Spring Forward

Right, so it's been a month since my very brief post the week before Valentine's Day. February was a bit of a blur really: the week leading up to the big day we were working like little elves, swimming in a sea of flowers with zero time to stop and smell the roses, and still got completely slammed beyond our expectations on the day of. It then took us a good week to recover from the sleep deprivation and we're glad that it's all over now but I gotta say, the store did look pretty amazing and everything went very well:

Sadly, just before Valentine's Day we'd heard news from Mike's parents that Max hadn't been well and had to go see the vet. Max was a 10-year old Jack Russell that Mike had had since he was a puppy. Poor Max had gone blind by the time he was a year old and also had to deal with things like nerve problems and arthritis on top of that. Max was always such a good sport though, he loved to play and go to the cottage and go for walks and was a big part of the family.

When he'd started to have a hard time standing up, we'd hoped that it was just another thing that the poor puppy would have to sort out and that he'd feel better soon. But one day, Max got really sick and kept whimpering, so Mike's dad had to take him in to put him down which I can only imagine was the hardest thing he's ever had to do because Max really had become his best friend. We went back to Kingston for the long weekend and Max wasn't wagging his tail at the door to say hello when we arrived. No one said anything because we knew we would all just break down.  

Max, we miss you very very much and will always remember you.

As though to cheer us all up, baby Alex decided to start smiling a few weeks ago. It's hard to say whether the smiling actually corresponds to feelings of happiness, or whether it's some sort of reflex that comes with farting (which, I suppose, can contribute to feelings of happiness), but either way it is so super cute. Also, how cute and comfy are onesies? I want one for myself so badly. Sue did mention that they had "adult onesies" at Primark for less than a tenner but neither the cow nor the leopard prints sounded all that appealing to me so I'm gonna hold off until they do chocolate brown stripey ultra soft fleecy ones like the one Alex has here:

On Wednesday I sat down and reviewed our budget for 2011/2012 (did I mention that Mike made up a spiffy new Excel spreadsheet for me, with fancy formulas and pivot tables and all? I love it.) and found myself wishing that money grew on trees (or fell from the sky, whatever, I'm not picky). According to my calculations in cell C27, we could theoretically save just enough money to do all the things that we want to do... we just have to be very good with sticking to the budget and not spending money on things like these adorable owl linen bookends that were on sale for half price at Indigo... (to be fair, I'd bought them in February, before I had a proper look at the spreadsheet, you see.)

Anyway, we're going to be good from now on and not go out for dinners/drinks, not buy new clothes and things we don't need, and just focus on studying, doing stuff around the house, exercising and eating well. After all, what is March for if not to re-start New Year's resolutions? ;o)

Countdown to Valentine's Day

T minus seven days to V-Day, the single busiest day for flower shops all over the world which also means I'm going to be MIA for the next week or so and working all hours of the day/night in preparation for the big day. It's gonna be lots of fun though, I love the energy and excitement and the little bit of stress that come with Valentine's Day! :o)

Oh, and Happy Chinese New Year of the Rabbit! Thursday was the first day of lunar January technically but Chinese New Year celebrations go on for a couple of weeks so I'm not too late!

It's cold outside...

I am sitting in the living room looking out the window at the fluffy snow blowing all over the place and it is something like -20 degrees outside which reminds me of last Sunday when we went skating for the first time in years at Mel Lastman Square, ten minutes down the street from us.

It's a funny thing, ice skating... Let's wait til the pond in the backyard freezes over, strap some blades onto the bottom of our shoes, go skate around in circles for a couple of hours then go home and have some hot chocolate. How very Canadian.

What I loved most was all these little foreign kids on the ice. Indian kids, Chinese kids, Persian kids in full skating gear with their parents, who, having grown up in much milder climates never skated before themselves, laced up their skates and watched from the edges of the rink. Little wee hockey skates on a little wee Chinese boy with rosy pink cheeks. Makes me feel just a little bit better about this whole -20 business.

2011, really?

The concept of the year 2011 is so bizarre that I can't quite get my head wrapped around it. Of course, my not getting things never stopped the world from carrying on doing its thing, so here we are, to quote Lennon, "another year over, a new one has begun," and this time it's 2011.

You would think that looking back at my list of new year's resolutions from 2010 and realizing that I've barely managed to check off 3 out of the 10 items I had set out to accomplish this time last year would bum me out a little bit, but I'm cool with it. Maybe I've grown older and wiser and finally at ease with things, or maybe I've just come to terms with my utter lack of resolve, either way I am OK with not having achieved as much as I would have liked in a year's time.

