Alexa + Frisbee + Me

Yesterday I hung out with my little sister Alexa

We woke up late but felt the sun's warm sunshine- and it moved us.

We started the day with homemade egg burritos. Can you say delicious? :)

Then we ran out to the park next to my building to play some Frisbee. It was windy-so we were challenged! We ran and dove for that Frisbee: so fun :) Boys joined us to play as they asked politely for permission. Eventually they tried to pick us up which we expected, but of course failed. I'm taken :) But at least they were really nice!

After 2 hours of Frisbee we retreated to the apartment. Remember my Turbo Jam workout with Helen Downie? Once inside Alexa and I attempted the thirty minute routine. Sweaty and hot- we then ran for the roof: to swim!

I have three elevators in my building but only one gets unlocked for the pool at a time. Unfortunately this elevator was busted so we had to go down and face my half-naked, hairy, old, super-intendant to let us up. Yark.

The water was cold at first but we quickly became accustomed. It's a little scary, swimming at nightfall, but the warm water was much to inviting and persuaded us to stay. My neighbor and his daughter came for a dip, but the little one didn't like having cold toes, so they left as quickly as they had come. Thankful for the tranquility and alone-time, Alexa and I swam a few laps and then called it a night.

A veggie burger and movie put us straight to sleep. We had such a wonderful day and the excersise felt so damn good. Frisbee + Turbo Jam + Swimming= Happy Campers!

famous Amos he amazed us!

Amos Joannides himself :)

As previously tweeted and blogged, Monday evening I attended Amos Joannides' concert at my old high school auditorium. 

 

on our way to see our friend Amos Joannides!

The opening band, Do Me Justice" was good. The music was awesome, the drummer was unique and very soulful. But the lead vocalist made out with the microphone- so gross. It's nasty when singers smush their mouths to the mic. I couldn't understand a thing.

I saw loads of peeps. Shane, Tracy, Eugene (Amos' brother), Ralph (co-actor) and the super @Helen_Downie!

Amos was absolutely insane- as usual. I love him lots. His music is so addictive and he writes poet-genius lyrics. Stuff that makes your heart glow and your mind free. I follow him around Montreal and attend all the gigs I can make it to but this was my first time sitting in a 200+ audience. He was magical, and his excitement and energy was beaming. We were clapping our hands, tapping our toes, closing our eyes and swaying our heads, all the while with a smile. Bliss.

He's so down-to-earth, and his music and words really reflect that. When he sings, he's all- giving.

He was accompanied by a back up vocalist and Alfredo, a cuban guitar genius. He picked some of the craziest notes I have ever heard live. Rock on.

All in all, Amos gave, yet again, another amazing performance. Everything about him makes me smile. You have to go to his website, www.amosj.com and I promise you will not regret it! :) 

me and my new shirt!

Uptown girl, she's been living in her uptown world.

I was a downtown gal today! I don't usually bustle around in the heart of the city much, I get awful claustrophobic. Seeing as I was already east, I decided to stop on my return home, at the Eaton Centre.

There weren't too many people so it was alright. I walked into Bikini Village hoping to find a cute one-piece suit, since I'm bathing suit shy. I have 25 free dollars to spend there, a gift certificate I won at a Beach Party for shaking my buns the mostest. I wasn't much in the mood though, and they didn't have much selection.

All of a crazy sudden the Eaton Centre was full of loud whistling noises! There seemed to be hundreds of students blowing whistles. I couldn't hear anything! It was so loud! I captured a clip on my celly. Not fab but check it out!

 Translation "Symphonie pour une universite. En Crise Majeur" =A symphony for a university. In major crisis

I know, you can't even hear what I'm saying! 

" There are people whistling in the Eaton Centre! I don't know why!"

" It's crazy! It's so loud!"

Turns out students were raising awareness for La Communaute De L'universite Du Quebec a Montreal a.k.a UQAM. In English, the University of Quebec in Montreal. I read the leaflet more thoroughly once home, and here are the shocking facts! The government of Quebec is fishing out over 300 million dollars for the renovation of a casino while an under-financed university is and has been struggling to make ends meet for years. This is absolutely outrageous! More outstanding stats can be found at www.uqamengreve.com  

And although the whistling was quite ear-piercing, it did last for only five minutes after all, and it sure made people listen! Everyone was curious about the fuss, and I'm sure many were educated as I was today on this pressing issue. So I say- whistle away!

eve of new, eve of better

I promised to tell you all about the lovely little snippets of great that flowed through me Wednesday evening. I had the surgery that morning and was feeling wonky and super funny. I called maman and talked to her for a while. I told her all about it: how I felt, how I was scared, how I cried, how I walked, everything. I confided every detail in her and it was so relieving. We laughed together. I love her so much. 

