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Thai Smocked Waist Cotton Pants in Solid Black |
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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! |
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Geometric Mandalas Jumpsuit Harem Pants in Red - perfect for hot days (I have gotten many compliments wearing this!) |
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Peacock Eye Women's Harem Pants in Navy - amazingly soft and oh, so pretty! |
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!).
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to keep our other house and rent it out, but it turned out to not even be an option for us, as since I had already withdrawn from my RRSPs to buy my first house, Shawn was not allowed to do the same (despite the fact that we were not even together when I bought my house!).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.
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!
Can you spot the praying mantis?
Close-up
Hiding again
Check out the sunshine!
And the colors!
All smiles!
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!).
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!!
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.
We got off to a later start than I had planned to on Saturday (surprise, surprise!) - I basically woke up a few times, each time looking over at Shawn who was still asleep, then drift off to sleep once again - I really hate sleeping on any vacation, but when the body needs sleep, my reasoning is to listen to it every so often! We hadn't really planned where we were going, but we knew we wanted to go to one of the Cathedrals, and Shawn suggested Sacré Coeur.
We headed out to the Montmartre, and I got really excited as we approached Sacré Coeur - you could see the huge building through the alleyways wherever you looked. We went through an area full of shops - mainly costume jewlery & loads of fabric stores with their wares out on display. On the corner was a huge thrift shop and tons of people were digging for clothes & shoes in huge square bins outside. It was a sunny, very warm day. After just climbing the stairs on the huge hill that the cathedral sits upon, I was hot in my all black attire and a little breathless.
We started out touring the church part of the cathedral downstairs. We saw many people praying and admired the beautiful stained glass and sprial staircases scattered everywhere. There were tons of places where you could pay to light a candle. We used our spare change to pay 5 EUR each to get into the upper part, and the climb to the top involves many, many stairs in a spiral formation, almost exactly like the stairs up to l'Arc de Triomphe. Thank goodness there were a few levels that you could stop at to admire the view from different vantage points. Shawn viewed these as great photo ops, I welcomed the time on level ground to catch my breath & rest a little! Some of the stairs took you right outside and the view of the city is spectacular! You can of course see the Tour Eiffel off in the distance.
Down below in the church courtyard, we even noticed a wedding going on. Shawn zoomed in & caught this shot of the bride greeting a guest.
On the way up, in some dark parts of the stairwells, I saw quite a few dead birds, which was really creepy. We took our time, in awe of the view and taking many pictures. It was much easier going down all of the stairs.
We decided to head back home to get ready to go out for dinner. I cracked open one of the cheaper bottles of red wine I had bought earlier in the week to drink while we were getting ready, but after about 1/2 glass, we determined it would be much better with food. We arrived at La Coupole, which was only 2 doors down from metro Vavin. The first restaurant we saw was called Chez Clément, and we glanced inside and were intrigued by the nautical decor, the huge seafood platters we saw diners enjoying, and the menu displayed. We figured if we decided against La Coupole that we could come back here. So, we checked out the menu on the window next door & asked ourselves if we really wanted to pay that much for dinner (prices were higher than we expected!). We had planned to splurge that night as it was our 1st wedding anniversary dinner, but being the sensible couple that we are, decided to go back to Clément to enjoy a meal that was probably equally good at more reasonable prices.
We had to wait in line for a little while, but things moved fast as two parties ahead of us were impatient & gave up to go somewhere else. We got a quaint table for 2, and there was a couple next to us that appeared to be on their 1st date. What was funny was the girl was on her cell phone all night & when she wasn't, spent a lot of time talking about herself. The guy looked very unimpressed. We (well, I!) had so much trouble deciding what to order from the extensive amount of choices on the menu. We considered getting one of the raw seafood platters that came served on crushed ice, but then decided against it as we didn't feel like struggling with shelling langoustines, crab legs, etc. Shawn noticed there was a section on the menu where you could mix and match main dishes with entrees & desserts & do different combinations, all for under 20 EUR each. We both chose a plate that had your choice of 3 different meats - mine was duck (which turned out to be a lean, rare duck steak, which I'd never had before!), pork & chicken. Shawn's choice was similar but he replaced the duck with salmon. Both plates came with a generous portion of mashed potatoes - a staple side dish in Paris, versus the fries or baked potatoes Quebecors eat. Although we are not potato eaters, we made the exception here, as when made right, they are extremely creamy and smooth (no lumps!) and served with a delicious brown gravy. The waitresses' wine suggestion was a rosée, to match all of the variety of meats we were both having. We hesitated, as Shawn normally doesn't drink rosée, and we ended up being happy with our choice, it was delicious and crisp, kept chilled in an ice-bucket beside us. We leisurely enjoyed our meal and I went for my favourite French dessert, crème brûlée, & Shawn substituted his dessert with his fave (mi-cuit au chocolat, again!) for a little extra money.
It was of course quite late when we finished & we still had to go home & change to go out for our drink. We ended up heading out to the Bastille area at 1:30 AM! Only in Paris! We chose Bar Bat to go into, as it had a lounge-type atmosphere, with no cover charge.
I HAD to have mojito as everyone I know who's been to Paris raves about them here. All of the drinks on the menu were 8 EUR & up. Shawn chose a blonde beer on tap. We leisurely sipped our drinks & took a few photos, but after such a long day, I was getting sleepy. After about an hour, we headed back home - which was quite a long walk since we had taken the last metro into town! I was thankful to crawl under the covers that night (or morning!) and drift off to sleep.