This year, though I wasn't able to stay away from making a list altogether, I have limited myself to the following five items:

1. Exercise three times a week, eat better, and lose 15lbs by the end of May so that I can fit back into that suitcase full of skinny clothes currently sitting in storage (the clothes, not the suitcase).
2. Become a very good floral designer.
3. Pay back the last bit of student loans that we owe to the Ontario government by the end of February then scrimp & save a good sum of money for all the fun things we want to do over the next couple of years.
4. Organize all my computer files and back things up.
5. Sort through and organize all the rest of our stuff.

There, that doesn't seem that unreasonable now, does it? I will give an interim report in May and let you know how I got on with things this time around.

Mike, on the other hand, has one goal and one goal only: ace the GMAT in April, write up a few brilliant applications, and get accepted into MBA school for Fall 2012 admissions. He is now fully immersed in studying for the exam most weeknights plus a full day on the weekend and time seems to be flying by.

The other theme for 2011 seems to be weddings (and I heart weddings) -- so far we are booked for four, two of which are overseas thereby giving us an excellent excuse to finally get back to traveling again after a year and a half of hiatus. We are saving up to return to England/France at the end of May, see Slovenia/Croatia at the end of August, trek through Asia next spring, and summer at the cottage one more time before getting ready for school in the fall.

In closing I shall leave you with a few photos (mostly of Alex, naturally) to mark the end of 2010! :o)

Uncle Mike & Aunt Sunny! :D

Baby Alex James Wagar, born Monday, December 20th, 2010, at 12:44am weighing 7 pounds 2 ounces.

T'was the week before Christmas

OK, I know I've been MIA again. But I blame the cold weather. And to be fair, it hasn't been as big a gap between posts as last time. Besides, who's keeping track anyway...

Apparently I've left myself little point-form notes (of course) on bits of news to share for when I finally do sit down to write another post, so I'm gonna use them as headings to help you skim through as you wish. Here we go, as best as I can [be bothered to] remember:

 
Halloween
I suppose the end of October was when I sort of left you hanging. At that point, I had just left my personal assistant job and was spending most of my time browsing through job postings on Workopolis when we thought we might as well dig up the old Halloween costumes in the storage room and go be social.

We hit up a house party first hosted by one of Mike's colleagues before heading downtown to meet up with Candice for some tasty Vietnamese Pho in Chinatown.

Here we are as Doctor Mike and Nurse Sunny (OK, I'll admit, not particularly creative, but I wasn't about to go out and spend money on new costumes). 

Andrew, the guy with the awesome shirt, Ritchie
I met Andrew when I was 15 while we were both on exchange in Alsace. He made me my first mixed tape and is one the most wonderfully weird people I know. Andrew was in town for his buddy's wedding and hung out with us for a night -- we had a couple of beers, went out for all-you-can-eat sushi across the street and had a great time. The last time we'd seen Andrew was in the summer of 2004 in Halifax during our road trip out to the east coast and I really hope it won't be another 6 years before we get together again! Here's a picture of Mike & Andrew being silly.

My new job
Given that this was my second bout of voluntary unemployment within 6 months, I knew I couldn't faff around and put off the job hunt like last time. So, while trying to figure out what I wanted to do with myself, I thought back to all the different jobs I've had and realized that the one that had made me the happiest was working part-time at the Flower Market in Kingston while going to school. Lucky for me my awesome friend Shannon put me in touch with a gorgeous boutique flower shop called Pistil Flowers and I ended up with a job doing something I absolutely love: being on my feet, working with my hands and playing with flowers all day.

The people at Pistil are just my kind of people (quite literally, since half of them are Asian!) and I'm having so much fun and learning to make the prettiest things. Another bonus: since the shop is in the heart of the Financial District, the majority of our clientele are 9 to 5 business people, which means I don't have to work evenings/weekends!

OK, no, I haven't exactly figured out what I ultimately want to do with my life, but I've decided that I can put that on hold for a while longer... it's all part of the journey! At the moment, I am happy :o)

Thanksgiving weekend at the cottage
We went back to Kingston for the long weekend and spent Thanksgiving at the cottage with all of Mike's family which was lovely. We had a great fire going and a glorious feast.

It was also Mike's parents' 40th wedding anniversary so we had planned a little surprise for them (cake, balloons, and a photobook of their 40 years together) which went over very well. Here's a picture of Cathy & Allan cutting their anniversary cake.



Quality time with Cousin Jack
The last time I saw my cousin Jack was in 1995 when we stayed over at their house in Vancouver en route to Kingston as brand new Canadian immigrants. Jack was 6 years old then. Now he's 21 and it was a difficult concept for me to grasp. He's doing a co-op term at IBM in Markham through his engineering program at UBC this fall so we've been able to catch up a bit (by this I mean me asking a million questions and him coping with that).

