Here are some shots of me in my new yoga shirts I got from Thai Harem #harempantsdotcom recently :

Feeling truly zen #dailyyogapractice

At the perfect temperature at rest or in motion 

This was at the end of a breath conciousness exercise we did in a circle at a yoga workshop led by Annie Langlois (I am inte one all in black - first on the left in the front row of bodies in the pic)

Lovin' my Thai Harem Pants!

Thai Smocked Waist Cotton Pants in Solid Black

Solid Color Drawstring Women's Yoga Massage Pants in Black -

My fave pair - I live in these now!  Love to wear these for yoga, light/short PiYo workouts or just lounging. They feel like very lightweight linen without any scratchiness or stiffness, almost like you are not wearing any pants at all - they are so airy!

Geometric Mandalas Jumpsuit Harem Pants in Red - perfect for hot days (I have gotten many compliments wearing this!)

Peacock Eye Women's Harem Pants in Navy - amazingly soft and oh, so pretty!

I recently ordered a few (yes, a few! well, since they are so well-priced) pairs of the Thai harem pants that kept popping up as sponsored ads in my facebook feed. They came fast & I absolutely love them, they are sooo comfy! The intention was to work out in them, but a couple are 'dressy' enough to wear out!  Check out their website to order : https://www.harempants.com/  #harempantsdotcom

One Word

It has been almost 8 years since I last blogged (wow - can't believe that!). I stopped blogging for a few reasons : my other blogger friends had stopped so I lacked motivation, and the 'fad' seemed to had worn off with the widespread adoption of facebook (who needs a blog when you can rant away on your page, right? Plus you can control your privacy settings on facebook, which makes all the difference for people like me!. Additionally, having a kid in 2009 and getting involved in my hubby's business in 2011 cut my 'me-time' down severely. I do really miss writing, I have to say. Anyway, the true reason why I stopped blogging is because of one word. One word. One word that was used completely innocently. With no malice intended. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt or insult anyone using this word. And to this day, all of these years later, it still breaks my heart that I unintentionally hurt this person using this word. Explanations were made, apologies were offered. I tried taking it back. Justifying what I meant - which ended up getting 'lost in translation'. But it was too little, too late. The damage was done. And there is absolutely nothing I can do. What's worse is it seems no one else can forget the 'indiscretion' either. It gets mentioned every time this person and I have contact with the parties that ended up getting involved. Not directly to me, but in ways that I am guaranteed to notice. While I can assume that this is a 'joke' and could be considered 'all in good fun', I have my doubts. Because if this word really did hurt the person that it did, wouldn't bringing it up (every single time!) be hurtful to them? Not to mention that it reminds me of how I hurt this person, and makes me feel bad all over again. I feel like this dead horse has been beaten to a pulp, but drawing attention to it could only make things worse for everyone involved. So now, I basically have to live with this mistake for the rest of my life. A true testament to learning your actions have consequences, and that the pen (or in this case, the keyboard)is mightier than the sword (even if no harm was intended). At this point, I am unsure if the awkwardness I feel when I am with this person whom I offended is imagined or real, one-sided or mutual. Unbelievable how one word can do so much damage, even without intending to cause harm. I have had the words to write this post floating around in my head since this happened, but had not been able to bring myself to type it. Even though no one involved may ever read this, I wanted to get it out. There, I said it.

2008 (to-date) in Review

Since I have not gotten around to blogging (at all!) this year (I cannot believe it – where has the time gone!!), I figured I’d try to do a summary of 2008 to-date, attempting to be as succinct as possible (we all know my tendency to ramble once I get on a roll!).

