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  • Author Archives: jasminedesirees

    • bay life

      Posted at 4:32 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 21, 2012
      Last weekend we headed into the city for Red Bull Flugtag. I’ve been seeing commercials for it forever, and I was so excited to finally be there to see it. Sadly, we didn’t show up the night before and camp out so we couldn’t get anywhere near close enough to see all of the action.
      Luckily, it was a gorgeous day, so we found a waterfront cafe and had brunch and mimosas instead.
      “The Golden Gate Bridge is red? WTF!”- My lovely sister Courtney
      Luckily you can’t see it in the picture but this was about 5 minutes after I dropped a chicken kebob on my skirt
       
       
      Posted in life, San Francisco | 0 Comments
    • canadia

      Posted at 6:07 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 20, 2012

      In honour (with a u) of my upcoming trip back to the Great White North, I have amassed some of my favourite Youtube videos that remind me of home.

      The first time I watched this video during the 2010 Winter Olympics I sobbed. Hysterically.

      And this video is just amazing.

      True story.

      Also, this:

      Posted in Canada, life, travel | 0 Comments
    • i’m leafing..

      Posted at 9:51 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 18, 2012
      I found this leaf while I was out for my run this morning and it filled me with a burst of patriotism as I sweated and wheezed my way up the big hill by my house. I am so excited for this week, on Wednesday I leave for home, I get to go back to Canada for 5 days to see my friends and family, and hopefully do some frolicking in the snow.
      I don’t get to go home very often and when I do there are always so many people I want to see and so many things that I want to do that it never seems long enough. Even though it can be a little rushed and frantic, and I constantly feel like I am disappointing someone because I have to pick and choose and I can’t do everything and see everyone, I always have so much fun, and I always leave feeling happier, and more like myself than I do anywhere else.
      Posted in Canada, life | 0 Comments | Tagged Canada
    • oasis

      Posted at 8:27 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 16, 2012

      One of the great things about being in this city, is there is something different around every corner. We are always looking for new places to eat lunch, it’s nice to get out of the office and spend time outside especially when the weather is nice.

       
      Last week we were walking to get food, and we turned a corner and found this beautiful park beside the Yerba Buena Center. It has waterfalls, flowers and tons of beautiful green grass, and it is very peaceful, even when there are a lot of people around. It’s the kind of place that makes you wish you had a frisbee, or a book to plop down and read under a tree.

      It’s a perfect little oasis in the middle of all of the brick and concrete.

      Posted in exploring, life, San Francisco | 0 Comments
    • gno

      Posted at 4:45 am by jasminedesirees, on November 16, 2012

      I love my husband to death, and I have so much fun hanging out with him, but because of the way we moved here, and how we had been living for the past year, we have spent a ton of time together. Whenever one of us wasn’t at work, it was basically always the two of us together.

      I think it has really brought us closer together, but at the same time, I think it’s really unhealthy for a relationship for the two people in it to only have each other, and not have outside friendships, relationships and hobbies.

      In the last few months since I’ve started working and getting more comfortable with the area, I’ve definitely opened up more and really gotten to know some great people, especially some really great women. Women have always been a bit tough for me, the good girl friends I have are amazing, I would do anything for them, and they would do anything for me, but it definitely takes time to build those relationships, and it doesn’t happen with just anyone you meet.

      As much as I miss my ladies being so far away from them here, I have met some really fun, friendly, ambitious girls in the last few months, and I’m having a blast getting to know them, and spending time with them, yes, usually over a glass of wine. We have a lot in common, being young and female and just getting started in the work force, and also not from this area, so it’s been really great.

      I just got back from having a drink after work with one of my new favourite girls, and it was exactly what I needed after such a crazy week at work. I missed my bus stop and had to run almost 2 miles in the dark down rapist alley, but it was worth it. Sometimes all you need is a glass of wine and some girl talk to change your whole perspective.

      Posted in friends, life | 0 Comments
    • favourites…

      Posted at 7:33 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 13, 2012

      Things that are making me happy right now:

      This recipe for chocolate cheesecake that I am going to make for our company Thanksgiving potluck. I bought a spring-form pan to make Pumpkin Cheesecake for Canadian Thanksgiving this year, and ever since then I’ve been wanting to make a new cheesecake recipe every week, and then eat the whole thing myself.

      I feel very accomplished when I pull out my spring-form pan, they only let you buy one if you are a professional chef. Probably. All I need now is a set of ramekins and I can basically open my own restaurant.

      This Rose Gold Michael Kors watch I’ve been wanting for a few months now. It is soooo gorgeous but I always feel guilty spending so much money on an item for myself, because there are starving children in the world, still a girl can dream. Maybe if I am a good Santa will put it in my stocking?

      The fact that there are only 9 more days until I get to go back to Canada to see all of my family and friends. So far on the agenda: perogies, a Grey Cup party, hockey games,  a bachelorette party for one of my oldest friends, and massive amounts of cuddling with my niece and nephew.

      The best part is, that one guy is finally going to get to see where I’m from, which is probably slightly overdue given that we’ve been together 3 years and are already married. He is from California, and had 1200 people in his graduating class alone, but I’m from a very tiny place, I only had 36 people in my grad class and that was considered a lot. It’s going to be lots of fun to show him my lovely little town.

      And this picture, that I found on Pinterest with no link and no attribution. It looks like it was just painted on a wall somewhere, but I’d love to have it on canvas for my house.

      Love Sick
      Posted in Canada, favourites | 0 Comments | Tagged chocolate cheesecake, favourites, graffiti, michael kors
    • dream dress

      Posted at 8:17 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 12, 2012
      I’ve never really been that girl that spent a lot of time daydreaming about what her wedding would be like. I like flowers, but to me, for the most part, flowers are flowers. I don’t care about napkins, or place settings. I didn’t go crazy buying bridal magazines the minute I got engaged, in fact I never bought any at all. I knew at some point that I would need to get a wedding dress, and had even tried on a few, but to be honest, they were all kind of the same to me. All of them were white, and beautiful, any of them could have been my wedding dress and any of them would have worked just fine. I guess that’s how I knew I hadn’t found the right dress yet.

      I did use Pinterest to keep ideas I liked for the wedding together, and one day I was looking around on the site, and I found this picture:

       

       
      It was over for me at that point, I knew that this was going to be my dress. I don’t even know what it was exactly about it, it is obviously a gorgeous dress, but the woman wearing it in this picture is so stunning that she could have been wearing a brown paper bag and looked amazing. There was no link on the picture, no description, nothing, but I knew I had to find out who made this dress.
       
      Thus began my exhaustive search. I tried google, tried writing to bridal magazine editors and woman’s magazine editors, tried twitter and facebook, I commented on the picture on Pinterest and tried to get more information from other pinners. A couple of months went by and I didn’t have any leads. I had been to another bridal salon and tried to find something similar, but there was nothing even remotely close to the amazingness that was that dress.

      Then one day, I got a Pinterest notification that someone had commented on my photo. The commenter told me that the dress I was seeking was Romona Keveza (who is a Canadian designer, whooo). After more research, I realized that the dress was a few seasons old, and even if I happened to find it, it was thousands of dollars. I’ve always been the girl that watched an episode of “Say Yes to the Dress” and couldn’t believe that the wedding dresses STARTED at $2,000, and even though I loved this dress, I knew I wouldn’t be able to pay that kind of money for a dress I would only wear once, especially with all of the other expenses of the wedding, and the house that we were in the process of buying.
       
      Soon after, I happened to come across the website Recycled Bride, where women sell their used wedding dresses and other wedding accessories. I was so excited to see that not only was there a woman selling the dress I wanted for only $1,300 (which I realize is still a lot more than some people could afford to spend on a dress, but it was only a fraction of the original cost) in my size. I was so excited, but also very nervous because I wouldn’t be able to try the dress on before I bought it, and even though it SHOULD have fit according to the size, all designers are different.
       
      Also, the woman was selling it from Virginia, and I had no way of knowing whether I would actually get the dress, or if it was some scheme designed to rip off girls who had fallen in love with this same Pinterest picture.
       
      I mulled it over for a few days, and exchanged a few emails with Lindsey, the seller. A few people told me not to do it, that it was too risky, but for some reason I just KNEW that this was my dress, and that if I went ahead and got it, it would all work out fine. I also knew that no other dress would be able to live up to this one after all of the work I had put into finding it, and that I would always wonder about it if I decided not to get it.
       
      I wired Lindsey the money, and a week later, the dress was mine. It was a little bit big in the hips, but I was able to get it taken in, and it really was my dream dress, I would have it on every single day if I could pee without help and fit into a bus seat while wearing it. So I guess the moral of that story is, if you absolutely refuse to give up on something, and you have a little faith in people, you can sometimes get exactly what you want.

      Posted in fashion | 0 Comments
    • free fallin’

      Posted at 6:02 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 6, 2012

      This weekend was perfect. I thought about buying a lottery ticket on Sunday because I felt so lucky, and I felt sure that anything I might endeavor to try this weekend was destined to succeed.

