Birthday Goodness!!

Today was my 27th birthday and it was a gooder! 

I got an early present from my aunts in Vancouver. They picked up a Clay Pot for me for Christmas and got me this recipe book for my Birthday. I flipped through it and am excited to try a bunch of the recipes out! There is one in the back for Maple Pecan Croissants. I have to find a gluten free croissant recipe to do it, but I think it will be worth the effort, they sound amazing!

Today started off earlier than I would have liked as I had to work, but we stopped off at Starbucks on the way and I got a treat- a Triple Caramel Macchiato. Work was good although the leaky ceiling was quite annoying. Jon stopped by to bring me lunch and brought me a surprise Americano from Transcend....so yummy! Then, about 30 minutes later Shannon also dropped in, with a Transcend cup in her hand for me...Yay for a 3 coffee pileup! 

Shannon also brought birthday goodies! An awesome t-shirt from ThinkGeek and a hand warmer. She stuck around for a bit of a visit and then went back to work.

Jon came to get me from work and had these lovely flowers sitting in the front seat. He went to Off Whyte Floral before getting me and Kristi put this pretty collection together! I love her! And him!

Since we were going to be home for dinner Sylvie made my favourite....lasagne! We were all out of gluten free lasagne noodles, so it was made with corkscrew pasta instead, but still tasted amazing! Before eating I opened up my gifts, it looks like the present fairy raided the Apple Store...I got a new laptop bag, a keyboard protector, an amp for my iPhone, and a wireless mouse and keyboard for my iMac. All of my Apples are feeling special now. The only sad thing is that my iMac is too old to have Bluetooth, so the wireless goodies wont connect. We'll bring them back tomorrow and see what other solutions they have for my strange workspace (the cords on my normal mouse and keyboard are too short for where I sit, my arms are fully extended when I am using them!)

We inhaled the lasagne before I could get a photo, but I did get the cake on record. Gluten Free Chocolate Oreo cake. So good!! We didn't have any little candles, so one big one was the way to go! Oh yeah, this is what I look like when I actually wear my glasses! 

This is what the inside looks like. It tastes as amazing as it looks!

And now, i'm curled up on the couch with my sweetie, our kitties, a bottle of wine and Dirty Dancing on TV. Life is good! 

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes today!

Cold is not my friend!

Holy man it's cold here!

I woke up today and caught up on the blogs I follow. I had a good giggle at K.Law's Blog- Raining Iguanas, who wouldn't laugh at the photo of the frozen lizard in her back yard and then got started with my own day. When we cleaned out the closet un-buried some great tops that I haven't seen for awhile. I wore one today, it's gorgeous, a satin teal tank with black trim and cute button details. I mixed it with a cropped black suit jacket, black dress pants and teal pointed toe shoes. It was cute all together and I was, once again, thankful that I cleaned out all that clutter.

When Jonathan opened up the door so we could go to work I almost ran back down and hid in the warm bed. The high today was -21 plus windchill?? Who the heck came here and decided it was a good idea to be this cold all the time? But I sucked it up and headed into work, I mean really, why waste such a cute outfit? We got there, got back inside and then realized, the heater is broken. It is 10 degrees inside. A bit of an improvement, but not much, especially when wearing a satin tank top. I bundled up in my scarf and spent most of the day huddled in the office. The bright side- the property management company will fix the heater. The down side- They can't get to it until tomorrow. Mental note- wear warm layers to work tomorrow! Lots of tea, surprise t-shirts and warm food got me through the day. By the end even Jon was starting to freeze (he is usually always warm!) I knew the t-shirts from ThinkGeek were on their way, but they came really fast. I tossed this one on over my silk shirt, under the suit jacket and kept my scarf on. Not as dressy, but also not as chattery....

We got home and he started looking up places in Victoria. Yup, all him this time! This is the first big sign that he is excited to move (until now he has said he will go because it is what I want to do) Yay!!! And look at what we found:

Isn't it pretty? It's 5 minutes away from the area that I really want to be in, lets us keep our kitties, has cute 2 bedroom suites and is in our price range. They even let you upgrade to a bigger suite if you need to. So that way, when we first go there and are job hunting we can move into the 2 bdrm, once we know what our monthly income is going to be we can switch up if possible. Townhouse= time to get our Hungarian Vizla!! I am pumped! There is even a pool and canoes to rent in the complex. I am excited to go to the farmer's market in my canoe. I think this is home!

All right, time for me to stop looking at the photo and thaw in bed so I can sleep! Goodnight everyone!

Cleaning and such

Yesterday was an amazing day. Here is the highlight reel for you:

I had some great girl time with my best friend, went to see the new Harry Potter (go see it, it's amazing, just don't hold onto your pop, you WILL jump a few times in the movie and spill it!)  I am a book lover, so usually movies made from books irk me a bit. This one had a few moments that made me twitch- they could have done exactly what the book had, but approached the conversation backwards....but for the most part, worth the money! It's also being shown in 3D, which blows my mind.
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 After the movie we went to Edmonton's Homes for the Holidays tour. They take 5 character homes in the beautiful Glenora neighborhood and decorate them for Christmas. Local stores and flower shops work with interior designers to dress up the spaces and the families get to relax in a hotel for the weekend while people troop through their newly dressed up homes. Shannon and I spent as much time looking at the layout of the homes as the decorations, the 'curse' of interior designers. One had a particularily odd layout, the staircase to the basement was in the middle of the house, cutting off the main spaces from each other and turning the main floor into a series of strange hallways. Despite the oddity, the house was done beautifully and they worked the corners into the decorating scheme. It was a blast to go see, and is such a fun charity event to support. All the proceeds go to Kids' Help Phone. Click here for the ticket information!
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We stopped off at the Mongolie Grill South for dinner, and Jonathan met up with us there! Amazing hot and sour soup and make-your-own stir fries were the perfect dinner for us undecided eaters. You just walk along the buffet, put whatever appeals to you in the bowl and then they cook it up!


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 After dinner Jonathan I headed home for a relaxing evening of cleaning. Yup, I know, it was just as exciting as it sounds....The only highlight was the strange yellow goo in this photo. We ordered it off of Think Geek (one of Jonathan's favorite websites ever!) It cleans the keyboard for you using it's strange gooey texture. You roll it along the top and it seeps between the keys, picking up dust, crumbs and kitty hair as you go! It's name is Cyber Clean Electronics Cleaning Putty and it is amazing.