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Congratulations to Micaela & her husband Kent, they had a baby boy today, December 28th 2010.
We are overjoyed to welcome this beautiful baby boy to our family. More details to come!
Adventures in fashion.
March 7, 2010 By 3 Comments
Lately I haven’t been loving shopping like I once did. I guess it’s a variety of reasons, for one, I didn’t have a very good job for a while and before that was in school so I didn’t shop much. Now that I’m out of the habit I’m finding it hard. The big reason is probably that there are SO many nice stores here in Toronto that have beautiful clothes in the windows and draw me into them, but once I get inside I realize that a t-shirt costs $150… I can’t do that.
Another bad habit I have is only buying clothes that are on sale. This probably sounds like a good habit, but for me it’s not. I looove finding a really good deal (who doesn’t???) but in my case if something is 50% off I seem to think it’s okay if I like it 50% less than the clothes that aren’t on sale. This leaves me with a closet full of things I only like 50%. Buying clothes that aren’t on sale is really hard for me, but I’m trying.
My last problem is that I’m just plain picky… and that the things I like in stores aren’t always what I actually want to wear in everyday life. I’m drawn to black and white, but when I’m looking in my closet for thing to wear to teach, black dress pants and a white shirt feels so boring. I’m picky when it come to colour though, and am generally not drawn to prints. I just don’t seem to love most things out there right now, but I need some nice clothes for my new big girl job.
Today while wandering around the mall, I decided that there should be one perfect brand for me that would never let me down. One designer who, it feels like, shares the exact same style as me. Their clothes would be girly and flowy with lots of floaty top and dresses, and not overly cheap or expensive. When I needed something new I would just know that this designer wouldn’t let me down and I wouldn’t have to look anywhere else unless I really just felt like going shopping.
Interestingly enough, today in The Bay I found a designer – Rachel Roy,that might fit the bill. I definitely don’t love everything, but the ratio of things I like to don’t like is much higher than in most stores. This shirt feels like it was meant for me – flowy, casual, different colours without having a print:
(I think part of the reason for my frustrated state was that I was rocking messy hair and no makeup with tights and a sweatshirt when everyone else at the mall looked so good.)
I’m looking at the Rachel Roy website now and there’s a bunch that I like:
Now that I’ve looked at everything on the website, lot of it is much more funky/edgy than what I would wear but I looove these especially the second and last photos I posted. I don’t think she’s my perfect designer after all, but these are definitely perfect for me. Although I didn’t realize my first pick was a romper until I’d already posted it. I don’t know if I could do that without feeling like a 5 year old. My legs are pretty long. Maybe?
What’s your approach to shopping? Is there a store or designer that never lets you down or do you like to look at everything?
Lenten Promises.
February 18, 2010 By 15 Comments
I had a bit of trouble deciding what to give up for Lent this year. As a kid we we always gave up television. Last year I gave up all junk food (which worked for about a week…) and buying clothes (I think I ended up buying two shirts at one time, and they were stolen from my car. The world works in mysterious ways!)
This year I don’t need to give up buying clothes (in fact I should probably start buying clothes again), and I don’t feel that I even eat enough junk food to warrant giving that up. I always try to give something up that will really change my life or at least be pretty difficult. While Erica said that she doesn’t like being told when to start something new (as in New Years Resolutions) I actually really like it, and Lent in particular since it comes with measurable dates to start and stop. I could start exercising more, but let’s be honest , it’s winter and I live in Canada. But Kent is running every day for Lent so I’m sure I’ll get out there with him when it’s not snowing. Just not every day.
Now that we’ve established that I’m perfect and I don’t need to give up anything (juuuust kidding!), I’ll tell you what I did decide to give up:
For Lent, I’m giving up procrastinating.
Does anyone else have that ongoing list of small tasks that need to get done eventually, but that never seem pressing? I do, but I wrote them all out a few weeks ago and haven’t crossed any off since. On it is everything from getting my last name change officially finished, printing honeymoon pictures and some more wedding photos, hanging the quilt my Oma made us as a wedding gift (apparently wedding tasks are not my forte even six months later), fixing my coffee table, painting a bookshelf, filling me and Kent’s ipods with songs, organizing all the photos and videos on our computer, fixing my car tire, vacuuming my car, getting Kent’s ring sized finally… the list goes on! (For two and a half notebook pages, to be exact.) For Lent, I’m going to finish EVERYTHING on this list.
