jelly beans

What will you do with the time you have left?

twenty one

Happy 21st birthday to my little rat sister today. We got off to a bit of a rocky start, sometimes I would eat your popsicles, sometimes you would try to stab me with a steak knife. You know, the usual.

But over the years I accidentally discovered that not only did I love you, I liked you a lot too. I have more fun with you than almost anyone else, and even though I miss you, I'm so glad you've adopted the islands and love them as much as I do.

I'm so proud of the tough, funny, smart chick you've grown into, and I can't wait to see what the future has in store for you, because I know it's going to be amazing.

Also, I'm excited to finally go to the bar with you in 'Merica and not have us both be named Jasmine.

We will come at you like a spider monkey

We both look amazing in bandanas, fact

favourites

pillboxes

too hideous not to include

sisters

Skydiving

Maid of Honour

I've been trying to get rid of her for years but she's very resilient

triathletes

colour me rad

One of the reasons I went to Vegas last weekend was to do the Colour Me Rad 5K with 2 of my best friends. I've done the Colour Run before, and to be honest, it was quite a bit better organized than this one, but the company for the Rad run was spectacular.

My hair was green for the rest of the weekend, and I'm pretty sure my lungs are still rainbow on the inside, but it was really fun. I put my "RAD" tattoo on my arm, and for the rest of the weekend people were like "RAD! I LOVE YOUR TATTOO" everywhere I went. There was so much enthusiasm for it that I briefly, after several martinis, considered making it permanent.

Love them.

Another accidental .gif. I don't know how this keeps happening but I love it.

live colourfully, or not at all

Amanda poured water on Kristine..

Look how mad she was. Priceless.

That face.

Before

 

After

 

perogies

For Thanksgiving last week I made homemade perogies. I like to pretend it's to share my culture with other people but mostly I just love perogies. They are kind of a pain to make from scratch and I can't find anywhere to buy them here so I don't make them very often, but when I do, they are glorious.

I used this recipe.

this

plus this

plus four pounds of cheese= this

this

plus a rolling pin and a drinking glass

equals these delicious morsels, plus carpal tunnel syndrome from working the dough and rolling it out

finished product and also proof that there is beauty in the world. Let's be honest, I was too busy eating these to take a decent picture.

Luckily I made way too much bacon and had about a pound left over to nibble on to give me sustenance through this arduous task. Once the perogies are done, I boil them in hot water until they float, then saute them with butter and onions until they are brown.

Serve with sour cream and mushroom soup sauce (canned mushroom soup + water +microwave) and you can even add ranch if you are throwing all sense of caloric decency to the wind. My dad says if you eat too many perogies you will start to look like one. Which is probably true. But there are worse things you could look like, am I wrong?

zara

We have a Zara in SF, but the one in Vegas is so much better. I might find one or two things in the one near my work, but when I go into the one in the Fashion Mall on the strip, I have to limit myself to a dollar amount ahead of time and try to stick to it.

I want everything in there.

T-shirts should not be a remarkable thing, but it's really hard to find a good one. Usually they are too thick, or completely see through, or they hang on me weird and make me look pregnant.

These ones are just sheer enough to be breathable, they are form fitting but don't cling, they have a nice wide neckline so I don't feel like I'm choking, and they are long enough to be flattering. It's probably weird to be this excited about a very basic clothing staple, but I am.

I've been wanting some lace trimmed black shorts for a long time, (probably since I saw this post, actually) and I figured they would be very easy to find, but they aren't. The only pairs I've found have been incredibly expensive, but these were really cute and affordable.

It's always hard for me to find button up shirts, usually they are either way too big and unflattering, or too tight and the buttons pull, plus they are usually see-through so I have to wear something underneath that adds bulk. This shirt is sheer but the colour is dark enough to keep it decent, and it fits perfectly without any gaping or pulling in the chest. Plus it's green.

The only other green thing I own is a green silk mini dress with puffy sleeves. I was most likely drunk at the time of purchase, as I can't imagine what else would have possessed me to snatch up that little number, which might still be the single most expensive thing I've ever bought. I force myself to wear it every St. Patrick's Day as a humiliation exercise, and a reminder that if you feel the sudden urge to buy a Kelly green puffy sleeved satin dress, or other embarrassing equivalent, it's probably a good idea to sleep on it first.

loved.

Had such a great weekend in Vegas, but nice to be back home with the boy.

Love this:

favourites

Just one favourite today. My mom painted this for Derek and I as a gift for our first anniversary. We met in Hawaii, and all of the signs point to places that are special to us.

Lanikai is my favourite beach, Derek used to work at Sand Island, and the Barefoot Bar is the place where my parents met him for the first time.

I love it.

And also, my mom has mad skills.

buzz

It's such a gorgeous day in San Francisco I just want to go play outside. I find it strange that it is 60 degrees here in July and 90 in mid-October, but that's just one more thing to love about this weird little city.

I am literally don't think I can eat any more turkey, but I feel really guilty going shopping for any other food while we still have so much left because there are lots of people in the world that don't have enough to eat, so there is actually no other food in our house.

