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Here are a few things that are making me happy right now:

This article about living in Hawaii. Makes me happy/homesick.


My co-worker went to Italy for a few weeks and brought me back some truffle risotto. Amazing.

I love discovering news words like this one:

fernweh – (noun) a craving for travel; being homesick for a place you’ve never been.


Also, I have recently discovered this amazing spray that has actual magical powers. I've been kind of hating on my hair lately because no matter what I do it seems kind of dry and frizzy. I tried using WEN for a few months, and as always happens when I try to do nice things for my hair, it completely rebelled and looked worse than ever.

Apparently my hair is still 13 years old and only likes things that are mean to it. But I tried It's a 10 spray with Keratin last night, and my hair is soft, shiny and frizz free, and for the day after I wash my hair that is almost unheard of.

It usually takes at least two nights of me sleeping on/aggressively rubbing my head against my satin pillowcase to achieve this kind of sleek manageability. It's a bit expensive, but worth it if these are going to be the consistent results.

hello goodbye

I still don't know my way around here very well, probably because I've been so dependent on technology that I've never had to learn. My phone GPS is broken right now, so on the way home from San Jose last weekend, we ended up getting lost and going through San Francisco, which worked out anyway because I had a friend visiting and she wanted to see the city.

It was a gorgeous day, not a lot of traffic, the sun shining and good tunes on the radio, and as we drove north on the 101 and came around the last curve and saw the San Francisco laying out in front of us, with it's cute, colourful houses on the hillsides and the skyline off in the distance, I realized for the first time that I really love this city.

It would be just like me to finally notice that just as we're starting to get serious about planning where we want to go next, but you can't have everything in life. The transition to living here was definitely rough, I've never been so lonely and homesick in my life, including when I moved to an island in the middle of the ocean without knowing a single person.

It was a great experience for me in hindsight,  nothing helps you figure out who you are faster than no longer have anyone around you to tell you who they think you should be. It's scary at first, but once you figure out that the only opinion that really matters is your own, even if it's because there is nobody left around you to have an opinion, it's very freeing.

Looking back, I can pretty clearly see how each new place I've lived has changed me and shaped my viewpoint, and I know I'm very fortunate to have had the ability to live in so many wonderful places. I can't wait to see what is in store for me when I get to my next new home.

my best friend's wedding

Over labour day weekend, my best friend got married in a gorgeous ceremony in Bend, OR. I arrived on Wednesday night, and despite a pretty terrible toothache, had such a great weekend. Nic's family and friends are so much fun, so in addition to the actual wedding, it was pretty much just a 5 day party, broken up periodically by important bridesmaids duties like making bouquets and playing Cards Against Humanity.

Contrary to popular belief, I did NOT cry through the whole ceremony, but she looked so beautiful, and so in love, and I don't think there are words to describe how happy I am for her and her wonderful new husband Mac.

I also began what I believe will be a life-long commitment that day, although mine was with a beverage. If you are looking for a sign that the world really is a lovely place, you can probably find it at the bottom of a lavender lemon drop martini.

Tiffany's

Last night we went to the launch party for Tiffany's new jewellery line, Atlas. I went with my friend Hannah, and it was a good time. They had some really good appetizers (and some not so good ones, avoid black bean tarts at any cost), and we drank all of the champagne that exists in the world, as evidenced by my pounding headache and immediate craving for a cheese bagel the second I opened my eyes this morning, one hour past my alarm.

We also got to meet Aimee Song from Song of Style, and she was very sweet and just as beautiful in person. It was a pretty fun night, we were quite like Holly Go-Lightly, but without the emotional baggage or jaunty hats.

The Atlas line was pretty, I liked some of the bracelets especially, but call me old fashioned, if I'm going to pay that much for a piece of jewellery, it needs to be really sparkly.

Aimee Song, she was very sweet

sparkly chocolate truffles. Everyone was completely covered in edible glitter

Tiffany jewellery models

want

Even though it is still gorgeous out here, it's mid-September and getting close to Fall. This time of year always makes me want to throw out everything I own and become one of those women who owns a trench coat and wears socks that actually match.

Here are a few things I'm creeping on right now:

 

Mango raglan sweatshirt, $56 / Wunder Under Pant *Luxtreme / Zara cami / James Jeans olive jeans / Steve Madden black equestrian boots

guilty pleasure

I have a little ritual that I pull out every couple of months when I really need to just get away from everything for awhile.

I leave work and go straight to specialty's and buy the biggest chocolate chunk cookie they have, then I wander around the city nibbling on it and people watching, marvelling at the truly unique souls that are housed by this interesting little city.

I usually end up at the Westfield mall on market to do a little shopping. Today was one of those days, and it was exactly what I needed.  The two cute shirts I found at Zara were just an added bonus.

ale trail

I was only going to take 1 day off work for Nic's wedding, and fly to Oregon on Thursday, but then I heard the slate of activities that were planned for the bachelorette party and I had to immediately change my plans.

