A couple months ago I walked into our living room and noticed that Brad was watching a tennis match. I've never really paid much attention to tennis - I'm not even sure what the rules are, but I sat down and started watching with him anyway. (I'm sure I was also being super annoying and asking way too many stupid questions.)
It was the very end of a match between these two guys.
Holy crap - maybe I should start watching tennis?! DAMN!!! Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal - two of the best players and they look like that?!
The next match I watched was Federer and Robin Soderling. Soderling had just knocked out Nadal from the French Open. This was big news since Soderling wasn't a favourite and Nadal was one of the best.
I love Soderling! I'm not sure if it's because he's been in an underdog situation a few times....no, I think it's because he totally reminds me of Victor - a site super I worked with at my old job in Vancouver. What's even more crazy is that anyone who reads this blog and knows Victor will be confused.Anyway, tennis is awesome. It's so exciting and fun to watch. If you were like me and bypassed it - give it a shot. If anything, there is some great eye candy.
Since I chopped all my hair off, I've come to realize one thing. With shorter hair, maintenance is a must. With my old locks it was wash, brush and go and it "worked" but like I said - I was a walking 'before picture'. Please don't place me as one of those women who is deathly afraid to cut her hair - it wasn't that way at all. The real question now is what to do with my cartoons!
Here is the only 'after' picture I will post of myself.
I wonder though - should I keep the cartoons like they were before? I feel like my longer hair in the cartoons is more effective. Tell me what you think.
So on with my story that I know you are all so interested in. You know how it is, you get your hair cut and walk out of the salon looking great. The next day I washed my hair and was a little alarmed when I realized that my hair won't just fall the way Dave forced it to.
I quickly realized my lack of hair utensils. The only tools I had at my disposal were a blow dryer, paddle brush and the lovely Moroccan Oil that I just bought at the salon. I tried anyway. I failed miserably.
I was off to the drug store, and now my line up looks more like this:
Good thing that Brad's hair clipper thing seems to include a free plastic comb...I have never used a COMB. And that Red Brush of Death? It TOTALLY works. It claims to straighten your hair using ions.....it really does work.
I'm pretty much sold on this new universe of short hair. When I roll over at night I don't get tangled up in my hair....I think I've lost about two pounds cutting it off.......my neck is seeing the world for the first time ever and I'm loving the way I can shake my head and all my hair moves out of the way.
Crazy, it only took me my entire life to discover this.
The book I'm reading right now is by a local (Victoria) author. I'm really enjoying it, and so far would recommend it to anyone. It's also pretty cool to read things like this:
"The scenic route in Victoria runs along the ocean. Uplands, Beach Drive, Dallas Road. Something's always happening out on the water, and even when there isn't, people go to look."
or
"...as he makes his way toward Cook Street."
I know these places.
I keep forgetting to mention the books where I got the first lines from in this post. So here they are:
"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
1984 - George Orwell
"One evening of late summer, before the nineteenth century had reached one-third of its span, a young man and woman, the latter carrying a child, were approaching the large village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex, on foot." The Mayor of Casterbridge - Thomas Hardy
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
Pride and Prejusice - Jane Austen
"There was no possibility of taking a walk that day."
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
"They're all dead now." Fall on your Knees - Ann-Marie MacDonaldSo I'm a walking before-photograph. You know - the before photograph of someone before the get their make over? Yeah, that's me. So I spotted a cute little hair salon downtown and have decided to take the plunge and just go there and trust them to give me a good hair cut.
I told the girl on the phone that I need serious help and she said "Okay....I'll book you with Dave." I did some research on their website and he was on the reality show Superstar Hair Challenge. Sweet! Now this will be interesting. (Please don't expect me to post photos of my before and after on this blog, I'm too shy, there is a photo of me through the windshield of my car in my last post - I think that's enough.)
One year ago today I moved away from Vancouver. (Yes, you read that right, we're noting another anniversary so soon after our wedding anniversary 4 days ago.)
For years my best friend Robin and I always referred to the day that I would actually leave Vancouver as D-Day. I added that the only way to get me out of Vancouver would be to knock me unconscious, throw my limp body in the back of a U-Haul and have someone else drive me away. Unfortunately when the time did come, someone had to drive the car, so my plan didn't work out.