We gave Jack a tour of Kingston (Queen's, Fort Henry, City Hall and the waterfront) and took him to the cottage with us which he seemed to enjoy. We're gonna see him again Thursday night for all-you-can-eat hot pot up the street before he returns to the mild winters he's accustomed to on the west coast. (mmmmm, hot pot.)


Ottawa Trip
It had probably been more than six years since we were in Ottawa last and we'd been meaning to go visit Mike's sister Steph who'd just moved in to a new apartment with her boyfriend Michel (yes, it is rather confusing to have two Mike's in the family, but Michel's cool, we like him).

We were given free tickets to the Sens vs. Canucks game on Remembrance Day by Mike's awesome friend Joe so we decided to make a long weekend out of it and check out our capital.

It was a bit cold but the sun was shining beautifully. We cycled along the canal from Steph & Michel's all the way downtown to parliament and it was so lovely. We had really missed the whole cycling-along-a-river bit in Oxford and this convinced us that we really want to eventually end up living somewhere where we can go cycling along a river, though I suppose an ocean would do too! ;)

We took the free tour of the Parliament and saw where the government does its thing. Then we had lunch in Byward Market and went to the National Gallery which is definitely one of our favourite museums of all time. The gallery, designed by Moshe Safdie, has amazing spaces filled with light including two gorgeous interior court yards. We also enjoyed the use of bold colours in the galleries which really added to the mood of each exhibit. It's funny that we visit museums more for their architecture and interior design than the art... although in this case we did quite like the Group of Seven collection, especially the Canadian-ness of paintings of trees and lakes and snowy scenes. :o)

Jamie Oliver
Mom and I went to see Jamie Oliver at the taping of the "Steven & Chris Show" at the CBC studio. Yvonne adores Jamie and gave me a bouquet all made up of "foodstuffs" (kale, beans, berries) to give to him. Jamie made "huevos rancheros" (Mexican scrambled eggs) and told stories about his family -- he was so cute. I even got a few seconds of cheek time when I handed him the flowers, hehehe. (Funny we used to think the British accent was "posh" before we lived in England. I do miss the accents, even the chavvy ones.)

Terrible cough
Mike caught a cold and as per usual, passed it to me just as he was starting to get better. It had been a while since I'd had a proper cold -- the kind that really knocked you out. Well, this one was no fun. I had the worse cough ever -- the phlegmy, chest-hurting, lung-collapsing kind. For a week and a half ish, I couldn't sleep because I would wake up coughing in the middle of the night. People on the subway looked at me as if I had SARS. It was awful. The cough's finally gone away now but I am left with a super sore ribcage. Mike had a similar thing last year after he developed a case of pericarditis (inflammation of the muscles around the heart) from a bad chest cold and we had to hit up the ER a couple of times. So I guess what mine is is the tissues around my ribs are swollen from all the hard coughing and they're rubbing against my ribs and hurting me. It sucks. Oh and just before this I had sprained my left wrist somehow and had to wear a support. I'm normally pretty healthy but I've felt totally gimpy these past couple of months. As soon as I get back to operating at 100%, I am going to go out for a run. OK, maybe not outside out, it's far too cold for that.

Baby Alex James Wagar
The whole family is sooo excited for the imminent arrival of Baby Alex James Wagar, our little tiny nephew and the first baby in the Wagar clan.

Karina is technically due on Boxing Day but I think she's about ready to have him come out anytime now. We are sitting at the edge of our seats waiting for the phone call to take us to the hospital where we can sit on the edge of our seats some more waiting to hold a newborn little one. It never ceases to amaze me that a minuscule human creature can be growing inside someone's belly... Seems so kangaroo-like. I love it.

Here's a beautiful picture of Derek & Karina, the happy parents-to-be.

Toronto Christmas Market at the Distillery District
I love Christmas markets. I still remember the ones in the cute little villages all over Alsace: mulled wine, wooden huts selling crafts and homemade treats, carol singers, strings of Christmas lights lining the cobbled streets... To quote from the Sound of Music, "these are a few of my favourite things" and they certainly put me in a festive mood ten times more than walking through a crammed shopping mall listening to "Jingle Bells" with sales signs shoved in my face.

This was the first year that they'd run a European-style Christmas market in Toronto and it was held at the Distillery District. We went on opening night since I scored free tickets for one-litre beer steins at the Sleeman's reception--I had 1L, Mike had 5L and proceeded to puke on the subway home, hahaha, although to be fair he also hadn't had anything to eat because the lineup for the Oktoberfest sausages was humongous--then went back again during the day with Derek & Karina (hence the two photos below where we are wearing different outfits). It was lovely, actually, except it's a bit harder to enjoy mulled wine while sitting outside in the bitter cold within the confines of an alcohol-licensed area. But they did the best they could and set up fire pits and outdoor lounges and we had a nice time complaining about how cold it has been lately and how much colder it's about to get.

