Outer Great Barrier Reef!

Ooof! I cannot get rid of this jet lag! Adjusting my sleep schedule, avoiding coffee, eating at regular times, sleeping pills, and I'm still waking up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 3:30am!

For Margaret!

Singapore Sling!

Morning...


noon...

and night!

Look who was waiting for me in the Brisbane Botanical Garden today!

Catios! A custom patio for your cat! I don't have a catio, but I don't think anyone would be surprised if I made one on my balcony. Here's Willow enjoying a coffee on her potential custom catio featuring potted chives (she goes straight to them to have a chew as soon as I open the door) and chicken wire to prevent her from wandering to the neighbour's balcony.

Tour la Nuit! We biked the 20km Tour la Nuit last night. We got there earlier than last year and so didn't have to wait in line too long to get started on the actual cycling part of it. It started at 8:30pm, but so many people participate that you must wait among them in the street before you can cross the starting line.

My favourite part of doing this race is all the people who come out onto the sidewalks to cheer the cyclists on. Here is a rundown of the best things I saw:

• a little girl in tutu dancing for everyone
• a full-0n funk band set up on the sidewalk!
• a guy who'd hung t-shirts on his porch...was he selling them?
• about a hundred little dogs hanging out with their owners on porches
  
• a drunk guy warning everyone going by to put lights on our bikes because it will save our lives
• a group of people who had set up a projector to project the internet on a wall?!
• tons of people playing bongos and other drums, fun!

I LOVE all the people who come out to cheer on the cyclists, it's so fun so wave to everyone, to see all the little kids dancing around and telling us "Lâche pas!!!". Mark's favourite joke is to yell out "ça me tente de lâcher!" (I don't know how to spell that properly!), which makes the volunteers stationed everyone along the way to laugh.

Here's a funny video I found from the Tour la Nuit 2008. I think it captures it well, Chris de Chris!

Smelts!

I don't know why, but I've been craving smelts lately. They were popular to eat when I was a kid, but I don't think I ever tried them. I bought some yesterday and coated them in a bit of egg and corn flour, then fried them on the stove. Yum!

My cousin Tina made a list of what she's looking forward to as summer approaches and inspired me to make my own:

• my first soft-serve ice cream of the year
• my first cold coffee from Lili & Oli
• long bike rides along the river
• sitting on the balcony and watching the action on the street
• camping and hiking
• sleeping without sheets and blankets
• icy lemonade
• the excitement in the air at school as teachers and students get more and more excited for the end of the year
• long, long days!

The best line from last night's 30 Rock:

"A smug 40-year old bridesmaid, what a treat for everyone!" - Jack Donaghy

I recently started a Couch to 5km running program! I'm using Robert Ullrey's C25k podcasts to help me out. There are nine podcasts, each one is meant to be done three times in one week so that the whole thing lasts nine weeks. I decided that to keep myself from giving up as I've done so many times before, I will do each session four times instead of three, just to make sure I'm not moving along through the program too quickly.

Dana started a challenge to runners to take photos of their running routes, so here's mine!

I do this loop twice which takes about 30 minutes. First, I run down my street towards a park...

and follow this path...

which veers right, around a big grassy area...

following this path, I pass behind Maison St-Gabriel...

and exit this park, cross the street diagonally to enter another park...

where I follow a series of paths...

enjoy some sculpture...

come out onto the street...

and back onto my street!

Mark and I walked up Mount Royal last Saturday. I ate the second Vietnamese sandwich I've ever had up there. I don't know why I waited so long to start eating these!

The soup was not a success. It smelled wonderful and fresh and green, but tasted awful. I think I'm not used to the flavour and someone who is would like it more than I did. Something about the combination of hemp seed butter, miso and nutritional yeast just didn't appeal to me.

What? I have a blog?

Well, here I am alone on another Friday night because Mark is working for "the-band-that-shall-go-unnamed", going on almost a year to record an album (@#$%&!). Feeling a little teed off because someone stole my garbage can?! Who does that? I know they didn't mistake it for their own because I'm the only person on this street with a metal garbage can.

Anyway, I decided to peruse the new Chatelaine magazine that I just got in the mail today. I was inspired to Tone My Butt in 8 Simple Moves so I looked up Canadian Tire's website to price an exercise ball. But then I felt like I didn't really want to walk over to the store, even though it's just 10 minutes away. So I looked up The Simple Dollar's 100 Things To Do During a Money Free Weekend. I was intrigued by #25 on how to build a simple net worth calculator, so I worked on that for a bit and felt relieved that my net worth isn't as low as I thought it was. But it still prevented me from heading to Ikea to buy some big pillows to lounge around on now that I've gotten rid of all seating except for my sofa.

A blog I like to read is Gena Hemshaw's Choosing Raw. Not because I live the raw lifestyle but because I think she's an excellent writer compared to other food blogs I read. Recently she featured a friend of hers who just had his raw food cookbook published. I bought the online version and am going to make a spinach soup, I believe it's the first recipe in the book. I'll take pictures to post tomorrow.

I love a new haircut! I've been seeing the same stylist for about 2 years now and I love how she cuts my hair. The hair cut I got yesterday, which is same as the last one in September, is my favourite so far. It's like a little helmet; so cute!

I love having my hair washed, I love having my hair combed, brushed and cut and finally I love having it blow-dried. It feels great! Off to enjoy my Christmas tree now....

I love Christmas parties and the Christmas spirit! I've got two down and a few more to go. Every year I await the feeling of Christmas to enter me with happy anticipation. I usually kick start it with a trip to the mall and big grocery stores. Normally I don't look to malls for inspiration but I do find, compared to some other cities I've been to, that Montreal lacks in outdoor Christmas decor and the best place to find it is inside malls and big chain grocery stores.

Here's a picture of our first Christmas tree! A beautiful balsam fir; it smells so good! We always found a reason not to get a tree but this year I decided I couldn't live without one.

I love the snow! I love it for giving me a half snow-day today which gave me a chance to catch a matinee of A Christmas Carol, buy a new winter coat and come home early to newly delivered Christmas cards!

View from the door to the balcony:

Willow's first step onto snow and her quick retreat!

I love Amarula! I've been drinking it since a huge ad campaign in the Montreal's metros back in 2006 I think it was. It was Christmas time and the ads were everywhere!! It looked something like this:

Although this is a Toronto subway platform.


I drink it with milk, with hot chocolate, on ice. It's delicious!

I love Gilmore Girls! My favourite episode is when Lorelai's mother points out to Lorelai that the real Lorelai would never let Luke keep his daughter from her. I can't believe he waited so long to tell her about his daughter. What a jerk!

I've been watching an episode every evening snuggled up with a blanket on sofa. It's cold outside! I'm praying for a snow day this Thursday....!

Merry Christmas from the Gilmore Girls!