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Heidi Klum Pregnant, and other things I love.

February 26, 2008 By 6 Comments

For the past couple of weeks I have been making my way through season 2 of Project Runway. There is some great designing, I am completely in love with Chloe and Daniel, and Santino’s impressions of Tim Gunn are hilarious. However, the most awe-inspiring part of this season for me so far, although I haven’t made it to Olympus Fashion Week yet, is HEIDI KLUM in all her pregnant glory. Seriously:

heidi

heidi2

Am I wrong???? I hope to look 1/3 as good as her when I am pregnant, off in the very distant future (sorry Leah).

Other things I love these days:

1. Late night blogging and late night glasses of wine.

2. Ladies night on Friday, at which 3 of the five blondes outlasted all of the other tables of ladies in our town, and in fact all of the other tables, until we were left sitting on the floor, very proud of our #1 status:

ladies

Clockwise from top left is me, Leah, Katelyn, and my best friend of 19 years, Michelle.

3. The Sex and the City movie!!! Which doesn’t come out for 3 months but I am anxiously awaiting.

4. The book I am currently reading, Manhattan: When I was Young:

kkl

kento

5. My crazy, fun, cute boyfriend who I got to spend the whole day with today (unheard of for us)… and by the end of the day he still couldn’t be in a different room from me for more than 12 seconds. I like to think that I am totally loveable, not that he is needy… Just kidding, he isn’t needy (I don’t think.) Just kidding again…

sistas

6. My sistas! Kate’s wedding day, pretty dresses, Sandy and Marcie, Leah’s pose, and all of the things that make this picture great:

And a million other things… all for another day.

Micaela.

Filed Under: blonde, love, micaela, relationships, thoughts Tagged With: ,

Five Busy Blondes

November 22, 2007 By 2 Comments

Wow, not much going on as of late! Finals are coming up for those of us in school…naturally an important time of year. Micaela celebrated her birthday earlier this month with a new Lululemon sweater which I have yet to see, but am already very jealous of! Paisley – I love paisley! Kate and Scott are obviously back from their honeymoon, but seem to be having the same kind of difficulties that D and I are having getting telephone and internet service worked out at their new house. Who knew the real world would be this difficult? Leah’s birthday is coming up – always a party – and I hear that Lauren is getting snowed on in Ottawa and is planning to head to Tremblant soon?!? Luck-yyy!! By the way, Lo, I see that Allison Forsyth is sitting out the ski season – there’s a spot on the national team open for ya!

D and I went to Pier 1 Imports last weekend – I was there to browse, D was there to buy a coffee table (even though we have 2 already – long story) despite my insistence that we did not need a new one.  I was holding out just fine…until he pointed out a red and brown wood chest with inlaid flowers on the side…possibly the coffee table/storage unit of my dreams.  Browsing turned into buying and we now have 3 coffee tables (though one is destined for the woodpile at the farm).

Now all we need at the new apartment is a rug for in front of the gas fireplace! I love this design for a rug – in fact I would buy that one except it is a coconut fibre doormat. I guess I will continue my search!

I”m always looking for a creative output, and I love computers, so I’ve decided that my next ‘project’ (as in, the project I will take up when I no longer have to spend evenings at school!) will be a blogging project. Or, rather, a continuation of THIS blogging project. I want to use the WordPress CMS and design our own, unique theme for the site! This goes along with a side project that I can’t mention right now. ;) I am excited to get started on it and have found some great resources already, such as those on Lorelle’s blog. I know that there are many super cool free WordPress themes available on the net, but designing one myself will give me so much more satisfaction in the end, and also skills to build on.

Speaking of designing and skillz, we’ve not shared this photograph on the blog and I think we should because it is absolutely beautiful. These are our Oma’s hands as she works on Kate’s wedding dress – she hand-stitched thousands of beads, crystals, and sequins onto the dress over the summer! I like that the photo highlights her own wedding ring. She and Opa will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in January – and we’re having a big party to celebrate next summer!

