My birthday weekend

The Fairy Hobmother visited me for my Birthday this morning! How fun, a little belated birthday wish! The fairy overloards run the site over at www.appliancesonline.co.uk, and grant wishes for those who are wishing for a new appliance or even electronics. Speaking of electronics, I’m going to fly home to Newfoundland this month and my parents are saving my birthday gift for when I arrive. They’ve purchased a GPS gadget for my car. I’m not opposed to using these things in my car now that I’ve gotten lost (in Mississauga, and on a military base!!) a few times. I didn’t want to rely on a machine to direct me places. I wanted to get situated on driving on the highways here in Ontario.

What would your wish be for a new appliance or electronic if the Fairy Hobmother visited you? I think I’d wish for an ipod dock/usb thing to go in my car so I could listen to some tunes while driving up north to visit my cousin.

Now! Onto my birthday. I celebrated my Birthday for a number of days this week.

The first being Saturday May 5th. My Boyfriend suggested he needed my car to go to Toronto, and I almost always tell him yes. This time was no different, I didn’t think I was going as I thought he was going to go to the bike store to get new tires for his tri-bike.

A few days later I noticed on the news, that Picasso’s 147 paintings were going to be shown at the AGO and I immediately blackberried the boyf telling him I’d love to see it, eventually. He didn’t respond, which I thought it was quite rude lol.

That night he came home and I asked him if he received my Blackberry message. He said he did and then he told me he purchased tickets for us to go and it was going to be a birthday surprise and I was to come to Toronto with him on Saturday, but he thought I may have made other plans and wanted to tell me in advance.

I was SOOO excited! I may have even done the Carlton Dance (Fresh Prince anyone?) for him to show how happy I was. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned on here that when I was a teenager and a bit older, I painted “replica’s” of Picasso’s for myself, friends and family. I spent hours trying to perfect the painting I was doing so it would turn out almost exactly like Picasso’s. It was a huge part of my life, and I did a ton of paintings throughout the years.

I’ve even done school projects on him when I took Art History classes in Graphic Design and also in my other courses I did when I got out of High School.

My mom has some of my Picasso replicas hung up at my parents house back in Newfoundland, so I don’t have any here to show you, but here are some of Picasso’s paintings that I created (these are picasso’s not mine by the way):Being the Toronto tourist that I am, I took as many photos as possible.

Understandably so, photos weren’t allowed to be taken in the exhibit itself. Though, I only assume so for obvious reasons. There weren’t any cameras out, nor signs saying we couldn’t take any photos. But with all do respect, I didn’t take any. Though I tried really hard to take snap shots with my eyeballs and implant them into my forever-memory. Impossible.

Hi Pablo buddy!

Oh hello second wife, third lover — Dora Maar.

Just outside the Picasso exhibit. I absolutely love the architectural design that Frank Gehry did of the AGO. It’s one of the most memorable buildings I’ve ever been in. It’s fantastic looking. I think my Dad (a retired Architect himself) would enjoy this place.

I thought our day was over after the Picasso exhibit, because even though I love my birthday I’m kinda used to not celebrating it so much. We had plans to go to IKEA since I forgot to pick up some light bulbs when I went with Stephanie last time.

We parked in China Town, and I snapped away as the Boyfriend was rushing to the car. Why are you walking so fast! Wait! I want to be a tourist. Take my photo!

We ended up running into a Parade in China Town! How crazy right?

Once we got to the car, we were still downtown and not on a highway heading towards IKEA like I had thought.

The boyfriend ended up on a side street and trying to parallel park. I asked if we were parking here, and why. But again he ignored my question. (Why does he do that!?)

I glanced up and saw a slew of people walking in one direction with their Toronto FC (soccer) scarves and apparel on. I smiled but kept it to myself until I couldn’t hold it any longer. Which was probably in reality, 20 seconds.

Are we going to a soccer game? I asked. He of course said yes.

Dude. He knows me, and he knows me well. I love soccer, I love picasso. Art and sports. Two of “my things. While we were walking to BMO field, he asked when I figured it out. Well buddy – it wasn’t that hard seeing as I’ve always said I wanted to see a pro soccer match, and since you parked in a not so inconspicuous place with everyone wearing TFC apparel. I put two and two together ;)

Not only did he get tickets to the Toronto FC vs. DC tickets, he got the “best seats in the house” when booking them online.

HECK YEAH! Look how freaking close we were told the field! We weren’t in the bleachers at all. We were literally on the concrete right next to the players.

Best seats ever.

We used the “Spot yourself at the Toronto FC game” on The Star’s website, and found ourselves! SO FUN.

I’m pretty sure I was the loudest person in the area I was in. I couldn’t help being exited. In fact, the women next to me kept looking over and smiling at me, causing me to get a little self-conscious of my shouting “Cmon that wasn’t off sides!” or. “YEAH YEAH YEAH! GO!!!!” and shouting at the players hahaha.

I should be a pro-photographer, don’t you think? Look at the size of their meaty legs! Boom.

