R.I.P 2011

Well 2011 has come to an end. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year! I’ve decided to do a month by month re-cap of my 365 days.

January
Early in January my Boyfriend and I crossed the boarder to check out the Detroit Auto Show. I’ve never seen anything so huge before, and me being not entirely a car-freak, I actually thoroughly enjoyed being there for hours  on end. Believe it or not, it was fun! I even sat in a fancy car and got chatted up by an ol’ feller. Unfortunately I tried to just get a solo shot of me “driving”, but it didn’t work out ;)

I guess you can’t really say it was his fault. Since I do like to strike up a conversation with anyone. Hi mister Detroit police officer! In case you’re wondering, we were discussing his cottage in Chatham, Ontario lol.

I went to my second (and much larger) blogger meet-up in downtown Toronto. I was a bit scared going into this one since I’ve only met 3 or 4 bloggers prior and there were going to be so many new, yet familiar faces from reading their sites. I had a great time however, and ended up hanging out with some great blog friends like Morgan, Susan, and found some new blogs like Meghan and Lisa!

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 FebruaryI started filming YouTube videos in November of 2010, and I ended up doing my first make-up swap with my friend Katie from Texas (youtube // twitter), I blogged about it and filmed it!

I tried CrossFit for the first time ever and blogged about it of course. I may even go as far to say as I’m addicted to CrossFit! I’m still going strong 11 months later. Wahoo!


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MarchScott and I took advantage of a Groupon and had a date night in Niagara Falls, the next day I shopped the outlets, lol!

I love surprise visits from my neighbours back home in Newfoundland!

We lunched at Tim Hortons while they were driving through my city.

I’d rather not re-live these hair disaster moments in my life again. But, here we go.I had been growing out my hair for about two years. Au naturale, no dying it whatsoever. I decided to try and go for my bold orange look that I had rocked back in 2005. It didn’t come out so great. Not what I asked for.

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AprilI discovered self-tanner. St. Tropez to the rescue of my pale skin!

I cooked a ham and scalloped potatoes for the first time for Easter. Also, please ignore my way-too-dark complexion. I’ve yet to get the hang of self-tanner at this point. :)

After many trips to the hair salon to fix my orange hair (orange gone wrong!), make it more orange, have it fade out. My hair stylist and I finally … broke up.

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MayScott and I drove to Burlington for my Birthday date night and had a classy dinner! Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday…to me! Happy Birthday happy birthday….happy birthday…TO ME. With a hot pink Nike Free’s purchase :)

I went to another large blogger meet-up. This time it was Angela from OhSheGlows birthday. She had a potluck party for her birthday. (Another) Angela  from EatSpinRunRepeat and I drove down together, to her house. Love this photo. I don’t remember what I’m saying but I’m making Morgan die of laughter here! Read about the meetup here.

Oh, I got lost in Mississauga in May as well. That wasn’t fun.

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June
My bathroom tampon carrying case was stolen. Ew.Eating out on our cute bistro set on our balcony. Clearly not much happened this month :)

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July

I bought an iPad 2 on a really crummy day, then I reviewed it.

I also played one of my last games of soccer, ever. I decided to quit. I don’t think I ever blogged about why I decided to quit. Maybe one day I will. It’s nothing major. I just had enough after getting injured frequently. After playing for over 15 years I just ran out of passion for the sport. My team mates even saw it this summer.

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AugustAugust was incredible. The beginning of August I flew down to San Diego, California and met up with some long-time internet friends for the BlogHer11 conference. It was such a relaxing, incredibly fun time with them. I did a ton of re-caps, so you can read them all here.

A few weeks later, my Boyfriend competed in his 3rd Ironman Canada triathlon in Penticton, British Columbia. His sister lives in BC and came along for our trip, and we volunteered at the Run-Aid station at IMC! We also toured around Skaha Bluffs for a bit too — a very popular climbing spot in Penticton.

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SeptemberA new climbing gym in my area opened its doors to us locals, in August. Our city has been lacking an indoor climbing place since they tore down the older gym back in 2006.

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October

I organized a Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign and launched it at work. Prize donations were insane and we raised over $700 with the 30-something employees I work with.

The staff I work with all dressed up for Halloween. I was Mary Katherine Gallagher, from Saturday Night Live ;)

I also flew home to Newfoundland, for the Canadian Thanksgiving, and made homemade pizzas with my cutie patootie nephews.

November

I caught walking pneumonia.

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DecemberI entered in the Tour de Bloc boulder competition and didn’t place last!

Staff Christmas party solo this year and asked your opinions on what I should wear. Just because Scott didn’t go with me this year, didn’t mean I was entirely solo. I ended up taking two of my single female colleagues with me! Two dates is better than one. Scott was out of town that weekend and unfortunately couldn’t make it with me. See past Christmas party, including this years outfits here.

Home for Christmas in Newfoundland!! (I’ve obviously yet to blog about that).

Whoowee, that took entirely way too long to write. Hope you enjoyed my 2011 recap! Night all!

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Nutcracker obsessed

This Christmas season I’ve been completely obsessed with Owls and Nutcrackers. Completely. Anytime I see one, I really do run over to oooh and aww over it. My co-worker(s) Julie (Hi Julie! Hi Amy! Amy is my bosses daughter and both girls are my awesome friends at work.) head out after work to shop sometimes so when Julie and I went out this year to do Christmas shopping after hours I always ran towards nutcrackers. I even stop to take photos of displays of Nutcrackers at The Bay.

