Dessert Indulgence

This is my friendly note to self that I absolutely need to get back on the "healthy eating" bandwagon after the holiday festivities. With all the baking that I have been doing, I have been eating far too many cookies, squares, and chocolates! I want to eat supper now, but I am far too full from eating too many sweets. This is not a good sign.
I'm also pretty sure I haven't eaten any fruits and veggies (aside from my banana today) in 4 days?

January 2nd: healthy eating and exercise!! Make it a lifestyle!!!

Happy Birthdays!

2 out of 3 of my nieces/nephew were born on the same day. Today is the day that my awesome nephew Brandon turns 12, and sweet little niece Emma turns 3. Here are some pictures from birthday celebrations that took place on the past weekend! My younger brothers birthday was earlier in December too (the 16th).

 Lovin' the blue icing!

Sweet little Emma and Moi

'Tis the Season to Give

Donating to local charities is especially important this time of the year. It makes me sad to think that while some kids are getting showered with an overwhelming amount of expensive gifts like video gaming systems, ipods, and other electronics (which they may not even be appreciative of), other kids only get one small modest gift because their parent(s) are unable to afford to keep up with the demands of this time of vast consumerism. I think that there is definitely too much emphasis on the "stuff" side of Christmas, but it still is unfair that some children are given the world, while others don't get much at all. For those families who do not have a lot of money to purchase gifts for their children, it is important to me to contribute especially considering as a child who grew up in poverty, I was on the receiving end of the gift donations as a child. 

Which Local Charities to Donate to?

The Workplace? At my workplace, there was lots of opportunity to donate. There was a toy drive in addition to a food drive. Aleksy's work place also had a toy drive in which he participated in. The donations for his work toy drive were donated to the Big Brothers Big Sisters of London (an agency to which I am involved in so we definitely had to participate!).

Angel Tree – If work doesn't have any drives, this is always a good way to go! Last year I took my Little Sister to the Argyle Mall in London and together we purchased a gift for a child off the tree in the mall. I believe most malls have something similar to this too... 

CAS donation – The CAS has several families and children/youth without families who benefit from gift donations. Each CAS has an independent drive which may differ between locations. I know London and Brantford have holiday gift campaigns for their families/children.  

Food banks – With parents concentrating on using all of their money on Christmas gifts, it is easy to run out of food money. And donating to the food bank is so easy! Many grocery stores have bins as you exit which you can drop food off in. In addition to this, some grocery stores (Metro does!) even have special bags that they have put together for the food bank so you can save the wandering around the store time!

And plus, it's fun to go shopping for the donations! My Little Sister and I made an outing out of it, and Aleksy and I spent a substantial amount of time in the toy aisle playing with toys like the Bop It!

Car Accidents and US excursions

Over the past couple weeks, London has had an obscene amount of snow (which resulted in 3 snow days last week). Aleksy's new Jeep has been very handy in the crappy weather, it drives well and we can park it in any given place when the parking spaces are full (if you look at the photo below you'll understand!).

In the Best Buy parking lot: no parking spots? no problem!

But just when we had plans to go shopping in the States, leaving at 9am, someone slid into Aleksy's Jeep in an attempt to turn right. I was driving back to Hamilton separately in my car, and I didn't look at my phone until I got to Hamilton when I learned that Aleksy was at the police reporting station because he was in an accident. After he arranged for a rental vehicle (which ended up being a Corolla - not so handy in the snow!) he headed to Hamilton. We actually did make it to Buffalo! we were there for about 4:30pm. And Buffalo had horrible weather!

We went to the Galleria Mall for the first time. It was fancier than what I had imagined. Being the huge fans of the show The Big Bang Theory, Aleksy and I were super excited to see that the mall had a "Cheesecake Factory". 

We discovered that the atmosphere was much different from what the show presents, but I had a delicious Bellini and some fish tacos.

I got some good deals at the mall and some Christmas shopping accomplished! Here are a couple other pictures from the mall:

 They actually had valet parking at the mall!

In case I forgot where I was shopping...