As much as I enjoy watching soccer games like this, I’m not regretting my decision to not play outdoor for the first time in YEARS, this season. I’ve stayed the same size since High School, and everyone of the defense on other teams just kept on growing. Now they’re man-sized, broad, and brutal. They’ll do anything to knock you down. Even though I was an agressive forward/mid-fielder, I find that it’s become dirty, and I just always got injured.  Thankfully I haven’t broken any bones but I did hurt my ankle pretty bad. So I’ve decided to stop.

Our goalie (The Toronto guy, not the players from DC).

I even took a quick video of a kick Toronto had on DC. Hee!!!

Me after we lost 2-0. The Toronto fans weren’t as loud as I had thought they were going to be. The game was pretty much silent, except for the DC crowd in the bleachers with flags the size of transport trucks. They were HUGE!

My boy’s done well in surprising me for my Birthday. Well done boyfriend :)

Don’t forget about my HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME Giveaway. Tons of prizes to be won:

You have til May 13.

Continue Reading

Vegan treats and sleeping at IKEA

So how the heck was your weekend everyone?

I was so glad to finally meet up with my friend Steph (who blogs over at Lunges and Lunch) on Saturday.

I picked her up at her place and we went on a road trip to Burlington! Steph had told me about Kind Food, which is this Vegan and Gluten Free (am I supposed to be capitalizing those words?) restaurant and she had me intrigued. So off we went.

The first things I noticed when walking inside the door were the insane amount of cupcakes available.

Dee-rrrrishiousssss.

I ordered the B.L.A.T (Vegan bacon, lettuce, avocado and tomato) only because I wanted to say BLAT as many times as possible inside the restaurant, and giggle uncontrollably like an immature child. Nobody else found it as funny as I did however. Shame.

My teenage self is astounded at my palette changes throughout the years. Everything is gluten free dude. Even the bread!

Stephanie ordered a roasted red pepper soup with some other fancy stuff in it too. The floaties are sweet potato. I think.

Of course we couldn’t leave without trying the amazing desserts Stephanie was raving about. I ended up grabbing the Mile High Brownie. Apparently the sweet treats weren’t made from any refined sugars. I know nothing about Gluten Free/Vegan eating, so this was pretty neat to me.

Oh dear, documenting my first taste at the dessert.

SUCCESS! I loved it.

It was so light, but so good. It tasted like a real brownie would. I ate half since it was fairly large, and saved the rest until I got home and devoured it immediately. Oops.

Stephanie ate a snowball for dessert. Er, I mean a coconut cupcake.

She asked if she had anything on her mouth. No. Not at all I replied, with a straight face.

Then it was time to leave, and do a bit of shopping at Ikea. But first, a photo op outside Kind Food!

Of course whenever I head into IKEA, I’m like an American inside a Target. I can’t leave without spending like a hundred bucks. Am I right? It’s okay, I knew it was bound to happen. I only had planned on getting a lamp, since mine caught on fire. No biggie. We won’t get into that.

We tested out so many (of the exact same) couches. Hey. They were pretty comfortable at least. As they should be for six hundred smackaroos.

Many…

Many couches..

And even taking naps in the IKEA beds. I always smile in my sleep. Don’t you?

Wow, was I really asleep that long? 

Who are these people? Why are they in my bedroom? I mean..the IKEA showroom…

But wait, we must blog about our adventures. There’s always time for blogging, right Steph?

She’s gettin’ on it!

Look at her playing those games. She’s so smart at “Memory”.

It’s never a dull moment when I’m around Stephanie. I need to remind myself to wear waterproof mascara when I’m out in public with her. She always makes me laugh til I cry.

I ended up buying just four things. What  I went in for, a lamp…which of course didn’t come with any bulbs. How could I have forgotten. Silly IKEA.

A rolling pin, straws, and another laundry hamper. Love their $5 laundry bins!

What did you do this weekend?

Continue Reading

Task #1: Decluttering my desk.

So the following photos you are about to see below may be a little embarassing. What a state I’ve been living in for a long time. It was time to clean up. I love having a clean slate to work with. It doesn’t always happen to stay clean for extended periods of time.

Case in point. Perfectly equipped with tampons and all.

Ideally I’d like to have an Ikea Malm dressing table for the desk, preferably in that “black-brown” color they have. Super modern and not 90’s looking like this pine colored one I grabbed from Canadian Tire back in2006 when I moved to Ontario. Hey, it was on a great discount. I think I paid $50 for the desk  which also came with a book shelf. lol.

For the longest time I avoided cleaning my desk off. I simply cannot just sit down and relax, and blog in comfort when my desk is overflowing with stuff that just simply needs to be put back in its place. How does it accumulate so quickly? It’s not like it’s a dropping grounds for my keys, and purse when I come in after the end of a day since the door is on the other side of the apartment. It just… happens. Most of it has a home too, there’s credit card gift cards, new clothes, calvin klein coupons, and even tampons.

So I got to work, putting one piece away at a time and not even 15 minutes later it was spic’n span clean again.

Whewf. I love. Ideally I’d like it much more cleaned off than it already is right now. But hey, it’s a work in progress. 

Continue Reading