While I was on the phone with maman, Mike was on the phone with Elise. I had spoken to Alexa, but 

hadn't any news of the operation yet, so Mike filled her in for me. Mike came inside and I had my maman on speaker phone so he stuck his cell phone next to mine and maman and Elise said hi to each other! It was so funny! Then maman told me Elise finally found a roommate. This was great news to hear and I was so happy for her! It's stressful looking for a coloc, and that stress was now gone. 

Mike works nights so due to the fact that I was still half-disabled, we asked  Alexa and her boyfriend Jon to watch me for the night. How sweet of them when they said yes! Mike picked them up and brought them back. When they arrived I was still on the phone with maman, and she was still on speaker so Jon and Alexa said hi. I immediately noticed how Jon's cheeks were fuller! He was dangerously thin when Alexa met him, and she's been helping him gain weight. Yay! What progress! How up-lifting to see the efforts beginning to show success! He's very tall and previously, he was looking terribly unhealthy. He'd never been officially diagnosed, but everyone was thinking the same thing. He was smiling from ear to ear. His happiness and self-pride was shining like a beacon of light on his handsome face. He looked beautiful!

As Jon and Alexa had just arrived, I decided to wrap things up, so I asked to speak to daddy. He came onto the speaker phone and we all said hi : Mike, Jon, Alexa and me. Alexa and Dad hadn't spoken in a while so he told her he loved her very much and that she should call him soon because he misses her. Then Alexa informed him, as well as Mike and I, that she had a job interview on Saturday! What great

 news! I am telling you positive energy was flowing through my entire family like a hot-flow circuit. I could feel it. 

 

And right then, it seemed as though we were all moving ahead in a great movement of change. It felt like we were all standing on the same ground, and that ground was pumping with happiness. I imagined us disco dancing to "We Are Family" and laughed out loud. I love my family, and we're not perfect, but that's the best part. We each celebrated a victory of sorts that night, but shared the great news as one. And although we are all adults now, living independently, we were all together in that moment.

I am so grateful to be a part of such an amazing team: Team Holmes!

sunny sidewalk

What a beautiful, sunny day! I felt my soul was thirsty as the rays soaked through my skin. I felt like the sunshine was dancing on my cheeks despite the cold wind chill. It gave me such a boost of energy. The sun's warmth makes me feel nimble. Walking to my building from the parking lot I stopped at a red light. The car on the corner did not budge although his light was green. From the looks of things it was a carpool, and they were all staring at me. I smiled and motioned to the green light with my thermos, and they either realized the light was green, thought I was cute, or were letting me cross the street on their right of way, but it doesn't really matter! All options equal positive energy for me! And I felt it! I love smiling to strangers that smile back, it's a secret world of giving good, and we all chuckled as the car drove away. We were looking out for each other at that moment, and the anonymity is what makes it that more special :) Happy Tuesday!

This was taken at home one evening as the sun was about to set. Compliments of Mike Jones, an exceptional photographer. Can you believe this photograph was taken with a sony ericsson phone that has only 3 megapixels? I suppose you can't hide the beauty of such a glorious power :)

The Saga

mac mac macaroni!

This is me and my friend Helen Downie! I really love this picture; it was taken on her birthday @ La Distillerie. It's located in The Plateau on Mont-Royal. It's a really great place! It's always packed there and I love the atmosphere. The tables are actually big barrels, and the cocktails are served in mason jars, as you can tell by the picture! That one mojito is enough booze for me! There's 4 ounces alone in a big jar! But you can also get drinks in smaller masons if you wish. I am really looking forward to going back there this summer!

