Bits and pieces
My life in point form:
- My amazing friend Laurel is coming to visit me for a few days tomorrow! I am beyond excited.
- Tomorrow morning I have a photo shoot! I am also beyond excited about that.
- French classes have finished. I wish I could continue, but they now conflict with my evening photography classes. I passed the exam (yay!) and am definitely noticing an improvement in my French, especially in understanding other people when they talk.
- I spent Canada Day on a rooftop terrasse in the Old Port, baking in the sun, watching the festivities below, having some drinks, and debating about whether I wanted to go sky diving... (hah, kidding on that one!)
- I saw Stevie Wonder at the Jazz Festival - well, I didn't actually
see him, I saw the screens which told me he was on stage somewhere among the giant crowds... And I realised that I don't actually know all that many Stevie Wonder songs.
- The Coffee Crisp McFlurry at McDonalds called my name - I had high hopes for it, since it combines my favourite chocolate bar with ice cream... but it just didn't do it for me! Oreo Blizzards are still far in the lead.
...Which brings me to right now! I'm currently editing photos, trying to flush the caffiene rush out of my system, and thinking about cooking dinner. One more thing: rosé wine is my current fav wine for the summer. Yum.
Labels: random, summer
So the girl who's apartment I'm subletting left a few books here, and I've been slowly reading a bunch of them. I've finished all the novels that look interesting (and are in English), so yesterday I picked up
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (no laughing). I'm pretty sure my mom bought me this book when I was 12 - although it was called
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teenagers or something. Anyway, it was strange reading the first few chapters, because it almost felt like I wrote that book. It's mirroring all of my own recent personal revelations about choice and about choosing how life events affect you, being happy in the now not
if and
when certain things happen, and being proactive. Anyway, this is all sounding very cheesy, but I was just surprised by the similarity.
One of the things that particularly struck me yesterday while reading this book, was a small paragraph on love and how people say they "fall out of love" with their spouse. Love, for a lot of people, is a feeling. But it's really an action, and that feeling of love we get is a direct result of love the action. Love is a value that is actualized through loving actions - sacrifices, giving of self, touch, listening, quality time, etc. Therefore, love, the feeling, can be recaptured, all it requires is effort and action. Just like everything in life, really.
ANYWAY. Interesting. Maybe this is my mind telling me I need to go back to school and study some more Psychology. Masters, anyone?? Or, marriage counselor??? Hah.
And onto some more normal blog post stuff: this week was St Jean-Baptiste day, which I didn't exactly celebrate. It was a super hot day so I ended up trekking to the West Island (which took 2.5 hours with metro + 2 busses) and spending the entire afternoon by Nick's pool. I also saw Transformers 2 (lame), ate Lebanese food for the first time (yum), went to the casino and bet on the horsies (lost), learned French, went to some bars, and oh yeah, worked a little. Hehe. In one week Laurel comes to visit me!!! And tomorrow I start Photography classes.
And now it's time to make some dinner.
Labels: montreal, summer, thoughts
All I have to say is wow. Wow. It is smoking hot outside, and therefore also in my apartment. My thermostat is reading 31 degrees inside, and the weather network is saying outside feels like 37. I have not been in heat like this probably since New York City two summers ago. I'm trying to keep cool by blasting my fan, drinking lots of ice cold water, and opening up all my doors and windows (although I don't know if that's actually counter-productive).
It's been a while! Lots has been going on, which is why I haven't had time to update. Most notably was that my cousin was here to visit for the past week-ish and we spent every day out and about, seeing the sights and being tourists! I felt like I hadn't actually done a lot of the tourist things in this city; it's weird how when you actually live somewhere, you just don't do those things because you're too busy with the daily grind!!
There is no daily grind for me though, living in Montreal. I'm setting my own hours that I work and enjoying every single minute of every day! Yesterday was a holiday - St Jean-Baptiste - and I spent it lounging by a pool. Life doesn't get much better than that!
I have almost been living here for 2 months, and all I have to say is the time is flying! Soon it will be July, and I'll have Laurel and my mom as visitors. My photography classes are starting next week, and that will soon occupy me for Monday and Wednesday nights.
To finish with a photo. This is my cousin and I in the Jardin Botanique.
Labels: summer
"I had a lot of dates but I decided to stay home and dye my eyebrows." - Andy Warhol
I love weekends. This one was particularly nice because of the amazing hot weather. Yesterday I spent the majority of the afternoon at the lake, floating on an air mattress. It was so relaxing and heavenly, I would like to do it every day. We then had a BBQ dinner here with some friends along with homemade pina coladas and Dilly bars from DQ. Yum.
Today I made blueberry pancakes from scratch (read: no box mix) and they were delish. (I'm sensing a food-related theme to this post.) Then we went to a swap meet, I bought a new wallet (not from the swap meet) because mine had fallen apart last week, and we ended the afternoon at the art gallery because I really wanted to see the Warhol exhibit. Which was fabulous. Loved it.
Also on Saturday morning, I went to the gym. I'm trying to get back into a gym routine because I've fallen off the boat lately. I get really into it for a couple of weeks and then I seem to lose interest for a month or two and then the cycle starts again. So I'm hoping this time will be different. I'm setting a realistic weekly goal of 3 1-hour sessions at the gym, with basically 30-40 mins of cardio and 20-30 mins of weights/stretches/floor work. I might actually start a separate fitness blog to track my progress and hopefully keep me motivated. I'm not looking to lose weight at all, I'd just like to be healthy and tone up a little more. I'm on my way... last week at the grocery store I bought soy milk to replace my regular milk and tofu to replace steaks.
Tomorrow morning I have to bring my car down to the shop so it can get fixed! Yay! I'll be getting a rental car for a couple days while the work is getting done and then it will feel like I have a brand new car... well, sort of. Hehe. Anyway, I have to be there at 8AM, so... zzz...
Labels: fitness, food, summer
