I have been dreaming of going to Tofino for about 12 years.  My first experience of being there was when I was 8 (?) with my grandparents.  The rain came down so hard we couldn’t see out the windows of the motorhome!

Some of the highlights!

• Visit with my Great Auntie Trudy in Sidney
• Visit with Barb & Dale in Victoria.  Had a wonderful dinner and a nice sleepover.  Lucky Mason got yet another baby shower gift full of Baby Gap clothes! So cute
• Drive around Victoria and can’t wait to live there
• Drive to Coombs, BC.  Didn’t see any goats this time (too hot) but did explore the grounds, had mini donuts and fudge from Hammond Bay Fudge! Yummmmm!
• Drive to Port Alberni.  Stopped to see Auntie Linda at the Port Alberni Hospital while she was on break.
• Drive to Tofino.  Stayed at the Red Crow in a beautiful garden cabin!  Had a lovely hot tub in the rainforest.
• Drive to Long Beach.  Laid on the beautiful sandy beach with a good book and my little babe all nestled in his mommy made ‘tent’ to shield him from the sun
• Drive to Ucluelet.  Debated on how to pronounce it.  Clayton said ‘Uclaylet’, I said ‘Ucuelet’.  Turns out tourists say Ucluelet and locals say Ucuelet or ‘uckee’ for short.  Had lunch at Roosters Cafe (we had the yam burgers – awesome!) and stopped at Uckee Baby Boutique to get Mason a cute little t-shirt, new sunglasses, a new teething ring! I also stopped at a gift store andbought Clayton a bar of soap.  Ha, not just ANY bar of soap.  An Orange Ylang Ylang and Clove soap from Kama.  We had a sample at our Cottage and absolutely loved the smell and how soft is left our skin.                                                                                                  
• Drive back to Port Alberni.  Stopped to see Cousin Sara at her beautiful new house!
• Drive to Campbell River.  Stayed overnight at Grammy & Poppy’s, visited with Mama & Papa, and Grama.  Also got to sit in Poppy’s ‘65 Vette! 

Even Hershey got a pose in!

Got spoiled by Grammy and Poppy…as usual!

I’m going to steal this title from a very old blog (which is no longer available online) cause I can’t think of a better one!

My day started off alright! I needed to head out to Michael’s for a very special Fathers Day present for my Daddy.  I used Google Maps to find the closest location to my house and for the first time, I see that the directions include two u-turns which sort of confused me.  I left on an empty stomach (mistake #1) and with a sleeping baby.  Unfortunately I did not find the Michael’s store in the almost two hours it took me to the vincinity of the Michael’s and back to my house (since I gave up and had to return home for a delivery).  I was pretty po’d while I was driving home because it was warm, I was starting and I couldn’t believe I couldn’t find the location!  What made it worse was that I noticed my new shirt was riding up my tummy (it has an elastic waist) and I ripped a hole in it cause it caught on my belt!  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  Not repairable.  Will have to donate to my Dad for the ‘rag bag’.  Finally on my way home I decide to stop at Mc’Donalds cause I’m starving and I have a coupon.  I’m going to try their new Salad options.  I opted for the Garden Fresh because I wanted a lower calorie meal and it seemed the best choice.

I really wish I would have taken a picture of wha tI actually got cause it was NO where near anything like the picture!!! (big surprise eh?) The salad I received was big in portion size but full of white ice berg lettuce, not the leaf lettuce that is shown in their adverts.  False advertising, I so want to sue.  I picked out the leafs that were devoid of any nutritional content and it still didn’t leave me with much else.  The chicken breast that was atop (mostly joined together) was good and lightly seasoned.  I didn’t eat the salad dressing it came with (Reneé’s Balsamic) while yummy, it was high in calories.  According to the Mc’Donalds Nutritional Calculator, the salad alone:

The price on this salad was super high too!  $6.79 each! I think even with the half off coupon I had that they were still to pricey for what you got!  Oh well, live and learn.  I should have got a Big Mac

The day ended better when at 3:01pm (the delivery was scheduled between 2-3 which is why I rushed home!) the flower delivery guy hadned me one dozen long stemmed red roses complimentary of my gorgeous Husband and his thoughtfullness.  The roses were ordered way before my day even turned bad but it sure made me feel better.  Thanks honey!