I wrote out everything I could possibly think of yesterday and then felt extremely overwhelmed with everything I need to do in the next forty days. But I got started on it right away, and last night in the hour between school and my evening course, I got all my honeymoon photos printed along with some wedding photos, and bought an album to put them in. I also made an appointment to get my name changed on my health card today, and Kent has been instructed to get our tire and coffee table fixed today (okay so maybe I’m not doing it all on my own.) I’m excited, not about doing all of these things but about having them all done.
Although to be honest, I’m a little worried that tasks like these keep adding up and I will keep adding things to the list forever. I’m curious, how does everyone else deal with these little tasks? Are you good at staying on top of things or like me do you have pages of things that need to get done eventually?
The anti superbowl post.
February 7, 2010 By 17 Comments
The Superbowl is very high on the list of things that I can’t even pretend to pretend to care about, along with pretty much every other team sport. I can look at the screen for about two seconds before my mind wanders. So that’s why I’m sitting at home on this Sunday night finding things to interest me while the rest of the world is interested in football (making business cards actually made the list.) You know, I actually played football on a winter team in university, believe it or not. It was called Powderpuff Football and the name led me to believe that it might be fun… it wasn’t. This blog is for everyone else out there who needs something else to interest them tonight.
I’ve started supply teaching and it’s pretty awesome – I already have jobs booked for every day this week and one day next week. On Friday I got to be a librarian and spent the day helping kids check out books, reading to kindergartners, letting kids hang out in the library and play chess or put books away when they didn’t want to go out for recess (I can totally identify – I was totally one of those kids who looked for jobs in the school in the winter so I wouldn’t have to go out in the cold.) I am used to becoming BFFs with my coworkers so it was a little sad going in to two different schools and not knowing anyone, and having no one pay that much attention to me since they know I’m just there for a day. But then I would think instead about how much better this job is than the coffee shop or any other job I’ve ever had was and feel MUCH better.
I didn’t have my mom to take a picture of me on my first day of school so I took one of myself instead:
One good thing about not having my own classoom? If I wear the same thing every day, no one will ever know! I always find a favourite outfit and then it’s the only thing I want to wear for a few days, until I move onto a new one. This job totally feeds that habit. For the past three days I’ve been wearing a white t-shirt, tan cardigan and green scarf :
And there’s a good chance that this trend will continue tomorrow and no one will ever know (except Kent, but he has to love me anyways. Well actually not even Kent, because he won’t realize it.)
I thought it would be fun (okay, my boredom has reached it’s max!) to take a self timed shot and show you exactly what my anti-superbowl night looks like. My little buddy Levi is hanging out with me as usual so I’m not totally alone (Kent’s at a superbowl party.) The anti red eye wouldn’t work on the kitten’s eyes, what is up with that? It makes me laugh that Levi is looking at the camera, he’s so aware.
Enjoy the rest of your superbowl, or anti-superbowl evening!
My love for the bachelor, continued.
February 1, 2010 By 10 Comments
Tonight was my favourite night of the week – Bachelor night! It’s definitely the only show that I won’t miss. Last year I lived with a group of girls that loved to watch it along with me, but now that I live with Kent it’s just as good because he loves it too. Maybe I shouldn’t be giving away secrets about his girly side (of which Bachelor is pretty much the extent) but I’m sure it helps that the show is full of gorgeous girls. And that I always make popcorn.
If you check out my post from last year’s Bachelor you’ll see that I picked the Canadian Jillian and I didn’t do too badly – in fact she went on to become the next Bachelorette! Right now there are only four girls left, but I made a list of my top four in the very first episode and three of the girls – Ali, Tenley, and Gia are still in! Pretty good! Especially since I don’t think anyone really likes the other girl in the top four, Vienna, except for Jake. I didn’t really have a fourth favourite so I picked Jessie just because she is Canadian. She didn’t do too badly, she left last week.
Of the top four Gia is my favourite. I got a little flack for liking her in the beginning since she’s a swimsuit model, but she is totally coming through for me. I think she’s adorable and Jake totally agrees.
Dear 2010: You can stay.
January 26, 2010 By 15 Comments
This marks my first post as an aunt annnnd an employed teacher!
That’s right, on Friday I got a letter in the mail offering me a job with the school board. I did a happy dance around my apartment, threw my kitten up in the air a few times, went to a meeting and signed some papers, and once I get the second half of my tuberculosis test done on Thursday, I can start teaching! Providing, I guess, that I don’t have tuberculosis, which will bring on a whole new set of problems. But my shot seems to be healing nicely so I think I’ll be okay.
