn’t asked for an epidural by that point, that I would by the time I reached the transition phase. They said that most women will react pretty strongly to the transition phase – crying, vomiting, diarrea, etc. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to it, but I really appreciated my midwife’s honesty during that conversation. While I like to be mentally prepared, NOTHING could have prepared me for labour.

So back to the story, I pulled out my big yoga ball and was rocking back and forth on that. By 2:30, I was surprised by how much pain I was in. Things got pretty crazy after that. At the beginning of each contraction, I would literally jump up and run from room to room wailing/screaming. My cat was freaking the F out. I’d jump in the tub (I hadn’t drained the water from earlier) and back out again. I felt like I couldn’t get ahead of the pain. Kevin tried timing my contractions but they were all over the place. At 4:30am, I threw up and Kevin called my midwife. My secondary midwife (Esther) was available so she said she’d make her way over. She got to our place at about 5am. I was on the bed, naked, on all fours, rocking back and forth in the middle of a contraction when she arrived. I immediately said, “I’m going to need to go to the hospital as soon as possible to get the epidural!!” She said that was fine and she’d have to check me first. She did an internal exam (which was painful… ugh damn cervix!!) and her face said it all. I didn’t even need to hear her say, “You’re barely dilated…” I was crushed. Stella, my primary midwife, had told me at an earlier appointment that women generally dilate a half centimetre every hour. Esther didn’t tell me how far dilated I was and I didn’t ask, but I knew it was less than 4 because that’s how far you need to be to be admitted to the hospital. Later on she told me I was 2cm when she checked me.

So then Esther sat on the side of the bed and told me to lay down on my side. She’d put her hand on the top of my belly when a contraction would start and would coach me to say “whoooooooooo. whooooooooooo. whooooooooo” and then would let me know when the contraction had reached its peak. I found her presence to be extremely comforting. Kevin was trying to rub my leg while Esther was there, but I didn’t want him to touch me at all lol. I can’t really explain why I found Esther to be so comforting, but she was authoritative and caring and she’d gone through labour herself before so I really felt like she could help me through it. She coached me through contractions for about an hour, then said she was leaving. She said to call her in a couple of hours or if my mucus plug came out or if my water broke.

After she left I tried to take little cat naps between contractions but it was so difficult to rest. I ended up getting up and sitting backwards on the toilet. At 7:30am I noticed I was bleeding and I was SO FREAKING EXCITED. I never thought I’d be so excited to see blood, but it meant progress and meant that we could call Esther back! Yay!! I’d barely even processed the thought before another contraction started and I heard a huge SPLASH in the toilet. It legitimately sounded like someone dropped a brick in the toilet bowl and there was splash back all over the toilet and floor. I yelled out to Kevin that my mucus plug came out and my water broke and that there was meconium in the water. Note: there wasn’t meconium in the water. It was super murky looking because I’m gross and hadn’t flushed the toilet after my mucus plug came out lol.

Esther told us to get to the hospital and she’d meet us there at 8am. We live just over 1km from the hospital and can see it from our condo, but it took us over half an hour to get there because my contractions were extremely intense after my water broke and I couldn’t help but push. Every time a contraction would start, I’d have to stop and press up with my hand. I’d been told that pushing before you’re 10cm can cause your cervix to tear so I was freaking out inside. In my head I thought I was 4-5cm dilated and all that kept me going was knowing that I was going to be at the hospital soon where I could get an epidural because if it hurt this much already, there was NO WAY I was going to make it through the transition phase drug-free.

When we arrived at the hospital, Kevin parked the car in the ER lot and we rushed through the doors. I had a contraction in the ER waiting room lol I seriously felt like I was being ridiculous but it was so painful. I had my dress hiked up around my waist, my hand pressed upward on my crotch, while I was on my knees screaming in pain. (I’m laughing while I’m writing this, but it was super intense at the time). A nurse came out to check out what was going on and told us how to get to Labour and Delivery. We ended up taking a wrong turn and another nurse found me (I kid you not) shaking and trying to break through a set of locked doors like I was the Hulk. She said she’d get us a wheelchair and I said I didn’t want to wait and could we please run there if you don’t mind??? When we got up to Labour and Delivery, another nurse came up to us and immediately was like, “They didn’t give you a wheelchair?! Hold on!” She grabbed a wheely office chair, told me to sit down, then ran down the hall dragging me on the chair behind her while I was wailing and knocking into the walls and carts in the hallway. We must’ve looked ridiculous but I didn’t care.

When we got to the room (at 8:12am) I could barely keep my eyes open. I noticed a few women I didn’t recognize and I said, “I have a midwife! Where’s Esther??” She said, “I’m right in front of you. Open your eyes” lol I didn’t realize my eyes were closed. I hopped up off the chair and said, “I’m going to need that epidural right now!! What do I need to do?” She told me to get undressed and get onto the bed so she could examine me. I stripped down in about 5 seconds and while I was doing that I told Kevin to go pay for a parking pass because I didn’t want to get a ticket or have our car towed. LOLOLOL! He obediently ran out of the room. Not even 20 seconds later, Esther takes one look at me and says, shocked, “omg you’re crowning!! The baby is coming NOW! Someone get Kevin back here or he’s going to miss it!!” I couldn’t believe I’d gone from 2-10cm in 2 hours. I’d just sent Kevin to go pay for parking. They were telling me the baby was coming RIGHT NOW. And there was no time for an epidural. Esther gave one of the other midwives (who had just finished attending another birth) her phone and they called Kevin and told him to get back ASAP. Poor hubby… he told me later he ran back through the hospital as fast as he could. All I was thinking when I started pushing was, “If Kevin misses the birth of his child because I told him to pay for parking, he will never forgive me!” He got back to the room just as I started pushing. I had one midwife on each side of me and I had one foot resting on each of their hips. Pushing felt AMAZING. The relief I felt once I was able to start pushing was fantastic. Three contractions in and Benjamin was born! It was 8:22am, 10 minutes after we arrived in the room. I didn’t know it at the time, but his cord was wrapped tightly around his neck so they had to cut his cord when only his head was out. And then he did a poo-splosion all over me on the way out. Because of this, they took him away to examine him for a minute. I was overwhelmed by the amazing relief I felt when he came out and there was no more pressure - I just fell back in (no joke) complete bliss. When Benjamin let out his first cry that’s when I realized they’d taken him to the examination station a few feet away and I just lost it. I started sobbing uncontrollably. The experience was so amazing. Esther put him on my chest and he immediately found my nipple and started sucking. I was surprised at how strong his latch was. Kevin called our families at this point to tell them we had the baby. They were all so shocked. We had agreed earlier that we wanted it to just be me and him at the hospital and I’m so glad we did. As it turned out, we barely made it to the hospital ourselves so we wouldn’t have been able to have our families there even if we’d wanted them there.

When Benjamin was born, we were still deciding between two names. Naming a person is HARD! Ultimately we ended up naming him Benjamin Joseph. He weighed in at 8lbs 8oz with a head full of hair and dark grey eyes. The whole time I was in labour I kept saying to Kevin that I wouldn’t be able to have another child because it was so painful. Then literally the moment he was born I thought, “That wasn’t so bad! I could totally do that again”

And about the drug-free part… I’m happy I got to experience a drug-free birth. Even though I asked for an epidural a few times, I wasn’t able to get any kind of pain relief – not even a Tylenol! I had a difficult time getting ahead of the pain and when we were on our way to the hospital, the thought of pain relief via epidural is what kept me going. Little did I know this guy was already making his way down. If I can make a comparison, it’s like running a marathon and feeling like you can’t make it, but the finish line is just around the corner. You just can’t see it. Also, birth was so incredibly different than I thought it would be! My recovery was slow as molasses, but I felt so great immediately afterwards. Also, we packed a hospital bag and didn’t even open it lol. I thought I would be walking during the contractions and using the whirlpool tub, but as it was, I didn’t even get a hospital gown LOL I just delivered naked with the midwives holding my legs. I even packed my DSLR, but the whole thing was over with so fast that we didn’t get any labour photos at all!

Hopefully my story helps someone out there, or at least entertains a few :) If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments section down below!

Experiences of a First-Time Pregnant Lady – Part 2: Preparing for Labour

2014-07-14T07:15:00.000-04:00

As we all know, the culmination of nine months of pregnancy comes to a close with labour. Dun dun duuuuun! I’m in the third trimester now, and with this being my first pregnancy, I've been reading up on ways I can prepare myself for that grand moment and wanted to share this with my readers. Note: I'm a healthy individual having a normal pregnancy. I'm no expert and am not dispensing medical advise. Please consult with your primary care practitioner before trying any of the following.

