New Beginnings

Hello folks,

Yes it's been awhile...but I have been pretty busy!! Okay maybe not that busy, but pretty lazy :) It's been a good month though, lots of exciting things happening including the purchase of a brand new house! As most of you know, my boyfriend Eric and I had been looking to move this summer and had been looking at houses for a few months in the north end (Barrie area). However, after doing the commute to work, I realized a 2 hour commute to work would not be ideal for me. Feeling a little hopeless and defeated, we assumed we would have to lower our expectations in terms of price and size. We were keen on getting a detached home, but the prices in the GTA for anything detached is way too high for our budget. Even condos and townhomes in some of the areas we liked were above our budget. I was about to give up hope, assuming we were never going to find anything until we found out about a new subdivision being built in Bradford (just north of Newmarket). After looking around the model homes and taking a drive around the community, we knew we had found our new home! Thankfully we found something in our price range and thankfully there is a GO train right nearby! It just seemed so right! We signed our papers a few weeks ago and are now official homeowners :) The home won't be ready until earliest January 2012!! It's quite a ways away, but this gives us some time to save money for upgrades,furniture and closing costs. I am really excited to have a brand new house!! We get to pick all our colours, designs and finishings!! We are going this weekend to pick the colour of our brick and garage. This is what our house will look like (not exact colours). Ours will be brick:

With this house will come a lot of sacrifice in regards to spending money. Buying a house is obviously not cheap, so I will have to use the next 9 months to save like crazy!! This means I will be moving out of the condo come July 9th. *Sad face!

While this upsets me greatly, it is one of the biggest sacrifices I am making. I will either be living back home with my folks or at my grandmother's again. It's going to be tough, but worth it in the end! Living back at home with Mom, Dad, Katrina and Beau would be ideal. I haven't lived at home full time since before university!! That is a long time!!

The house purchase is probably the most exciting thing that has happened this month, but another exciting event also occurred this past weekend....The Sporting Life 10km Run!! This was my first ever race that I have been training for since early January. It was probably one of my proudest accomplishments. You see, I have never been a great runner. Dance? Of course! Soccer? Okay! Skiing? Sure, why not? But running?? No! I always had terrible endurance and would get bored very easily. But thanks to my good friend and avid runner Sio, me and five of my other closest friends were able to finish the 10km race together!!

My time wasn't the greatest...1 hour and 4 minutes! I was really hoping I would be under an hour, but I feel like I was poorly trained with my Nike Plus Trainer!! As I was running on Sunday, I wasn't feeling too well, I had some cramps which caused me to walk a lot more than I had planned. Once I started feeling better, I felt my pace was picking up. When I looked down at my Nike Plus, it said I was halfway done the race (5km), so you can imagine my surprise when I saw the 3km sign at the same time. My Nike Plus Trainer was way off! By the time I had completed the race, the Nike Plus had clocked me in at 12.77km!! That is almost 3 more km than I had trained for. It was a little discouraging and I felt lied to almost! How could that little gadget mislead me in such a way? The same thing happened to my roomate Shannon. We were quite upset at the time, but we realize that it was only our first run and we should be proud at how far we have come in regards to our training. This run has now got me hooked and determined to beat my time...I instantly signed up for the Toronto Zoo 10km which happens in September! Exciting!!

Below is a pic of my girls and I with our medals. I am so proud of us!!!

Come On Barbie Let's Go Party!

Happy Friday y’all!!! Ever since that Rebecca Black song “Friday” I think of that song every Friday!! If you don’t know what I am talking about, or happen to live under a rock, check it out here. It’s incredible how many people can get famous these days just over one little catchy song, no matter how terrible the lyrics! E.g “ Yesterday was Thursday, Today is Friday, Tomorrow is Saturday”. CRAZY! Back when I was volunteering at Canadian Music Week I got to sit in on one of the panels about Music in the Digital Age and it was so interesting to see how much has changed with the Internet in regards to music. Gone are the days when I used to go to the record store and buy a CD, open it up and listen to every single track. Now, we simply download one song and call it a day. In the seminar they also spoke about how songs get so popular due to the various versions available. Referring back to the Rebecca Black song, people have gone on to make Metal versions, acoustic and the like. I guess the more versions you have, the more popular your song will be. It’s very hard for artists to make it big, but with the help of the internet, one tiny little song like Friday can get you on the map!! Incredibly interesting! Anyways, it’s Friday and I am glad. The weekend is supposed to be warm! :)

Today I was reading an Elle magazine from a coworker and came across this amazing Barbie and Ken spread.