Oma’s Hands

Filed Under: environment, erica, Family, furniture, internet, life, personal, photography, thoughts, university, writing

How To Say I Love You

November 12, 2007 By 2 Comments

Man.  Our posting frequency has seriously diminished since the wedding.  Of course, we have our reasons…life went back to ‘normal’ and we had to catch up on stuff we had abandoned for the sake of the wedding.  Case in point: I had to study for a midterm (I had a midterm on Halloween :p ), and prepare to move to a new apartment!  Also, Kate has been away on her honeymoon in Costa Rica this past week.   I can’t vouch for Micaela, Leah, or Lauren…WAIT, I take that back, Lauren DID post the ‘optical illusion’, so, way to go Lauren!

Today I’m posting a link to a touching, yet sometimes odd, essay entitled How To Say I Love You by Paul Ford. I feel it is important to note that it is written from a male point of view, simply because I found some of the suggestions to be confusing when I first considered them from my female POV.

Ford poses his “How-To’s” in many different ways.  Some are short, simple statements that cause you to think twice, such as (2) with freshly cut flowers, assuming she is not a flower; and (46) At Thanksgiving, to her twin sister, by accident.  Others are fun, inspiring, and applicable to real life: (47) In glow-in-the-dark-paint on the bedroom ceiling; and (82) Change your status to “interested in: just friends”.

Some suggestions spoke to me from my unique perspective on the world – especially (50) Branded onto her favorite pig; and (86) via the poetry of Pablo Neruda or Jorge Luis Borges that you have copied into a small black journal.  I also loved (100), but I’ll leave that one as a surprise.

Ford includes his wedding vows as ways to say I love you…awww!  He also spins multiple “I Love You’s” into fictional stories.  Truly, this article is about how small, seemingly inconsequential acts are really testaments of love!

What little things do you do to say ‘I love you’?

Filed Under: erica, life, love, relationships, thoughts, writing Tagged With: , ,

Journey to THE wedding- (t-13 days..)

October 14, 2007 By 2 Comments

 Time seems to have flown by.  I still feel like it was yesterday that Scott nervously handed me my christmas present, swifly turned it after I had the wrapping paper open, so that I would open it the right way and open a present that would change my life.

The past 10 months have been full of living my normal everyday life, but also many changes and much planning for the wedding. 

4 Highlights:

  • Attending the first wedding in my group of friends! (Yay Laura and Matt!)
  • Graduating.,. crossing the stage into adulthood, literally and figuratively.
  • My first adult job… learning that sometimes even if something isn’t perfect, it helps to stick out and grow as a person.
  • Growing closer to my future family through planning and the many family events we celebrated this year.

These last two weeks and the future ahead will be full of times that I should cherish, and I only hope that I will be able to slow down and take it all in.   I’ll try to update lots in these last 2 weeks of my singlehood and share all my thoughts.

Filed Under: friends, life, love, personal, thoughts, Wedding

On the To-Do List: Just Keep Up

September 20, 2007 By 1 Comment

I’ve been quiet lately.  For good reason: I’m both exceedingly tired and exceedingly busy!

Last week marked the beginning of my last ever school year. Well, school half-year. Or, technically, half of a half school year.  Anyway, I’m taking 3 evening classes (each worth a half-credit) so I can finally get that darn piece of paper indicating that I am a university graduate.  I survived.

Unfortunately, these evening classes coupled with work are draining my reserves.   My week starts out like this:

10-6 work; 7-10 class.

This is my Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday schedule until December.

When you think about it, December really isn’t that far away.  This means that I’ll only have the time from now until December to keep up with an increasing workload, reading for 3 classes, assignments for said classes, and study for various tests and exams.  Not to mention the other things going on, such as my dwindling social life, and the fact that the new seasons of Grey’s Anatomy and The Office start next week.  Thankfully, on Thursdays.

Filed Under: erica, health, internet, life, love, money, personal, relationships, thoughts, university, Work

Have You Bought Any Crap Lately?

September 7, 2007 By 1 Comment

Credit: The Onion

 FENGHUA, CHINA—Chen Hsien, an employee of Fenghua Ningbo Plastic Works Ltd., a plastics factory that manufactures lightweight household items for Western markets, expressed his disbelief Monday over the “sheer amount of shit Americans will buy.”

OK, it’s The Onion, but isn’t there some truth to it?  As a society, we have soooo much stuff!  I have things I can’t bear to throw away, although I have no idea where/when I got it.  Then, when I do decide to throw it away, I feel guilty for helping fill some landfill somewhere.

 ”I hear that Americans can buy anything they want, and I believe it, judging from the things I’ve made for them,” Chen said. “And I also hear that, when they no longer want an item, they simply throw it away. So wasteful and contemptible.”