Nutrition

Water water water!

Before getting pregnant, I would rarely drink water. I'd have a cup of tea in the morning and another in the afternoon. I rarely felt thirsty, but one look at my skin (or pee colour lol) and you could tell I was dehydrated. Now I drink about 6 cups of water/non-caffeinated drinks per day, which still probably isn't enough, but my skin, hair, and nails, have never looked better! I'm working on upping my water intake because being properly hydrated has so many benefits to pregnant ladies, all of which will be useful come labour time:

Increased energy
Reduces muscle cramps
Improves circulation
Keeps you regular
Reduces fluid retention

Red Raspberry Leaf Tea

I first heard about Red Raspberry Leaf Tea (RRLT) on a mommy vlog on YouTube. It's an herbal, non-caffeinated tea that is most commonly used in pregnancy for the purposes of increasing uterine tone. What does that mean?? Supposedly, it may help women to have stronger, more effective contractions, which may make labour shorter. I asked my midwife about it and she said it was safe to take and she has heard that the loose leaf versions are more effective than the sachets. I initially bought a pack of 20 sachets from Shoppers Drug Mart for $6.99, but then found a loose leaf version at The Tea Emporium on the Danforth for $14 for 100g. I'm a bit skeptical, but I love tea, so thought I'd give it a try. I drink 1 cup a day after letting it steep for 10 minutes.

Skin Care

Water water water

There's no denying that there's a lot of stretching that goes on in pregnancy and delivery. On top of the good things all this H20 is doing for my insides, it's also helping prepare my skin!

Coconut oil

This tip is more for vanity than actual labour: I have been using coconut oil exclusively to moisturize my body for at least a year and I can't ever see myself going back to regular lotion. The brand I use is Carrington Farms Organic Virgin Cold-Pressed Coconut Oil (bought from Costco for less than $20 for 1.6L) and I love it. I got stretch marks in my teen years on my legs, butt, and boobs, and am really really trying my best to avoid getting any new ones. I don't have any new ones yet and this is what I've been doing:

Every time I shower I lather up my body using exfoliating gloves. Focus on areas you don't want any (new) stretch marks.
Once done showering, I very lightly pat myself dry. The key is to still be quite damp.
Apply coconut oil on my body from the neck down! Bonus points if you can spend a few minutes really massaging it in to those areas prone to stretch marks!

Physical Exercises

Kegels

I used to think that strong ab muscles were the key to pushing effectively during labour, but have heard countless times since getting pregnant that it's all about the kegels. I have an alarm set on my phone to remind me to do them. Kevin likes to yell out, “Kegel Time!” every time he hears my alarm lol I do 5 sets of 20 and hold each one for 3-5 seconds, depending on how much time I have. Keeping these muscles strong helps avoid any stress bladder leakage, and helps with post-partum recovery as it increases blood flow to that area.

Squats

Squats and kegels go hand in hand! I've been reading over and over that staying mobile is one of the best things you can do to speed up labour. Lying on your back is apparently one of the worst. A lot of labouring positions engage your leg muscles, so it's suggested to do squats to increase your muscle tone so that you don't fatigue yourself early in labour. I aim to do 20 squats every time my kegel alarm goes off, but it's a lot harder to stop and do a bunch of squats if you're in public.

Pre-natal yoga

My leg flexibility is pathetic. And I'm also not good at breathing deeply. I'm a shallow breather with lots of intermittent sighing. This is where yoga comes in! I found a pre-natal yoga series by Body Talk Daily on YouTube. Each video is 10-12 minutes and there are 5 of them so it's very easy to do a few times a week.

Walking

Walking is a great cardio exercise for pregnant women! I set a goal in May of walking 100 miles before this baby makes its debut at the end of summer. I'm about 25% done and may not complete 100 miles, but the point was to set a goal (using the RunKeeper app) to motivate me to get outside! Walking in the third trimester is supposed to help the baby get into the best positioning for birth as well. My tips for walking:

Bring water with you
Wear comfortable shoes
Sunscreen and a hat are also a good idea. During pregnancy, your skin can get more sensitive, causing you to burn more easily.
If you'll be walking for a while, do a little research to find where the bathrooms are on your route. I've cut a few walks short for not having planned ahead

Sleeping

Everyone says, “sleep now because you won't be able to once the baby gets here!”, but unfortunately it's been proven over and over again that you can't “catch up” or “store” sleep. At various points in this pregnancy, sleep has eluded me for a variety of reasons: weird dreams, bathroom breaks, heartburn, etc. Labour is (usually) a long process and I want to be well-rested for it! I've let Kevin and my family know that if they see me passed out on the couch, just leave me be. Kevin's woken me up from the couch before to tell me to go to bed – he had good intentions and thought I'd be more comfortable in bed – but then I couldn't fall asleep once I went to the bedroom! My tips for sleeping:

As it can be difficult to get comfortable, catch your zzz's wherever you can. Ask those around you not to wake you up unless necessary.
Avoid eating before going to sleep
If you're experiencing acid reflux, prop yourself up with pillows so you're sleeping in a more upright position
Put a pillow between your knees if you're sleeping on your side. I used to be a stomach sleeper pre-pregnancy, and once I got to the point where I had to start sleeping on my side, it was giving me achy hips. A pillow between my knees made all the difference! I bought this one from Ikea for $4.99 and saved myself the added cost of the expensive body pillows that are highly advertised towards pregnant women.

Mental Exercises

Tune People Out

So this might sound counter intuitive because I'm writing a blog post about labour, but I really feel like one of the most important things I've done is to tune people out. Since getting pregnant, I have found that people are downright fascinated by pregnancy. And as such, they start actin' a fool. I've had a lot of people, almost all women and almost all mothers, say and do some very insensitive things to me. I don't want to hear about your horrific back labour, or your friend's emergency C-section, or about your stage 3 episiotomy. I don't want you to tell me my ass looks fat, or that I look like I'm about to blow, or that being pregnant in the summer is the worst. These are all things that have been said to me. I've found the best way to avoid getting unsolicited advice is to not talk too openly to people about my pregnancy. I think the more information you give to people, the more opinions you get back.

Getting In The Right Mindset

I’ve watched a few documentaries (ie: The Business of Being Born, which was awesome!) about birth and it’s so interesting to learn about the different views on birth in different cultures. In Western culture there seems to be a lot of fear surrounding birth (watch this TedTalks video, Reducing Fear of Birth in U.S. Culture by Ina May Gaskin), and there are proven linkages between fear and pain. Watching these documentaries made me feel empowered!

And I had a conversation with my mom's friend, who has 2 children under 2. She said listening to the hypnobirthing app on her phone while labouring was immensely helpful in helping her relax. I aspire to feel relaxed during labour! We talked about a bunch of stuff, but I immediately went home and downloaded a couple free hypnobirthing apps to hear what they sounded like and they were SO relaxing and gave me really positive feelings about labour! I want to feel empowered and calm about labour so I'm adding listening to the hypnobirthing tracks a few times a week to my pregnancy regime. Anything that can make me feel good about pregnancy and labouring is a huge plus in my books!

I'd love to hear how you prepared yourself for labour! What worked for you? What didn't? What surprised you about labour? Spill the beans!

DIY: Natural Multipurpose Cleaner

2014-07-09T07:15:00.000-04:00

Since becoming pregnant, I’ve taken a closer look at some of the chemicals that are part of my daily life and have done some reassessing – I’m talking to you, nail polish!… which is apparently really really bad for you :( I switched over to a homemade cleaner a few years ago and haven’t looked back. Sure, I have to put in a tiny bit more elbow grease, but I’m fine with that. I need the exercise anyway. The one thing I miss from my all purpose cleaner is a “fresh” smell. Most store bought cleaners have a synthesized fresh smell of pine or citrus.. but I was wondering if there was a natural and affordable way I could add the smell of lemons to my vinegar solution so that my house didn’t smell like salt and vinegar chips. Granted, the vinegar-y smell dries off fairly quickly, but wouldn’t lemon-infused vinegar be so much better?? After a bit of internet sleuthing, I found what I was looking for!

To make this:

Cut up a whole lemon and remove the flesh from the rind*
Add the rind to a lidded jar and pour vinegar over the rind until your jar is full
Put the lid on the jar and store in a cupboard for about 2 days for the lemon to infuse the vinegar
Once infused, strain the infused vinegar into a spray bottle
Optional: Compost the lemon rind :)

*Add the lemon flesh to a pitcher of water to make yourself a refreshing summery drink!