 

And that brings us up to date so I suppose I should wrap it up here. I can't believe it is Christmas next week. I keep remembering that that was the case then keep forgetting it immediately after. I was supposed to finish up the rest of my Christmas cards and post them out tomorrow but somehow I started writing this instead and now that it's two hours later, I think I will just go to bed. Next year I'll get the Christmas cards out way ahead of time. For sure. Maybe.

In the meantime, I wish all of you a very merry Christmas with everyone you love, and a wonderfully happy new year filled with lots and lots of good things! :o)

Next week is November

How is it November already?

Time's been flying and I've seriously been neglecting this blog and the rest of my personal correspondence for the past few months. To get you up to speed, not a whole lot of exciting things has happened apart from working, spending time with family at the cottage and in Kingston, and just generally hanging out.

Oh right, there was the half marathon. 21 kilometres, 2 hours, 19 minutes, and 42 seconds later, we were completely broken and sore everywhere, but we did it! We ran a half marathon! It was a beautiful morning and a lovely crowd and though it wasn't a stroll in the park, it felt GREAT to finish the race.

After five months of training, it's really quite weird not having this obligation in the back of my mind to have to go out and run, and schedule everything else around running. I'm still not one of those people who loves to run and gets this high off the adrenaline, but I do kind of like switching off and just being outside by myself for a little bit so I am going to keep running at least once or twice a week, but I'm not going to delude myself into thinking that I'm going to sign up for a full marathon anytime soon (or anytime ever)!

And lastly, after three months working as a personal assistant at a high-end interior design company, I have decided to get back on the job hunt. I would really love to make things and actually do things with my hands (like cards and photo albums or just putting stuff together rather than sit in front of a computer all day) so I'm looking into places like stationery designers, picture research/visual display/event planning/branding companies, magazines, publishers, TV stations, arts/media type things. Pretty scattered, I know, but that's my quarter-life crisis for you!

I am a bright & happy person who works hard at everything and is good at a lot of things (haha, that sounds vague, but if you know me, you know that that pretty much does sum it up!) so hopefully I'll find something soon! In the meantime, if any of you Toronto people come across anything or hear about people who are hiring right now, please do drop me a line, I'd really appreciate it!

Our 3-Year Anniversary

Today is our 3-year anniversary. We don't really do much with our wedding anniversary -- Mike said that I only get to pick one anniversary to celebrate and I prefer to do the "original" one of when we first started going out rather than the wedding one.

Still, I don't think I've ever posted photos of the wedding anywhere (except for on sunnyandmike.com but that hasn't been around for a few years now), so to mark the occasion, here are some of my favourites from when we got married 3 years ago today:

The month of August

Looks like I haven't touched the blog in exactly one month. Well, let's see, here's a brief summary and a selection of photos of what we've been up to since the last posting:

• spent a whole week at the cottage (most of the family were there, Kyle & Masa visited for the long weekend, Fred came in the middle of the week from Ottawa, it rained a bit but I like it when it rains there because then you feel totally OK to bum around and do nothing and relaxed, it was pretty great, oh except my cell phone decided to go for a swim in the lake and as a result, is no longer functioning);

• went to see Roger Federer play tennis at Rogers Cup one sunny beautiful evening;

• spent an entire afternoon at the Toronto Zoo (very hot);

• went to see the Great Big Sea concert at the amphitheatre with Derek & Karina;
• went to see "Eat, Pray, Love" (and now want to read the book but haven't got time);
• had a lovely lunch and stroll around in the Distillery District with new friends;
• hung out with Leslie & Kyle;
• worked on the September edition of the newsletter for the condo;

And that brings us to this morning when we braced ourselves for our biggest run yet: 18 kilometres from Yonge & Finch all the way down to Front & Jarvis in scorching heat. Yeah, it sucked, big time. I was so thirsty and so uncomfortable I thought I was gonna pass out. We showered at Derek & Karina's then Megan had the brilliant idea that we should all go have a brunch buffet where I stuffed my face til my head hurt. We checked out the buskers festival near the St. Lawrence Market and saw some cool stunts people and then went back to Derek & Karina's where I proceeded to puke up the aforementioned buffet -- I keep telling people that I'm not allowed to do all-you-can-eat's but no one takes me seriously -- that was pleasant. It's the heat, the sun, the food, the run.... It all just made me feel ill.

I finally felt better after a bit of a nap, another shower, and a bit of sitting around in air conditioning. But I'm still struggling with finding enough time in a day to get everything done -- the ironing's been sitting there for ages, my inbox is about to explode, I haven't balanced our budget in several weeks, laundry, dishes, Charlie's litter, tax audit, library books, movies, sleeping 8hrs a night, and so on -- this working full-time business certainly gets in the way of everything else, doesn't it?