Too busy!

So again, I had meant to write more posts, but things got in the way... like homework.

I got me a new phone today! HTC Desire HD ! Yay! It's pretty awesome. It's a 4" touch screen, plays HD video and I got it on a pretty good plan. I originally intended to buy a phone outright, having felt alienated by Rogers and my 2 year contract... However, it turns out, you just can't get the good deals and promotions without a contract! So I went with a Telus 3-year and didn't pay anything for the phone. The only reason I agreed to a contract at all, though, is because Telus has changed the way they do contracts - instead of paying a huge cancellation fee, if you want to end your contract, you just pay out your phone... So I think, basically, you pay an amount per month for how much your phone is. I think. But that's fine, because I intended to pay the normal amount for the phone anyway.

Anyway, Blake and I go with Telus for internet and Optik cable and so far, we're pretty happy with them. I think they've shaped up as a company quite a bit in the last while. So I hope I'm not disappointed like I was with Rogers.

What else? oh, right. Term 2 is almost over! Yeee! Only 7 days left of classes! Then a fantastic week off, where I will do nothing except relax at my mom's for a couple of days, watch her 50" TV, go on a day road trip with my Dad and take pictures of wherever we go on the island, and then come back home to Vancouver and chill in Blenz, coding my food website!

I'm also so happy it's starting to be warmer and sunnier... I have a couple of dresses I really want to start wearing!

Anyway, I'm in class right now and not at all paying attention... web programming is so over my head...

My poor neglected blog

I have been sadly neglecting this thing for the past couple of months. I've been pretty busy, I do have to say.

What has happened since the last post? Christmas came and went, Term 1 ended, Term 2 is well underway. Halfway through, actually! I did really well in Term 1, with a nice 94% GPA! Yay! I worked really hard, and I really enjoy what I'm doing. So all that put together is good, I suppose!

What else? I'm feeling a lot better these days, but mainly because I think I have begun a gluten-,sugar-,wheat-, corn- and yeast-free diet! I was really strict about it for about 3 weeks, and now I've become a bit more lax, including some honey, maple syrup on apple juice sweetened, gluten-free waffles! Lots of fruit, too! And lately I've been reintroducing some yeast to see how I feel, too.

Anyways, since the onset of this new diet, I've been making a LOT more foods. So I will be posting some recipes soon. I've just been BUSY! Term 2 is taking up the majority of my time!

Also, my 25th birthday is in less than two weeks, and I'm actually really excited about it! For those who know me, I've always complained a lot about being "so old" when my birthday comes around. But I think because I am doing something that I really enjoy that will, in about 8 months, turn into a career, I feel my age and I feel good about it.

Another thing I would like to mention is that, as my web design skills develop and grow, I will be making a food and recipe website called phenemeNOMS! Down the line, as my photography skills develop, I would also like to start a small card business... I sort of used my family as guinea pigs this past Christmas, and made them each cards, using photography of my own. I used really nice recycled, grainy card stock, special double-sided photo tape, and just printed 6x4 photos at London Drugs. They came out really nicely!

Anyway, I must now end this post because again, as always, I have homework that I should be doing!

Traditions

I know I've written a lot about Christmas thus far... but you best get over it if you're sick of Christmas posts by me, because here's another!

Lately I've been doing the things I do every year the few weeks before Christmas... watching particular movies, listening to certain albums of music, eating certain goodies and decorating. So I wanted to lay out my Christmas traditions I've developed over the years. Some are traditions I've had since I can remember... I've been doing some of them forever. Others are more recent and influenced by the people I've met since high school.

So here goes:

1. The Santa Clause

I've been watching The Santa Clause since I was around 9, or whenever it came out. I even remember seeing it in theatres with my mom and sister. Every single year since, I've watched this movie. I typically watch it with my mom when I'm in Nanaimo. This year I watched it when I was home for the first weekend in December. Last year my mom bought all three movies - I like the other two even though they're super cheesy, but I don't feel the desire to watch them every year like the first. I've always loved Tim Allen, and this movie is just so joyful and sappy and funny! It's one of my favourites Christmas traditions. I also love Bernard!

Scott Calvin discovering he's the new Santa

Good old Bernard from the first movie!

2. Raffi Christmas Album

Ok, this one makes me super lame, but I've always loved Raffi's Christmas album... as a kid, we owned it as a record. A few years later, my mom bought it for me as a CD, and I've been listening to it every year ever since. Yes, I know I'm 24. But it's awesome!

Raffi's Christmas album cover

3. A Christmas Carol

This is my mom's Christmas tradition that has also become my own. I love this movie - it's a serious version of Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol, where Scrooge is played by George C. Scott. It is just really well done, and has always been something we watch a couple of days before Christmas at home.

Scrooge is such a happy dude when he discovers the joys of Christmas!