So, yayyy! Problem solved. I am so relieved that I get to do what I want to do and that I won’t have to apply to any jobs that I don’t actually want, ever, ever, ever again!
Then on Saturday night, Erica and I were at the Hilton in Toronto for our awesome cousin Lara’s bachelorette party and I got a call from Leah who said, “Katelyn had the baby! It’s a girl!” I was shocked, number one because I was sure Rasperry was a boy, and number two because I didn’t get the memo that no one was going to find out when Katelyn went into labour. I thought I’d have some time to prepare! I’m SO HAPPY to add another girl to the family. Lara and our other cousin Lindsay ran out into the hall to join Erica and I and we did a tiny little celebration for Katelyn, Scott, and Hailey, then of course went back to celebrating Lara! Her bridal party did an amazing job of planning the perfect bachelorette for Lara which you can hear about from her point of view on her blog.
On Sunday Kent, Erica, and I made the two hour trip back to London to meet Hailey. I wanted to hold her but I have this belief (and I still stand by it) that my chances of dropping someone’s newborn increase 100% if I hold it, and really, that would ruin my day a whole bunch. Along with some other peoples. Not that I have shaky hands or am prone to dropping things but you know, it happens to the best of us. For instance tonight I dropped my keys before unlocking my door. But I could tell Katelyn was getting slightly insulted when she started asking me why I didn’t want to hold Hailey, so I sucked it up and very carefully held that cute little bundle of perfection. I love her! I miss her a whole bunch already and lucky Kent now gets to deal with every fifth sentence out of my mouth being something like, “hold the kitten and pretend it’s your baby.” For the record, he pretended to breastfeed and Levi attacked his hands. It wasn’t very realistic.
When worlds collide.
January 19, 2010 By 9 Comments
As many of our readers know, I’ve been trying to get a teaching job for a million years a few months. Because I am a person of little patience who wants everything to be perfect at all times, I have let this stress me out too much. I am not too much of a planner, but I do like to be able to plan and dream in my head for the future and it’s much nicer when these dreams consist of spending my days in bright happy schools, cute teacher-y outfits, a reason to get up early and do something (I’ll be kicking myself for this wish though), money to save for our own house, for my new camera, and for the guitar of his dreams for Kent, and to get through this year of weddings (six close friends and family) without going broke.
And you might just think this is another complainy blog, maybe you are three sentences away from clicking “mark as read,” but it’s not. Promise. I had a big big big interview on Friday for the exact teaching job that I want and spent last week as a nervous wreck preparing for it. My lovely in laws (recently retired teachers) picked me up and brought me there like I was a child on her first day of kindergarten and made sure not to say anything to make me even more nervous (not possible.) For various reasons I have a lot of hope about it and while positive is a strong word… well the more I think about it the more nervous about it I get, so I’ll stop there. Anyways. Let’s just pretend I do get the job.
Now my question – do blogging and teaching mix? I know a few bloggers who are teachers, some post pictures, and most use their real names. Some share stories about their students, many write things I doubt they would want their students reading. I don’t know if they take any precautions; make sure co-workers don’t know about their blogs, keep their blog secret from anyone they know in real life, but I know I couldn’t do any of that at this point. So many of our readers are real life friends and family, and when I worked at a bank my co-workers would make sure to inform me during the day if someone had updated our blog. I really like it being part of my real life, not a secret thing that I have to be careful about.
Also, even if I decided to keep my posts student-friendly, this is a shared blog and my sisters are of course free to write about whatever they want. Not that my sisters are writing about anything too out there, but do I want my students reading about my sisters’ roommate problems or work problems, for example? Not really. And I don’t think the school would appreciate it either. It’s a big school board, not just a small private school so getting fired would really not be preferable. Not that it ever would be.
So where does that bring me? I guess I have three options – keep blogging here and hope for the best, stop blogging, or start my own blog. I would be interested in starting something like Young House Love or Cupcakes and Cashmere, something that can feed my creativity and talk about my life without going into anything personal. If I do have my own blog I want it to be something I feel comfortable telling my students about. We don’t have an old house that we’ve fixed up into a masterpiece and I don’t have a wardrobe or fashion sense to die for, but we have our cute little apartment and will hopefully buy a house sometime this year. I could work on the wardrobe thing, especially if I did have a teaching job.