Clayton bought me the Nintendo Wii Fit as a gift for Valentines day, so prior to giving birth, I tried it out!

Wii Fit

Keep in mind I was at the end of my pregnancy [Feb 14th. - Gave birth on the 21st]!  It originally told me I was 180 lbs and a BMI of 28.98.  It also said I had shitty balance and my Wii fit ‘age’ was 50! lol.  I guess no-one at Nintendo thought to add a ‘are you pregnant’ feature to keep in mind that preggo’s need exercise too!

I shed the 20lbs of pregnancy weight in the first 8 days of having Mason! The hilarious thing was when I got on the Wii fit shortly after giving birth (maybe a few days) it had told me I did a ‘great job’ losing 12lbs in the first 5 days.  Ummm can we say red flag?!?!.  The Wii Fit should have been telling me to get my ass to a eating disorder clinic at that rate!

I’m happy to say that 4 months later I am doing much better.  I’m down to 163lbs (which is two lbs less than I started out yet.  Keep in mind I’m nowhere happy with this weight and is why I’m eating a lot healthier and exercising to get rid of more baby lbs).  My BMI is at a healthier scale of 26.33 (goal is 25.44 to reach an acceptable BMI for my height) and my Wii Fit age is 43 (a lot better than 50 but let’s get it down to at LEAST my real age of 23.  Uh I mean 32

If you aren’t familiar with the Wii fit, let me give you a quick rundown of how it works cause I think it’s super neato.  The Wii Fit system [$99.99CDN + tax]works with the Nintendo Wii Console. [$279.99CDN = tax].  The Wii fit system comes with a balance board and the games.  You will also need your controller that comes with the Nintendo Wii.  Once u start the ‘game’ you choose a “Mii” which is your game player dude and you can customize him/her to look like you and then you get on the balance board and it measures you [weight, center of balance, bmi] for the first time and let’s you set a goal weight.

The games are divided into catergories:

Yoga, Strength Training, Aerobics and Balance Games.  The ‘fun games are in balance games’.  The more you play, the system will ‘unlock’ one of the ? tiles which reveals the same game but more difficult or a new game altogether.

This is the hula hoop game, you get points by circling your hips and ‘catching’ flying hula hoops by leaning to the left or the right.  At first I didn’t like this game because it was hard on the hips but I love it now!

I haven’t really done much with the first three as I find them ‘boring’ but once I get more into exercise and yoga, I’ll be sure to check them out.

The great thing about the Wii Fit is that you are exercising while having fun and having fun is the most important part   I have to admit that I don’t use this game as much as I should but it’s hard to dedicate time to playing! hehe.

Then EA (Electronic Arts – Also where Clayton works) came out with EA Active.  There was a lot of anticipation for this product as it was more centered to exercise and was more of a personal trainer than a ‘game’.  Clayton brought it home shortly after it was released and I was pretty excited to try it out.  It comes with a resistance band, a leg band to hold the ‘nunchuck’ [$24.99CDN = tax] which is an add-on to the controller which is requierd for this product (sold separately).  The first thing I noticed was that the people to choose from was lacking and they didn’t look as cute as the Nintendo Mii’s.  This product doesn’t focus on weight rather on calories burned.  So I have to jump on the Wii Fit to monitor my actual weight.  You can use the balance board from the Wii Fit with this product so that was a bonus.  One of the first things you are introduced to is Bob Greene (Also known as Oprah’s personal trainer) who had an influence on how this product was made.  I tried out a 20 minute session which included kickboxing (fun!), rollerblading (fun!) and a bunch of stretches (okay) and running/walking (blah).  I found that the leg band constantly kept slipping down my leg (with or without shorts on) and the long cord between the controller and the nunchuck constantly got in the way of a lot of exercises.  At the end of the session it told me how many calories I burnt and I could even input other activites I did (other than the Wii, such as walks, housework, etc) and the types of food I ate that day.  I also noticed there was  a 30 day challenge which I am stoked to try out and see how much weight I can lose!