The DVD cover of A Christmas Carol

4. The Muppet Christmas Carol

My Mom definitely humours my sister and I when we want to watch this every year... I'm 24, Elyssa's 29, but we watch this every year without fail. Truly, it is amazing! Michael Caine is Scrooge and Kermit the Frog plays Bob Cratchit, and Miss Pippy plays Mrs. Cratchit! Oh it's so awesome. Blake and I have also started watching A Muppet Christmas Carol together every year, as well.

A Muppet Christmas Carol

Michael Caine discovering the true meaning of Christmas!

5. Elf

Although Elf is a relatively new tradition of mine, it's certainly one that will continue to be a holiday favourite for years to come. This movie cheers me up, it makes me happy... And it has so many good quotes... I like Will Ferrell, but in a lot of his movies he's just ridiculously silly... but I just love him as Elf. The entire movie is just so adorable! In fact, I typically watch Elf more than once per Christmas season... this year I've watched it twice! In 2007 I think I may have watched it like 5 or 6 times with various people. My Mom can't stand Will Ferrell, so it's not one of the movies we watch at home every year.

The best way to spread Christmas cheer, is singing loud for all to hear!

Elf DVD cover

Will Ferrell as Elf

6. A Charlie Brown Christmas & A Charlie Brown Christmas Album

This again, is a more recent holiday tradition, as I only actually watched A Charlie Brown Christmas for the first time in 2006, I think. It was actually my roommate of the time, Alison, along with having worked at Starbucks, that introduced me to the joys of both the movie and the album. I love the movie, but I must say that I prefer the album. I'm a big fan of that kind of jazz, and I listen to the music pretty much all December long every year.

The end of the movie, singing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.

Picking out the tree

Charlie Brown Christmas Album by Vince Guaraldi Trio

7. It's A Wonderful Life

Again, this is a more recent holiday tradition. I only started to appreciate this movie a couple of years ago, but since I have, I watch it with my mom every year. I don't particularly like old, black and white films, but I quite like James Stewart, and there's just something about this movie that I really like. The majority of it is so sad... poor George Bailey just can't catch a break. He wants to get out of his "crummy little town", go off traveling, go to school. His father dies, though, and he has to take over the business (a small credit and loan company), so that the evil Mr. Potter doesn't take over the company and completely ruin the whole town. The whole movie he's selfless and always does things for others, never thinking of himself. He marries and has Children but all the time resents the town, his family and his life because he just wanted out of town. Finally, his uncle thinks he's misplaced $8,000, which at that time I imagine was a huge chunk of change. His Uncle actually accidentally passes the money to the evil dude Mr. Potter, who keeps the money and then threatens to have George Bailey charged with fraud... George believes that he's worth more dead than alive because of his life insurance, and is about to kill himself when his Guardian Angel comes in to save the day. He then shows George what life would be like if he were never born... his brother would've died as a young child because George wouldn't have been there to rescue him from drowning when he fell through the ice of a lake, his wife had never married and was an old maid, and the entire town is miserable, and owned by Mr. Potter. Anyway, finally, at the end he just wants to be alive again, and goes back to his family, where his wife had found out what happened with the money, and gathered everyone from the town, everyone George Bailey had ever helped when they were in need, and they all pitched in and made up the money that he had lost. Finally at the end, a bell on the tree rings and George knows that his Guardian Angel finally got the wings he had always been wanting!

The whole movie is about Karma - When George selflessly does everything he can to help his town without asking anything in return. In the end, the town was there for him when he needed them... It without fail, makes me cry every time I watch it!

George Bailey with his family

Clarence, the Guardian Angel

Potter, the not-so-nice business man of the town.

That concludes the holiday traditions I watch and listen to... I have far more traditions in terms of things I eat and do and drink... Like, for instance, my mom always buys crackers and cheese and we nom on those on Christmas Eve or New Years Eve. We used to eat tons of really fatty foods, like Jalapeno Poppers and Mozzarella Sticks... but that ended when we all realized that they were 1) disgusting and 2) going to make us all super super fat if we didn't stop! My mom also buys chipotle dip and salsa from Delicado's with chips, we make quesadillas, or nachos... of course, I won't be able to eat many of the things I normally love because my health sadly won't allow it this year... I just hope I'll at least be able to have a normal Christmas dinner this year.

Carla and I are always in Nanaimo for Christmas, and we always used to eat a ridiculous amount of nachos and drink wine... ahh the good times! Maybe one day again, we can do that!

My mom also always used to make butter tarts, shortbread cookies and sugar cookies... but she stopped in light of again, not wanting to be super fat! But I still love shortbread cookies... and I want to make some but feel like I'm too lazy/busy to make them this year. Also it's not good for me. Ah well.