The Most Amazing 1 Year old Birthdays Ever: Saturday December 4th

2 adorable little girls came into the world 1 year ago. Not the same birthdays, but celebrated on the same day!

Serena's First Birthday Party

Amazing cake! Very tasty too..

Serena agreed: very tasty

Lots of fabulous gifts from family and friends! Mommy and Daddy helping her open them...

Me, Andzelika, Chelsea and the beautiful 1 year old Serena!

Valentina's First Birthday Party

Social Work girls, have some mini sandwiches..

Auntie Jenny with Valentina

An awesome photo of some members of the social work gang! Me, Steph, Jenny, and Nikki.

Valentina's cake... the party was a mickey mouse theme.

Mom and auntie opening up the presents! Lots of goodies for Valentina!

Death by Advertisements

Ok, so I didn't die, but I definitely was bombarded.

Aleksy and I went to a Knights game tonight (the Knights lost... boooo!) and I thought I would write a short note about the amount of advertising that was at the game. Unreal! There was not a place to look where I wasn't given a visual of something I should be purchasing or consuming. Advertisements everywhere: the ice, the score box, the seating, voices, the zambonis, and even floating around in the air. When the Knights scored a goal, did you know that the goal was brought to you by Harveys? really?

 In this single picture, I can immediately pick out over 20 different advertisements... without even looking at the boards of the ice.
                                              









So, when you are exposed to over 100 advertisements in one sitting, does it really work? Am I filing all the information subliminally into my subconscious so the next time I see a Harvey's, I'll want to pop in for a burger because I am remembering a great goal? Maybe. But, no matter how hard I tried, I definitely could not pay good attention to everything that was advertised to me in the 3 hour time period I was at the JLC.

It's Officially Christmas Holidays!!

RELIEF!! Handed in my last paper of first term at noon today! That completed first term of my last year of my social work undergrad!! Wooo hooo!

No more feeling deeply guilty for doing everything but paper writing! Although I was very fortunate to only have 2 papers to write for "finals" one for Monday (the 6th) and the one for today. One of the things I really like about social work is that we rarely have final exams for our classes. More often it is a final assessment, paper, or presentation.

I set out to do some Christmas shopping after I handed in my paper, and the mall was super busy. First things first, a lady stole my parking spot. It was most definitely mine because I was waiting in the aisle when she was backing out. I wouldn't complain so much if it wasn't so cold outside! I think these types of things are much more likely to happen around this time of the year. However, now that I am all done school until January, I can take my sweet time with everything!
Tomorrows day off: Drive in to snowy London and take my nephew out for lunch to pizza hut, then hair appointment in the afternoon.
Fridays day off: Girls night with the social work girls!
That's right: 2 whole days off with no school to worry about! sweet!
(then working in London all weekend, but that doesn't need a spotlight!!)

Events Continued!

Over the weekend, it came to my attention that there was something else that I have been meaning to get back into for a long time. SKATING! I absolutely intend on buying my first pair of ice skates since I was a child and making skating plans! This is a great alternative to the regular indoor winter dates that I may gravitate to like going to the movies plus its active. Perhaps boxing day sales will consist of a good inexpensive pair of skates, if I do not run into a good deal before that!

Here are a couple pictures from Friday's "Lighting of the Lights" in Victoria park. They are a bit dark because they are from my Blackberry...

Aleksy in front of the new (to this year?) little snowman family sculptures. The City of London appears to love to spend thousands of dollars on pieces of art such as this and the trees all over London. This one is actually pretty neat with the individual pieces of sheet metal welded to form the little skating men!

Some of the lit trees in the park. It was actually the first night London had a snowfall  this winter as well!

Aspirations and Events this Winter

I am already noticing with the cold weather here that I have started to hibernate to the indoors. I want to make an extra effort this winter season to enjoy some of the events and sports of the season. Here are some of my plans for this winter:

Shopping Season – With all the shopping that needs to be done for Christmas, I like to change it up a little bit with my shopping destinations so that I am not always shopping at the same mall in the same city. Before Christmas, I plan to make a trip out to the states. I have been to Port Huron, Michigan and its surrounding area several times, so I think this year I’d like to take the other route out of the country to Buffalo, New York. This is a close drive from where I am currently living in Hamilton and I heard they have a good mall in the city centre: the Galleria.  