So tell me what you think – what would you do in my position, knowing me well or not knowing me at all? Or what would you do if you were in this position?
Micaela and Kent's weding #3: The Newlyweds.
December 14, 2009 By 5 Comments
Our wedding reception was held on my grandparents’ beautiful country property. After I got engaged I was in zero hurry to go look at reception halls (probably as a result of working at one on a golf course for one summer), but as soon as my mom mentioned a tent wedding on the farm, that’s when my mind started to go on overdrive. It may have been a LOT more work (for my mom mostly… sorry momma!) but it was totally worth it.
The day before the wedding after getting things set up in the tent, I asked Kent if he liked the tent and he replied “it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” which basically summed it up for me too.
Neither of us thrive in big crowds so it was nice to have our time alone in the car (with our wonderful driver Dane of course!) and taking photos before being mauled by people and flashes. My best friend is having a tent wedding next summer and I’m really excited to be part of one from the outside (well sort of outside – I’m a bridesmaid so I’m sure I’ll help out lots.) There is a lot of stress involved with being the bride and groom when you are as anxiety prone as we are sometimes!
We were taking a chance on the weather, but exactly a year before the wedding before I was engaged I remember thinking “It’s been really nice out all week. I should get married on this week next year.” So we did and I was right – in a summer of nothing but rainy Saturdays, we got really, really, lucky. Four months later people are still telling me that. The farmer who owned the wheat field was even nice enough to keep the wheat up for the wedding. How nice is that?? It would not have been the same without it. I went back to the property the next morning and it was already being combined.
Taking the long way around.
December 7, 2009 By 6 Comments
For a person who is definitely a homebody, I sure do seem to move around a lot. About seven months ago, Kent and I moved to Toronto for his job, and while I think where we are is okay, I would not say that I have thrived here. I have such a strong sense of what home is, that I’m not sure anywhere else could ever take it’s place. The job market in my field is depressing right now, but it’s a good sign that I am wanting it bad enough that I am still hoping and trying to get in. For me anyways, it’s hard to feel good about my life a lot of the time when I’m working in a coffee shop, even when it’s a cozy place and I harbour some serious love for some of the old men regulars whose faces light up when they see that I’m working, who ask, “do you have a few minutes?” and point to the empty chair next to them.
I feel like this recession has hit me hard, and it’s very frustrating at times, especially since I had a good, secure job before I decided to go back to school last year. I take the blame for it, I knew that it’s a tough field to get into right now, and really, I could only have been working since September. In the grand scheme of my life, three months is not very long. In the grand scheme of the past three months however, it’s forever. But I know that when it does happen, I will be very happy with what I’m doing, and even more grateful because of this extra time it took to get there. I know there are a lot of people who just work to pay the bills and don’t actually enjoy it, and I’m not willing to do this with my life (but Micaela, isn’t this what you are doing right now? Good point…) Lately some opportunities have come up and while they are not THE opportunity I am waiting for, they are new paths to help get me there and new ways to feel satisfied and good about what I’m doing with my life. So I’m excited about that.
When I look back on times in the past, I think “you know, you had it really good and I wonder if you even knew it?” I’m sure you know the feeling. I bet that’s how I’ll feel about this, what I have right now, someday. Maybe I’m not making tons of money, but I’m learning a lot about a line of work that Kent is interested in going into someday, and there is a lot I can help him with now. Maybe my boss is not a pleasure to work for, but I am learning a lot about how not to treat people, ever. I’m learning how to not let people’s actions get under my skin and ruin my mood or my day. I’m finding other things to fulfill me that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. I’m able to define myself for who I am, not as a person in a particular role in life.
Saving the day.
December 4, 2009 By 1 Comment
Erica, Katelyn, and I were at the One of a Kind craft show and our aunt’s house for dinner today, and came back to my apartment to no blog post for today.
So we are saving the day with a few photos from the day.
Katelyn and Laura and their bambinos at the craft show:
Me, Kate, and Erica at home:
Kate and Razzle after a long day:
Levi in the Christmas tree:
There was some great stuff at the craft show. Here are some of our favourite things.
Kate thought this would be cute in the baby room:
This memory game that Raspberry would LOVE (and everything else at this shop):
We liked the snowboarding baby shirt at this booth, and the guy said he had one with skiers too “to make mom and dad happy” which is exactly right since Kate is a snowboarder and Mr. Kate is a skier. I should also had that Kate and I loved his accent.
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