Aren’t those adorable? Look how tall/skinny they are. Funny looking, but oh so classy. I LOVE THEM. I think I’ll start collecting them. But, since it’s Christmas I decided not to buy myself any of them at all. Who knows what I’ll get for Christmas myself, and plus — Christmas isn’t about me. It’s about others. I can’t be buying myself stuff all the time right?

On Friday we had our Department (Graphic Design/Marketing/I.T.) Christmas lunch which consisted of Amy my bosses daughter, my boss and I.

I want to learn how to fold my napkins like that. They look like little boats!

Amy and I! Hi friend!! My lips aren’t blue, that’s a figment of your imagination. I don’t have hypothermia. I’m just a cold hearted person.

We headed out to a Chinese restaurant and had the most delicious food I have eaten in a long time. My plate, my bosses, then Amy’s. I feel like I have the most food! Hee, oops.

Fortune cookies. The next greatest thing after a nice full belly of chinese food.

We also ended up getting a free roll up Chinese calendar. I haven’t seen one of those in years!

After lunch we decided that we wanted to do a bit of shopping in the downtown area of the city we rarely frequent. I found a new favorite store.

It’s an interior decorating place, which also sells accessories. I could spend hours in these types of stores. I kept smacking my hands off my cheeks (via Home Alone kid) and saying GOSH I LOVE THIS PLACE. So so often, that everyone probably got tired of me saying it. But oh, I will definitely be back! I want our apartment to look exactly like the inside of this store. It’s cozy, warm… and smells so good!

(Thanks for the photo, Amy!)

I ended up buying a scarf there for $10, and my Boss got a necklace. A beautiful one for 12 bucks! Twelve bucks you guys! It looks fantastic too.

We popped by another store which I spotted these cute piggy banks for my nephews. My Christmas present idea flopped since I put it off too late. I had planned on going to a ceramic place and painting their own piggy banks. The four year old would’ve gotten a piggy bank with tons of monkeys, and trees on it. The five year old would’ve gotten dinosaurs! Except, I went in too late and they were all sold out of the size of the piggy banks I wanted. So, that’s my plan for next year. I have a whole year to plan for it — so it should work.

I spotted these and nearly bought them for ten bucks each. But they’re not as personal as me making them myself, so I opted out.

Being girls and all, we craved some chocolate and went to this one very fancy spot. Of course, eying nutcracker obsessed this year I spotted this little fella. He’s a Nutcracker Pirate Christmas tree ornament! He wiggles his body when you pull down the string. I squealed. Naturally. My parents are probably reading this blog post as we speak. So pssst, you’re getting these things for Christmas. Minus the nutcracker ornament ;)

We came back to the office and I snapped a few photos of … myself in my new scarf, and of course Amy too. So fun! The afternoon flew by. Random but I think since I use mascara on my eyes every day that they’re slowly disappearing/breaking off. Maybe I need to get eyelash growth products.

My boss and I drove back to our other office and there, we swapped Christmas presents. She got me a nutcracker for Christmas!!!!!!!! Best boss everrrrr.

I slow danced with it, and kissed it a little.

Then took more photos with it…

P.S. is my hair really that nasty on the ends? Why is it blonde? Weird.

Then placed it on my desk so I could stare at it during the work week when I’m at my desk. Is that not the most perfect gift I could ask for? I LOVE IT. I love it all together with my white ceramic vases and glass Christmas tree I picked up recently. 

Such a fun afternoon! I love Christmas!

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Christmas Party

My work’s Christmas Party was on Saturday night and unfortunately Scott was in Ottawa this entire weekend so he couldn’t go with me.

I ended up picking up two of my co-workers (who both read my blog. Hello!!) and had an awesome time regardless of if my Boyfriend came with me or not. 

I was initially going to wear an all black outfit and have my H&M skirt be the standing-out piece. But for some reason I ended up going with the brick red tank from Cassis that I picked up in October. It was laying in the clean laundry pile and it was next to my skirt, so I paired it together and it ended up going really well.

This was my final look that I ended up wearing to the Christmas Party. I think it worked out very well! It was way too cold to wear bare legs, plus I thought the tights made it more festive looking.

I filmed a YouTube video last night while I was was getting ready, and this is the photo that I took immediately after.

Closeup of my eyeshadow! :)

It’s incredibly long at 13 minutes, even though I made a time-lapse video and included some royalty free music. But if you care to watch, it’s there for your viewing!

I had so much fun. There was karaoke. Julie and I had to get the party started by singing the first song with our other co-worker. I also tore up the dance floor doing the Newfie Jig with a few newf’s who attended the party as well. The Night That Patty Murphy Died, Home For A Rest and Heave Away were just a few songs that I jigged to. Man, best songs ever. Remind me so much of home.

Now, for some photos of the night. Fun right!? Don’t worry! I asked everyone for their permission to be on my blog :)

You may remember Julie as she’s featured here on my website quite often.

Amy and I!

Laura and I. Kinda blurry. Not everyone is the best photographer around ;)

So that’s it! Hope you enjoyed that YouTube video I put together. It wasn’t all that hard actually. So I may end up doing a how-to video on how to make a time lapse like that, in case anyone is interested.

See you all soon!

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