I was talking to Nikki at school on Wednesday about getting together to do some Christmas shopping during our Christmas break from school (2 more weeks!). We decided that we would take the GO train to Toronto to do some shopping at the Eaton Centre and in around the downtown area. I always enjoy going to downtown Toronto around the holiday season because it’s always nicely spruced up in holiday decorations! 

  

These are pictures from last weekends trip to Stratford for some Christmas shopping. Stratford is a really cute town, with a body of water in the middle of the town and is known for theatre. We went to the Christmas store (pictured above) and took a stroll down the downtown to the shops (pictured above). We bought some really yummy cheese, chocolate, and I bought a gift for each of my neices.

Skiing – This is one of the sports I want to make a regular part of the winter season. Eventually, when money allows for it, I plan to purchase my own equipment and make a hobby out of trying out new ski hills with Aleksy (who would snowboard of course) through the winters. This year, I plan to start with the purchase of some small, very small gear (I have goggles, I’m thinking of purchasing poles). I figure if I buy my gear in small increments than it won’t be such a financial burden than if I purchased it in one shot. Hopefully we can make it out to at least a couple ski hills this winter. It would be nice to try something different than Blue Mountain or Horseshoe, but I’m not sure what other good ski hills there are in Ontario?

                                  picture from New Years 2007 - 2008: Skiing at Horseshoe

I also plan on trying snowboarding for the very first time this winter season. I’ll have Aleksy as my coach! I feel like it’ll probably be a lot of time on my butt! I’ll probably start it off at a smaller hill like Boler mountain.

Snowshoeing – Aleksy made it clear that Snowshoeing would be a boring pastime, because it’s walking in the snow with big shoes, which he can do anytime. I disagree, and I really want to try out snowshoeing for the first time since girl guides this year. I want to find a scenic destination somewhere in Northern Ontario (but not too North, my car is not meant for Northern winters and I can’t afford to replace my tires this year!) and rent snowshoes and make a day of it! Nikki said that this is something that she has wanted to do too, so we’re going to make a date of it! It will probably be sometime in the New Year. I’m really excited to try it out!

A Fantastic New Years – In the past month I have been trying to coordinate a cottage for the New Years weekend with friends. I ended up getting all New Years weekend off of work (I usually sign up to work New Years day instead of Christmas day) at the cost of working Christmas day at 8pm (I was going in for the sleep shift at midnight anyways so I figured why not if it meant having a Christmas AND a New Years) so I really want to take advantage of New Years! The BEST New Years EVER was the year Aleksy, Andz, Chels, Warren and I went up to the cottage in Kawartha Lakes (skiing picture is from that excursion). I really want to do something similar this year, and perhaps do some snowmobiling (as long as I don’t have to drive), and maybe skiing. I am trying my hardest to get my friends on board!

And tonight Aleksy and I are going to the Lighting of the Lights in Victoria Park, London. I LOVE Christmas decorations and sparkles and lights, so it’s right up my alley! I work until 8pm in Hamilton so I will get to London around 9:30, then we will get a Starbucks and take a stroll. It’s always a good date night to take a stroll through downtown with a latte, but especially good with the Lighting of the Lights :)

Finally, Some Good Movie Choices!

When selecting movies, I am not always the best chooser. I have seen some pretty bad movies, and usually if I see a really good movie, the next one is "just ok" or horrible. I'll use for example, mine and Aleksy's recent choices of movies to see in the theater. We have seen quite a few movies in the past month or two: Life as We Know It (a pretty good movie), Easy A (not so good), Due Date (good movie). This is a pretty fair representation of how I usually choose movies. But. It all changes because of the past three days! I watched 3 movies in the last 3 days: Inception (Sunday), Eat, Love, Pray (Monday), and Shutter Island (Tuesday). All great choices, which I highly recommend!

