Yes, I’m still pissed about Rogers (post below) and they haven’t done anything to help me. I am definitely switching providers when my contract is up.

I’ve been away from here for a bit because real life has been demanding a lot of me lately!

I got that new job with Airbnb, went to San Francisco for a week for training and am now working at home. In addition, I officially launched my online store With Heart and have been taking in orders, doing a little promotion and hosted a successful launch/shopping party.

I’d love it if you all could pop on over to the site and take a gander. Even better if you would tell all your friends about it, too. Not gonna lie… things are slower than I would have hoped, but I’m still trucking on.

I feel like I’m being spread a little thin these days, but I haven’t forgotten everyone. It’s just tough balancing so many things all at once. I’m trying to figure out my housing situation for the new year, too. I don’t make enough money anymore to live here on my own, but I can’t really do much more Airbnb hosting since my landlord is catching on. I’m in a bit of a pickle.

I’ve got some ideas batting around, but nothing solid yet. *sigh* I just feel all over the place! I wanted to give a decent update on here but instead I’m just bouncing all over the place! Oh well, maybe this will help me organize my thoughts and produce something worth reading. Stuff has been happening… I just haven’t been writing about it!

Is anyone even still interested in this blog? I feel like maybe folks are drifting away and it makes me sad. If there are still people out there that enjoy this then I’ll keep going. If there aren’t… well I don’t know what I’ll do.

Are you out there?

I just can't help myself

Well, I’m still pretty bored with things these days. So I found another random item to paint. Above is my lost, forlorn chair. It came with the apartment when I moved in 4 years ago and was ugly in it’s unfinished state. A chair with good bones, though.

I reupholstered it Red Green style (with duct tape, for you non-Canadians) and it looked better… but still needed a little something.

I’ve got some white paint left over from repainting the dining room a couple of months ago and I was bored, so…. there you go.

Painted chair ahoy!

One more coat and this baby’ll be ready for it’s new cushion and new life as a stylish matching chair to my decor.

Anyway, if a photo of a half-painted chair doesn’t do it for you, here are some photos of my cat Luna to make up for it. She’s going to be featured in this week’s Caturday post over at the Catsparella blog. Isn’t that exciting?!?!

Basket Case!

In which Luna finds the secret window garden

My butt DOES NOT look fat!!!!

Kitty, deconstructed

Nevermind, I found the rest of her in the box

I totally realize that she is making weird faces in these photos. It’s like this all the time at home. Never-ending chuckles!

But it was all for a good reason, I swear!

Most of my longtime readers know that since about April I’ve been having a seriously rough go of life. I lost my two beloved pets, I almost lost my job, I fell into severe depression and had to take medical leave from work until I found a new job.

I finally DID get that new job and I started just after Canadian Thanksgiving in October. I’ve been here about 2 months and so far it’s been great. It’s a huge change from the places I’ve been at before and has therefore had a major learning curve. There’s a lot about media that I DO know, but there’s a lot that I still have to learn, and boy—am I learning it!

Handling a new job that is so brain-intensive is one thing, but I am also doing two online college courses in my Entrepreneurship program. I forgot what it was like to be in school again and the stupid deadlines! Managing my time has been a bit of a trial, that’s for sure.

I’ve been taking an Intro to Canadian Business class, and also Accounting 101. Unfortunately with the amount of time I’m spending on my job and everything, I’ve had to fail out of the accounting class. I’m not really proud of it, but I’m not worried, either. It was pretty much self-taught so I will just go through the textbook at my own pace.

So that’s where I’m at right now.

Ever since I started working again I’ve been pretty busy and haven’t really felt like writing about it. I get that common feeling bloggers get though…oh this would make a great post! But then I don’t really do anything about it which is a shame.

Now that I’m in a better place and starting to find my rhythm, I want to work on the blog some more. It needs a new layout, some branding and an overall fresh new look. I want to take more and better photos of stuff (because everyone is a voyeur!) and include more about the events that I go to with blogging.

So that’s a quick recap of what has been going on lately. I’m not going to make any kind of promises like I have in the past, and hopefully that will be liberating enough to keep me writing!

Toodles!

It seems the average total of all items for most gals is around $300, but since my purse alone is $300 it got me wondering: just how much IS my bag carrying?

I’m about to find out. And also clean this sucker out, I have way too much stuff in here!

• Purse – $300
• iPod Touch – $250
• Blackberry – $50 (it’s a hand-me-down)
• Sunglasses – $500
• Keys – $30
• “Emergency” makeup kit – $40
• Chinese fan (perfect for hot TTC rides!) – $3
• Various lipgloss products – $40
• Wallet – $50
• Random USB sticks – free!
• Metropass – $100
• Customized purse hanger – $13
• Miscellaneous (hanky, gum, mints, etc.) – $10

TOTAL: $1,386

Holy shit.

I just have sort of average stuff… or at least I thought I did :S I guess because I like to save up and buy quality items over time they add up! All my costs are what I assume it would cost to replace those items.

It’s amazing to see how having just 3 good-quality lipgloss products can suddenly mean you’re carrying around $40 of merch in your bag. I don’t think I even included my hand cream.

The thing is, I don’t really want to get rid of anything in my bag. It’s all useful and I use it regularly. It just shocks me to see how much it would cost to replace everything.

But I’m kind of glad I did this exercise! I will be much more aware of what I do with my bag and will be more motivated to keep it! Sheesh!

So… what’s in your bag?

My old, financially-unreliable roommate is moving out, and the new one is moving in!

What’s funny is that it seems everyone else had the same idea for this weekend! My street is positively filled with moving vans, giant garbage heaps of old furniture and people milling about with boxes!

It’s as if everyone decided that May 1st is the best date to move in. Really, I can’t blame them! I myself moved in here on May 1st 3 years ago. OMG that makes today my 3rd anniversary of moving to Toronto and becoming a big city girl. Yay!

I am celebrating by cleaning & purging. Some of the floors and walls have not been visible for over 2 years. Now that the furniture and rugs are gone, I can finally tackle them and give them a good once-over!

I even cleaned the inside of the fridge! No more funny smells for me! Underneath the sinks where the garbage cans are is all clean, too. And of course the bathroom is spotless. But it’s usually in a near-state of cleanliness.

I think the biggest project is my bedroom. I have a lot of crap, people. I have a big room, but more than enough stuff to fill it!

I could never be a minimalist, but sometimes I wish I had less stuff! The thing is, I actually like all of my items. I only keep things that have sentimental value, or that bring me joy when I look at them. However that is still a lot of stuff! I would love to be able to move some of my more decorative items out of my room and into the general apartment space, then others can enjoy them as well. Maybe this new girl will be open to using personal items to decorate?

I also have about 100lbs of laundry to do I am NOT happy about that. My kitty has been having some issues using her litter box lately and she seems to think it’s ok to pee on my bed. My BED. It’s awful. Anytime I see a new spot where she’s gone I have to strip the bed and start cleaning the mattress–there is NO WAY that I am going to let that cat pee smell set into my mattress!

So while I’ve been able to successfully clean the mattress, I have a few pillows, several sheet sets, blankets and even a bedspread that are awaiting a good wash! Ugh what I would give for a washing machine in my apartment! Instead I have to haul them around the corner and down the hill (then back up!) to the local laundromat. I hate it.

So I guess that’s the next major project of the day or weekend. But I really don’t want to do it, that’s 2 hours of my day gone doing nothing. I may just procrastinate until next weekend and get someone to pick me up and take me to my parents’ where I can wash in comfort.

Ahh, I can finally get back on track!

Can you believe that January is over already???

At times it seemed like it was dragging on, but now it feels like it went by in a flash!

Both me and my blog turned another year older, I had a great birthday party, several blogger meet ups, a crazy couple of weeks at work and I finally got to see Mr. Darcy.

It’s been quite the month!

Despite the migraine that crippled me at 4am this morning, I woke up today feeling like it was a fresh start. It wasn’t til I needed to get out my February TTC pass that I realized it was a new month already!

For some reason I feel different today. A little more vital, a  little more calm. It could be because I finally got a chance to relax after my crazy week. I even ate an apple before work today (unheard of!) and tested my pH for the 21-day challenge. (6.4 for those that are interested. Looks like I’ve got some work to do!).

Tonight I have plans to get sweaty, intimate and rough with a group of men… Get your mind out of the gutter! I’m going to fight tonight! J So I can fit in my Greens+ after my session. I feel a little more motivated to go. It’s the first time in a while I’ve woken up and haven’t felt like crap, so I think it’s a sign. Plus, I watched Whip It (Ellen Page & Drew Barrymore) last night which is a cute film about roller derby and it was so cool! I’m inspired to look into it more, see if there is a derby around here. I don’t know if I would actually participate (but wouldn’t that be SO COOL?) but I would love to watch and get my fill of aggressive moves and speed! LOL

Fingers crossed the rest of the day goes by without too many “argh!” moments. I want to keep this loose feeling for a while longer.

I’ve been pretty busy this week with work (things are finally picking up. Yay!) and with other after-work commitments. Plus I watched season 2 of True Blood which was a bit of a time vampire.

Ahahahah! I crack myself up sometimes! But seriously, that is a totally fang-tastic show! I just love it to death! If you haven’t seen it already I encourage you to rent or download the first season and start from there. It’s very interesting and is just different enough to be really awesome to watch. But not TOO different, if you know what I mean.

A little update on the financial side… has anyone else noticed that they seem to have less and less money even though their spending habits and income have remained the same? I haven’t really changed what or how often I buy things over the past 2 years (and thanks to the recession my salary hasn’t changed in the past 2 years either. Ugh) but I feel as though I have less and less money. The only thing I can think of is that the cost of living has gone up. I figure things like groceries, food, and clothing prices have all been secretly creeping up over time. Now when I buy the same item it is actually costing me more. But I haven’t had the salary increase to balance that out.

Do you think my theory would hold water?

I’ve gone back to tracking my spending again using a spreadsheet on Google Docs. It helps me see where my money is going and how much I am actually spending. No surprise, most of my money is spent on eating out, but I have been making efforts to cook at home more and have a few no-spend days, too!

No-spend days for me are basically whenever I don’t spend money on food or other random items I don’t really need at that moment. Though I doubt that I could go an entire week without spending a penny. Life just doesn’t work like that in the city.

Anyway, I am excited for the holiday season that is coming up. I’m trying to figure out who I am going to give gifts to this year, and what they will get! I wonder how much shopping I will actually have to do?

One more thing… I know I’ve been lax with the juicy posts lately, but I have a few rolling around in my head, and I’ve got a contest/giveaway coming up for those fantastic My Bag reusable bags I reviewed a while ago. I think they’ll be the perfect item to help you get your shopping done, or to give as a gift!

Stay tuned!

-I wish Google Maps had an “Avoid Ghetto” routing option.

-More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.

-Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you’re wrong.

-I don’t understand the purpose of the line, “I don’t need to drink to have fun.” Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they’ve invented the lighter?

-Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

-That’s enough, Nickelback.

-I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

-Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the “people you may know” feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?

-Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn’t work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ’s. We just figured it out. Today’s kids are soft.

-There is a great need for sarcasm font.

-Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the f was going on when I first saw it.

-I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I’ll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone’s laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I’m still the only one who really, really gets it.

-How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

-I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

- I think part of a best friend’s job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

-The only time I look forward to a red light is when I’m trying to finish a text.

- A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.

- Was learning cursive really necessary?

- Lol has gone from meaning, “laugh out loud” to “I have nothing else to say”.

- I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

- Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

- My brother’s Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads. Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, “Cuz we beat you, and you hate us.” Classy, bro.

- Whenever someone says “I’m not book smart, but I’m street smart”, all I hear is “I’m not real smart, but I’m imaginary smart”.

- How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear what they said?

- I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

- Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using ‘as in’ examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss’s last name to an attorney and said “Yes that’s G as in…(10 second lapse)..ummm…Gooni es”

-What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?

- While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it…thanks Mario Kart.

- MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

- Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

- I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

-Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

-I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.

- Bad decisions make good stories

-Whenever I’m Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don’t mind if I do!

- Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?

-If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

-Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I’m from, this shouldn’t be a problem….

-You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you’ve made up your mind that you just aren’t doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

-Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don’t want to have to restart my collection.

-There’s no worse feeling than that millisecond you’re sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

-I’m always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

- “Do not machine wash or tumble dry” means I will never wash this ever.

-I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There’s so much pressure. ‘I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren’t watching this. It’s only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?’

-I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Dammit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What’d you do after I didn’t answer? Drop the phone and run away?

- I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

-When I meet a new girl, I’m terrified of mentioning something she hasn’t already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

-I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it’s on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

-Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles…

- As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

-Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

-It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

-I keep some people’s phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

-Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn’t know what do to with it.

-Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey – but I’d bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time…

-My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day “Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?” How the hell do I respond to that?

-It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

-I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

-I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

-I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

-The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimated that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There’s nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before dinner.

This whole weekend it’s been crazy in terms of weather. My body isn’t too happy… I’m a human barometer and the weather changes and storms have been causing me serious pain. I was laid up most of yesterday and into the night with an awful body-based migraine.

The rain isn’t the only thing that is crazy this weekend. On Saturday the weather was overcast but otherwise alright. It rained a little at the Taste of the Danforth (mmm I nommed loads of delish Greek food) but nothing spectacular.

This morning I woke up to a weird storm–it went as dark as night then started in with thunder and lightning. When it was right over my house there was a huuuuge CRACK!! of thunder, and all the car alarms in the neighbourhood went off! Incroyable!

After that passed, the retarded levels of heat and humidity moved in. I offer you the following evidence:

You see that little “feels like” section? Yeah. 42. That’s in celsius, my friends (108 Fahrenheit). Vancouver, I think we’ve got you matched for heat now!

While I was away at Spirits Fest I did a ceremonial sweat lodge. While not nearly as hot as the sweat lodge, it’s pretty fucking close outside right now. Like, the humidity/heat level of the lodge when you’re just getting into it and haven’t fully heated it up yet.

I plan to take a cold shower and sleep naked tonight with 3 fans pointed in my direction. That’s the only way I can bear it in my apartment. The A/C doesn’t reach all the way into my room.

Fingers crossed the heat will break tomorrow!