OUR DIRTY LITTLE SECRET

Are you ready for it?  It's our dirty secret.  I'm talking about our spare bedroom/home office/hubby's dressing room/junk room.  To say it's a disaster might be an understatement.  It's an eye sore.  And currently it is completely non-functional.  Is this not the most disorganized "desk" you've ever seen?

Trust me, the rest of the room is no better.  My Christmas plan is to organize (which will mean buying filing cabinets etc), tear up the carpet, possibly paint, and put up artwork.  I'm thinking new bedding, a new bookshelf (those things are expensive!), and an area rug will have to wait for now.  That might be my carrot for the rest of the year - a little gift to myself on starting residency in July, maybe.

I'll leave you with a few more photos and you can thank your lucky stars this isn't what your spare room looks like!  Or maybe it is... Hey, we're all human, right? ;)

Normally my house pictures are of rooms I have just styled and tidied up before taking photos.  If I used hashtags this might be known as: #thetruthbehindtheblog #junkroom #dirtylittlesecret.  Just a thought.  Wow, I just enjoyed making those hashtags way too much.

 

The room's bright spot - the dresser we bought off kijiji last year and a cute lamp from Winner's.

HOME AGAIN HOME AGAIN

Hello all!  It's been a little while since I blogged about my travels... I made it to and from Ottawa without managing to take a single photo, which is quite sad considering I stayed with one of my besties there and I didn't document our visit at all.  Bad friend.  Long story short, I had a wonderful visit with my friend J and didn't want to come home! (She cooked me supper every night, had tons of baking in the freezer before I arrived, and had all kinds of lunch items ready.  And she was pretty good company too, I guess.)  :)

So between staying with J in Ottawa and A in Halifax, I was quite inspired to renew a commitment in my life.  To cooking.  Supper, specifically.  On a regular basis.  Ugh...it is such a chore, is it not?  I'm happy (more like hubby's happy) to say so far so good!  I've had lovely dinners cooked every night which has included chicken soup and biscuits (J's recipe), baked beans, chicken and stuffing, fresh rolls, and I even made some waffles to freeze for special breakfasts.  Waffles freeze super well and then we just pop them in the toaster.

There you have it, folks.  You've seen behind the proverbial curtain, dirty tupperware and all.  But who really cares when the outcome was all of those waffles, chicken and stuffing - one to eat and one to freeze?  Hubby certainly doesn't complain about dishes if he ends up with a home cooked meal (and he's the dishwasher in this household)!  Just wait till my next post - I'm going to show you our spare bedroom as is where is.  No styling or cleaning up...just full out disaster that desperately needs to be addressed!  Some honest blog photos for once. :)

SKATE CANADA 2013

I was lucky enough to be able to come home this weekend before I leave for my next elective, and hubby surprised me with tickets to Skate Canada!  What girl doesn't love figure skating, and especially what girl doesn't love figure skating a few short months before the Olympics?  We are a huge Olympics family - big fans.  The biggest.  So having the chance to see some of our Canadian athletes skate was super exciting and the fact that we saw our 2010 Vancouver ice dancing gold medalists?  Icing on the cake.  Icing.  Get it?  Kind of more of a hockey pun, I guess, but let's make it work, people.

Definitely the skaters I was most excited to see were Scott Moir and Tessa Virtue, the above mentioned ice dancers who won Gold in Vancouver 2010.  They're awesome.  She's pretty much the Canadian Kate Middleton - stick thin, beautiful brown hair, etc.  And her name is Tessa Virtue which to me is so pretty and unique it sounds like a stage name.  Whose last name is Virtue?!  That's awesome.  My favourite moment of the 2010 Olympics was when they won Gold and Scott's brothers lifted him up into the stands to hug him.  They skated beautifully last night (or so I think with my totally limited knowledge of ice dancing/figure skating).  If you don't remember their Olympic performance, here's a clip to remind you.

We were sitting three rows up from the ice and I was able to get a few photos of them.  This one is definitely the best.

After the show Tessa and Scott found me and invited me for a little skate with them.  They had heard what a fab skater I am (totally kidding - I haven't been on the ice since I was literally 13 and I completely sucked then).  I can only assume this poster of them is to scale.  I am approximately 4 times larger than her in real life as well.

Long story short, this totally pumped me up for the Olympics!  Can't wait to watch them competing in Russia!

CROSS CANADA TOUR: POST FOUR

We had a different sort of weekend this weekend.  Leroy and hubby came down to visit me in Halifax (I was totally thrilled to see Leroy)!  Three best friends together again!  We spent the weekend in a hotel that allows doggies so our Manny could come visit.  It wouldn't be our first choice for future trips but it worked out just fine.  It's slightly stressful worrying about Leroy barking at every little noise in the hotel (although he got much better as the weekend went on) and we weren't allowed to leave him alone in the hotel room, which meant we lived off take out and weren't able to sit in at a restaurant.  But I couldn't have been any happier and it's the last time I'm going to get to see Leroy before I return home in December.  And I have to say, he was pretty excited to see me, too.  When I met them at the hotel he kept running up to me for pats and then looking at hubby as if to say, "Look, Dad!!  Mom's here!!"

Growing up I never had a dog, so I kind of thought it was hilarious to see Manny in a hotel room.  It just seemed out of place.  He was so adorable, though.  The "dog rooms" all had two queen size beds so Leroy basically had his choice of bed for nighttime sleeping and at the end of the weekend he realized he was able to jump back and forth between the two which was just about the funniest thing.  Or it was to us.

Here are a few photos from our weekend.  We spent some time throwing Leroy his frisbee at the Commons, where we also found football practice gear.  Naturally, I had a go at pushing the tackle thing, whatever it's called.  We realized after taking a few photos of me not budging it that you really have to get low to make it move or else it just rocks like a rocking chair.  Quite funny.  And the rest of the pics are from lounging in the hotel room with our baby!

Bottoms from J Brand, old. Similar here and here.  Sweater from Banana Republic, old. Similar here.  Top from ASTR, exact unavailable. Similar here.  Sneakers from Converse, available here.

Bottoms from Wayf available here. Top from Banana Republic, exact unavailable.  Similar here and here.

CROSS CANADA TOUR: POST THREE

In my last post I referred to some big news around these parts.  It's in the category of life plans.  Last Monday I started my first Plastic Surgery rotation of fourth year.  For the past 12 months I have wanted to be a Plastic Surgeon... I set up all of my electives, found a research project, and was working towards this goal.  Last Monday when I started my rotation I should have been over the moon but I just... wasn't.  There was just this overwhelming sense of "I'm not supposed to be here", and for me, anytime I have such a strong feeling about something, I believe that's God telling me something.  I had a sudden realization this wasn't what I want to do with my life and I would be so so so much happier being a family doctor and getting to see these faces every day.  These two make me the happiest.

I feel happier than I have felt all year.  I just have this huge sense of relief and a weight off my shoulders.  When I'm working I'll still be able to be an assist in the OR and remove lumps and bumps which I realized is the part of Plastic Surgery I like best - and it translates to family medicine.  And I can live life with hubby, travel, decorate, make art, have doggies... I can have it all!  Phew!  Thankfully I figured it out now.  Who wouldn't want more time with those faces, anyway?  So that's the big news.  It's pretty huge in our world - it's going to create a very different life for us and we're very excited about it!