For more info on the Wii Fit – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67aZVku0cmI

For more information on EA Active – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bzfjqr1HvE

Soooo…you may have noticed a bit of a time gap!  I had good reason! My world was instantly changed with a new job, a new place downtown and a new boyfriend (March 2008) and a few posts here and there, zoomed to June and my last post was June 21st.  I’d like to direct you to the first entry of my new blog ‘I am having a baby’ which as the title states, I found out I was pregnant!  My whole pregnancy from beginning to end (June 24, 2008 – February 21st, 2009) was documented and now lives at www.masonsmommy.wordpress.com or www.jodelene.com!  Being pregnant and (now) a new Mommy has transformed my whole world and my world became all about Mason Ryan Hamilton Harbour and Clayton (the then bf, now common law spouse which I like to refer to as Husband cause it just sounds better) and my experience as new parents.  Enjoy reading Mason’s Mommy blog!  But for now, I’d like to continue writing in this blog which will document my non baby life and usually contains humourous (or try to be humorous) journals of my day to day life. 

I think back to 2004-2005 where I blogged almost every day for your reading pleasure, my life got increasingly busy as the months flew by yet I did not stop writing.  Fast forward a few years, different people in my life but yet, I don’t write.  I think I broke my funny bone.  The quality of my writing has declined and don’t get me wrong, I still do retarded things which are worthy of a read but the quantity has decreased making me wonder if I should still continue to write the rest of the dribble.  I guess I’m still writing and perhaps you are still reading so onward I go.

 I had to take a look at my last post to see where I left off.  Late April.  Not a happy time period at all.  May….do I even remember May?  Moving to Yaletown was a bit of a disaster with the move in part and getting comfortable living with two roomies opposed to one.  Earth Day was kinda cool.  Geez I can’t remember what else I did in May.  Spent insane amounts of time with my then boyfriend Clayton who is no longer my bf.  We took a trip to Gibsons which was really cool (my 2nd time there) and I wish to go back but I have this thing against taking 2nd trips with other people, kinda ruins the memories of the first. 

June has been a blur as well (my short term memory is declining as I creep into old age).  I was not too happy at work cause I didn’t have a lot of accounts and the days were super long at work.  Luckily a decision was made to transfer me into a new group and I got a new boss who is awesome.  I receive a ton more accounts and now finally feel I am in the swing of things   Aside from work, I had MAJOR roomie drama.  I had the lovely experience of living with two ‘new to the country’ Kiwi’s who thought it was perfectly acceptable to ignore any rules of the house they both agreed to as well as leave the province and not return to deal with their end of tenancy obligations.  Not to mention they pawned that duty off to a complete stranger and then demanded that I pay her their damage deposit in cash.  Sorry dudes, we don’t work that way here.  Too many scammers and I’m not going to put myself in a situation where I have to fork out $1000.  So I’m happy to say that I dealt with that and they are completely out of the suite.

Now the second phase is to find a nice roomie to move back in….I thought it would be easy.  Gorgeous building, gorgeous view, wicked roomie.  But apparently I’m the only one that thinks the rent is affordable and the location is great? I’ve had a few people come and look at the suite and they all agree it’s perfect but a) it doesn’t have free parking b) doesn’t allow more than 1 cat  etc etc.  I thought for sure last week I had a roomie who agreed to move in and sent him the paperwork but I can’t get a hold of him via email and phone so I decided to repost the ad to cover my ass.  $2k is a lot of money to dish out for rent in one month!  I hope there is a good reason he’s MIA.

Aside from that, it’s 11am and I am still puttering about, staring at my long list of things to do wishing they’d just do themselves.  There is always sunday…(sigh)  I haven’t really allowed myself to have a weekend of ‘nothing’ since this last crazy emotional week.  Probably cause I think sitting around doing SFA is a waste of time and I need to keep busy.  I’m going to fight that emotion and go have a bubble bath.