Essentially…yes. Unless it can be sold on E-bay.  Which creates packaging waste and has a bigger carbon footprint than you might imagine, considering the exhaust from vehicles used to transport the item to its destination.

Maybe it’s time to simplify.

Filed Under: environment, erica, humour, thoughts, weird

Checked your Facebook privacy settings before? Check again.

September 6, 2007 By 2 Comments

FB

Yesterday, Facebook announced that they “are making limited public search listings available to people who are not logged in to Facebook. “  What does this mean exactly?  It means that any Tom, Dick or Harry on the internet who can type in a search bar and hit “Search” might be able to find your Facebook listing and poke you, send you a message, see your profile picture, and view your friends list.

This is not so cool. I am not impressed. First Facebook opened registration to everyone who wants to sign up – but it was still a ‘closed network’ to the rest of the online world and gave the illusion of security.  It must be secure if you need to login before you can see anything, right?  Yes and no.  We gave all of our information to Facebook.  Do you know the guys who run FB? I don’t. I don’t know anyone who does. How about all of those checkboxes you have to ensure are selected before you can add an app? Have you thought about what they mean? They mean that you are giving all of your information to the creators of the app, whoever they may be.  Whatever they may use your information for.
I know I’m a hypocrite. I use Facebook every day. I have a couple of apps on my profile (one being the WordPress app).  I wasn’t too concerned, because I’ve been very selective with the apps I’ve added, and so far I’ve had no reason to mistrust Facebook – until my boss pointed out this fact to me at work today:

BY DEFAULT, YOUR PROFILE IS ACCESSIBLE BY SEARCH ENGINES.

Now, Facebook is no more ‘secure’ than Myspace. It makes sense though, doesn’t it? Do you know anyone who would say “why yes, I’d love my Facebook profile to be available from [insert search engine here]!!”  I’m sure they are out there (like those Facebookers who use their profiles as marketing tools), but it’s not your average user.

As soon as you are done reading this post, go login to your Facebook profile.  Click “privacy” in the upper right hand corner.  Click on “Edit Settings” for “Search”.  If you do nothing else, at least make your profile unaccessible by search engines.

If this information hasn’t compelled you to take any action, I ask you: What does your profile picture look like? Do you look like someone that you would consider ‘employable’ by a respectable company?

If your answer is ‘no’, please realize that a potential employer is very likely to search for you in Google, or in Facebook.  Now go change your privacy settings.

LINKS

Facebook Profiles Will Appear in Google Results Next Month – Mashable

Filed Under: blogging, erica, facebook, google, internet, news, personal, technology, thoughts

You’re every song, and I sing along cuz you’re my everything

September 3, 2007 By 12 Comments

Today I spent a really awesome day with Kent: we woke up around 9, watched some Rachel Ray, headed out to Guelph, visited Leah at the Fat Duck, visited other Leah at their house for 2.5 seconds while I stole a bathing suit, thennn went tubing at the Elora Gorge! Parts of it were very scary, others were really relaxing and we just laid out with our legs on each others tubes and chatted and suntanned. Next we went to the Elora Quarry which was AMAZING! Such a cool place, I would definitely recommend both. After a trip to Swiss Chalet we went to the racetrack and gambled on horses. I am financially cautious when it comes to gambling, and most other things besides clothes, so I only bet $2 on a few horses but I DID win $4.30 on one! Kent made a large bet of $12 on one race and won a whopping $12.15!

The day was quite excellent until the way home… well the first bit of it was fine, with Kent seranading me with Michael Buble’s “Everything” for a good 15 minutes (sounds muuuch more romantic and less annoying than it really was trust me!!). He also enjoyed belting it out to various songs and changing words around (you becomes poo, me becomes pee, day becomes gay… you get the idea). Finally we got to that point where we were tired and just wanted to listen to music, except we have very different but both very strong musical tastes. It usually leads to arguing, but today we agreed that we needed to set some rules. Kent (the driver today) decided the rule should be that the driver chooses but I obviously disagreed. Finally the rules we agreed upon were:

 1. During the day, the driver chooses because the passenger can do other things like look at scenery or read or dance.

2. After nightfall, the driver and the passenger both get an equal amount of time listening to music of their choice (today the time allotted was half an hour but I suppose would be shortened for shorter drives!)