Inception: I had heard from several people that this was a good choice in movie, so it was easy to choose this one. I did not know what the movie was about when choosing it. It gave me new perspective on reality, and how significant one's subconscious is to their thought process. Since watching this movie, I think about the stuff that's lingering around my subconscious that makes me make the decisions that I do more often. Also, it occurs to me that one's thought process before going to bed is very much connected to one's dreams overnight. If your looking for a movie to give you new perspective, this is a goody!

Eat Pray Love: a movie which I recommend to women! A definite "chick flick", which I was happy to watch in the presence of my dear friend Nikki, who I plan to travel with to Australia in May :) This movie gave me an incredible urge to travel, meet new people and experience new things. I wonder what it would be like traveling internationally independently. In this movie, it occurred to me that the main character "Liz" who traveled to 3 different countries found an individual to befriend in each country who was of a different culture than the country she was in. If you are in Indonesia, why wouldn't you connect with the local people to learn new things (not the man from Texas!). Although there were some bits of the movie that seemed "off" to me, it still was very good and gave me motivation to do things for me, travel, be constantly meeting new people, and not fall into the "rut" of the plain and simple life of keeping to one's self in their hometown, where all their family lives, where their husbands family lives, where they work and went to university, where everything that they know is. I understand that some people choose that, but it's not for me. I have a fear of getting bored of life, of not being challenged enough, and falling into a "rut". I feel like traveling is a good way to keep out of it. This movie really made me look forward to Australia in May! After watching this movie, Nikki and I also wanted to go to Bali, but after researching the additional cost, unfortunately it's too much :( Another time, for sure!

And the last movie, which I watched last night: Shutter Island! There's no other way to explain how this movie makes you think: it fucks with your mind. It made me see just how vulnerable a person's thoughts are, how persuasion (and drugs) can make you think something completely different than what you know. At the end of the movie, I did not know anything about the main character Edward, or Andrew... since that may have been his name. I do not know if he was a patient, or a US Marshall under experiment.

On a completely different note, the representation of the "insane" in this movie was supposed to reflect the views of this population from the 1950's. I know a little bit about the history of individuals with developmental disabilities and mental health issues through school, so I know that there was a very medical view that this population of people can be "treated" and perhaps "fixed". It occurs to me that this movie could have the potential to perpetuate existing stereotypes of people who have disabilities, and while I do not think the movie was completely inappropriate (since it was re-creating the views that people actually had in the 50s), I can't help but think that those stereotypes are still in our subconscious and could be re-ignited with the language and portrayal of the people in the asylum in the movie.

I do still recommend this movie, it was also a goody!

I LOVE CHRISTMAS... but

When November comes, I enjoy putting my Christmas tree up extra early (this year on the 16th!) so I can get myself into the holiday spirit! I love sparkly, pretty trees with lots of decorations, candy canes, the smell of cinnamon scented pinecones, holiday scented candles and room deodorizers, Christmas music while I shop, parks all decorated for the season, and shopping for everyone I love!


While I enjoy all the things associated with Christmas, it seems the actual getting together with family always causes tension. Balance act: Mom's side, Dad's side, significant other's family. My significant other and brother in law want to stay in one place on Christmas. But why not visit everyone if you have the ability to? Oh ya, and this year I work Christmas Day at 8pm... great. We'll see how it plays out, but I look forward to the anticipation of Christmas in the next month. I think I enjoy the anticipation more than the day itself!

                                   My pretty tree all sparkly and decorated red, gold and silver :)

Why Blog?

So, it's a definite that if I were to mention that I created a blog to my significant other or some other friends, I would likely receive some sarcastic responses about how stupid having a blog is (similar to how I am told how stupid it is to have Facebook). But I decided that I would personally benefit from having my own blog so that I can have a place to refer to where I have documented my thoughts, experiences, and life events. I don't know if I will ever have the time to post blogs on a regular basis, since that seems like a waste of time at this point and I have a million things on the go with university classes, working 2 jobs, and placement, but I want to have a keepsake of my life experiences. This blog spot is for me.