170 posts tagged “doug”

our plans changed for the weekend and ended up being a very quiet one at home. which was just as well - we have so many busy weekends up ahead so a little break won't hurt.

i ended up being the first to be awake on a saturday morning. i quickly packed my gym bag and away i went to my bodypump class. and because the women's gym was on top of the 2nd floor of the superstore, i decided to do some grocery shopping afterwards. convenience at it's finest!

the rest of the afternoon was lazy. after lunch, we were all in the living room... chaeli playing her leapster games, doug reading the paper and me... well, i was reading something. but my eyes were so heavy that after awhile, i just leaned into doug and closed them for a bit.

i think that was my favourite part of the day. sitting on that couch with the two people that i love, just taking in the quietness and peace. but... i couldn't take it much longer. i was just that tired. i ended up going up stairs and napping for almost an hour an a half!

being completely lazy, we ordered in swiss chalet and then watched Up.

sunday wasn't as lazy, though. we got up and went to the zoo for a stroll, and then went shopping. i ended up treating myself to DDR3 for the wii and man... i suck! hopefully, with practice, i'll be a dancing queen but until then, lets just say i'm glad that i'm doing this in the privacy of my basement, away from the public eye.

anyway, it was one of those interesting weekends where nothing significant happened. instead, it was filled with a lot of little things. but for whatever reason, it's those little things that sometimes gives me that exhilerated feeling.

sometimes i wish i had that magical, twitchy nose like that samantha from bewitched. ah - when t.v. shows were a league of their own. in a good way.

and as much as i wished i had powers to make my closet, or any space in my house, either big or small, become instantly organized and clean in matter of a milli-second, the reality is, of course, that i can't do that. and even if i could, would i really be using my powers just to clean closets?

anyway, this is something i have been wanting to do since september but something always came up. and as we had no plans today, i decided to go for it.

two hours later, i am left with just my cd case and one half of a shelf piled of magazines to go through. and i just can't do anymore. two hours in a closet is enough! i will do that half a shelf and cds another day.

most importantly, i organized all the christmas presents that i bought. yes, that's right. you heard me.

not only do i organize my christmas shopping lists into spreadsheets where there is one spreadsheet for each - my familly, doug's family, doug and chaeli and misc. gift... not only do i create another spreadsheet to correlate with the other four, but this one being by store, either online or off, so i don't end up running all over town, hitting stores more then once... but at some point, i organize my gifts so that all the gifts going to thunderbay are in one or two large shopping bags, and i do the same for presents for chaeli, doug and my own side of the familly.

there is a chaotic period where i shop and just pile everything in the corner of my walk-in closet, still in their bags/boxes.

it was driving me crazy. now, they are all organized. all i need to do is pull them out in the order that they need to be wrapped - doug's family being the front in line.

yup.

i'm psychotic.

there are a lot of parties, celebrations and events being piled into our already booked weekends from now until the end of the year.

doug and i have one weekend this month where nothing is scheduled. nothing - for the whole weekend. and just that one weekend alone. chaeli will be staying at my parents' place.

and you know i'll want to head out somewhere nice for dinner. probably with friends, actually, so we can have an adult night. where, i don't know. somewhere new and interesting.

i love this season. i do. i (knock on wood) just hope that we all stay healthy enough to enjoy all these fun things we have planned. a run-down of events we've got schedule:

- ada and hoa's duo birthday party
- cathy's daughter's birthday party
- SCAW charity concert followed by dinner ath roger mooking's kultura
- stuart mclean's reading/music concert after dinner on baldwin street
- disney on ice followed by a visit to city hall and dinner
- visit from MIL for an extended weekend
- visit to a christmas tree farm

and then, of course, christmas and new year's. and ta-dah! hello 2010!

 

 

i admit that i was disappointed that i couldn't take part in nuit blanche this year. while chinese moon festival and my uncle's birthday were celebrated at my aunt and uncles home on the same nute as nuit blanche, that wasn't the reason why i couldn't go. after all, the dinner party ended around 10pm which would have allowed us to go until around 1am (since it's an all night event). but doug had to do the practical part of his course this weekend and had to be up fairly early. a part of me wondered if i should have gone on my own but no. i had to take care of chaeli on my own the next day. and man - it is not easy doing that when all you want to do is sleep!

next year. it's something i hope to do for sure.