I haven't seen Helen in a while so yesterday we put our energy together and had such a great time! It was a much needed visit, and I always feel so great when I'm around her!
For dinner we ended up making macaroni with a chili twist. Want the recipe? It was delicious! This is what you'll need:

-Egg noodles
-Tomato sauce & kidney beans (organic)
- (All organic) Portobello mushrooms, yellow pepper, cherry tomatoes, onions, garlic, carrots
- vegetarian 'ground beef' or the real variety, but I promise, you can't taste the difference! ;)

First, we browned the onions and the garlic, then added the carrots with a bit of water so they could boil and soften up. Then we added the sauce and the strained and rinsed kidney beans. Meanwhile our egg noodles are boiling. Stir the sauce until warm and then add in the tomatoes, mushrooms and peppers. If you cut your vegetables in bigger pieces, they are more likely to retain more flavor. Stir and heat sauce slowly, barely at a simmer. In another pan, heat up the veggie beef. What's great about it is it's not meat so it doesn't need to be cooked, it only needs to be heated up in a pan with some olive oil. Once hot, add to sauce. Let sauce "mijote" for a few more minutes until all is hot and smelling really good and then serve over drained and rinsed egg noodles! Add salt and pepper to taste! Mmmmmmm!

We also enjoyed a small, green salad on the side with carrots, tomatoes, sesame seeds and some italian dressing, served with a tall glass of water and chocolate soy milk! It was such a beautiful dinner and we were stuffed silly!

Afterwards we washed dishes which gave us time to digest before we continued with the next scheduled activities for the evening. Ever heard of Turbo Jam? It's hilarious! Maybe you've watched the infomercial one night when nothing was playing on TV? It's another corny video work-out that ressembles Tae Bo. A friend of mine owns the dvd's and made copies for me. We attempted the "Fat Blaster" which is a jam-packed 30 minute work-out. We were sweating and laughing and struggling to bust our tushes! I could feel the burn!

After Turbo Jam, we stuck Hip Hop Abs into the dvd player, which is the work-out Helen brought. We did "Hips, Buns and Thighs". Holy Moly, did we ever laugh! It's like your dancing and it really does have a hip hop vibe so it was really fun. This one made me stretch my muscles more, while Turbo Jam's "Fat Blaster" was hardcore cardio. This guy, Shaun T is sure to make you crack up!

We were exhausted at the end of the night, but we felt great! I miss Helen Downie already! :(
Yet again, we had a memorable evening. I drove her home and we wished each other well, but who knows? Maybe next week we'll find time to, as Shaun T would say, "Work it!" again?

today is a rockin' awesome day

LOVE my outfit today.

Red and black. Girly but punky. I feel so different and I like it! So today is cool. I have so many positive things to focus on. My apartment is fairly clean. Tidy. Last night I accomplished nearly everything I wanted done. Dishes, watered plants, roller-brushed the couch, took down Vday decor, choose a lovely outfit for today♥, removed all my make up and washed my face! :) The only thing left undone was taking the recycling down to the basement, but my team player took it down this morning for me before I even woke up and a bonus was that he also took down the garbage! I grabbed the DVD's that needed to be returned to block buster, I had coffee, and enough time to make a lunch this morning. I am on a high! For the past few weeks I've been awfully sick which caused me to be tired and lazy. I was feeling really unproductive last night. And my laziness and unaccomplished daily chores were really starting to make me feel guilty. Mike left for work last night at 10 to 10hpm. I was extremely tired as he had just finished massaging and then caressing my shoulders and neck. A recipe for droopy eyes. Just when I thought I was going to go to bed with everything a mess, I pushed myself. I started picking up my things, watering the plants etc and then said to myself "I'll take a pac-man break" which is always a bad idea! I got caught up! And then I went to youtube and started singing Karaoke songs and before you knew it it was getting really late! However, I pushed myself and finished the dishes, shook the rug outside, took down decor... I was all ready for bed, minus cleaning my face. I never used to remove my make up or wash my face because I'm really lucky and I don't have bad skin, so this routine is fairly new for me. For Christmas I recieved a lovely Marcelle washing kit from my mum-in-law and bought make up remover. I realized that if I continued to neglect my skin, I could end up looking old a lot faster! I'm also really bad for never taking my contacts out at night. I accomplished all three of these goals last night! Woooooooooot! And even though I only got to bed at 1ham and only got 6 hours of sleep, I know I would have felt worse with 8 hours of sleep and a) a messy apartment, b) an unwashed face and racoon eyes, c) plants unwatered and coffee unprepared! I woke up with a fresh face, a cute out-fit waiting for me, and a clean kitchen with brewing coffee. Ahhhh, the satisfaction of pushing yourself that extra little bit when you thought you were all out of energy! So rewarding! But my biggest reward is still yet to come, I anxiously await a visit tonight from the lovely, thoughtful and amazing Helen Downie!♥

Oh mista sun

I missed the sun today

I love you sun

I love you sun

I love you sun

Sun, you are beautiful!

Sun, you are beautiful!

Sun, you are beautiful!