They took Barbie and Ken and dressed them up in different outfits from various Canadian designers like Joe Fresh and Roots and placed them in different locations across Canada. I instantly fell in love with all the photos, cut them out of the magazine and stuck them up around my cubicle. Then I proceeded to save the photos and order them to be plaqued down the street from my work. Am I crazy or am I crazy? I am not sure! But I simply love it and think it will be a great décor piece for my house!! :) They won’t be ready until next week; I will take photos and let you see how they turned out. So Happy Friday everybody!! Gotta get down on Friday!!! :)

April Fooled Ya!!

Happy April Fool’s Day everybody!! It’s finally April, finally feeling a bit more like Spring! Today I chucked the winter coat and busted out my new blue spring Bench jacket. It felt nice not being so bulky. I normally don’t like participating in April Fool’s day tricks, but I was feeling a bit funny today and wanted to play a prank on my boyfriend Eric. After lunch, I got back to my desk at work and brainstormed some ideas. I thought about telling him I won a trip or a car, but that seemed too unreal and I don’t like tricks that involve getting people’s hopes up! Then I had an even better idea! I created a story about a pet adoption that was happening at work and that I adopted a black lab puppy named Pepper! As I laughed at my little story, wondering if he would even believe it, I quickly sent him a text telling him the “good news”.

The texts that transcribed were as follows:

Tasha @ 1:40pm: I just adopted a puppy from animal house calls! It can be ours I am so excited!! :)

Eric @ 1:40pm: What? What are you doing?

Tasha @ 1:41pm:

There was a pet adoption at work! I had to have it!

Eric @ 1:41pm: Umm no. Where are you going to put it?

Tasha @ 1:42pm: In our new house silly :P His name is Pepper!

Eric @ 1:42pm: U need to seriously think about this. Cause we don’t even have a house. That was a mistake getting that puppy.

Tasha @ 1:43pm: Omg. I can’t give it back now! I just signed adoption papers!! It’s a black lab puppy!!

Eric @ 1:43pm: Not happening and I don’t want it. Wtf were you thinking!? U better be joking because this 100% won’t happen.

Tasha @ 1:44pm: Omg how can you not be excited about this?!

Eric @ 1:45pm: I’m not getting a dog. You better figure out what YOU are going to do about this Tasha @ 1:46p: :( omg!!

Eric @ 1:46pm: You never thought this thru

Tasha @ 1:47pm: But I couldn’t say no!!

Eric @ 1:48pm: YOUR stuck with it. I think that was irresponsible.

Tasha @ 1:48pm: But I thought you would want to do it with me!! :(

Eric @ 1:49pm: Do what? What r we gonna do with it and where r u putting it? You better tell your parents they r getting another dog.

Tasha @ 1:50pm: But it’s gonna be ours!! Not my parents even!!

Eric @ 1:50pm: It’s YOURS I don’t want it lol

Tasha @ 1:51pm: Eric!! It’s gonna come with us too!!

Eric @ 1:51pm: You should have thought this through. Sorry.

Tasha @ 1:51pm: But it will come to our new house too!

Eric @ 1:52pm: Come with us where and especially if closing won’t be til later. No I don’t want a dog.

Tasha @ 1:52pm: But what will we do with him then L

Eric @ 1:53pm: Don’t say we. I never agreed to adopt him. That’s for you to now figure out. Tasha @ 1:54pm: :( ericcccc how can you say that?

Eric @ 1:55pm: I never adopted him. This is crazy. I don’t want to talk about this right now. You shoulda put some thought into this tash.

Tasha @ 1:56pm: Fine!

After this text, I proceeded to find a fake picture of “Pepper” on Google images and save it as a Paint document and send to Eric. This little joke would have still been going on if I hadn’t done this!! Eric was too smart for me and googled “black lab puppies” and found “Pepper” immediately. I guess I shouldn’t have selected the first image that came up in the search :P Oh well, it was still funny and made my day a little bit brighter! Thanks April Fool’s!! J

Got that SPRING in your step?!

Greetings fine friends.