anyway, despite the disppointment, it was a wonderful weekend. chaeli stayed at my parents' place on friday night so the anal nerd in me spent friday night cleaning the house and reorganizing chaeli's summer to fall/winter wardrobe. just as i suspected, the pile of 'too small' clothes was three times bigger then the pile of clothes that fits her. but most of them were mix-matches of tops and bottoms that didn't all go well together. geez - that kid sprout up big time this year.

i also went through her huge pile of books on her night stand, which was so huge that half of it was on the floor underneath the little table. her usual bookshelf, which is very small and a part of her closet) was jammed pack. i had to put some of the bigger books on the very top shelf. i'm going to have to invest in a kid's book shelf to put her books away in. while i have no issues deciding on toys to give away, ones that she's outgrown, i have a pretty huge issue with getting rid of books. i do have a small pile of maybe 8 books i'm prepared to donate to her school, but that's about it. she's got so much more that i didn't even make 1/8th of a dent.

doug came home just near the end of my organizing and cleaning. we decided to head out for a late dinner at a local vietnamese restaurant. i had the lemongrass, grilled chicken, rice, shredded pork and fried egg. doug has his usuall vermecelli with an assortment of goodies in it - vietnamese spring roll, beef roll and shrimp paste on sugar cane. we shared a cold spring roll appetizer and some spicy, fried squid appetizer. what i love about vietnamese food is that it's so affordable. with all that we ordered, it only came to $35 after tips and tax.

saturday morning, i headed off to another power-pump class, making it the first time i've done three in a week. it was at 9:30am which helped getting my butt out of bed early. as usual, the class was great, though this instructor probably would not be considered my favourite one of those i've tried. she wasn't bad but her program was a bit too repetitive. not enough was mixed up which made it easier, i felt. i compensated by adding more weights to my routine.

afterwards, i headed up too shop for chaeli's fall/winter wardrobe. while i was at the mall, i also bought some stocking stuffer items for christmas. i was able to get everything done before 1pm which was nice - i had a few hours to relax and unwind before going over to my aunt's place.

dinner was great, as usual. my doctor and his wife joined the party as well and we had such a great night laughing and chatting away. the food was fabulous though i wasn't able to really dive into it as my appetite has shrunken. it was good, though. at one point, i was able to stop and remind myself that i was satisfied. that any more eating would have just been out of habit and pleasure. but that i would suffer later by being overly-stuffed. so rather having more steak or pasta, i opted to having a couple more of the grilled portebello mushrooms (which were just amazing, anyway, but light).

so, i'm on week three of attending this strength circuit class called 'power pump.' it's defintely not as painful as the first week but it's also not any easier. in fact, it will never be easy as i continually add more weights to the program.

the first class left me in such much pain - from neck to calves/shins - that i walked around like frankenstien the next day, prompting a co-worker to take notice, stop in mid-sentence and ask me, "what's wrong with you?"

i told doug what the instructor made us do...

s: we started off with a series of squats that seemed to last forever. i only had 15 lbs in total on my shoulders but by the 50's squat, i thought i was going to die.

d: excellent!

s: and then at the end, we ended off with lunges. i was like, "what? but we already did legs!"

d: *lol*

s: to make matter worse, we did push-ups at the end, too... AFTER we already did chest near the beginning.

d: so don't do them from your toes. just start from the knees.

s: IT WAS FROM MY KNEES!

i do love it, though. i only take the 45 minute class on tuesday and thursday of each week. at this point, i'm not all that sure i could do it a 3rd time in a week (nor have the time) but i would love to work towards that goal.

the best part of a class like this is that i'm getting both my strength and cardio in at the same time. up until now, i was only able to get in 2 or 3 sessions of 20 min. strength training. while that did do something for my muscles, it was boring and totally lacked efficiency.

so we're going camping this weekend. which will be strange because it's only for one night. we leave early saturday morning and come back by mid-sunday afternoon.

it will be strange only because anytime i've gone camping, i'm use to three night. two nights, maybe, if we are really pressed for time, but ideally, it just makes sense for me to do three nights. i don't like the feeling of taking down the tent so soon after putting it up.

but... we're also going to keep it really simply. we're bringing the bare-minimum. and we'll only need to cook two meals - dinner the first night and brunch the morning after. for the daytime of our first day, we'll probably just snack a lot on raw veggies, dip, crackers and cheese. as i said, we want to keep it really simple.

of course, with camping, there's really no such thing as keeping it simple. you need to bring all the requirements. but i suppose we won't worry about too much food. i'm not even bothering with toys and craft supplies for chaeli because if it looks like rain, we're not going at all. and she won't have time to really play as we'll be doing a lot of walks. i also won't bother with swimming gear, mosquito repellent and sun block. it will be too cold for any of those things. our first aid pack is always ready so no need to worry about that.