      I got home from work early on Friday and cleaned the whole house, made quesadillas for supper, and watched The Five Year Engagement, which was actually really funny, and has re-awakened my hunger for hunting down every food truck in San Francisco.

      I woke up Saturday morning to a spotless house, and instead of opting for my usual by-myself “healthy” Saturday morning breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast, I made myself two decadent slices of french toast with syrup and powdered sugar, and ate them with a big bowl of raspberries and tons of coffee, it was heaven.

      Even though it was the first weekend in November, it was a balmy 80 degrees outside.

      After breakfast I sorted though some of our wedding photos, then ventured out to the East Bay Free Book Exchange (yes, all of the books are really free!) and spent about an hour browsing the shelves.

      I found some classics, (To Kill a Mockingbird, The Sun Also Rises), and some trashy beach novels, and also a book about digital photography, which I’m very interested in, and one about learning Spanish, which has been a goal of mine for years.

      I took classes in university, but not enough to be fluent. I bought the book as a refresher course for our trip to Ixtapa next month, even though I have a sneaking suspicion that “tequila” is the same in every language.

      On the way home I stopped in at Michael’s to stock up in supplies and creativity, and I’m very excited about some of my upcoming projects (also known as “covering things in glitter”) probably due to my recent success in the Halloween costume department.

      I was supposed to meet that one guy in the city for the Ski and Snowboard expo, so I went in a few hours early, and roamed around in the sunshine on Haight street, popping in to check out all of the neat vintage clothing stores.

      I bought my sister a birthday present, and myself some cookies from the Haight St Market, I don’t know what they put in them, but as I’ve been compelled on more than one occasion to walk from my office on 2nd all the way to Haight-Ashbury just to get one, so it’s definitely laced with something.

      On the way to the expo we stopped by the Full House house, as a true ’90’s kid I had no choice but to document the experience.

      The Painted Ladies, you can see these houses in the opening credits of Full House

      After the expo we went out for Mexican and margaritas. Perfect Saturday.

      Sunday was equally as idyllic, I even got started on my Christmas shopping.

      I was driving down the highway on the way to the mall with the windows down, wind blowing in my hair on the most beautiful day of the year, and then “Free Fallin’ by Tom Petty came on the radio. I was basically Tom Cruise, but taller and with less Scientology.

      I got a pretty decent start on presents for my nearest and dearest, and as a reward for being so selfless, I bought myself this lovely t-shirt.

      Posted in California, life, San Francisco | 0 Comments | Tagged East Bay, lazy sunday, life, San Francisco
    • Sonnet XVII

      Posted at 7:12 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 5, 2012
      Me and that one guy are not a very lovey-dovey or sentimental couple, at least not when there are other people around. We talked about writing our own vows for the big day, but we decided that we would rather do traditional vows, as neither of us really wanted to try to remember or recite our own vows.We also didn’t to keep our guests sitting there sweltering in the July heat any longer than was strictly necessary, but we did want to include something personal and unique. We both love Pablo Neruda’s Sonnet XVII and decided to have it read during the ceremony:

      I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
      or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
      I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
      in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

      I love you as the plant that never blooms
      but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
      thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
      risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

      I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
      I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
      so I love you because I know no other way

      than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
      so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
      so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

      The last paragraph, especially, makes me happy every time I read it.We did end up writing our own vows to each other, and exchanged them a few days before the wedding. It was a very personal and special night for us.Our vows are now sitting in frames on each of our night stand’s, to remind us first thing in the morning, and last thing before bed that even if I am being grouchy, or he is leaving his clothes all over the house, at the end of the day, we’d rather be together than apart.

      Posted in inspiration, loveliness, poetry | 0 Comments | Tagged love poem, Pablo Neruda, poetry, sonnet xvii, wedding vows
    • honey put on your party dress…

      Posted at 6:43 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 4, 2012
      Our wedding photos came in the other day, and I’m having so much fun going through them. On the day of the wedding, it felt like we were taking pictures forever, but I am sooo happy with how they turned out. There are tons of pictures to go through, but here are a few of my favourites so far:
      Love the bold colours against the rustic wood doors

       

      He is ok, I guess…

       

      Such a beautiful day for our wedding

       

      The best group of girls I could have asked for

       

       

       

      Our photos were taken by Awna Irish, at Inspiring Bliss Photography. She is extremely talented, and did a wonderful job of not only capturing all of the most important moments, but adding in her own unique creativeness to make the pictures extra special. You can check out her other work at http://www.inspiringblissphotography.com/.

      Posted in life, love, photography | 1 Comment | Tagged family, Montana, wedding, wedding photography
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