3. If their time is up and it’s in the middle of a song, the chooser can finish listening to a song, but they can’t change the station right before their time is up if its the end of a song, just so they can get one more song in.

4. If they hear a song that they know is one of the other person’s favourite, the nice thing to do is leave it on if they want. “That’s a big IF” Kent said when I suggested that one, although he did leave on a scratchy version of Delilah for me… but maybe that was after I told him that he definitely doesn’t love me after he skipped through it the first time. :)

 There are probably more, but those are the main ones. After setting all of those rules we had no more arguments about music choices! It worked very well, for now anyways. Let me know if you have any you think I should add or how you deal with differing musical tastes during long car rides. 

Filed Under: life, love, micaela, music, relationships, thoughts

Random lovin

August 30, 2007 By Leave a Comment

I found this website called The Spoon Sisters through Wedding Bee and I think I found a new love, sorry Scott, but this website has everything a girl could need and more.

Check out these party cups.. perfect for the upcoming Stag and Doe (more about that later).

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And this shoe door stopper, perfect to hold my office door open for the world to see.

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This Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook for College is perfect for Lauren who’s heading off to University! Advice on how to survive “the spins,” discover the best way to sleep in class, identifying unsafe institutional food and much more.

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These luggage tags are way too cute. Perfect for all the traveling I well don’t do.. A girl can dream right?

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Heart paper clips because who could resist these cuties.

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and lastly Emergency Chocolate. Any other choc-a-holics out there? chocolate.jpg

Filed Under: katelyn, life, random, shopping, sisters, thoughts, webpages, weird

Making your emotional relationship financial: 5 rules to consider

August 29, 2007 By 7 Comments

images.jpgMoney.

Such a huge aspect of life, whether you want it to be or not!

If you’ve ever discussed combining finances with your husband/ wife/finance/fiancee/partner/significant other, you’re not alone.

Throughout the 18 months we’ve been living together, I’ve suggested several times that perhaps D & I should get a joint bank account and/or credit card. I looked up the information, grabbed brochures, and pointed out (first casually, lately insistently) that the money he has in his checking account would be much better held in a savings account where he would earn interest. In addition, seeing as we’re buying furniture and groceries together, why don’t we get a credit card together (preferably one with rewards) and split everything down the middle?

Yesterday he finally cracked (perhaps due to the prospect of planning a wedding?) and I arrived home to have him tell me that we were leaving to go to the bank and set up a joint chequing account and credit card.

With that (and many other things) in mind, I’ve developed my own short list of “rules” to consider before making your emotional relationship…financial.

  1. Know your partner’s spending habits! Hopefully this goes without saying, but if you don’t know where the money is going, that’s not good. Alternately, if your partner always has new clothes, ‘toys’ (ie. video games), or is always eating out or spending lots of money at bars, this should be a concern as well.
  2. Know your partner’s financial goals. Is your significant other saving up for a house…or a trip to the Caribbean? If you don’t know…find out! Why save money together is you’ll just argue about how to spend it?
  3. Discuss all purchases. D is currently lusting after a big screen TV – if I got home tomorrow and found that he had purchased one on our credit card…let’s just say that it wouldn’t be pretty. He would be upset if I bought a new snowboard – it works both ways.
  4. Agree on how much to contribute to a shared account. This will depend mainly on individual incomes. If there is a wide discrepancy between your incomes, agree on how much each of you would contribute (for example, an equal percentage of your paycheque).
  5. Ensure that you can make payments on time. Along with knowing spending habits, know payment habits as well. Does your significant other have a good payment history with creditors? Do you know if he or she has any creditors? What’s their credit score? For that matter, what’s *your* credit score??

Wow. That last one almost got away from me there! Don’t forget, these 5 “rules” are only a few things you should consider before making your emotional relationship financial. Above all, make sure that you are comfortable with the prospect. Talk to someone else about it if you need to. Talk to your banker! Someone working in the financial industry has likely seen this a multitude of times and may have considerations you haven’t even thought of. Don’t be bullied into it, and if you don’t feel ready – just say no!

** DISCLAIMER **

I am not a financial advisor. I’m just sharing my thoughts with the world.

/disclaimer
add to sk*rt

Filed Under: blogging, erica, life, love, money, personal, relationships, thoughts, Wedding
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