To do a test-run I used the lemon infused vinegar, along with about 2 tbsp of baking soda, to clean the bathtub… it worked like a charm and the smell was great too :)

For cleaning my house, I use a variety of ingredients, all of which can be found in the grocery store, and most of which you can ingest no problem!

Typical ingredients:

White vinegar
Baking soda
Hydrogen Peroxide

Occasional ingredients:

Lemons/Lemon juice (if I have them and they’re cheap/in season)
Alcohol
Olive oil (a drop or two will help shine up wood surfaces!)

Do you have any go-to natural solutions for cleaning? I like to hear what other people use!

One Year Later

2014-06-17T07:50:00.000-04:00

Sam Obeid Photography

This past weekend marks mine and Kevin’s one year wedding anniversary. To say the time has flown by is an understatement! A lot has happened in that time, but I still can’t believe that it’s already been a year. And I thought I’d be sad about not being a newlywed anymore, but I’m not. At all! I actually feel way better about being a regular ol’ married couple now that we have that first year under our belts. I hear the first year is supposed to be the hardest, but we’ve been together for almost 7 years now, lived together for a couple years before getting married, and have pretty much had every trial and tribulation thrown in our direction in that time.

For those that say that marriage is just a piece of paper and doesn’t change anything... I think those people are mostly the ones that have choose to co-habitate before getting hitched. I agree mostly that the day-to-day doesn’t change much, but marriage makes everything feel a lot... heavier. Like, this is FOREVER. It’s a pretty heavy decision to willingly choose to commit the rest of your life with someone! I think way too many people out there reach a certain point where they think they’re “at that age” and just marry the person they’re with, or they get wedding fever because their friends or family are all getting married. Don’t fall for the trap! I was so glad when all the wedding planning was over and Kevin and I could get back to just being us. I actually said as much in our speech at the wedding, which got everyone laughing.

A great piece of advice I heard about relationships is regarding the fact that you have to be happy with yourself before you can be happy with someone else. It went something like this:
Remember, you’re the dessert and your partner should be the cherry on top! Definitely not necessary, but nice to have :)

So anyway, the whole point of this post is that I wanted to share what we did for our anniversary! The weather was AMAZING, so we took a weekend trip up to Niagara-on-the-Lake. If you’ve never been, it’s really quite beautiful up there. We bought some passes for a wine event called the 2014 Discovery Pass Wine & Food Pairings. With each pass ($40+tax), you get 8 food and wine pairings at different wineries (you choose from a list of 20-something wineries) and they had a Designated Drivers pass ($30+tax) where you get a mocktail instead of wine, so I got that pass. It was definitely money well spent! I made a little map that showed where the wineries we wanted to visit were located and the food/wine pairings they were offering. It was very handy to see everything laid out like this while we were driving around so we knew what order to visit them in.

My favourite food was HANDS DOWN the grilled calamari bruschetta with toasted fennel, tomato, marinated olives, and basil at Inniskillin! It was so delicious. Other great food locations were Kacaba Vineyards, Good Earth Food & Wine Co., and Trius.

My least favourite food was easily the thai-style chicken (too soggy!!) at Hinterbrook Estate and the Jamaican jerk slider (too dry!!) at Greenlane Estate. Also, the drink samples they gave at Greenlane Estate were SO STINGY!!!!! Kevin got about a thimble of Riesling, and I got about 3 thimbles of lemonade. I’m not sure why they were so stingy, especially with my lemonade… it’s freaking lemonade! Oh well.

The Discovery Pass event is still going on next weekend, so here are some iPhone photos I took if you’re interested in seeing what we got

1. Good Earth Food & Wine Co offered a trio: an Italian vegetable caponata with rosemary and Bella Vitano cheese; a Jamaican beef patty with lime and papaya slaw; and a Vietnamese cold roll with tamarind dipping sauce
2. & 3. Kacaba Vineyards offered: BBQ five-spiced pork medallions on arugula, with a navy bean and fennel mix, topped with sweet tomato ginger drizzle. The vegetarian option (which I ate) had all the same, minus the pork, and with the addition of feta cheese and a ciabatta bun.
4. Trius offered: a fresh strawberry cupcake topped with Chantilly cream.
5. Reif Estate offered: fish tacos – blackened tilapia with avocado cream, shredded cabbage, and pico de gallo on a soft corn tortilla.
6. Jackson-Triggs offered: Jerk chicken roti with cilantro, habanero, and cucumber.

Have a great week everyone :) This is our last week before summer officially begins on Saturday!

Experiences of a First-Time Pregnant Lady – Part 1: Finding Out I was Pregnant

2014-06-02T07:07:00.000-04:00

As of writing this post, I’m just starting my third trimester. Ahh! Part of me feels like time is flying and part of me feels like I’ve been pregnant forever. Sometimes when I see myself in the mirror, especially my bare belly, I think, “holy crap, I look so different!!” and other times it just feels normal. Like, “Didn’t I always have a baby bump?” lol no!! At Christmas last year I had a 25 inch waist and was 25 lbs thinner.

So anyway, I’m writing this series of posts as a kind of diary entry. Being pregnant for me has been a trippy adventure so far. I was never that girl who used to say, “When I have kids…” It was always, “If I have kids…” For some reason I just felt like I wouldn’t or couldn’t. I couldn’t picture myself being pregnant or having a family. The whole idea just seemed really foreign and I didn’t understand other women who were so certain they were going to have kids. I used to tell Kevin that if he was certain he wanted kids, I wasn’t the girl for him because I didn’t think I’d ever truly want them. But while I couldn’t picture myself pregnant or with a baby/young child, I knew I wanted to have grown kids. Does that makes sense? I wanted to have a relationship like what I have with my parents now. Weird? Maybe. But that’s how I felt.

So here’s my experience on the whole pregnancy thing so far. Note: There’s going to be some over-sharing in this post. You’ve been warned. Also, these are my personal feelings on the matter – if you feel like something I’m writing is offensive/upsetting/etc feel free NOT to let me know in the comments :) Positive vibes only!

Finding out I was pregnant:

Kevin and I got married in June 2013. His friends had their first baby a couple weeks after our wedding and we had gone to see them when their baby was a few months old. During our visit, the new mom told me all about her experiences of getting pregnant and delivering. I always love hearing these stories. There is literally no such thing as TMI in my world! She told me she bought cheap ovulation predictor strips online and that if I were ever trying to conceive, that’s the way to go because it’s waaaay cheaper than the ovulation kits offered at the pharmacy. Seemed like smart advice, so I kept it in my back pocket.

In the fall, I had been modifying my diet from poultry/seafood to seafood to vegetarian to vegan, and as a result, my period had been quite late in October (there’s that oversharing I was talking about lol). Even though we hadn’t been trying, we had been talking about starting to try and I had been thinking about it, and I had convinced myself I was pregnant! I went to Dollarama to get a pregnancy test (yup! I’m that girl.. no shame lol) and it was negative. I took another one a few days later, also negative. I finally got my period, which ended up being 8 days late, so I chalked the whole thing up to the changes in my diet.

In early November, I bought some pre-natal vitamins, and at the end of November, we threw caution to the wind *wink wink*. I remember saying that if nothing happened by the end of December, I wanted to be careful until at least April because I didn’t want a child born at the beginning of winter. Winter is cold and depressing and it seems less ideal to have a baby in the middle of it. At this time, I also made a trip back to Dollarama for some ovulation strips. I bought 5 of them. There wasn’t anything leading me to believe I couldn’t have kids, but like I said in the intro of this post, I just wasn’t confident that I could. A $5 investment for some ovulation strips seemed like a good place to start. The instructions are on the package, but basically you have to start using them at certain time based on your average cycle length. One lines means you’re not ovulating, 2 lines means you will be ovulating in the next 24 hours. The package says something along the lines of “do the horizontal mambo after 24 hours but before 48 hours of testing positive.” The fourth test I took had the two lines I was looking for, but we missed the <24/> 48 hour window and I remember thinking, “we’ll try for real in the spring”. No harm, no foul.

My period ended up being late again in December, but this time I didn’t stress about it at all. It was clearly diet related, as I had committed to a vegan diet until the new year. I had also lost a few pounds so I thought the weight loss and diet were to blame. On December 30th, my friend came over to have a vegan baking/cooking day with me. We had to go to the store to get some supplies before we started. I picked up 2 pregnancy tests because was planning on drinking -to be honest, because I didn’t have to drive at all that day, I fully intended to get drunk that night. When we got back to my house, I poured her and myself a glass of red wine when she got a phone call. I took that time to excuse myself to the bathroom to take the test just in case before I started drinking. At this point I was 8 days late (same as in October) and really felt like my conscience needed to see that negative test before I started on my wine. I did my thing, 2 lines came up, that meant negative, right????, and I checked the box just to make sure….