still, i do worry that this will be a bigger production then doug realizes. he's just so desparate in getting one camping trip in this year. we didn't at all last year and this summer has just flown by.

last night was definitely a great social night.

we went to add and hoa's place around 5:30pm, meeting up with di and rick (plus their two kids). the boys went on a test drive with hoa's stick (as rick wanted to get use to it - in a couple of months, he picks up his new audi and it's been awhile since he's driven a stick-shift).

on the way back, the boys picking up an ultra-large order of two sushi platters. from sushi marché - the sushi chef and owner there trained under and worked for iron chef, morimoto. the whole idea behind sushi marché is high-quality sushi and sashimi using market, fresh ingredients for a very reasonable, affordable price. it's a pick-up/take-out only place so the price of a waiting staff and interior sit-down furniture, etc., needn't be added to the price. it's actually, an amazing concept and, from what i've had here in toronto, probaby the best quality sushi ever. and only at $20 per person.

afterwards, we were so stuffed that we decided to take a 15 minute walk to ed's real scoop on queen east where we had one of the best gelato scoops ever! i wasn't able to make up my mind what i wanted so i got a regular cup size of 1/2 lemon and 1/2 coconut gelato.

doug, chaeli and i stayed for about another hour after diane, rick and their kids left. ada and chaeli ended up cuddling on the couth while chaeli introduced pocoyo to ada. very sweet. :)

today was a nice, relaxing day as well. we woke up extra late and then headed to the zoo for a late breakfast and a two hour walk. the sun was so nice but very comfortable now that there's no humidity.

i live for weekends like this!

• when i went to university for the first time, mom started to give me (as a side gift) a care package for christmas. this would basically cover the 2nd part of my school year in terms of supplies - shampoo, soap, tooth paste, etc. of course, after i moved home, this all stopped. but now that i'm living in my own home with my own family, she still continues to do this. it was a bit strange at first - after all, i'm now taking care of my own family and can afford to buy my own toothpaste. but still, there's something sweet about it. i've come to look forward to my care package. it's not what's inside it that matters - but the symbolic representation it offers from a mother that still looks after her daughter. as we get closer to christmas, i remind doug that we don't have to stock up too much on things that i know we'll be getting from mom soon enough.

 

• i'm looking forward to fall this year. and i'm hoping that fall will stay a little while before winter hits. it's such a shame that my favourite season of the year is so short. but i do love fall. i love it's smell, the breeze and it's colours. it's also full of fun activities - hiking, apple-picking, farmer's market (during harvest time), thanksgiving and halloween. there's just so much to look forward to but unfortunately, not enough weekends to do them all.

 

• we're having thanksgiving at my parents' place this year. usually, my aunt and uncle always hosts both thanksgiving and christmas but we've decided that thanksgiving should be at my parents' place. they just bought a deep turkey fryer. i'm excited about that alone! mmm... deep fried turkey. for those who've tried this, you'll agree that it's not at all greasy. the skin is crisp and there's no grease clinging on the outer skin part only, but because it fries up so quickly, it seals the meaty area from getting greasy inside and locking in the juices.

 

• there is so much to do in the next couple of months, including a live reading-performance from one of my favourite canadian author, stuart mclean. ada got us tickets and i'm psyched to go - especially as her and i have been talking about it for the past two years.

 

• christmas seems far away but really, it is just around the corner. i've started christmas shopping. in fact, i'm nearly done all my stocking stuffers (except for doug's) and need to focus on just the main gifts. the only person i've finished the main gift shopping is for chaeli. and that's only because when it comes to toys, especially popular ones, there's too much of a risk for it being sold out before christmas. plus, i bought her collector item toys from transformers, revenge of the fallen. some of them are already sold out. anyway, as usual, i plan to finish my shopping by early november so i have time to mail it to my in-laws. i have a great list this year and am excited to see how my ideas are received.

 

• christmas activities are also really high on my list which is part of the reason why i like to get the shopping done early and out of the way. this year, i'm wondering if i want to do the nutcracker ballet again. i didn't think i would want to do it every year but i feel like it again. it is such a great treat to experience. and of course, especially as this will be ada and hoa's last year in toronto, before moving out west, i do hope to go the the 'sleeping children around the world' charity concert. it's held eary december and kick-starts our christmas holiday season.