Anyway, this concludes my post on holiday traditions! I encourage all of you to write a similar post, telling us what you do every year to make Christmas special!

My happiness is...

In response to Carla's blog post: Top 5 and A Half Things That Make Me Happy , I've decided to write a list of my own sources of happiness.

1. Tea!

A few years ago, I made a somewhat official switch from coffee to tea. Not because I no longer enjoyed coffee, but mostly out of necessity. But tea became my new warm drink of choice! I discovered shortly that it would also become the most soothing, comforting, warming drink too! Now I'm thinking back to when I was a teenager, I remember having aspirations to open a Tea House then, too... So I must've liked tea in high school too, I just don't remember drinking that much of it. Certainly when I was little I drank a lot of tea. My parents would make us Earl Grey and I would drink it in actual little teacups with saucers... I can't imagine that much caffeine being good for a nine year old, but whatever... Now that I'm older, I love all tea. I have a huge collection of bagged tea, loose leaf and accessories.

Recently, over breakfast at the Naam, I was having a little pot of tea, and along with speaking about tea, we somehow were talking about the little birds that would periodically find their way into the heated outdoor patio. We were saying how intense the heat lamps look and how we sincerely hoped no little birds ever flew into them. And I said, "because then they would have some bird casualties!". Then Carla got this bright-eyed look on her face and said "Casualty! but CasualTEA! the name of a tea house we should start!"

The bottom half of my You Complete!

Doesn't this look delicious?

The Libre glass tea tumbler.

I DO love tea!

I also love my Libre Tea tumbler. It's plastic on the outside, glass on the inside, has a filter for loose leaf, this pretty metallic design on the lid and because it's clear, you can see your pretty tea steepin' away!

For one of my design projects, I have to make a mock website with 4 pages - home plus three subsequent ones... I think I may make it an actual, live website though. I need the practise. Anyway, I've chosen to take CasualTEA and turn it into a mock tea shop! That's what the top photo is for. I took my "You Complete!" and took photos of it from all different angles, to be later photoshopped into some sort of background or banner.

2. Christmas!

I can't make a "things that make me happy" post a few weeks before Christmas without actually mentioning Christmas. I've always loved Christmas, since I was little. It's just so... magical. And that love hasn't waned since that time. It's not so much the presents I love, I mean, I do like that part, but I more enjoy the spirit of Christmas. The feeling and the traditions, the music and decorations, the food! The music & movies I watch every year, the baking, the foods we make before Christmas, after Christmas and of course on Christmas! How my mom always decorates for Christmas right at the beginning of December and get a tree a week before - and since she bought this house, and has such high ceilings, she always buys huge trees! Now, Blake and I have started our own Holiday traditions. Next weekend we're going to buy our tree, and it'll be the third year we go to this tree lot, run by the Lions Club at Fraser and 41st. They have all sized trees, and all different types! Both of the last years it happened to be snowing while we went, too.

Tree-topper Angel that sits on my desk.

Yoshi chillin' with the Christmas mice.

Little Laura mitten Shanna made me.

Mine and Blake's Shortbread cookies, Christmas 2009

3. La Neige!

We all know that I love snow and that Genine hates snow. This is nothing new. I feel little elaboration is necessary here, as I've talked about snow a lot recently... And posted many snow pictures a few posts ago! I just felt it was worth mentioning! Because... J'adore la neige!

4. Kitties! - Well, animals in general.

I absolutely love animals. I've always liked animals, even though I didn't grow up with many pets. I sort of had a pet - Grosnounour. He was my grandma's, but because I spent so much time there before and after school, I felt he was also my cat. He was big and lazy and so sweet and gentle! He died when I was 12, I still miss him! Anyway, ever since I've been wanting a kitty, I've been loving animals more and more... I'm pretty sure I have Kitty Fever! I'm also sure that actually having will make me even more happy about kitties!

Blake and I might be moving to a new apartment in February - a place that allows kitties! Blake love kitties just as much, if not more, than me.

I have a folder on my computer called "cats from the internet" and it is all pictures of well, cats from the internet! The cutest, funniest kitties that I saw either on reddit, or lolcats, or wherever!

Dobby Kitteh.

I intensely want all of them.

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Lobster Kitteh.

5. FOOD!
Why of course food would be one of the my favourite things! It always has! I've made it somewhat my goal now to create recipes of good foods and take beautiful photos. I don't always like food... mostly because it doesn't always like me... Quite often, food hates me with a fiery vengeance... So that's when I take a break from it and drink Ensure! But when food is nice, I love it.

Carla and I, however, have kind of evolved together since high school in terms of food... we used to eat ridiculously large meals, not knowing when to stop, until it made us sick. Nachos, pasta, garlic bread, pizza, with beer, wine, rum! Now, we are on a mission to eat better. But we still love food. We're just trying to appreciate good foods as much as the bad ones!