Two lines meant positive! I was panicked and confused. I think at that point my eyes bulged out of my head. I was confused because when you take the ovulation tests, which look exactly the same by the way, you’re looking for 2 purple lines. So I had gotten used to thinking I was supposed to be looking for 2 lines. Also, I was so ridiculously dehydrated at this point and thought that maybe the hormone is just super concentrated in me because I’m so dehydrated lol All these thoughts passed through my head in about 3 seconds and then I burst out of the bathroom door waving around my pee stick mouthing “WHAT THE F*CK IS THIS???!!” to my friend, who was still on the phone. Her eyes bugged out of her head and she motioned for me to take the second one (I always buy 2 tests at a time). The second test came up with the same result. And I feel like I also need to say, there was no waiting 3 minutes for the lines to appear… they appeared immediately and they were dark. There was no mistaking that both tests had 2 dark lines. I grabbed my phone, went into the bedroom, and called Kevin, who was at work. The conversation went something like this:

Him: Hey

Me: Guess what the f*ck I just did??! I just took a pregnancy test and it says I’m pregnant!!!!!!!

Him: Are you serious?

Me: YES! Of course I’m serious!

Him: ….omg. We’re gonna have a baby… (although I couldn’t see him, I knew he was grinning from ear to ear. Not exactly the same response as me LOL)

My friend, who had just finished up her conversation came bursting into the room and tackle-hugged me down at this point. Kevin and I said our goodbyes and my friend and I walked back into the kitchen. I was STUNNED. I was so blasé about buying the tests, and taking the tests, and being late. We put so little effort into trying to get pregnant. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I know a lot of people have fertility issues; I just thought we would have had to.. you know… try a little harder. Anyways, my mind was reeling and my eyes settled on the 2 glasses of red wine on the kitchen table that I had poured no more than 5 minutes ago. I said to my friend, “Do you think I could still drink that?” She then picked up my glass and poured its contents into hers lol. I guess that answered that question.

The rest of the day was a blur. Kevin came home. We had a moment. He was SO excited. I was freaked out. I’ve never had such an introspective day in my life. I literally couldn’t think of anything else. I mean, I didn’t feel pregnant, so clearly a mistake had been made. I called my doctor and scheduled a physical and a blood test, but I couldn’t get an appointment for about 10 days. Other than not drinking, I didn’t do anything different until my appointment. I decided I didn’t want to tell anyone until I at least had the results confirmed with a blood test, but those 10 days were weird. I didn’t feel different, but everything was SO DIFFERENT! I could barely sleep because every night I had the most crazy thoughts about pregnancy and babies,and when I did finally fall asleep I had the vivid dreams and nightmares about it too.

My physical with my family doctor was pretty routine, except he told me to make sure I take my multi-vitamins and don’t eat deli meat (random). He said if I took a home test and it was positive, that I was definitely pregnant. I was still skeptical. He sent me down to the lab to get my blood test done and the following week he called me with the results just as Kevin was dropping me off on his way to work. I put him on speaker phone and he let me know I was “definitely pregnant”, that my hormone levels were showing me to be at least 4 weeks along, and that I’d need to start my pre-natal care as soon as possible.

**MIND BLOWN**

There was a baby in my belly. No two ways around it.

Living Without Cable

2014-05-05T07:20:00.000-04:00

and for a scary few weeks, without internet!

I have a confession to make: I’ve never lived in an apartment/house that didn’t include cable and internet. That includes my parents’ house growing up, residence in university, 2 university rentals, and 3 different post-university rentals. The cable and internet has always been included in my rental costs, except for an apartment that I had in university where the cable was just never disconnected so I had free cable for 2 years!! #opportunisticcriminal

As the move to this new apartment was so temporary, we decided to not get cable or internet while we were here. We figured it’d be 2 months (tops!) before our move to the condo. As it stands, the day after we moved in here, we got notification telling us to schedule our Pre-Delivery Inspection (PDI) for our unit. I was excited at the prospect of a move so soon following our move here (that meant we really wouldn’t have to unpack anything except bare essentials), but I was sceptical that this PDI would actually go through on April 16th, as planned. My pessimism was due to the facts that:

>90% of purchasers had their first PDIs cancelled
there was no permit yet for people to move in on our floor
we had taken our own private sneak peak at our unit and were missing things, including flooring, toilets, light switches, closet doors, door handles, etc.

Two days beforehand, we received notice that our PDI was cancelled. At this point, I had gone 2 weeks without cable and internet. If you’re thinking, “oh poor you #sarcasm #firstworldproblems”, you’re absolutely right! I never knew before how much I depended on cable and internet! In an act of desperation, I called Bell. Bell and Rogers are both offering pretty sweet deals to the purchasers of my condo so I wanted to see if I could get any kind of deal extended to this apartment for internet service. The gentleman at Bell was very nice, and offered a great deal in terms of monthly costs for internet (about $30 for a crapload of bandwidth), but the start-up cost was $50 and we’d be locked in for 2 years. Um, no thanks. I’ll stick to my DVDs and browsing internet on my iPhone for now. This whole process has made me seriously consider not going with either of the two major service providers this city offers and finding an independent that will offer a better package at a better cost!

After talking to the Bell guy, I thought about the tenants upstairs. Before we even moved in, I wondered if I would have the balls to ask them (a retiree and her daughter) if we could share their wifi (if they had it) and split the cost while we were in this apartment. They are both very very nice ladies, but I’m a wimp and couldn’t bring myself to ask them. I didn’t want them to think we were trying to take advantage, but I did see it as a win-win situation – if they had a decent amount of bandwidth, we could supplement their costs for it for a month or two and it wouldn’t affect them at all. Makes sense, right? I just had to muster up the nerve to ask. Turns out, my mom (their landlady) ended up asking them for me one day while she was here doing maintenance and they were totally fine with it! They said have unlimited bandwidth (whaaaaaaaaat? I didn’t know such a thing existed!) and they didn’t want our money. We insisted several times, but they were adamant. Since we have a car and they don’t, I’ve offered to take them to the store/grocery shopping while we live here. I have a feeling they’ll never take us up on that offer either, so we’ll probably just end up getting them something to show them our appreciation before we move out.

How’s that for a feel-good story with a happy ending!? I now have internet and am a happy lady. I’ve been streaming TV, which feels like such a luxury! And I’ve learned that internet hands down beats cable. So much so, in fact, that I think we could actually do without cable altogether and save ourselves that added monthly expense!

We're Moving!

2014-03-24T12:12:00.000-04:00

But not to the condo. Not yet anyways.

The end of this month marks 2 years since I moved into the apartment in which I'm currently living. When I signed my lease, I thought I wouldn't be here past the end of 2012. At the beginning of this year, my landlady tried to bully/coerce me into paying substantially more money for rent (over and above what she can legally increase the rent by), so we gave notice to leave. Turns out, unbeknownst to me, that she was also preggo at the time that we had our aggressive, emotionally charged back-and-forthing, so that may have had a bit to do with the harsh words that were exchanged. I don't like being bullied, and turns out, I'm as predictably emotional as the rest of the preggos out there, which made for a rough couple weeks.

In a stroke of serendipitous timing, my parents have been having issues with their tenants for the past few months and they'll be vacating my parents' rental property the same time we're leaving our one, so that's where we'll be living until the condo is completed. The new place has a bath tub - something I haven't had for 2 years! My current apartment has the TINIEST stand-up shower, at just under 2x3ft... as in, tiny enough that it rivals the tiny showers on cruise ships. So i'm really really really looking forward to having a bath.

In terms of updates of when we're moving in, here's where we're at:
Occupancy permits have been granted for all floors up to 3 levels below us, and people as close as the floor below us have their pre-delivery inspections (PDIs) scheduled for the end of this month. At this point, I'm not getting too excited about that because there have been cases when people have done the PDIs for their units when there were still a large number of deficiencies (ie: missing counters or cabinets, incomplete flooring, unconnected hood fans for the oven, etc). It was supposed to take 1-2 weeks per floor for permits to be issued, but the builder is averaging 1 floor per month. According to the builder, our floor will achieve the occupancy permit by March 27, but the project manager for the condo is "pessimistic that will happen".