It is with great pleasure to be writing here today. Why? I don't know...there is no particular reason. "Just 'cause". As mentioned in a previous post, I have been reading the book "The Happiness Project", lended to me by my great friend Sio! It's a fun narrative written by Gretchen Rubin, a professional writer with a husband and two kids living in NYC and her quest to being happier. Not that she is depressed or upset with her life. Like most of us (I am being presumptious of all my readers), we live pretty nice lives; we have jobs, we like to go shopping, we have good friends, maybe kids or pets...a pretty fulfilling life, no? In The Happiness Project, Rubin sets out to seek ways in which she can make her life even MORE fulfilling and cheerful in the everyday. Just the simplest things can make a huge difference in the way we perceive ourselves and others.

The Happiness Project is a year long journey where each month Rubin focuses on one goal. For example, January's goal was to "Boost Energy". One of the first things she did in the book to help her feel happier was declutter!! And I must say it does feel good to organize and purge!! She said one of the key aspects to being happier is to first identify your problem!! I think a lot of the time, we know what the problem is, but we find excuses not to solve it. Once you admit to yourself what the trouble is, that is the first step in fixing it. I must admit that cleaning and purging also gives me quite the rush!! My friend is having a clothing swap in a couple weeks and I couldn't be more excited! Today I busted open my closet doors and started ripping down hangers of clothes I barely wear or hardly fit anymore. It felt so good looking at the free space I had made afterwards :)

I am already on month 9 (September) which is about Pursuing a Passion. In this chapter, Rubin promises to write a novel in 30 days. She is inspired by one of her friends who is doing the same thing and learns about video blogging to track her progress. If I could write a novel in 30 days, plus document all of the happenings of the Happiness Project...I would be one tired girl!!

One of the best pieces of advice I read in the book so far was early in the book, in the February chapter, about letting things go and picking your fights wisely. It's so easy to get upset and uptight about the littlest things--an untied shoelace, being stuck in traffic, or squabbling with a loved one. But sometimes it's best to just let it go. Is the minor setback or tiff really worth such a fuss? I think not! :)

So with Spring around the corner...oh wait...it's already here!! Obviously it doesn't feel like it with these cool temperatures and SNOW on the way for tomorrow :( But I think the weekend is looking good...and that gives me something to be happy about!! And I am also seeing Wizard of Oz at the Rose Theatre in Brampton on Friday night with Sio!! I am very excited as Wizard of Oz is probably one of my favourite movies of all time! And isn't it a coincidence that Rubin likes that movie as well!? I mean what's not to like?? It's simply classic!! I will give you my review on the show in my next post!!

Au revoir for now mes amis! :)

Bad Blogger Days

It's been a few weeks since my last post. Sorry, I have been a neglectful blogger! These past few weeks have been hectic because as stated in my previous post, my grandfather had another stroke and was in the hospital. He sadly passed away last week and we had his funeral on Saturday. It was quite the sad week and I am still coming to terms with his death. I am not used to dealing with sickness and death, it seems so surreal to me. When I found out about the death last Tuesday morning, I felt like a tinman because I didn't even cry. We knew it was coming, but I didn't expect myself to be so emotionless. It wasn't until the end of the week when things were coming together that it actually hit me. When I saw the memorial page online, when I was writing my eulogy, when I went to his house to sort through some things...that's when it really hit me. That is when I started to get more emotional. Saturday was a terribly sad day for the whole family. A lot of people showed up, most of them whom I didn't know but all seem to know who I was! It was awkward, but I think with all of the family together it helped us get through it easier.
Death is never easy. And people deal with it on their own terms. Some people avoid it, don't talk about it or even deny it. Some people are very emotional and need the support of others. And some people like to deal with it individually, alone and in silence. I think what helped me find closure was writing the eulogy. I feel as though it gave me some sort of closure to the whole situation. It gave me the opportunity to really reflect on our relationship and what it has done for me. It was hard to get through it on Saturday, but I had my aunt and cousin by my side to make it bearable.
I will miss my grandfather very much. It's hard to believe he is really gone. I am just glad he is not suffering anymore. It seems like it had been years since I had a decent conversation with him. It's so sad what strokes can do to a person. It's not fun. :(
And so now, in the wake of his death, our family will have to stay strong together for my grandmother to make sure she stays healthy and happy. I will do my best to visit her at least once every 2 weeks to check up on her. Family is important. At the end of the day, they are all you have. Remember that.