We ended 2007 with a memorable annual Boxing Day Family Holiday Party in Ottawa. This has been a tradition on my Dad’s side of the family for many years now and every year’s celebration is a special day where everyone travels from various parts of the world back to Tante Marlene & Uncle Arthur’s home in Ottawa for a day of festive food, drink & revelry. The menu always consists of a few bottles of quality white wine with just the right amount of oakiness, freshly shucked oysters, pickled herring, Polish vodka and a delicious, satisfying meal (5-star restaurant quality, prepped in advance so our hostess can spend time with her guests) on a beautifully decked out table. Oh – and boule de neige for dessert! We all participate in a gift exchange that usually sparks a small amount of controversy most years (which always ends with all being forgiven!) and lots of laughs. We all take turns providing some form of entertainment & this year Rich & Cyn performed their rendition of a popular song, and we all sang carols & songs with the little ones too. We look forward to ending off our year with this day and Shawny warmed my heart last year my telling me that it is his favourite holiday, and day, of the year.

The beginning of 2008 brought me my long time wish come true – a bigger house. We were not finding what we were looking for on the MLS listings, so we drove around the neighbourhood one winter day and quickly found a 2-bedroom cottage (1995) the exact same walking distance from the commuter train as our other house (we postponed our wish of moving closer to the city and will fulfill it next house!). Other than having the owner do a few repairs (replace plumbing with up-to-code materials, fix foundation cracks/leaks), the purchase went very smoothly. We had intended to keep our other house and rent it out, but it turned out to not even be an option for us, as since I had already withdrawn from my RRSPs to buy my first house, Shawn was not allowed to do the same (despite the fact that we were not even together when I bought my house!). We put our house up for sale & it luckily sold in a month to the first person to make an offer. It was surprisingly more difficult than I had expected to say goodbye to my first little house that I bought all by myself at 30 years old on a secretary’s salary, but it gave me a good feeling to sell it to a young 27-year old girl just starting out on her own like I had 6 years prior. The move was very draining, things had to happen relatively fast as we only had less than 2 months to pack up and get ready to go, including donating and getting rid of almost all of my old furniture. We ended up not moving enough with the moving truck as we had figured we could move a lot of the small stuff ourselves over the 2 wks we had to move in, but this resulted in many, many car loads every night. We cleaned the old house top to bottom so we could hand it over sparkling – I never cleaned so much in my life!

We moved in in May, and settled in pretty quickly. We had landscaping done in the front of our house in August, and we’ve had our shed taken down (we got sold a moldy rotted caban!) and it will be replaced shortly. We are planning to have our basement finished and if all goes well we should have a brand new home theatre and office/guest room downstairs by the end of 2008 (prayers & fingers crossed!). We purchased new furniture and most of it is arrived only mid-September (gotta love Leon’s, who has every part of your bedroom or dining set shipped in from a different part of the country!) . Some pieces arrived damaged & had to be put back on the truck, other pieces were missing…..hopefully we will have it all ironed out soon. We still have to decorate and get a lot of our unpacked stuff organized, but Shawny keeps telling me not to stress and that everything will get done in due time (hard for me to do sometimes!).

I spent most of the 1st half of 2008 with very bad back pain, due to a really bad fall on February 19th. Since our old (steep) driveway was built on a 45 degree angle, even though it was covered by a car port, it was constantly icing over and it became my dangerous nemesis. I had the fall to end all falls on my way out to work that morning, with my legs flying out in front of me and all of my weight of my lower body being folded over onto my torso and back. It felt like I had broken my ribs from behind & I was winded for a few hours after it happened. After spending a day in the emergency clinic and getting x-rayed, I found out I had not broken anything and that I had a severe sprain. I had just announced my resignation at the printing company I had been working for a week prior, so when I had to take a few days off to recover, they were not happy. I took a week off after I finished at this job before starting my new one at a large accounting firm. I went through a few weeks of physio and was not able to exercise until a few weeks ago. Prior to my fall, I had injured myself getting off of the train as my hip (the one that doesn’t rotate properly) locked. Living with almost constant pain was mentally very draining, and took a physical toll on me too, as I started putting on weight.