So anyway, Robin and I thought it might happen one day, but I guess it crept up on me faster than I imagined. I'm glad I documented a lot of that day one year ago, because it was so traumatic for me I don't remember much. I even took pictures of Brad driving the U-Haul down to our old place to load it up.
Since we had to take a ferry to get over to the island, it made for a long day. But with some help we managed to get the truck loaded and were ready to leave - the moment I had been dreading for years had finally arrived - I had to start the car and actually drive away.
I managed to pull the car around to the front of the building and snapped a picture of Brad who was ready to climb into the truck to lead me out of the city I called home for the last 12 years. He was excited....the tears were flowing on my end at this point.
Don't we look impressed while we wait in line for the ferry? Ziggy especially - he was super calm in the car, hanging out in the front seat. The ferry freaked him out but we stayed below deck in the car with him. This worked out better for me in the end because I couldn't bear to watch the ferry pull away from the mainland.
So, now that I've been here a year I feel like I'm finally settling in. I don't go back to Vancouver quite as much as I did in the beginning. But I do miss it, I miss working downtown (yeah....I miss working in general but that's another story), I miss the energy, the hum of the city - I know it sounds crazy...I can't help it.
Above all, I miss my friends.
On the other hand, Victoria is so slow and casual - it's a nice pace for me right now. And believe it or not as I was typing up this post, a song I haven't heard forever played on Itunes unexpectedly* and made me realize why I moved over here.
What the hell?! Isn't that always the way with music!? It always shows me the way when I need it the most.
*You know how you have all that unorganized crap at the bottom of your music in Itunes? Track 01, Unknown Artist etc. Well, I was sorting through it and letting it play through the songs....
Sunday was our one year anniversary - this year went by SO fast, it's crazy. All day we kept saying to each other "Right about now was when we were getting ready!" and "One year ago now we were back on the roof top deck dancing alone!"
We actually met eight years ago TODAY, but we've only been married for one year.
We spent our anniversary day with some friends down at Fisherman's Wharf in Victoria. It's this area down by the water near the float homes where you can get fish and chips or ice cream. Pretty pricey, but worth checking out. Here is a picture I took, too bad you can't really make out the float plane in the distance. Ah, well, this is obviously not a photo blog.
Anyway, we decided to treat ourselves and were heading out for a nice dinner on Sunday night to mark the occasion. Given my crazy diet restrictions it's hard to pick a place but we found a great one. It's called The Black Olive. I took a photo after we left.
On the way there I threw my Ipod on and played the song I walked up the aisle to. Actually, there wasn't an "aisle", because we got married in my aunt's backyard but I think you get my drift. If you aren't a link-clicker the song is By Your Side by Sade. So smooth, so classy, such great lyrics.
Brad was driving and he totally knew the song right away when it came on, he reacted with the biggest grin EVER. I was almost in tears by the time we got to the restaurant after listening to it, it's such a great song and now obviously has big-time sentimental value.
In the restaurant, Brad gave me a card that almost made me cry - there was lots of fanning of the eyes on Sunday night. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this on this blog yet, but let me just say that I have the best, most supportive, most amazing husband ever.
On the way home, I wanted to play the other song we chose to play right after our wedding ceremony (Just in Time by Nina Simone) but it wasn't on my Ipod. It's still all about having the right music at the right moments. Reminds me of this post.
Someone sent me a package in the mail. You know how that is - when you get the slip in your mailbox, but you aren't expecting anything....it's not my birthday, it's not Christmas.....
Well, I wasn't completely surprised when I saw the name on the return address when I picked it up. But what did surprise me were the contents of the package:
So Robin and I go WAY back. We've known each other almost since I moved to Vancouver. It was one of those times when you meet someone and you know instantly that you will grow old together.
In the fall she is going to school to become a pastry chef. This is a major change - when she told me I thought "Well, yeah?! Why didn't we think of this ten years ago?!" When I visited her a few weeks ago, she made the best lime coconut macaroons I've ever tasted - seriously.
Now she's sent me home made gluten free/vegan cookies in the mail and honestly - they are incredible. I've even tried the gluten free cookies at two reputable bakeries here in Victoria and her cookies are way better - and they've been sitting in the post office since Monday. They are moist, cakey - exactly what I've been craving for 6 months now.
She's also sending me one page of a calendar that she bought in Victoria in November. We stumbled upon this great little craft fair and saw this guy and I fell in love with his drawings. Robin bought the calendar and she's been sending it to me - one sheet per month.