We went on the Ale Trail, a local institution in Bend, which is a 16 person bar/bicycle that let's you pedal/drink your way from bar to brew pub, all over town. It was so much fun, and also sort of a workout. I think if more workouts involved alcohol and a bunch of friends, people would always be in peak physical condition.

Our bar driver was a doll, and we ended up picking up a topless troubadour, whom we invited along because we thought he was a friend of our driver, but at the end of the tour we were informed that he was actually just a random homeless guy who came along for the ride. As an added bonus, one of the breweries we went to was called the Boneyard. If you knew me during my time on the island, you will probably be as excited as we were, and will likely fully support our decision to buy matching Boneyard hats.

If you're ever in Bend with some good friends and a few spare hours to kill, definitely check out the Ale Trail, more info here.

boneyard for life

bride's bitches

hiit

I wrote about BodyRock a few months ago, and how much I liked the workouts, but they kept changing the format. I checked back in with them recently, and they have a new site called The DailyHiit that provides daily workouts with trainers who are actually doing the workout with you to keep you motivated.

It is almost amazing how much my capacity for doing squats increases when I'm doing it with someone, even if that person happens to be virtual. When I'm alone I'm easily distracted by anything other than squats, like staring out the window or being hungry and needing a snack, so it's hard to really get a good workout in.

Check out the dailyhiit here, so far I'm really liking Karen's videos, she is very cute and peppy, but she looks like she could kick my ass if she wanted to. I did her "transform yourself" workout video 4 times in a row and I could only hobble for almost three days afterwards, it's a good one.

cave dweller

While we were in Oregon, and the boys were off doing bachelor things, we decided to embrace our inner adventurers, so a group of us girls set off to check out the lava caves near Bend. We obviously neglected to do any research beforehand, so we arrived to discover that shorts, tank tops and flip flops are not generally the clothing choices of spelunkers the world over, especially as it was below freezing inside the caves.

We also failed to spend the $5.00 necessary to rent a lantern, deciding as a group that the lights from all 4 of our cell phones would more than compensate for the complete lack of light sources inside the caves.

We set out merrily enough, dodging a hive of angry wasps and avoiding the judging looks of the other hikers in their closed toed shoes and winter jackets, with their lanterns shining smugly as they shuffled by.

The first 100 feet went swimmingly, there were plenty of interesting rock formations that could just be made out by the light of my "World's Brightest Flashlight App", but things quickly went south. I felt a drop of liquid fall onto my head from the stalactites above that was almost certainly monster saliva (at your own peril will you suggest that it may have been only water).

A few more feet inside, all hell broke loose. The leader of our little band of misfits also got monster slobber dripped on her, and as she turned her arm to wipe it away, something (likely the beady, red eyes of the creature) reflected in the cover of her cell phone case, and she screamed.

That was all it took. The rest of us broke rank and sprinted for the mouth of the cave, every man for himself, as we stumbled blindly in the darkness, all of us hoping we wouldn't be the one eaten first.

We eventually all emerged from the darkness, bruised, embarrassed and with a stubbed toe or two in the group, but no worse for the wear for the most part. And that's the story of the time I was nearly eaten by a monster in a cave, for real.

Don't let the camera flash fool you, it was absolutely pitch black inside this cave

go

Watching this video really makes you want to book a trip. I was kind of on the fence about a trip I was thinking of taking next month, there are always reasons to say no and just stay at home, but I decided to go for it. I read somewhere that if you're having trouble deciding what to do, you should do what you'll wish you would have done when you're 80 years old.

When I'm 80, hopefully playing bingo and skinny dipping every day, I think that it is much more likely that I'll regret staying at home more than I'll regret a crazy, expensive weekend in Vegas with my favourite girls, so why not?

cleanse

I've had a really great summer, with lots of traveling, concerts, camping and partying. Sadly, all that fun has started to take its toll on my skinny jeans and I'm feeling kind of gross these days.

I'm pretty skeptical about juice cleanses. It seems like a quick fix, and as soon as you start eating normally again, things would go right back to normal. But I feel like it might be a good jump start to get back to eating healthier, and my mom has done this one a few times and she said she had a lot more energy. It's only a 3 day cleanse but she kept going for 4 more days after the first time because she felt so good.

I decided to try it out. The breakfast smoothie is delicious, the supper one is OK, but the lunch one is pretty gross. They are very filling though, so I didn't feel hungry, just kind of bored with eating the same thing over and over.

It also says you can do the whole thing for only $16/day. I'm not sure where they were shopping, but it cost me closer to $80 to get all the ingredients.

I do feel better after doing this, but obviously it's just the first step, and I've got more work to do. The best thing about the whole experience was I discovered a new love, and it's name is Almond Butter. Mmmmm.

loveliness

Today was kind of a bad day. Nothing major happened, just nothing seemed to go right. Sometimes it just helps to have a reminder that there are still lovely things in the world.