Fast forward to this summer, where I got to enjoy some half days and days off on Fridays with our admin. summer schedule. I started seeing an osteopath that works out of his home in my neighborhood and my pain is now down by about 90% in just a few treatments. He was finally able to unblock my hip a couple of weeks ago and I am beyond relieved, as I can finally do things like sit cross-legged again. I decided to join Weight Watchers (something I never expected to do!) in May through our at work program (subsidized by our Health & Wellness benefits) and I lost 15 lbs in 13 weeks. I feel great (being back down to my wedding weight 2 yrs ago) and went down two full sizes.

Me at my goal weight - Aug.23

My nephew Simon turned 5 (Cynthia threw a really kick-ass Birthday party – complete with reptiles!) in May and started ‘real’ school at the beginning of this month (a major lifestyle change for his parents and a major adjustment for him, being schooled only in French). We found out that we will become an Aunt & Uncle again in early December and again sometime in March, as Shawn’s 2 brothers wives are expecting. His side is really excited for the new additions to the family! We also recently found out that my cousins Tim & Sue will become grandparents in January next year (I remember dancing my 1st slow song with a boy at their wedding when I was about 10 yrs old like it was yesterday!). Babies are popping up everywhere!

We didn’t go away on vacation this year, we figured we’d spend the extra on new stuff of the new house, like stainless steel appliances and brand new furniture. We took a week off at the end of August together, but our 3-day spa vacation up North got cancelled (and we lost our deposit!) ‘cause Shawn came down with a really bad strep throat type virus and he was sick the whole week! I was really disappointed, but a few hours at the nearby day spa and a day of ‘retail therapy’ (buying a new wardrobe to replace all of my now too-big clothes) made me feel a little better! Shawny coughed almost every night and morning for a month and then came down with a really bad head cold/cough this past Monday, and he is still recovering. He has not been sick like this for about 15 years, so he is having trouble handling it! Usually I am the one who is sick but I have fairly lucky and healthy this year, with only a couple of 2-day flus/colds in the spring. At least we had managed to celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary earlier that week with a delicious, romantic meal on the terrace of our favourite local French restaurant, before hubby fell ill!

We are looking forward to celebrating the upcoming Jewish holidays with Shawny’s family, Pat’s annual Halloween party and my Dad’s 65th Birthday. We will try to squeeze in our Annual Fall Picnic on Thanksgiving Weekend, too. Then on Nov. 8, it will be my 20th (yeah, I can’t believe it) High School reunion – and before we know it, it will be December - Holiday Season again – another fun Boxing Day party – and then the year will be over! When I was in my early 20’s, I never believed older people who told me that once you turn 30, the years just fly by – but it is SO true! Life often seems to only be about the routine of getting up to go to work, surviving a long work day, coming home, having dinner and getting ready to do it all again the next day, and the days flow into months, then before you know it, it’s New Year’s Eve again.

As often as I can, I remind myself that every moment counts, and try to savour every second. That is why spending time with family and friends are such momentous occasions – pleasant breaks in the daily routine that create lifelong memories to think about and cherish in the ‘dull’ moments.

Here’s to a great 2008 – well, what’s left of it!!!

Shawny's siblings & their spouses

Previous Fall Picnics

I decided to go through all of our Fall picnic pics from last year, after looking over my last post & reminiscing some more.

Can you spot the praying mantis?

How 'bout now?

Close-up

Hiding again

Check out the sunshine!

And the colors!

All smiles!

Below are some pics of our 2004 picnic. It was a dark & dreary day as well. We were wearing scarves & gloves, so it must have been cold! The quality is pretty bad, and these are retouched in Paintshop Pro, they were from my old digital camera that died.

I didn't find any 2005 pix, we either must not have gone (which I doubt, as I don't know what would have stopped us from going), or we may not have taken any pix, which is more likely (as we probably didn't have a working camera!).

Annual Fall Picnic

Now that I've finally caught up on my Paris trip posting (of my trip that I got home from in September!), I can finally blog about our annual fall picnic that Shawn & I have been doing for the past few years. We usually do it on or very close to Thanksgiving Day, and this tradition comes from my family, as my parents would bring my sister & I every year around this time to 'see the leaves'. Our favourite part of the day of course was making piles of colored leaves on the ground and jumping into them and burying each other in the leaves for fun, posing for pictures.