Live your Life

With each post I write, I hope to at least share something new with all of you whether it be about myself, a new movie or a good book. Today at work I attended an all day course on communicating up, down and across the organization. It was actually quite interesting and I learned a few key concepts about making my messages clear and concise, not only at work but in my everyday life.
The course instructor touched upon some really valid points about how your message is intened and perceived. He explained this equation about communication in general:

I (Intention) + P (Perception) = C (Communication).

To summarize, communication can only happen when there is an understanding between two parties, therefore, if your message is somewhat misconstrued and read in a different context, you could have difficulty getting your message across. Sometimes it is hard to be 100% accurate with your intention, especially with the use of email. It is hard to read tone, and tone of voice makes up for about 93% of your message, the other 7% is the actual context. I think if we all put a little more effort into the way we create and execute our messages to others, there would be a stronger sense of understanding among one another.

This was just one of the many points that we looked at today, but one that definately stuck out for me. It seems like common sense right? But it's funny how quickly we can sometimes forget these things. We aren't all be mind readers, which is why it's very important to say what you mean and mean what you say.

Speaking of which. I came up with a little rhyme today associated with that phrase:

Life is too short. Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Live life to the
fullest everyday.

Now, I like to think of myself as a happy, go lucky person who always seizes the day. But sometimes I get some depressing news and it really shakes me up and almost humbles me. Yesterday morning I got word that my already ill grandfather had yet another stroke (3rd one in about 15 years). It was a really bad one this time and the doctor's don't think he has very long to live. Of course we all knew this was coming as he was already very ill from his previous stroke, but just hearing it being validated by the doctor makes it all very real and all very upsetting. It makes me sad to think about his poor life, the opportunities he never had, the hardships he faced as an immigrant to Canada and the last suffering years of his life. It really puts things into perspective, at least for me, about what is really important in life and how precious life is. So what if you are stuck in a traffic jam one day? So what if you couldn't buy that new laptop on sale? So what that your bonus wasn't as big as last years? At the end of your life, will these things matter? Will you be remembered fondly? Did you make an impact on people's lives? Will you leave a legacy for the people you are leaving behind? What can you do today to make your life that much more interesting?
It's weird how death can provoke such emotions from people. But for me, I just want to be happy. I am currently reading "The Happiness Project" by Gretchn Rubin (leant to me by my great friend Sio! I am hoping to get some good insight from it about how to make my already content and complacent life just a little bit more cheerful. So far so good. Please note this is not a book for people who are depressed! (I am the furthest thing from depressed). I will give my full review on it once complete.

French and Fun

Bonjour!
Comment ca va? Bien? Tres bien?
Haha I am in a french speaking kind of mood today. Ever since I started taking french in January, I have been trying to speak in full sentences, but sometimes it is hard. I guess it's not as easy because no one I know speaks french; it would be different if I were more immersed into the culutre but I am happy with my progression thus far. Next week is my final class before moving onto the next level. We have a little test, so hopefully I do well. I was never good at tests. There is just too much pressure to do well. In high school my marks at the end of the term would always drop just a little because my exams were not the best. Maybe it's just the nerves. Je ne sais pas! :P

My friend Sio just tagged my blog in the 7 facts blog awards! Check it out:

The Rules:
Link the person who awarded you.
Post 7 random facts about yourself.
Pass the award on to 7 other bloggers. (Sorry I don't think I have that many people to tag) Haha

1. I still sleep with my baby blanket. It is yellow (more like an off green now). It used to have a matching pillow, but it vanished.
2. My favorite animal is a pig. I want a teacup pig so badly!! Dogs are so last century!!
3. When I was little, my dad's nickname for me was SLASH.
4. I am a proud owner of the cutest west highland terrier in the world, Beau!
5. Despite my independant lifestyle, I must admit I am a good old fashioned girl who wants a husband, house, 2 kids and a white picket fence and obviously a dog!
6. I hate sushi!!! But I really wish I liked it. I think people who like it are so sophisticated and cultured.
7. When I make waffles or pancakes, I break them up with my hands. Why make a dirty knife?


TAG, YOU'RE IT! I'm passing the 7 Facts Blog Awards on to these friends: