It's Over! Finally...

No my blog didn't really go private, it went dead. I've been getting a lot of e-mails asking what was what. The truth is that it's over! It had to happen at some point. And thank you for all of the comments over the years!

I'm sad to see it go, but excited to move on so to speak. Of course I always feel that I will need a little place on the internet and I could come back in another form.

Until then...

Heeltastic*

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

I went into my weekend thinking I didn't have much planned but it turned out to be pretty good.

Friday night after work a co-worker and I went bra shopping. We had a good time and I got two bras! I'm curious to know how many bras all the women reading this own? I probably only have about 6-8. I can't figure out if that is too little. I tend to favor a select few. What about you guys, I mean girls?

Anyways, as I was leaving work I got this text message from my friend Dave:

"Hey buddies....what can i know if u want to do something when is this weekend?"

I replied with "Are you drunk?"

He wasn't, he just let his cellphone guess what he wanted to say. He said it wasn't far off.

Anyways, after bra shopping I met up with Dave and a group of friends for sushi. We went here. It was so delicious! There was this one roll called the "crunch roll" and it had mango on it.

After that we went bowling! I did okay actually. I was surprised. around 11:30 I headed home - I was exhausted. All last week I have felt like I'm getting a cold or something and my eyes were hurting.

Saturday I woke up still feeling like I'm coming down with something, but I really wanted to do the Grouse Grind. I have to wrap up this goal in the next month so I need to get the show on the road. I headed to the mountain and did the hike in just over an hour. I wasn't trying to break my record seeing as I wasn't feeling 100% but I didn't stop once and I was only about 6 minutes slower than usual. Four more hikes to go!

After that I headed over to my brother and sister-in-law's new house they moved into this week. Its great! Four bedrooms, three bathrooms - great for raising a family. My brother was working yesterday, so my mom came up to help out. We played with my nephew Thomas (so cute). He was doing some awesome deep belly laughs yesterday. He is just always in a good mood.

I could only stay for a few hours as I needed to head home and tidy up for my friend Rebecca that I had invited to have some wine at my place. I bought us some snackies and we chatted for about three hours. One of our talks was about design (she's an interior designer as well - but actually has a degree in architecture). Anyways we were talking about our educations and how we learned to be really conceptual and theoretical and how much we value that. This isn't as common as we thought it might be. Sometimes its hard to get other designers to understand where you are coming from. I'm glad for the education I have - I realize every day how valuable it is to me.

I was in bed before 11pm and again super exhausted - due to not feeling 100% and hiking that morning.

Today (Sunday) I still feel like I'm coming down with something. It's like the start of a cold but it won't do anything. Maybe my body is really trying to fight it off - who knows. Anyways I did very little today just lazed around. The only thing that I really did was go grocery shopping. I need to take my lunch all week and eat at home as much as possible!

I've been trying to save money and it's going slower than I thought it would. I'm frustrated but I guess I just need to start being more careful with where I spend money. Like no more Starbucks or afternoon snacks. I know my co-workers feel the same way so hopefully we can all support each other in the goal to save.

I'm thinking one way to start is to get rid of my landline. What are you guys doing to save money? (if anything?)

*From now on my titles will be random. I just saw an ad for something called "Heeltastic"....yea...

Rawbean's BCMC/Grouse Grind count 16/20 (Saturday)

Tuesday House Party

Last week I got an e-mail from a flooring rep inviting the interior designers at our office to an event to promote a carpet line his company represents. I sent it out to the team and no one replied. I then got a reminder from the rep about the party asking if anyone was attending.

I always feel bad for reps when no one is interested in their party. They put a lot of effort into these things and sometimes their timing is just off and they don't get a good turn out. I could sense that this might be happening to this particular rep and he seems like a nice guy.

I asked around the designers at work again and finally my coworker "T" and I decided we would go.

Leading up to the event today we were sort of regretting we RSVP'd because work has been so busy. I even got an e-mail from the rep today correcting the address which was wrong on the invites (red light).

My co-worker "T" also pointed out a typo she had noticed in the invitation (red light).

But we were going and after a client meeting this afternoon our boss dropped us off at the front door of the event and we decided we had nothing to lose.

And now I need to break into a list:

TOP TEN SIGNS I MIGHT HAVE BEEN AT A HOUSE PARTY AND NOT A WORK EVENT*:

1. When we arrived, the building was clearly an apartment building. There was a note from the host saying that the buzzer was broken and to call his cell to get in (red light). Fortunately a cute guy on a bike let us in before we completed the call (green light).

Pause: Now I'm not snobby about where events are held, but just to give you some context, these events are usually in an event space rented out at a hotel, a restaurant, a showroom, art galleries. You get the idea, so an apartment building was really unusual.

2. When we arrived at the suite it was clearly a studio apartment (decked out like a carpet showroom).

3. The rep/host is a cute young guy wearing jeans, a t-shirt and nice red sneakers.

3. The rep/host was also the bartender! He offered us some champagne, but was also mixing drinks and had cut up his own limes in the kitchen. Yes, the kitchen. It was next to the bathroom.

4. The host told us he slept there last night (he doesn't live there) because he was setting up until 2am (for real). We looked around and there was no bed though, just a lot of carpet. It creeped my coworker out when we were sitting on the couch and the host told us it was also a fold-down sofa. Now we know where he slept!

5. At one point we were standing at a bar height table and the the top of the table almost slid off the legs supporting it. The host was quick to stop it and said "Haven't quite finished putting this together yet. It's from Ikea!"

6. At another point I look up and saw the host getting ice out of the freezer for a drink he was making someone.....in the kitchen.

7. The food spread was cute, but totally done by a guy. Nice big blocks of cheese, crackers and meat - but the knife to cut the cheese was HUGE. Like huge. Like my coworker was afraid to pass it to me as she might accidently cut off my hand.

8. This is unrelated to the topic but at one point some girl introduced herself to me and her name started with an "R" and her company name was a distorted version of the company I work for. It was very alternate universe. She was with her younger blond coworker. I was with my younger blond coworker. Neither one of the blondies knew who River Phoenix was. This is all critical information.

9. Anyways there was also music playing on a really nice Mac from the host's itunes collection.

10. The whole time we were there the host's cellphone was ringing and he kept buzzing people in. Again, the flavor was house party.

Although my coworker and I were laughing at how odd the whole thing was, I can't help but say "awhh" at the host's efforts. He probably has a little place in my heart now. We also remarked that we are lucky to be invited to such unusual events all the time. There was the event with the ballerinas, the tile fashion show, and the one were we just got drunk. Yes we are lucky.

*Keep in mind, it's Tuesday.

**On another unrelated note, we probably saw about 20 dogs today. One was small, white and fluffy! Soooo cute.

Hey Little Buddies

Hmm I really have no plan for this post, but it's been since last Wednesday so I thought I should write something right?

How was everyone's weekend? Mine was okay. I didn't do anything new. On Friday night I did hike no. 15 on the Grouse Grind. Again, in 58 minutes. I'm having trouble trimming time off now that I'm under an hour.

I've been thinking about what I'm going to do this fall once the Grouse Grind is closed. I thought about taking up running - maybe doing one of those Running Room clinics. What do you guys think? That would mean running a half marathon at some point. I was never interested before, but now I am intrigued. Should I do it?

On Saturday I worked on my etsy shop. I added three new listings, two of them were cats....okay I can hear the gasps across the crowd. Yes. Cats. They make fun plush toys, I cannot lie.

I feel like the photos do these little dudes no justice. I like how they look all together:

I can hear the guy bloggers exclaiming "good god, why would anyone make those?" Because I love them that's why. In fact, I will just keep making them until I can fill my apartment with them and then I will end up on that A&E show called "Hoarders".

Sunday was our final Volleyball night. We were in third place going into the playoffs. We did not play our very best though and we were missing two of our best players - I hate it when I miss the ball for no real reason. So embarrassing. Oh well it was a good time.

Check out this picture I took of the downtown skyline. At that exact moment some guy just happen to throw the ball up in the air which was kind of cool:

I'm so busy at work right now it's insane. I should probably be working some overtime, but by the end of the day I'm just burnt out. I feel like I might be getting sick, which would suck.

What else? Here is a random rant: It annoys me when I read a blog and the person writing it uses big words and tries to sound super smart. You know it's bullshit. They don't talk like that in real life. Sure, yes I know some people use their blogs to improve or polish their writing skills (I clearly don't) - but it's a blog. Relax.

Rawbean's BCMC/Grouse Grind count: 15/20 (Grouse Grind in 58 min)

Good Times

I'm mildly buzzed right now, but more tired then anything else. Maybe you should press play on my playlist on the left there to hear what song is my favorite right now. It's called "Animal" by Miike Snow.* I love it and so far the whole album is turning out to be quite lovely. Just my style and I don't care how anyone else feels about it. And ohh they will be in Vancouver in September.