So that’s my update for now, nothing too exciting I’m afriad.  Hope there are better posts to come…

So it’s April 19th.  I’ve been waiting/dreading this weekend for over a year now.  It marks the anniversary of my ‘little brother’ Cory LaFleurs death which occured on April 18th, 2007, he was 27 years old.  There isn’t much to say or to dwell on much that my emotions about Cory’s passing are as raw as the day we all learned the sad news.  I was happy to spend time with his Sister in Law Kim and his 3 nephew & neices for an evening. 

I arrived late on Thursday night and was happy to be back on my Island. Surrounded by Family & Friends and to relax away from the stress of the city.  While the rest of the Island & mainland got slammed with freak sno, Campbell River was spared and we were treated to a sunny but chilly Saturday.  I spent most of Friday lazing around the house eating copious amounts of yummy food and having a guilt free nap.  I also watched the movie Juno which I had to say was quite cute.  Can’t imagine being pregnant at 31, let alone 16.

Today was visiting day, I went to the new Serious coffee in Willow Point with Ludy and her new baby Reina who is 3.5 months old.  What a cutie!  It’s been ages since I have been around the little gaffers.  Then I came home, had another nap (ooh big surprise) and then headed to my Gparents for a nice visit.  It’s funny showing my Mama & Papa the Internet, Facebook when they are in their mid 70’s and have no clue how the Internet came out or how it manages to better itself daily. 

So now I am back home, back online (cause there ain’t much else to do here).   So other stuff that’s going on…next adventure is to get my move in date for the new place downtown.  I am hoping that it will be sooner than the first so I can get my furniture in there, it all has to be delivered (I hate putting furniture together).  Then after that, I’ve got an Amazing Hunt to attend, a getaway to Gibsons with Clayton for some R&R and of course the housewarming/pool parties to commence mid month.  Busy busy!  We are also going to be participating in Earth Day 2008.  http://www.evergreen.ca/en/involved/ed_2008.html as volunteers, I can’t wait!  May is going to be such a great month.

Well that’s it for my update, nothing too funny to add unfortunately!

PS – A big happy Anniversary to my best buddy Tim and his gf Jenn who have been together for 10 years! 

 

 

Okay so I got a bit behind on writing but I have very good excuses!  I have done more in one month than I have in an entire year.  Okay maybe that’s an exageration but I’ve been seriously busy!  

So in my previous post, I through up some pics of my newest purchases.  I have obviously bought more than that, but the net doesn’t always have pics.  To my collection, I have added, a bed from Inspiration, a coffee table from some place on Davie (total impulse buy), a dvd player (boring) and I found the desk I want from Staples but I’m going to have to wait until after payday.  I’m still waiting to hear back about my move in date which I really hope will be sooner than the 1st but I know that the existing tenant is having a difficult time finding a 1 bed place downtown/kits that isn’t a billion dollars a month.  I wish him luck!  Once I get all settled in and the roomies are comfy in our new digs, I will be having housewarming party(s).  The place isn’t huge so we’ll have several and the building has a pool, so there will be some splashage.  Bring your bathing outfits!

Worklife has been great but a tad bit on the slow side, I feel like a work beggar, always wanting something to do, so I’m getting bits and scraps from random people in my department.  I do like the work though and the people more!  I look forward to doing a lot more and the challenges that will come along with it.

I’ll write more later!

This weekend was spent handing out my little green friend named Visa.  Visa comes in handy when purchasing major furnishings for a new place to live. 

Two days and a whole lotta money later, this is what I ended up with:

Urban Barn Couch – “Lennox”

Best Buy – LG 42″ LCD Flatscreen 

 

 

and it’s not Kits beach, it’s not even English Bay.  It’s like Hawaii, or Mexico, somewhere far away from new job, new place to live and new everything else.  Man I like change but this is getting out of hand!  I’m forcing to write this even though I haven’t even eaten dinner yet! Good thing I type  90wpm.  Okay so hmm where did I leave off?