My thoughts:
I hope we get our occupancy date by May. I don't want to move in the hot months of July or August. And as I'll be at the end of my second trimester at the end of May, I think it would be ideal to move before then as well.

Obviously these are just all nice-to-haves and we don't get to choose when we're moving. And finally, as the final occupancy dates and have been given and have all passed, the builders are giving people very little notice for moving in... as in less than a week's notice. That sucks. A lot. Some people are really chomping at the bit to move in, but I don't really feel that same urgency. The building still has a lot of construction going on the and the dust levels are crazy high right now. Obviously the later your move in date, the more complete of a building you're moving in to, which means decreased dust and construction.

Photo credits:
Emotional preggo
Moving preggo

And then there were 3…

2014-03-16T13:51:00.001-04:00

Shit just got real. I’m having a baby!

I’m 4 months along and feeling pretty good. The nausea and fatigue of the first trimester have given way to a wave of energy and much clearer skin, so I’ve got a lot to be happy about these days!

I have sooo much to talk about and a LOT of questions that I want to ask all of you experienced mothers out there!! Like, a lot. I don’t want to bombard you all with all the questions in this post, so I’m just going to ask my most pressing one for now:

In Ontario, our government health care system will allow pregnant ladies to have one primary care giver for normal pregnancies with no complications: an OB-GYN or a midwife. I’ve met with both, and I’ve liked them both. The OB-GYN is a doctor from the clinic where my family doctor works, which is convenient because it’s less than 2 km from the condo, which hopefully we’ll be moving into soon. The clinic also has all the labs in house so you can get your blood work and ultrasounds all done in the same place. The midwife’s practice is also located less than 2 km from the condo. I like the idea of going with a midwife because you have the same person for your pre-natal and post-partum care and the delivery. With the doctor, I have a 1/10 chance that she’ll be delivering my baby. With the midwife, I’d have to go to another location to get any tests (other than blood work) done. Both the midwife and doctor appear very well-informed and took their time with me.

So I guess the question is this: Did you go with a midwife or an OB-GYN for your pregnancy? Did you have a good experience? I’m giving myself until the end of this week to make up my mind!

Also, what is up with all the blood and urine samples you have to give while preggo???

Thanks in advance for the help!

Condo Waiting Game

2014-01-20T07:00:00.000-05:00

So I feel like I've become the most patient person in this ridiculous waiting game for the condo to be completed. There are currently people living in the building up to the fifth floor. We've been told 3 times in writing that people on our floor will be moving in some time in March. March! So close...

My living situation has been pretty precarious for the past 2 and a bit years. I thought we would live in our duplex on the Danforth until the condo was done, but my landlord decided to put the house on the market and we left. Because we only had a few months until the condo was done (certainly not enough time to move to a new apartment and sign a new 1 year lease), we each moved to our own parents houses. We thought it was a short-term thing. We were WRONG WRONG WRONG. While I love my parents, we don't do so well living together, so after a couple months, I moved out into a small basement apartment near work. At this point we knew the condo completion date had been pushed back from July 2012 to October 2012, so I negotiated with my landlords and signed a lease until the end of the year (a 9 month lease). Then it got pushed back and pushed back and pushed back. I felt very awkward about the whole thing, but that was just the beginning.

Kevin proposed Labour Day weekend in 2012. Yay! Very exciting. We set the date in June 2013. Double yay! I remember he and I going back and forth on June versus September before we settled on a date:

What if we choose June and the condo isn't ready? You'll have to move in here... this apartment sucks.
What if we choose September and the condo is done earlier? Do we move in before the wedding?
What if we choose September and the condo isn't done by then?

ALL MOOT POINTS. It's the end of freaking January and we STILL don't have a move in date. When I look back at the conversations we had about wedding dates and planning it around the condo it makes me laugh. We were so foolish!

When it became apparent that the condo wasn't going to be ready before we got married, I awkwardly asked my landlords if Kevin could move in.

Hey, so I know I've been living here about 6 months longer than I said, but is it okay if Kevin moves in?

They were fine with it. They'd met him before. Things carried on. It's now 7 months after my wedding and we're still here. Between you and me, I think they think there IS no condo. Seriously. I showed the landlady some of the photos from some of the occupants who had moved in at the end of last year and had posted photos to the Facebook group for our building. I think she's going to need more convincing than that. Sigh.

Kevin and I are leaving for a vacation in a few days and I'm seriously hoping we have some definitive news by the time we get back. I'm very anxious to give our 60 days notice. The condo reps told us that we'd be "fine" to give notice, but I just don't believe them after all the delays we've had. Not one bit.

The delays used to frustrate me, and I know I probably sound frustrated in this post, but I honestly feel immune to the frustration now. If we came back from our vacation to a letter saying it wouldn’t be ready until the end of summer I’m not sure I’d have much of a reaction. The condo company has had information meetings for the purchasers where people have literally broken down crying with their frustration and I feel like I have no emotion toward this place anymore. A little anticipation is good – it builds up your excitement. Too much anticipation causes you to just lose the good feeling. The bright side to this whole saga is that we purchased back in 2010 and we've earned a lot of increased value in the place. Every month that passes by is just more money in our pockets, especially for those of us who bought in the first year before the original prices went up!

Please all cross your fingers/knock on wood/pray for me/whatever... that we get our notice very very soon!

Also, well done if you got this far in the post! Give yourself a pat on the back!

Condo News: Construction Update

2013-04-09T08:08:00.000-04:00

I've been super busy these past few months and haven't had a working computer since March 3rd, but I have no excuse for this long of a blogging break. Just shameful!

Anyhow, I thought I'd give an update to the condo status. I've posting updated photos on Instagram, but it's nice to get a record of it on the ol' bloggo. This is the most recent photo we took of the condo.

And here's a photo of the view from our unit but from the floor below ours. It looks really dreary here (very English!) but I guess that's what you get when you take a photo in April. C'mon spring!

I just read through my last condo news blog post and got a good chuckle. Apparently people are supposed to be moving into the building about now. Um no. False. #FAIL. My sister is on the third floor, which is actually the second residential level, and she got her official move in date letter in the mail. They gave her a date of July 27, people!! While this annoys me to no end, it's official y'all! There's no going back now. Well legally, I think they can go back or forth 5 days, but other than that it's official y'all! At least for her. Who knows when we're moving. I'm italicizing a lot... I just have to really emphasize certain words here... know what I mean? So while Michelle is second from the bottom, we're second from the top. We got an email saying (unofficially) that we'll be moving August 27 (Michelle's email said July 2). Her move-in date is now 3.5 weeks later than what they told her in the email. Three and a half weeks later than August 27 is....MY BIRTHDAY. Crap. The last one I'll ever have in my 20's, and it falls on a Saturday! Double crap. I guess there are worse things... I can almost guarantee that we will NOT be moving in September at all. It'll probably be Thanksgiving. As long as I don't miss out on turkey, it's all good. There was no turkey this Easter, and let's be real: that is the only thing I care about when it comes to holidays! Gobble gobble.

In other news, wedding planning is coming along! Less than 10 weeks to go... I'm going for my potential last dress fitting this week. And we filled out the form for the marriage licence on the weekend. It might sound lame, but I think that was the most excited I've been so far. To me, I was very cool to think about our information going into records. I like looking at all that history stuff, so it makes me think about potential future generations being interested in looking at my records. I've seen a copy of the marriage licence of the relative I was named after - my great great great great grandmother, Emily Jane Green - and it is SUPER COOL. Yes, I'm a geek. But when you have an unusual name, it's cool to see where it came from!

Something else I was super stoked about was the stamp we had made for the wedding. I Instagram-ed a photo of it and have been stamping the shizzzz out of everything ever since lol. I got the stamp from Toronto Stamp and dealt with a very nice helpful man named Jake. They cost about 10% more than the other companies I talked to, but they had a ONE DAY turn around. One day, people!! I made a file in GIMP (basically a freeware version of Photoshop) and sent it off to him. He called me to make some changes so that the stamp would be more legible - I changed the font (to a sans serif) and ampersand (made it more simple) and also increased the resolution. About 10 iterations later, this is what we ended up with! This photo below was just one of my test stamps... we stamped all of the invitation envelopes at the flap, kind of like a seal.

Sooo a big woohoo to wedding planning and condo building almost being done, right!!?

Condo News: Construction

2012-12-04T11:57:00.000-05:00

Construction is way behind schedule. Are you surprised? Yeah, me neither.

When we bought back in early summer 2010, July 2012 (the original occupancy date) seemed very far away... and now it's running about a year late.

In our last condo meeting the builder president came in to talk to us about construction updates and the reasons for the delays. He said occupancy is now slated to begin April/May 2013. Cue the collective groan from the purchasers... Our unit is the second from the top floor and in our last meeting before this one, we were told it's going to take 4 months for full occupancy to take place. That means we're looking at a time frame of August/September.

I passed by the site last weekend and snapped this shot with my iPhone:

They've finished the framing for the first floor, which we were told would be the most complicated to build. Last week we received a letter updating us on the progress - according to that, they're working on pouring the concrete for the third floor.... seems like a stretch considering this photo is what it looked like 3 days before I received that letter.... I don't believe anything they tell me anymore!

We still don't have a finalized price on our finishes, which should include an estimation to move the closet in the bedroom. As it turns out, they've very recently hired a new designer (I can only guess this change is due to the unprofessionalism of the previous designer) so I'll be in touch with her shortly so we can get costs figured out once and for all!

Here are my thoughts so far on the whole pre-construction purchase situation:
Overall, I'm disappointed. I'm disappointed mostly with how delayed everything is. The selection of finishes was moderately disappointing too, but those are things we can (and will most likely) change once we move in. I feel completely differently about this condo now than I did last year, and I'm sure I will feel differently next year compared to how I feel about it now. Mostly, the condo size feels limiting. One bedroom isn't very family-friendly, but I'm still at that point where I feel very blah about kids. Will I ever grow out of that??

Anyhow, sorry for ranting. And for my lack of blogging as of late. I just feel very unmotivated. Knowing that my current place is short-term does not motivate me in any way to decorate. I still have an embarrassing amount of my belongings in boxes and absolutely nothing hung on the walls lol. It just kinda feels like, what's the point? Ya know?

Other condo news:
Choosing the Finishes
Finishes Appointment
Construction Update and Security System
Our Floorplan
Condo Finishes Waiting Game

Five Years

2012-12-04T10:48:00.001-05:00

Today is mine and Kevin's 5 year anniversary (happy anniversary!)

Photo: Omar Hassan

We've come a long way in 5 years! A condo, a car, long distance, a few moves, a few jobs, and several vacations.... and soon, a wedding!

Photo: Maricel Salalila

I instagram-ed a photo, and tweeted our official engagement photos, but never announced it on the blog - Kevin proposed Labour Day weekend while we were camping with my family. So now this cutie is gonna be allll mine mwahahahah!!

Photo: Maricel Salalila

I always thought I'd cry when Kevin finally got around to proposing, but I had a really bad habit of always expecting it! Seriously, before every weekend that we had plans, I would tell my friend Gary, "I think this is the weekend..." And when it didn't happen, I would be mildly disappointed. I knew it was coming, I just didn't know when. Kevin likes to do things at his own pace.. Anyhow, when the moment finally came, it was private and sweet, just like I'd hoped it would be. Except I didn't cry! Not only did I not cry, I actually laughed. I think I was just kinda nervous... like nervous laughing? Not sure. In any case, after everything was said and done it was pretty late and everyone was sleeping, so I woke their asses up to share the news!

Photo: Margaret Diotalevi

The next day I went into full planning mode and had a huge chunk of the wedding planning wrapped up by mid-October. The people who know me in real life were not at all surprised by this lol.

I'm not sure how specific to get on the blog, but pretty much all the big things are covered. We're getting married June 2013 at a beautiful heritage house. We've got the venue, caterer, photographer, officiant, florist, dress, MC, and wedding party picked.

Here are some GIFs to sum up the mostly noteworthy proposal reactions:

Me, for a solid week after the proposal

Shannon

Michelle and Deric

Gary

Did you or anyone you know have a funny reaction to a proposal? Also, is everyone down to hear wedding details? Because that's pretty much all I have to write about these days!

Pet Hair Management

2012-10-24T08:17:00.000-04:00

I'm a self-proclaimed cat lady... I admit it! But what I'm not so fond of is cat hair all over the place. I wanted to dedicate a post to how I keep the pet hair to a minimum in my home and on my clothes, because as much as I love my little fuzzball, I don't want to wear her to work.

1. Brush her daily... or close to it
Riley loves to be brushed on and around her head and chest, and that's about it. I can brush her back a little, but definitely not her legs or tail - nuh-uh.. No way. But that's not all cats; my parents' cats will let you brush them bald. Literally.

Brushing is great to remove the loose fur. I'm a big fan of wire brushes. They seem to work the best on Riley to remove her hair and wire brushes are very easy to clean. I also invested in a Furminator brush. Look it up. It wasn't cheap (+$40 Cdn), but was SO worth the money for me. If you have a cat or dog with a thick undercoat (the downy fur closest to their skin), this brush will thin it out without removing the top coat. But be careful you don't over-brush! My sister went a little nuts using the Furminator on Angel and brushed away all of his undercoat...

2. Bathe her twice a year (spring and fall)
Riley hates baths. She's a cat so that pretty much goes without saying, but I think washing her helps loosen up some of the old fur so it comes out more easily. Riley also get a little dandruff-y and oily so a bi-annual wash helps with that too.

I find washes are most effective in the spring and fall. Also make sure to use a pet-friendly shampoo! After I'm done washing, I swaddle Riley in a thick towel (She loves this... not!) for a few minutes, then let her air dry. Once she's dry, I brush her with the wire brush. If I don't brush her, her fur kind of sticks together... but she's sooo fluffy and cute once she's washed and dried and brushed!

3. Hairball reducing cat food
I only buy hairball reducing formula cat food. I've tried various brands and like Purina and Iams the best. I thought they just helped Riley not have hairballs, but I think they also help keep her fur in.. does that make sense? One time I bought a bag of regular cat food and I couldn't believe how much more hair I had floating around my apartment!! So now I stick exclusively with hairball reducing formula. In terms of its intended use, hairball reduction, I think it works for that too lol I find a hairball about every two months or so, which isn't bad if you ask me.

4. A damp hand
The quickest and easiest way to remove Riley's hair from fabrics is to wet my hand every so slightly then rub my hand down the fabric. This works to gather the hair up in a clump, which is easily removable. It works like a charm every single time. Note that all of my pet hair issues with Riley stem from the fuzzy undercoat hairs, which are wavy and super fine. If you're finding lots of straight thicker hairs, like what a lab retriever has, you might need a different method.

5. Beige and grey...are your friends
I've come to terms with the fact that I'm always covered in cat hair. It's a part of my life. I've never not had cats/dogs so I'm used to it. But if pet hair on your clothes and in your house bothers you, beige and grey will be your salvation. Specifically light beige and light grey. Don't even try to wear black. For some reason, lighter fur shows up on darker clothes SO much more than darker fur does on lighter clothes.

What are your tips and tricks to pet hair management? I'd love to hear how you keep the fur at bay!

Condo News: Choosing the Finishes

2012-08-30T08:06:00.002-04:00

I haven't updated you about the construction progress because it's going incredibly slow....painfully slow if you ask me! We're not really much further along than we were when I last posted in March.
In June, we had our last appointment with the designer. We (um, I) had a list of ~~demands~~ requests for things we wanted. Some of these items were in the list of upgrades we could choose from, some weren't. We've already paid our deposit for the finishes, but haven't paid the balance yet - this is 100% due to the fact that we don't even know yet if the builder will sign off on our extra upgrades. Choosing the finishes and upgrades is tough... fun, but tough. I made this decision tree** to help anyone else who is or will be selecting finishes on a new build. This is basically how Kevin and I decided on our finishes.

While our finishes aren’t quite finalized, we followed this decision tree and ended up deciding on the following:

BATHROOM
Tub: When we first bought, I asked if the bathtub was a soaker because it looks like it is on the plan. I was told it was. Score! Unfortunately, at some point this year I found out I was misinformed and it’s just a regular tub. Womp womp…I was not impressed. So we upgraded the bathtub and I’m so pumped! When I first asked how much it would be, I was quoted $1600. I was like, “I’m sorry… what??” Turns out the designer thought I wanted a jetted tub. I just wanted a soaker tub and I’m not gonna lie… I wanted it bad. I’m not one of those people who just say they’re going to take baths and then never take them. I take them… all the time. Anyhow, when I saw photos of the soaker tub models, I found a modern one I love at $250.
Tub surround: Our standard tub surround is 4x16 white or ivory subway tile. We chose white. It’s nice!

KITCHEN
Cabinet type: We chose our cabinets, which look very very similar to the Adel cabinets by Ikea. Unfortunately they only had it in dark brown, so I asked if we could get it in white. I was told yes, and it’s been signed off on, but I worry they’re gonna mess that up and we’re gonna see dark cabinets when we move in.
More about cabinets: We also paid $300 to extend our cabinets up to the ceiling, well technically to the bulkhead. They’re going to be 130cm tall now. We have 9 ft ceilings with a 1ft bulkhead above the cabinets so the top of the cabinets will be 8 ft high. That’s how my parents’ kitchen cabinets are and it’s really nice to have the extra space. Kevin can hide all his candy on those tops shelves because I can barely reach them even with a stool!
Counters: We went with the standard. I like the colour, but it’ll definitely have to get upgraded when we move in. I’ll be referring to Lindsay’s blog when that time comes!
Backsplash: Meh. That’s how I felt about the backsplash options. I wasn’t impressed. We were given the option of using the 4x16 tile (that we’re getting for the tub surround) for the backsplash too, but I’d rather choose something after we move in. Kevin’s friend, conveniently named Tyler, has kindly offered to do our tiling for us. I hope he wasn’t kidding when he offered…
Appliances: We upgraded to a stainless steel microwave hood range and to a better (quieter and larger) stainless steel dishwasher. Remember this debate I had a few months ago? Well, the stainless steel won. It made the most sense for resale and it’s what Kevin wanted. Just to be clear, I didn’t not want it.. I was just undecided.

FLOORS
Main areas: We went with the standard flooring, which is carpet. I like the colour we chose, but I’m not a big fan of carpet, except for in bedrooms – I have a ridiculously fuzzy cat and allergies. We recognize that carpet is no-good for resale and wanted to upgrade to laminate or engineered hardwood, but we’re going to change the flooring on our own instead of through the builder. That way we’ll have more selection (so we can get the stain and wood we want) and it will save us at least $1000.
Bathrooms/Kitchen: We decided to get tile put down in the kitchen. If we had upgraded our floors through the builder, we could have had the same flooring put down throughout (except the bathrooms). Kevin really wants tile in the kitchen, but I’m not sure… Any advice!?? I’d love to hear your opinion. We went with a darker tile because we’ll ultimately put down engineered hardwood/laminate and it will most likely be walnut or close to that shade and I don’t want too much contrast in the flooring.

EXTRAS
Crown moulding: I love the way crown moulding finishes off a room, but I wasn’t a fan of the selection and I kinda feel like it’s hard to choose what you want before living in the space for a bit first, ya know?..
Ceilings: The price was ridiculous to get non-stippled (popcorn) ceilings! Ca-razy!! Straight up highway robbery. I’m not a fan of popcorn ceilings at all, so it’ll definitely be something worth looking into after we move in.
Bedroom closet: I talked about this before and even drafted and sent to the designer what we want the builders to do. The original layout was okay, but then we gained 16 sq ft extra in the bedroom when they realized the HVAC unit wasn’t built into our room and they had to move the wall back. We’re hoping the designer and builder will give us the go-ahead on this rendering:

The new draft bedroom layout makes me very happy. And the extra closet space will be a treat! When Kevin and I lived at our last apartment, we shared a SINGLE closet. Men’s clothes are bulky, yo! I only had about a third of a single closet to hang stuff up.

What do you think of the finishes we chose?? I’m really hoping to hear back from the designer soon about final costs and I’ll let you know if we end up with everything we wanted!

^{**Pixlr has improved lately! That’s what I used to make my decision tree for this post. I don’t wanna brag, but I think it looks pretty awesome!}

Photography Challenge - Day 9: Someone You Love

2012-08-28T08:03:00.001-04:00

Taking a photo of Kevin is hard. He does not like having his photo taken…so I have to be sneaky! Well, he calls it sneaky - I call it capturing the moment.

Anyway, here’s my handsome man reading at my parents’ house. We’ve been spending a lot of time at my parents’ house lately, as my cousins are visiting from England.

Photo stats:

I took this photo with my new Nikon D5100.
F-stop: f/5.3
Exposure time: 1/3 sec.
ISO: 3200
Focal length 40mm
No flash

If you want to check out my previous photo challenge photos, here are the links:
Day 1 : Self Portrait
Day 2 : What You Wore Today
Day 3 : Clouds
Day 4 : Something Green
Day 5 : From A High Angle
Day 6 : From A Low Angle
Day 7 : Fruit
Day 8: A Bad Habit

If you’re working on a photography challenge, let me know! I’d love to hear about your photos.

Emily-Jane

Shower Power

2012-08-23T08:02:00.001-04:00

A little while ago, I tried to angle the shower head down when I was taking a shower. I prefer the stream to hit me more in the chest than the head and I can’t move back in my shower because it’s very narrow. It’s the kind of shower I picture on a space ship. I barely have enough room to bend to shave my legs. But anyway, I digress... I was trying to pivot the shower head downwards when I hear a snap and the shower head came flying off!! Turns out the shower head is fixed in one spot and doesn’t pivot at all. The fixture hit me in the head, and then I was assaulted by the thinnest, most powerful stream of water I have ever felt. It hurt!! To add insult to injury, it was a work day morning and I was fully lathered with soap and conditioner in my hair when this happened. I used my palm to deflect the hard spray of water then turned the water pressure down as low as I could, and had to rinse off with the most pathetic dribble of water - at least it didn't hurt... Needless to say, this was not a good start to my day.

I thought the shower head had just popped off, but it turned out one of the rings with threading on it had snapped so it couldn't reattach. I considered buying a new shower head – something I could bring with me to the condo – but then thought better of it and tried to fix the broken ring instead.

Before I go telling you what I did, just keep in mind that I’m not a plumber and know nothing about plumbing. Also, I’m sorry my shower looks like the scene of a horror movie. This is the result of bad lighting, a not-so-clean shower, and a crappy iPhone picture...

So I tried to glue the ring back together using Gorilla Glue. It didn’t work too well. The ring seemed to be holding when I screwed it on, but the shower head fell off again when I turned on the water. Booo.

Kevin and I headed over to Home Depot where I bought a replacement ring. I think it was about $5. I thought I would have to buy a whole new shower head and was quite pleased to hear I could just get the ring. We got back to my place, attached the older shower head with the new ring, and guess what? Now my shower head pivots! Faaaaancy. The beating I took from the shower head the day before was definitely worth being able to now swivel my shower head

What I’ve Been Up To

2012-08-20T16:45:00.001-04:00

When I fall off the blogging bandwagon, I fall off HARD! I’ve been really slacking lately because this summer has been craaaazy busy! Kevin and I went to Boston two weeks ago. Had a blast, but I have yet to sort through all of my photos.. One of my best friends, Kerry, got married up north this weekend and I was the MC and a bridesmaid. My uncle also got married this weekend. My aunt, her husband, and 4 of their children came to Canada and were staying with my parents so I took some time off to hang out with them. I hadn’t seen them in 5 years so it was very very nice to catch up!! There have been BBQs, the Science Centre, Niagara Falls, and lots of wine! One of my cousins and her hubby have headed back to England, but some relatives are still here for another week or so. Yay!

Here are two of my favourite pictures from this weekend:
My mom, two of her siblings, all three of their spouses, most of their children, and their significant others standing outside of my parents’ house! These are some of my favourite people :)

This is a photo of the reception area at Kerry’s wedding. The lighting was great so I was really happy to get this shot..one of the few I took that day! I barely had the camera all night because I was doing wedding stuff. Kevin stepped up and got some really great shots. Kerry had some really great wedding decor so I’ll share photos of that soon.

My New Camera: Nikon D5100

2012-08-02T08:09:00.001-04:00

If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter, you may have already seen that I bought a new camera… and I’m SO FREAKING EXCITED ABOUT IT!!! I bought the NikonD5100. I’d been tossing and turning between Nikon and Canon, but honestly it was price that ultimately won out in the end. I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited over a purchase. I got home, tore open the boxes and then rolled around on the floor in excitement, while unbeknownst to me, Kevin got it on video!** LOL

I’m hoping this purchase will give me some new motivation for my photography challenge!
Anyhow, here are some of my photos so far! I’ve played around with other people’s DSLRs a couple of times, but this is my first time playing around for longer than an hour or so. I’m surprised at how easy it was to start using! And it takes great shots in low light! Side note: As previously mentioned, I’m clearly a cat lady (and pets don’t complain when you photograph them!) so don’t judge the number of cat photos I have! Also, if you’re not interested in seeing pet/family photos, stop now. You’ve been warned…

One of the first photos I took: Riley! And she does NOT look impressed lol
Jesse, my mom’s Scottish Terrier
Giles, my parents’ cat
Marty McFly, my sister’s cat

**My mom’s reaction to the video Kevin took of me when I brought my new camera home.
Mom and Dad
My sister, Michelle with Giles
More Riley!!!!