So tonight a few people from work went out to say fair-well to a guy that is leaving the office. We all had a few drinks then myself and two co-workers decided to continue our evening at another pub called Yagger's. The three of us have grown close over the last little while and we all get along quite well. We are even considering a road trip to Portland in the near future! Apparently there are a lot of cute boys there.

At the end of the night, one co-worker and myself decided to try the new Canada Line train which just opened on Monday. This mostly underground train has been in construction for years so the fact that it is open is kind of crazy. The reason it was built I believe is for the Olympics. It takes people from the airport right into downtown. It stops about a 10 minute walk from my apartment which is great.

The fact that the Olympics are right around the corner is very exciting. I plan to have a really good time while we have all these foreign visitors and the world will be watching. The plans that are in place around the city to accommodate all of these people is truly unreal and will be so amazing to witness.

Anyways, as we boarded the new train tonight, we remarked that it felt so slick and cool and it was like we were in a foreign city. Maybe it was the alcohol but it felt great and I loved it. I took the old skytrain earlier today and this new train is quite different. A great addition to the city. I might even take it to work tomorrow.

Here is a picture I found on the net, but I hope to take my own pictures soon:

It wasn't this busy at all tonight, but I love the yellow handles!

*Seriously press play on the playlist. Best played on a rad stereo or at least some good headphones.

Should I Shop Here?

A new store in downtown Vancouver:




Rawbean's Grouse Grind/BCMC update: 14/20 (last Friday Grouse Grind in 57 min)

Another Question

There is something else that is baffling my mind:

What the hell did Heidi spray on my back yesterday?

Yesterday I went to Alouette Lake with my White Rock ladies (high school friends). When we got there, we were hanging out on the rocky, wasp-infested beach with our bathing suits on and it actually turned out to be a really nice day.

Heidi pulled out some sort of spray and asked if she could spray my back. I said "okay!" I assumed she sprayed me with sun-screen. I proceeded to put sun-screen lotion on the rest of my body.

Hours later, Heidi told me I was getting a little pink. We were leaving anyways. On the car ride home I could tell I was burnt, but when I looked in the mirror after the hour drive my back was blazing red! What the hell? The rest of me was fine, but my back was hot and you could see the outline of my bathing suit tie around my neck. NICE!

The best part was I still had to go out and play volleyball in the hot sun - I wore a t-shirt instead of my usual tank top.

So Heidi, what was that you sprayed on my back? Because it sure wasn't sunscreen.

Here's a picture of the lake I got off the internet, it really was beautiful:

Question

There is something that is baffling my mind these days:

Why don't American's want Universal Healthcare?

The other day I was sitting at my desk thinking about this and at that exact moment, my British coworker said "American's are crazy."

"Are you talking about the healthcare thing?" He nodded. "I know it's crazy isn't it?" He showed me an article about a guy who brought a hand gun to a healthcare meeting (perfectly legal because it wasn't concealed) and had a sign saying he has the right to be armed. Like seriously? Why do you WANT to be armed?

We started talking about all of the town hall meetings that have been happening around the U.S. and how many people are against universal healthcare and are freaking out about it. People are saying that they don't want the government controlling their healthcare. There are rumours (thanks in part to Sarah Palin) that there will be 'death panels' of government employees who decide whether or not someone gets the treatment they need.

Um....Canada has universal healthcare and I have yet to come across a 'death panel'. Any time I have needed to see a doctor, I have been able to do it. In fact, its pretty awesome to be able to walk into a clinic, show my CareCard and see a doctor without opening my wallet. Or know that if I do get sick, I don't have to worry about going bankrupt.

Besides, aren't insurance companies in the US sort of conducting their own 'death panel'-like activities? There are stories everywhere about people getting rejected for treatment by insurance companies. The one that stuck out with me was a woman who needed a double mastectomy and was told the day before her surgery that the insurance company had decided not to cover it. The reason was that they had looked at her history and found a visit to a dermatologist from the past they thought looked suspicious and perhaps could have been an indicator that she was going to get cancer. Apparently that visit was for some acne treatment. Can you believe that? This woman is fighting an aggressive cancer and it was delayed by months because of some acne treatment she had in the past. The insurance company was in complete control of her health destiny.

In Canada, the government doesn't look into your past to try and find a reason to deny you treatment. Do Americans like this system?

Another story I saw was about a woman who was in the hospital for two days for surgery to replace the battery in her pacemaker. Her bill came out to just under $200,000. Seriously? It was explained that part of that bill goes to pay bills of patients who can't pay their bill. Hmmmmmm.....

I think it's really sad that republicans are instilling fear into the public so that they will oppose universal healthcare. I truly believe that healthcare should not discriminate. Everyone should have the same access to doctors and treatments. I don't care if you're a millionaire or a guy on the street, we are all people. Unfortunately hospitals and doctors and clinics cost money which is why it does have to be regulated. Our taxes in Canada are a little higher but it's completely tolerable and it sure takes a load off of my mind knowing that any healthcare concerns I may have in the future won't be controlled by my insurance coverage.

I've never been a person who likes giving control of specific aspects of my life over to government (I am not a socialist), but I think a lot of people take for granted what the government actually does. Case in point: a few weeks ago, a light went out at the intersection near my apartment. It was total chaos - even resulted in a mild accident. There was honking and fist-shaking. Finally someone came along and made the intersection into a four-way stop until it could be fixed properly. That was one intersection in a city of MANY intersections. Who put them there? The government! Do we need them? Yes! Do we have to pay for it. Yes we do and I'm okay with that because my car wouldn't be so useful without them....oh and roads and signs....It would be crazy if only some people got to use the roads and others didn't (like how the American healthcare system works now). And that's just a road. Healthcare is about life. Can you put a value on that?

What do you guys think?

Meow Meow Meow

This post is not about cats.

Today I took the day off cause it is/was my birthday! It has sort of become a tradition for me to take the day off and just relax. I took tomorrow off too, just for good measure.

Earlier in the week I got some kick-ass cards from Jabba in the mail:

She bought them off a local etsy shop called The Beautiful Project. Very sweet and thoughtful of Jabba!

Today my sister-in-law came by with Thomas my nephew and we went for lunch. My sister in law gave me a present from her and my brother (and Thomas and Linus) and it was awesome. Some clothes from the clothing line she works for, lotion and these awesome fabrics that are new at Fabricana:

My sister in law has great taste!

Some interesting things happened while we were out today:

1. While we were eating lunch, a bunch of firemen (one was quite cute) walked by in the restaurant. I looked as they went into the back and saw that a man was sitting in distress in the back. Possibly having heart problems or a heart attack. A few minutes later some paramedics went back there too. Shortly after that the man was brought out on a gurney past everyone eating their lunch. Everyone was really calm. It was very odd. I hope he is okay! I think he will be.

2. Later, we were shopping in the same area on south Granville and we were in a store called Purr. I looked over and saw a girl and a guy shopping near the back. The girl looked familiar. I turned to my sister-in-law and said "I think that is a famous actress." My sister-in-law (very discretely) casually walked into the back area and then nodded that it was indeed. The guy was bringing her clothes and when she would come out of the dressing room, he took pictures of her. I still couldn't place her, but as we approached the front I asked my sister in law if she knew who it was "Yes" she said "I'm very good at this type of thing. It's the girl who played 'Kitty' on Arrested Development." She was so right! That actress is Judy Greer.

3. Because we had my cute nephew with us (he's 10.5 months and very well behaved I might add) we were getting a lot of attention in the stores. We went into one store and the sales girl went ballistic. Like literally squealing at how cute he is (he really is...I'm not biased at all). He has these two dimples and six new teeth that he shows when he smiles. It's killer. At one point three super stylish sales girls were gathered around him telling him how cute he was. It was so adorable.

Anyways I got home and was quite exhausted and ended up taking a nice nap! I'm looking forward to three more days of relaxation.

I might do the Grouse Grind tomorrow. In case you're wondering what it's like to do the Grind, I found this decent video on Youtube:

And speaking of I have to update my count from a climb on Tuesday:

Rawbean's BCMC/Grouse Grind count: 13/20 (Grouse Grind - in 58 minutes again)

Creative Weekend

This weekend I definitely got my creative juices flowing.

On saturday, I decided to take this blank canvas I've had forever and paint something. I've never been great at painting so my expectations were low.

It's pretty simple and abstract but I like it:

Then I made these little homies and the cards behind them (coming to etsy site soon). They are only about 2" high and will come as a pack of four.

Sunday, I headed down to my parents place with my nephew and sister-in-law and we pickled! We made pickled beans, pickled carrots, pickled beets and of course actual pickles. The colours were really beautiful:

Hope everyone else had a great weekend!