I would post pictures of all the foods I've taken photos of... but I have tons of photos in other posts, and will have more in the future.

6. New Media Design & Web Development, Photography & my Nikon!

I love my new program. It makes me so happy. I'm so excited about it! I love going to class in the morning (for the most part!), I actually enjoy doing homework, and networking with my classmates and getting to know them. I love where this program is taking me. In less than a year, I will be a full fledged Web Designer. Apparently, according to the instructors, we will even be experts in the field! Crazy! I've ever learned enough to create a pretty basic but very modern and nice website. Actually, I have to buy myself a Domain before Tuesday, and by the end of the term (in mid-January) I will have a website!

Me, my Nikon and my new sweet hat!

7. Finally, my friends!

My friends and Blake make me happy. They keep me sane. This is pretty much the cheesiest part of the post, but I can't deny its truthfulness! I'm so happy to be living with Blake, and I'm grateful for people like Carla, Genine, Karmyn and Alexis. It's unfortunate, though because Genine is far, far away! Aren't you, dude? I haven't seen you in over 6 months now! Alexis, too, is even further away, spending half a year or so in Europe. She's off studying French in France, and then she'll be traveling to Spain, southern France, and Eastern Europe. Karmyn is insanely busy with schoolwork, too, plus she's in Nanaimo and I only get to see her for dinner or tea once in a while. Carla is the only one I get to see regularly and even she is often busy! Well, we both are... busy with work and school, living in Langley and Vancouver!

Left-to-Right: Genine, Karmyn, Laura and Carla

Left-to-Right: Laura, Erika, Karmyn and Trevor

Blake and myself

A big shoutout to Carla!

Hello all!

Today is a special day for all the world... well, some of the world. It's Carla's birthday! Happy Birthday to my best bud! You can all check out her blog here! If you want.

That is all.

It's coming on Christmas

So today we went and got the Christmas bins from the storage locker in the basement and I put up some decorations. There are 3 boxes of decorations, 2 of which are lights and ornaments for the tree that we don't yet have. So there are only a few things put up. A light up angel, a big Santa, a Nutcracker, a couple of stockings and a centre piece on the coffee table with candles and garland.

I love Christmas. A lot. Always have. My mom made it so special for us growing up - she was so into it. A couple of years ago she painted her giant living room, which has 11 foot ceilings, a really nice dark red, and put in hardwood floors. So whenever she decorates, the entire room becomes so festive. And because she has such a high ceiling, we always pick out a huge tree - sometimes up to 8 feet tall. In recent years she's wanted smaller trees. I think she thinks that since Elyssa and I are old now that we aren't as into it, but we are! I'm super into it. I can't wait to get a tree. This coming weekend I'm going to Nanaimo and going to help decorate my mom's house. Blake and I are going to get a tree in a couple of weeks from the Lions Club. They set up at Fraser and 41st in a highschool's yard. We discovered it while we were living just off Fraser and 45th. We got a tiny little tree for his basement suite - It was very Charlie Brown Christmas tree, we named it Buddy. And after buying the tree we proceeded to this Thrift store where they were selling ornaments for like 10-25 cents a piece, and strands of lights for a buck or two... Unsurprisingly, few of the strands we bought actually worked.

Last year my mom came over for an Alan Jackson concert out in Abbotsford... Oh mom. I stayed at Carla's out in Langley and the day after she came to pick me up and we went for lunch at the Olive Garden, which was tasty! But in all honesty, NO one needs endless soup, salad and breadsticks. It's highly unnecessary. After lunch, we went to Willowbrook and she bought me all these Christmas decorations - she said that when she first had my sister and I, she started collectings tons of decorations and has a really nice collection now, and that she was starting my collection.

I just hope it snows around Christmas, so I can have a white one! I grew up on the west coast and have so seldom had White Christmases!

Anyway, here are a couple of my decorations: The light up Angel, and the Yoshis, chillin' with the baker mice, no big deal.

Snowy Gastown

A couple of posts ago I posted old snow pictures that I had taken with my old camera. But now, I have DSLR snow pictures!

I walked to school this morning, basically. I didn't intend to, I took the bus to the skytrain, and upon getting to the platform, realized how ridiculous my commute to school would be were I to take the train. My instincts were correct, too, because others in my class who came to class on the Canada Line arrived between 1-3 hours late! Well, they were from Richmond, so I probably wouldn't have been terribly late... But I wanted to walk in the snow!

At lunch I wandered down to Gastown to take some shots. It was awesome. While I was down there it turned to rain so I meandered back to class where it was dry and warm!

See the rest on my Flickr account . I will post some more once I've colour corrected and edited more of them! But for now it's very much my bed time!