A Few of My Favourite Things...

bird from Swallow's Nest

balls (made with cinnamon) from Bali

bowl from Mihrab on Main Street

new placemats from Kerns - Gibsons (only $1.99 each!)

plate with bird from Nikaido - Steveston

birthday gift from my lovely friend, Karin

I love the colours and the quote is so perfectly timed!
"Sometimes your only transportation is a leap of faith" by Margaret Sheppard

place setting - makes me smile

"weeds" from my yard

blue leaf tray from my new favourite local store - The Swallow's Nest

(our quirky chairs were from there as well)

tulip - I never planted any flowers in the yard so everything that comes up is a surprise and a gift!

glass eggs from Mosaic Market in Davis Bay

blue dish from Bali

Super cute shopping bag at the beach - a handmade gift from Cynthia

deer - just down the road from our house! (I love how he posed for us:)

flowers in my garden

I noticed there was a bit of a bird theme going on here...hmmm...

Happy weekend to you - I'm off to the flea market.

As big as a dinner plate!

Have you seen the dahlias growing out there? I swear some are as big as a dinner plate. They are so beautiful. I discovered these on my walk to work the other morning...
Did I ever mention that my world is full of virgos? It's true - George and Barb are actually exactly the same age (september babies) and there's several other friends and rellies whose births are honoured every year at this time. As much as some of you might think that I'm a party girl, the boring truth of it is that (as much as I do enjoy my wine), I rarely get a chance to play with my friends. Saturday night was the rare exception. (oh, I guess last weekend too;) Anyways, there was lots of laughing and dancing with the girls and a few boys as well at my friend, Bear's birthday party on Saturday night. Crazy silliness - so much fun! And I just had to walk across the street at the end of the night - perfect!
Sunday we celebrated my nephew, Trevor's 15th birthday - really??? 15 years??? I can hardly believe it. George and I were in Budapest, Hungary when he was born. I kept calling home from each stop on our trip (much to my sister-in-laws chagrin!) to see if my nephew had arrived yet. When I finally got the news, I told everyone on the streets of Budapest that I was now an aunt! They couldn't understand a word I was saying but I'm sure they could see by the big smile on my face that we were celebrating a very special event!!! Happy Birthday Trevor!

A Weekend on the Island...

This past weekend we spent with the in-laws in Victoria and Chemainus. The weather, as you know, was fantastic and there were many great views to be had...


- from the ferry going over...

- the full moon coming up over the Gorge in Victoria from G's parent's balcony...

- this delicious breakfast and a garden full of flowers at Jarid's Corner B&B...

- Ladysmith on a sunny Sunday...

And then on Sunday night, we snuck away for a romantic dinner for two (an early celebration of our 18th anniversary since G. will be away) at our fave Victoria restaurant, Il Terrazzo. Amazing, yummy, delicious!

More pix on my flickr site...

Hope you all had a sun and fun filled weekend!

Honeysuckle

I can't believe our beautiful honeysuckle vine which covers our whole front porch is almost done blooming. Last year I think they bloomed twice so maybe there's more to come?

We had good news this week from our landlord. The original plan was that we would get to live in this great house for 4 years and then they (landlord and family) would move back in and we'd have to look for something else. That 4 year deadline would've been a year from now so I asked him if he could confirm their return date so we could start planning. They've now decided to stay put for one more year (kids in school...) so we have this place until July 2010!!! Great and happy news.

I've had some nice downtime after lots of social events last week. Saturday we went to the Trout Lake Farmer's Market and got some beautiful varieties of tomatoes, some yummy foccacia bread and new potatoes which we're cooking up right this moment with some steak. Hope you all had a fantastic weekend.

What did you have for dinner?

My day is an open book...

I got these beautiful peonies from my friend the other day (from her garden). Aren't they loverly?

The crows are going absolutely crazy outside this morning. In the past, it's meant there's a raccoon around but I haven't gone out to check what the kafuffle is about. I do try to love crows equally to all birds but sometimes they push my buttons:) They don't have the prettiest "caw" in the world and just seem to hang around and get mad at everyone. Last spring I had one make a b-line for my head when I was running. I know it was protecting its' nest but hey! After that incident, I always ran by that spot with my hands waving in the air trying to look much bigger and more dangerous than my wimpy self. I'm sure the families at the nearby park got some good giggles out of that!
Today is an open book. I'm not going in to the store and had made plans to get together with a friend but her kidlets are home with colds so...hmmm...should I go see Sex and the City??? What do you think? It would feel so naughty to go to a movie in the middle of the afternoon. Not sure why. It's not like I haven't done all sorts of other crazy things of an afternoon. Any suggestions?

You're so nice to come home to...

(this is last June but looks the same now)

I really like it here! Even though we don't own our home, it's a good place to be right now. Coming home from a trip is always exciting, especially in the spring when all of the rhodos are in bloom, the peonies are wide awake and the roses are just starting to burst. We have an amazing honeysuckle vine that's just starting to open up and smells oh-so-lovely. I think my sweet peas grew at least 2 inches while we were away as did the tomato plants. It's all a bit slower than last year but it's still lush and growing. I also love being in a neighbourhood. I know all of our neighbours and everyone is friendly and social. It's not unusual to have impromptu gatherings on the front lawn - and my friend across the street waters my plants while we're out of town. When the neighbours bake cookies, they usually drop off a sample. On Sunday night, our Phillipino neighbours had a roasted pig delivered. About 10 minutes later there was a knock on our door and a plate full of yummy pork product was being delivered! (sorry to any vegetarians out there but I guess it's no secret that we eat meat:) All of the kids say hello when they walk past the house. And if we want to get away from all the street chaos, we retreat onto our back deck. Perfection really!

It's a weird thing to not know what the future holds. We only have this house for a total of 4 years (possibly 4 1/2) and we're almost through our 3rd year. I wonder where we'll end up? The universe has always looked after me in a big way so I'll trust that there's something great out there. Fun to think of the possibilities.

My spring garden!

Last weekend we spent a lot of time in our garden, picking up new plants from the market and weeding, mowing, etc. Well, it's your lucky day:) The battery charger has been found and I have some loverly pix to show you. Funny how much my plants have grown in just one week. Maybe I'll post update pix later...
Our back deck -



And George at the end of a long day of gardening!

The evening sky through our front window...

tryin' to get back on track

I thought I had become one of those people. You know the ones. They get up effortlessly every morning and go for a run or climb a mountain or swim 50 laps. I'd convinced myself by the end of last year that that was me. I was running pretty regularly, had completed some long running events and was feeling pretty damn good about myself. And then...poof - it was all over. It feels like I just missed a week or two but in reality it was probably a month or two - and I looked down at my body and was surprised by the change - back to where I'd started. I know, I know...I'm the first one to say, 'love your body right now, as it is' and I'm usually pretty good at that but I was feeling so HEALTHY and my clothes were fitting me differently. I don't think I even changed much in size but everything just felt 'right-er'. Anyway, I'm back at it. I want to feel that ease again. Not begrudging the stairs or choosing to stay home on the couch instead of going for a walk or bike ride. I've run/walked twice this week and I have to say it's easier this time than starting all over. I guess I had more in reserve than I thought. I already feel better - getting oxygen into the lungs is always a good thing! I'm choosing for it to not be a chore - my mantra when I'm running is, "with ease" and it makes such a difference than saying, "this is so hard!".
So...here's a picture of me completing a 10k last year just to show myself that it can be done.
And now I'm going to eat some yummy oatmeal with blueberries! Enjoy your day and take the time to smell those beautiful spring flowers:)