I've been googling around for photography tips, but I'd love to hear yours! Or maybe you have a go-to site?

The Perils of Living Alone

2012-08-01T16:35:00.003-04:00

I’ve been living on my own since April of this year and it’s been awesome so far. A lot of people were/are shocked to hear Kevin and I aren’t living together*.
Honestly, I’ve found very few downsides to living alone. It’s so freeing!! But there are some downsides…here are my biggest issues:

Dishes. UGHHHHHHHHHHH. It takes the same amount of dishes to cook food for 4 people as it does for 1, so I have to constantly do dishes. The catch here is I hate doing dishes and let them pile up for way too long and then I just feel like giving up… I miss the days when Kevin did all the dishes!
Cooking for one person sucks. What’s the point? It’s crazy how low my standards have dropped for dinner. I used to always make nice dinners!.. everything homemade and from scratch with a glass of wine on the side. Now I live off chicken fingers.. (but I still have the glass of wine! Obviously)
Grocery shopping for one person also sucks. I pretty much can’t finish anything before it goes bad, so now my fridge looks like this:

That’s right. Empty… Or pretty close to it. At least I have some fresh-ish produce in there. So now I pride myself on the contents of my freezer:
Kevin and I are leaving soon for Boston, so I’m not bothering with grocery shopping until I get back. I have way too much to get done before we leave!

laundry
packing
drop Riley off at my parents’ house
dishes! ARGH!
sweep floors
change bed sheets (nothing beats coming home to fresh sheets after a trip!)
get some USD from the bank
tidy up living room
mani/pedi

That’s what I really really want to get done before I leave, but I crack under pressure. Hence why I’m procrastinating by writing this post and watching Wheel of Fortune.. while eating an English muffin and some chicken fingers Jam counts as a serving of fruit, right?
Anyone have any fun plans for the long weekend?? It’s coming soon! Also, is anyone else as shocked as me that it’s already August! Summer is slipping away so fast!
*We had been living together a bit over 2 years when our landlord decided to put our house on the market. Since we had (or so we thought!) less than a year until our condo was done, we moved in respective parents’ houses. I wasn’t such a big fan, so I decided to move out after a few months. I really wanted to try living on my own because I knew once the condo was done, I’d never again have the opportunity.

Weekend Getaway to Chicago

2012-07-31T08:02:00.001-04:00

Over the July long weekend, Kevin and I took a road trip to Chicago, Illinois. He’d visited once, years ago, and it was my first time. We loved it. We’re trying to make this the Summer of Road Trips because I still have 25,000 KM left on my car lease and only five months to use as much as I can. May as well! That explains the drive to Florida (~5000 KM round trip), the drive to Niagara Falls (~300 KM round trip), this most recent trip to Chicago, IL (~1700 KM round trip) and our upcoming trip to Boston, MA (~1800 KM round trip).

We stayed just outside of Chicago, which saved us big bucks on the hotel costs. My preference is to stay in nice hotels, but we knew we’d only be in the room for sleeping, so we were just looking for something inexpensive and clean. Our hotel was super dated, but very clean, and it came with Wi-Fi, a mini fridge, a microwave, and a free shuttle to and from the subway’s blue line, which went directly downtown – very convenient!

The best purchases of our trip were 2 CityPasses ($84 each) and 2 3-Day CTA passes ($14 each) for the train. We hmmed and hawed for a while about buying the CityPasses because we weren’t sure if it was worth it, but I highly recommend purchasing these! Just being able to skip the admission lines made buying these worth it! And even though we drove, we didn’t want to have to worry about parking and traffic, so took full advantage of the CTA passes too.

The weather was crazy that weekend. Super hot and humid with crazy thunderstorms every day. We were incredibly lucky and missed all of them though! The rain always came when we were inside or on the bus, but I had quite a scare when I checked the weather on my phone before leaving and saw this:

We visited a ton of places so I have lots of photos! I made a collage of Navy Pier because it was pretty easy to group those photos together.

For those who are interested in seeing some more photos (the architecture is stunning), keep reading after the jump!

This was our very first stop of the day: The Buckingham Fountain aka: the Married with Children Fountain. We drove straight through the night to Chicago (9 hours), and were only going on about a 2hr nap our first day! We spent the whole day walking around, trying to see everything and familiarize ourselves to the city.

I told Kevin I really wanted to see the “silver bean”. He had no idea what I was talking about and didn’t seem very interested. When I told him it looked like a Tiffany bean and was huge I don’t think he really understood what I meant by “huge” lol. Long story short, he thought the bean was awesome. As did I. Very cool.

Just past the bean was (I think) a very futuristic looking amphitheatre. We were there when an orchestra was performing, so we caught a bit of the show.
The Public Library of the City of Chicago. Love the rounded windows
Kevin loved the Marina City Complex. The identical 65-story towers were designed in 1959 by Bertrand Goldberg and were completed in 1964. We gave them all kinds of nick names: The Honeycomb Towers, the Corn on the Cob Towers, The Wasp Hive Towers… take your pick lol
This signage is pretty iconic for Chicago.. and they’ve got some pretty sweet shows coming up (Blondie, Fiona Apple, Barry Manalow, Nicki Minaj… just to name a few)
We went up the SkyDeck and took shots on the Ledge. Kevin had the right idea, ducking down. I should’ve done that! D’oh!

On our way to the Field Museum, we saw these sculptures – dozens of iron(?) legs, with what looked to me to be wearing baggy pants lol
The Field Museum – very stately looking!
The world’s most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex, at the Field Museum
About to watch Space Junk 3D at the Planetarium, looking quite literally dazed and confused.
Union Station. When we left the Planetarium, it looked like it was gonna pour so we hopped on a bus and visited Union Station. It poured like crazy the whole time we were on the bus, then it wasn’t so bad when we got off – the ground was just wet. We grabbed some food inside the station and when we came out, the weather was gorgeous. It’s funny because when we were entering the station Kevin said, “wanna just go back to the hotel after lunch?” and I replied with, “let’s see how the weather is when we get back.. If it’s nice, let’s go to Navy Pier!” and so off to the pier we went

The Hancock Observatory. There is an awesome audio tour, narrated by David Schwimmer. We wished we had gone here first and then seen the other CityPass venues because the tour gave us some really good information. Also, how cool is it that they give each person an iTouch to listen to the audio tour?? Faaaancy!
From one window, you can see the Navy Pier in its entirety
From another you can see a huge stretch of beach. And honestly, it was about 40C with humidex every day we were there. With this view, we felt like we were in Miami, not Chicago!
And finally, another view point back to the city and all the high rises. This building offered a much better view than the SkyDeck, in my opinion.
At the bottom of the John Hancock Tower was this HOPE sign. I’ve seen similar LOVE signs.
And finally, we checked out the Chicago Water Tour, constructed between 1867 and 1869. It’s special to the city because it’s one of the few buildings that survived the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
The inside of it looked just as cool as the outside.

We're off to Boston next... any tips on where to go or what to see??

Craigslist Find: Storage Ottoman

2012-07-17T08:04:00.001-04:00

A little while ago I was on the hunt for a coffee table for my apartment. My search led to a pretty sweet, custom-made ottoman with built in storage. Score! $50 later and it was mine.

What I love most about it is how versatile it is. The top is hinged, and has a very spacious storage space inside – I use it for extra throw pillows and blankets.

The colour and height are close to that of my love seat, so if I’m having a lazy TV-watching day (which is pretty much every Sunday), I can push the two pieces together creating a double loveseat chaise. I have been known to sleep out in my living room on this makeshift “chaise” on more than one occasion :)

With the addition of a tray (I got mine for 50% off at Indigo), it could be used as a coffee table/foot rest – this was actually my original intention, but I didn’t like the way it looked in my living room. I think a more petite/slender coffee table would look better in here.

I currently have it pushed up against the wall, opposite my love seat. I use it as extra seating and with the cushions along the back and the one on the side, it’s pretty inviting! People always tend to gravitate toward that seat. I currently have a tray on my ottoman – contents include 10 or so home/health mags, a candle oil diffuser thing, and a plant that I bought from Ikea 2 years ago. Side note: It came in the tiniest little pot and I’ve re-potted it two times! That plant is down right flourishing in my care and I could not be more proud!!

Emily-Jane