I believe it was shortly before my bday.  I turned 31 on the 29th and had a great but mellow celebration with my dear Kimberly.  I also cut off all my hair!  (again, something new) and I bought a lot of new clothes for my new job.

Since then I have been adjusting to new work hours and trying to figure out bus routes and then realized I could park for $7.00/day so I got lazy and started driving to work in the AM which allows me more time to…sleep.  Getting up at 6 is hard!  Work is still good and I’ve learned quite a bit since I started.  I like the people and it’s a great work atmosphere.  It will get way better when I have clients and am not dependent on other teammates to give me tasks.

Aside from work which feels like has consumed my world, I have been searching for a new roomie and place to live for May 1st.  I am leaving cute lil Kitsilano for the posh overpriced downtown.   The decision to move was based off my commute and of course a new environment.  Since arriving in 2006, I have moved West every year and I think I’m running out of land, soon I’ll be in some sort of house boat

I have found two new roomies; Karl & Vanessa who both are from New Zealand (more Kiwi friends yay!).  Karl is living in Van now and Vanessa arrives mid April.  Amazingly enough Karl and I were able to find a GORGEOUS 2 bed 2 bath condo in Yaletown (Spectrum I building) and actually got in on the spot.  We couldn’t have found a nicer place.  So now we are just working out the details and soon the lease will be signed.  If I wasn’t so damn tired I’d be estatic.

Wow that’s the cole notes version of my life lately, it is MUCH longer in person but I’m too tired to type it all out.  So basically I’m surrounded by newness and couldn’t be happier.  I’ve met some great new friends and am one happy girl.  I hope I continue to be.

~Jodes aka Yaletown Yuppie

Usually it’s upwards but I am going down not up.  Town that is.  Hopefully for May 1st, I will be moving to downtown Van.  Yaletown to be specific, where my new employer is located.  It was a spontaneous decision (as most of my life is based off of).  After 3 excruciating painful days of walking to bus stop, riding on germ ridden, eco friendly transit, getting off germmobile, getting on another germmobile (busses cannot turn left to go downtown) and then walking half block to destination, is not my thing.  So instead of that hassle, I will just move me, to work.  Which is still eco friendly so instead of riding said bus, I will be using my own two legs to get to work.  Problem solved.  Sort of.

 Now I am onto the lovely quest to find suitable roomie to share nice condo with downtown.  I have posted a few ads, so now I wait.  Did I mention none of this is for sure yet? I haven’t officially given notice, I have to wait til April 1st and hopefully the condo I want will be available.  There are few different floor plans to choose from that range from $1780 to $1900 monthly.  I would rather pay less but you get a patio & solarium in the higher priced unit. 

Other than the relocation, life is good.  I am liking my job and the staff, I’ve already been assigned work which I have enjoyed doing so I am off to a great start.  I also met with Vee for lunch yesterday and both of our busy schedules have not permitted us to hang out for at least 4 months.  I am not particularly enjoying this ’spring’ weather.  I think Mother Nature is on crack.  Snow…in March? C’mon!  SUNSHINE! dammit.

Aside from that…oh yes, the dreaded bday.   Today is my last day of being um an age I won’t disclose.  Let’s say 20.  I didn’t like 20 very well but 21, now we are talking.  I think that’ll be a much better year.   I don’t plan to do much, perhap a night of shenanigans with Kimber and that’s about it.   This weekend I’m taking it easy.  I had to call in sick today (yes in my first week of work) it’s lucky I don’t have too much work to do yet.  I have been feeling under the weather all week and having this commute hit me hard.  So finally it hit me and after sleeping thirteen hours, I am feeling a bit better.  I still am not ready to leave the house and venture out for food.  Food is not my friend right now.

 So almost end of my favorite month.  April brings sadness and it’s hard to believe that we all lost our dear Cory almost a year ago.  I will be returning home to the Island to spend time with family at the end of the month. 

All in all, March was a good but interesting month.  Can’t wait for May!

I will leave you with a funny article my friend Tim sent me:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=400779&in_page_id=1770