You know you have a good friend when you get baking in the mail. Seriously, I must have been a saint in a former life to have this woman in my life.
Woah, I've been away for awhile. It all started with a 5:30am alarm on Saturday that found me heading into Surrey (of all horrendous places) for a wedding shower for a friend.
After that I headed into Vancouver to pick up my Mom on the way back to the ferry. She lives in Saskatchewan, so we don't get to see each other nearly often enough. When she used to visit me in Vancouver our days were spent sitting on the beach and hitting our favourite Vancouver spots. We used to get up pretty early and go all day just to get everything in that we wanted to, not so here:
We were in permanent casual relaxed mode! Is this Victoria seeping into my life?! We slept in, watched What Not To Wear, ate breakfast at home, then would head out around 1:00 on average. We explored downtown a little bit, hit a few pubs, went fabric shopping, but the highlight didn't work out. We wanted to have fish n' chips on Willows Beach but the place was closed. We had to settle with sitting on the beach after lunch out somewhere else. Next time!
It's so low key here it was freaking her out - which reminded me of a few Victoria related topics I've been meaning to blog about.....
We are still getting used to the scale of Victoria. Seriously people, it is tiny - check out this map that Brad made for me. (Keep in mind that Victoria is only the area marked as such on the map.
Last weekend we heard that the Victoria Symphony was doing another free concert in Beacon Hill Park. This generates a lot of excitement in our little world so we were all over the web checking to see where to go and what time......needless to say we were a little miffed to find that all the information on where to go was listed as "Beacon Hill Park". Um....where in the park?
Remember, we are from Vancouver - Stanley Park is massive - it's shown in red below superimposed on top of Beacon Hill Park (shown in green). 
So, a friend told us there is a bandstand in the park - awesome. It must be there. We showed up an hour before they were scheduled to start, got out the map and made some strategic plans to park somewhere in the neighbourhood near the park - we figured this would be the closest we could get. We geared up for a half hour walk from the car to the stage.
On our way we decided "Awh, let's just drive into the park and see how crazy it is." Uh-huh.....the parking lots inside the park were virtually empty. We parked the car, looking around us suspiciously like we weren't supposed to be there. We also didn't have to pay which was equally as bizarre.
The concert was great - way less crowded than the Symphony Splash - which we also attended a couple weeks ago. They estimate that over 30,000 people show up for the Splash. The Beacon Hill Park event was more like around 200 people sitting around in the afternoon listening to some great classical music - much more our style.
Lately I've been battling insomnia. It's the most bizarre thing - for my anyway - since normally I'm lucky if I can get into the bed before I'm falling asleep.
I've read up on things you can do to help yourself. One piece of advice is to have a "Bed Time Routine". What? Like, climbing into bed?
Listening to soothing music, meditating, reading, chamomile tea, which I seriously don't get because I would have to pee an hour later and this would wake me up. These things could be included in your Bed Time Routine.
I have a few tricks that normally work for me:
1. Coast to Coast am Radio
Honestly - when they start talking about Big Foot, UFOs and fairies....it's the best.
2. Reading
This is usually the best option for me, I can usually fit in about 2-3 sentences before I'm drooling on the pillow. These days I can only take Heathcliff's brutal, violent, wretchedness for so long.
3. Watching TV
Here is one reason to keep the cable. Last night, 2:00 am I found myself cheering out loud when I found an episode of Star Trek - the sweet ones from the 70's.
4. Meditating
If I try to meditate the way Eckhart Tolle suggests in A New Earth - I last 30 seconds.
It's the most bizarre experience. I glance out the window - Victoria is really quiet at night. Spooky quiet. No cars, no movement, no sounds at all from outside. In Vancouver if I was desperate to assure myself there were people alive, I could have sauntered up to Broadway to a 24 hour coffee shop.
It's a strange sensation when the rest of the city around you is asleep - sometimes when I search outside I can't even find a light in a window. Brad is snoozing away as well......as I try to find a way to amuse myself until sleep comes.
Holy crap - maybe I should start watching tennis?! DAMN!!! Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal - two of the best players and they look like that?!
I love Soderling! I'm not sure if it's because he's been in an underdog situation a few times....no, I think it's because he totally reminds me of Victor - a site super I worked with at my old job in Vancouver. What's even more crazy is that anyone who reads this blog and knows Victor will be confused.