The day evolved into a picnic when we got a little older, where we'd stop at various roadside stands and buy freshly baked bread, Oka cheese, apples and apple jelly. My parents would pack wine for them (complete with glass wine glasses) and we'd proudly sip juice from the same glasses. My dad used to just stop somewhere on the side of the road (where it looked like there were the most red leaves (my favourite color!)) and we'd walk around then set up camp for our lunch. We ended up getting spooked one year when we saw hunters moving about with guns and realized that it was pretty dangerous and that could end up getting accidentally shot! So, we took the safe route and started going to Oka park (where you have to pay to get in to admire nature - how insulting!), so this is where Shawn & I go for our picnic. Bonus is it is only about a 10-15 minute drive from our home! I introduced him to the idea after we had been together for a few years, and this year was our third (or fourth?) picnic. My cousin & his wife gave us a picnic backpack complete with an insulated picnic blanket, utensils, plates, cups and a tiny cutting board as a late bridal shower gift at our wedding last year, so this was our second time using it this year. I usually carry it so Shawn has less incumberances while taking photographs.

We were definately not impressed with the weather on Thanksgiving Monday, and regretted not going on the Saturday, which had been really sunny, but we had spent it shopping instead. Nothing was going to deter me from going this year, short of a blustering rain storm, so we dressed warm and set out in the early afternoon. The day was slightly dark and dreary and we did get some periodic drizzle (specifically while we were eating!) but in general, we stayed dry (me with my hood!) and enjoyed the day.

We took a path we had not taken before and discovered a tall tower that serves as an excellent vantage point to see the whole park and gives you a nice view of the water. We also walked down a wooden bridge to the water, where we saw clumps of blue foamy stuff, which we wondered were the blue algae that has been all over the news this year.

We were extremely disappointed that we did not get to see much wildlife this year, except for this blue herron in the distance.

Last year Shawn had such a good time experimenting with our new camera, photographing chipmunks, squirrels and a small grass snake that we were able to get really close to - check out this amazing shot - the tongue looks plastic!

We reminisced about the great weather we had on our picnic last year, it was so sunny and we had not even needed jackets! We had gotten off to such a late start though, that we didn't get to enjoy much of the day, as we had to rush off to Thanksgiving Dinner at my parents that night. This year, we had much more time as we left earlier and we had already had our turkey dinner earlier in the weekend. But sadly, the cold weather and the lack of action at the park caused us to want to end the day early. We had walked a really long time and I was very anxious to enjoy our snack, so by the time we chose a bench to sit down on, I was really hungry! Preparing and eating everything on a bench was not as comfortable as using a picnic table, but since we couldn't find one, the bench had to do! As we started eating, it began to spit rain, so the sight of us with tiny plastic plates and wine glasses on our laps in the rain made the few people who did walk by us smile (they must have either thought we looked cute or silly!). Our slices of fresh apple, rosemary bread with Oka cheese (light, of course!) and apple jelly and apple cider were delicious & really hit the spot, despite the damp, chilly weather!

When we got home, I got ambitious and finished putting together and painting the bench I had been redoing over the late summer, and ended the day with a sense of accomplishment (although wet & cold!).

Paris Trip#2 - Day 5 - Last Day!!!

We got off to a decent start on Sunday morning, ate breakfast at the apartment and headed back to the exact same area we had been for dinner the night before to check out an outdoor art market that I had researched on the Internet. I was determined to invest a bit of money and bring home something to put on the wall as a souvenir of our Paris experience. I had seen some nice paintings of Paris landmarks outside of Musée D'Orsay on my last trip that were quite reasonably priced, but not only did I find the art very 'touristy', but the artist was a little too pushy for my taste. I had really wanted to buy one of the abstract African paintings we saw outside of Centre Pompidou, but Shawn didn't like any of them. I felt that we would be able to find something to both of our likings at this art market, within our budget, for sure. We had quite a walk by the time we reached it, and it was overcast & chilly that morning, so the walk was not all that enjoyable.