As a direct result of this situation, I had a very large coffee and some chocolate for lunch today and it was delicious and decadent but between the caffeine and the sugar rush I am feeling a bit crazy and I might be developing a twitch in my left eye.

It might just be excitement though, I'm off to Vegas tomorrow to see two of my most favourite girls, drink a lot of margaritas and spend all my money. It's not the gambling that gets me, though I do seem to have a unusual talent for craps, it's the shopping.

There is a Zara here in SF, but for some reason when I walk into the one in Vegas I want EVERYTHING! Plus they have a Top Shop. Life is good.

giving thanks

Monday was Thanksgiving (I try not to call it Canadian Thanksgiving even though I'm sure some people think I just can't read a calendar because it kind of feels weird and dis-associative. It's MY Thanksgiving so I feel like I shouldn't qualify it, as though I'm saying it's not REALLY Thanksgiving).

I haven't been able to be home for Thanksgiving in a very long time, but it's become a tradition to celebrate it with friends, food and lots of booze, and it's far enough away from American Thanksgiving (ha) that I'm not interfering with anyone's plans with their family.

I've had some very memorable celebrations, the time at our Sheridan St apartment or "the ghetto" as it was less than affectionately referred to by our friends, when we didn't have any furniture except for a tiny, musty futon and ended up eating and cooking most of our meal sitting on the living room carpet.

There was the year that my sister made electric purple sweet potato casserole that was way too nasty looking to eat. The year my friends in North Dakota surprised me with a Thanksgiving celebration of fries and gravy (poutine's cheeseless counterpart), ketchup chips and perogies even though in their opinion, and this is a direct quote "Canadians don't even believe in pilgrims."

And one of my fondest orphaned Thanksgiving stories, my first year living in Honolulu when my room mates who I'd only known for a couple of months surprised me with a KFC picnic in our new dorm room to celebrate. It was my first holiday so far from home and to this day I think it was the nicest thing that anyone's ever done for me.

This year was no exception, Derek and I had a turkey cook off (I'm pretty sure I won, ahem) and a bunch of our favourites came over to help us eat it (even though there were 10 of us, we didn't put a dent in that turkey, in case you were wondering what I'll be eating for the next two weeks). We had perogies, mashed potatoes, stuffing and some amazing mac and cheese, way too many desserts, and some very intense beer pong matches.

There was the small matter of a puppy almost getting ran over by a car, but it's pretty likely that it's not even possible for horrifying catastrophes to occur on Thanksgiving, and everyone walked away unscathed.

So as a status update, today I am feeling fat and happy because of all the delicious things I've had to eat lately, and also lucky that I've had the opportunity to make so many good friends, all over the place.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

gold

I'm trying to decide what I want to dress up as for Halloween, but so far I can't come up with anything. I even tried doing word association to hopefully inspire a cool, completely never done before costume and in a flash of inspiration while looking out the window I screeched out, "OF COURSE! I WILL BE A TREE!"

So it's clear that I'm going to have to take a different route to finding my costume. I saw this project the other day and have since been obsessed, even though it's not even close to being the right season to plant more things, but then I started thinking, what if I covered MYSELF in gold leaf? Not my whole body, since there might be children present, but just gold leaf makeup.

I think it looks so gorgeous, and also kind of like you might have a contagious skin condition, so perfect for Halloween. The only problem is, it's not really a costume, is it? When someone asks me what I'm supposed to be and I just say "Gold", that might be odd. So now I'm trying to think of an actual costume I could make out of plastering my face with gold leaf.

So far I've come up with an oscar, Goldmember, Queen Midas, or the sugar plum from the Nutcracker (although I'm not sure why since I feel like she would be white and silver?)

Here is my makeup inspiration so let's see what I can come up with. Although hopefully with less gold dandruff.

loveliness

A few lovely things:

 

first friday

Last Friday night we went to see Matt Nathanson at the Fox Theater in Oakland. The Fox is gorgeous, I love the enormous gold statues flanking the stage, and it also has 11 bars, so that's beautiful as well.

It was also First Friday in downtown Oakland, I've been hearing about it for a long time but just hadn't made it down to check it out. They close down a whole street in downtown Oakland and there are bands and food trucks and artists and vendors selling all kinds of things. There was a school bus full of vintage clothes, I had my eye on a faux fur vest when Derek unceremoniously dragged me away.

They had a bunch of old cars and really neat motorcycles, and I even saw a few rap battles, and I had an amazing tri-tip sandwich for supper. It was a really neat crowd and I'd definitely like to bring some people back there with us next time.

The concert was wonderful, Matt has been my favourite since the first time I heard Still, and if anything we are even closer now as he made every single person sing "I Want to Dance with Somebody" by Whitney Houston at the top of their lungs and he wouldn't stop until everyone joined in, and also qualified a song where he talks about Jewish girls with "I'm a pervert, not a racist".

Sitting on a sidewalk in Oakland eating supper, because I'm classy like that