This is one of my favourite little tricks, it allows you to show your loved ones how much you care, while also annoying them just enough to make them glad you don’t live closer.
First, write out the greeting in your card, or if you are making you own cards, stamp them, glitter them, etc until they are ready to go.
Then take a large pile of confetti or glitter (confetti is nicer because it’s bigger and easier to clean up) and insert it into a folded piece of paper. I used heart doilies because I am festive like that.
Carefully insert the folded paper into the card, facing up, and close the card. Insert it into the envelope folded side first, and send it off to your chosen target.
When they pull the card out of the envelope and open it, the paper with the confetti (or glitter, depending on how much you love/hate that person) will fall and scatter, leaving them with a big, sparkly mess which they will clean up while sending positive, loving thoughts your way. Probably.
We are having a dessert buffet at work today. It’s kind of depressing how excited I am for this, but once I saw all the delicious things that everyone brought in, I realized I wasn’t even as excited as I should have been.
Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope everyone gets a ton of kisses, or a ton of chocolate, and if you’re really lucky, both at the same time.
We are going to Sausalito for supper, it’s one of my favourite little towns in the Bay area, and keeping it low key since we are off to LA this weekend. I officially finished my “cleanse” two days ago, so I’m super excited to eat pasta for the first time in almost a month!
It’s going to be just like this, with hopefully the exact same number of mustaches and accordions.
I bought this sweater a few weeks ago, I have no idea why. I’ve never owned a sweater in my life, and I have never even remotely considered the idea of incorporating hi-lighter yellow (or fluorescent green, depending on who you ask… I may be colour blind) into my wardrobe, but it just looked so cheerful and warm, I wanted it immediately.
With some baggy jeans and the necklace from my wedding, it was a comfy, colourful way to spend a lazy Sunday.
Sweater: F21/ Jeans: Express/ Wedges: Local Fever/ Sunglasses: American Eagle
On Sunday we went to check out Briones, a regional park in Martinez, CA. Sometimes I get so caught up in daydreaming about all of the places in the world that I want to visit, that I forget that I live in a pretty amazing place already.
There is so much to do in California, and it’s kind of neat to think that the same roads you drive down every day could lead you somewhere amazing, if you just remember to make a different turn every once in awhile.
me: do you think we could climb all the way up there? derek: no.
jealous
favourite shirt
we saw a coyote, and one random cow, I think he was lost
“We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can’t recall a single amazing thing I have seen firsthand that I didn’t immediately reference to a movie or TV show. A fucking commercial. You know the awful singsong of the blase: Seeeen it.
I’ve literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can’t anymore. I don’t know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved ones dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script.
It’s very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real actual person instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless Automat of characters.
And if all of us are play-acting, there can be no such thing as a soul mate, because we don’t have genuine souls.”
I love writing like this, the first time I read this passage I got chills all the way down to my toes.
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. I get this book for every person I know who is having a baby, it’s the greatest children’s book ever written. I can still remember my mom reading it to us when I was little. Robert Munsch has tons of great children’s books, my favourite are Moira’s Birthday, The Paperbag Princess, Something Good, and David’s Father.
A list of the best children’s books would not be complete without There’s a Monster at the End of This Book, with a shout out to my auntie Sherri, who does the best Grover voice, ever.
This book, Life: The Classic Collection that I bought as a birthday present to myself 2 years ago. It has all the most famous photographs ever printed in Life magazine, and some of them are removable so you can take them out and hang them in your house. I recently rediscovered it (we will have some unpacked boxes) and put up my favourites right away. I need to get frames, but every time I go to Target I end up buying a toboggan, a fishing rod and a new serving tray, so I just stuck them up with fun-tac for now.
This video (apparently there is a bit of a literary theme for this post):
Three years ago today I watched a boy walking across the room towards me with the warmest smile and the biggest brown eyes I’d ever seen. Now, I’m lucky enough to wake up beside him every day.
Thank you for making me smile when I would rather be sad, for letting me put my cold toes on you sometimes, and for taking the empty toothpaste and leaving the full one for me.
Thank you for always supporting me in anything I choose to do, no matter how silly or crazy it may seem. Whether it be starting a blog, deciding to run a marathon, or trying to pack us up and move us to Australia, knowing your answer will always be some version of “let’s do it” makes it so much easier for me to try for all the things I want to do, and I hope I can always support you the same way.
The last year and a half, especially has been pretty tumultuous, and through all of it you have been unfailingly hopeful, positive, and a constant source of strength for me, even with everything else you had going on. I’m so proud of all you have accomplished, and I know there are lots of good things ahead for you, and for us, together.
Thank you for the last 3 years, here is to at least 3 more. errrrrr, kidding! I love you madly, xx.
We had a very busy weekend last weekend, my brother in law and his girlfriend are having a baby in April, and the baby shower was Saturday.
Cantaloupe baby head, the picture isn’t the greatest but it was super cute
Sooo many presents
Strawberry and lemon cupcakes (but sadly, none for me)
The In-Laws
In case you were wondering, this is what you eat on Superbowl Sunday when you can’t eat any of the chicken wings, delicious dips or brownies.. I was especially sad about the brownies, but I made this amazing fruit salad with strawberries, blackberries, kiwi, pineapple, raspberries, and grapes, and no disgusting melon. I love fruit salad and would order it all the time but usually it is half honeydew melon, half cantaloupe with one strawberry on top.
I hate cantaloupe, it’s been pointed out that I may have a irrational hatred for it, I can’t even be in the same room with it because the smell makes me sick. But my fruit salad was delicious, and between that, grilled chicken and veggie skewers, I still managed to eat myself into a mini-food coma.
Since I’ve been doing my cleanse, I’ve had to be a bit less discriminating about some of the things I’m willing to eat, if only out of sheer boredom. I’m kind of a picky eater, so there are lots of things that are probably delicious together that I just would never think to combine.
My girlfriend turned me on to this recipe for a quick, delicious lunch, and as I was getting pretty sick of quinoa, tamari and veggies every day, I was excited to have a new option.
loveliness. 