We saw many beautiful and interesting pieces, paintings, carvings, unique statues, etc. but the prices of everything were so high - much higher than we expected! It reminded me a lot of the Salon d'arts et métiers Montreal has right before the Christmas holidays at Centre Bonaventure - gorgeous stuff, but really unaffordable for us. Most of the artists were really friendly and so proud of their work. Our favourite by far was an older man who had absolutely stunning watercolors and oil paintings of outdoor scenery - his signature technique used in most of the nicest ones was reflections of the scenery in bodies of water - they looked almost like actual photographs they were so realistic! He showed us every single work he had for sale in his stack! I so wanted to bring home one of his paintings, even just a small watercolor, but Shawn pointed out that spending 60-80 EUR on a postcard sized painting that will barely show on the wall was not such a smart investment. I reluctantly had to agree. His larger paintings ran from 200 - 300 EUR and higher. Shawn is very 'go big or go home' and reminded me that our salaries cannot yet permit us to start collecting art as a hobby. I left there so disappointed, knowing we could not put up a painting we bought in Paris next to our 2 that we bargained for in Jamaica.


On our way out, at one of the last stalls, I was admiring some ceramics & the woman who was selling them, who was away from her stall talking to someone at another one, came rushing over, screaming about how I should watch my handbag or I could break something! I was of course being ultra careful, and my purse on my shoulder was more than clearing what was behind me. I didn't say a word, mumbled 'screw her' under my breath, and walked away, not wanting to waste another moment looking at her stuff. Shawn was apologetic and said something like 'pas de soucis' (no worries) with a smile, which I felt she didn't even deserve!!!

It was time to head back, eat lunch, pack up & leave so I could be at the airport for my 5-ish flight. I served up some of the previous night's wine to get rid of it, and it wasn't so bad paired with the Knorr packaged vegetable potage, roasted eggplant & pita we were having. I had packed much lighter this time for this shorter trip, so we had less trouble lugging my suitcase there. I was thrilled to climb those killer stairs in Shawn's apartment building for the last time!!

Upon checking in at the airport, a staff member advised me once I got to the front of the line that my flight was overbooked, and that they were offering $300 to passengers willing to stay an extra night to cover hotel accomodations and meals. Shawn's face lit up at the prospect of having me with him another night & staying in an aiport hotel for free! The possibility crossed my mind only a brief milisecond & I had to decline the offer right away, knowing I was expected back at work the next day! I knew my boss would absolutely FREAK if I called in & said I was only coming in Tuesday! The owner of the company I work for had already given me 3 paid days off as a favour, as this trip was his idea as he felt bad that I couldn't take more time off to stay longer the first trip, so I really didn't want to push my luck with them! Shawn joked & said we should take the $300 and spend it on electronics & just go back to the apartment to stay! I don't think it works that way!

Saying our goodbyes was easier this time, as I knew I'd have my hubby back home for good in 3 short weeks. I watched Mr. Bean's Vacation on the flight home, which had some really funny parts - like when he gets served a raw seafood platter in a restaurant (like we'd seen at Chez Clément)...the premise of the film is really quite silly, but it was a perfect in-flight movie that you don't have pay too much attention to, that keeps you entertained at a base level! We had left Shawn's car at his parent's place & gotten a lift from his Mom to the airport, so his Dad was meeting me at the airport that night to take me to my car. Customs & luggage took a really long time, but he had timed arriving well and had not waited too long for me - we were both relieved to see each other. I made a brief stop-in to see my Mother-in-law & then made the drive home. I was surprised I made it safely, as I was driving tired and in the dark - not something I want to do again anytime soon!

We unfortunately did not get to take any pictures during our short last day together, so pix in this post are some of our others from this trip.